FIRST OFF, GO READ THE NEW SOAUSDSFP CHAPTER 1!!!!
Now then, Let's get into detail about this year-long production hell.
The original run of SOAUSDSFP only had 4 chapters, with the 4th releasing on July 1st, 2024. Immediately, an attempt to create chapter 5 was made;
Erika and Aimaiko
The cover art was done by Mari.
This chapter was supposed to be INCREDIBLY ambitious. I have a script for it which I'm gonna pull an excerpt from right here:
"Price: NO WAY! I’LL GET OUT OF HERE ALIVE AND I’LL KILL YOU!!!
Aimaiko appears. In her hand, she has a toaster that’s powered by one of the power sources that extend on the rooftop.
Price: YOU… BASTARD!!
Aimaiko: Blehh!
Aimaiko drops the toaster
Aimako: Ooh, Whoopsie!! :P
The toaster drops all the way down into the water which Price was floating on, and it instantly electrocutes and kills him.
Price: AUGGGGHHHHHGGGGHHHHGGGHHHH"
See? Ambitious.
The basic gist is that Jozai gives Aimaiko and Erika a quest to do really early in the morning, because they have a big task to do; To eliminate one of Jozai's competitors after he catches wind that they're planning to kill him. They devise a plan that's really weird, because they somehow have a spaceship + An entire CLONE of Aimaiko just sitting around.
I remember writing this on call with Mari a long long long time ago, but it's clear that it would've been too much to make. Considering the page amount of the older SOAUSDSFP chapters (which were filled with so much unnecessary padding and dialogue) this would've been like, 200 pages. It's clear to see why this one got canned, not like the other ones.
This is the promo art I originally made for this chapter, it was on the website for like an INSANE amount of time (albeit not listed, you'd have to go to the search bar to find it.)
These were concept arts. In the 1st image, The top right character labelled "SLU" (Sentient Laptop Uncle) is the name of who is known in the script for this chapter as "Mr. Price". He actually originates from a project that I had in 8th grade for a short story called The Brave Little Toaster, but NOT the Disney one. It was just coincidentially called that, and had some villain named "Loony Goony." We were supposed to make a comic out of the story, and that was the design I gave him. (If I can find the original drawing I did of him, I'll edit it onto here.) I remembered he existed, and decided to repurpose him for this chapter.
The Goons are just the people that patrol his building in Texxaido (A portmanteau of Texas and Hokkaido.)
Meredith is the name that Erika always uses for her disguises, and for this chapter, this is what she would look like.
If you look very closely, you'll see that there's a sketch behhind this drawing. I never knew that I used to do sketches for my pre-2025 comics! It makes me feel a little ashamed, because this lineart really sucks.
Now, we move onto the next cancelled Chapter 5...
A Restaurant Mishap
The cover art was done by Mari. The creation date for the manuscript of this chapter was September 30, 2024.
This chapter is also something that I had tried to plan out earlier. Originally, it was just a little sloppy comic/storyboard thing in one of my sketchbooks. It's probably very hard to read. but here it is:
Around the time of the production for this comic, the animation was starting to be planned (it's still being worked on; For the pilot episode, we finished the storyboard, got most of the voicelines, doing layout drawings, and even have finished some scenes!). The basic plot synopsis is that Jozai (on behalf of Imusa [formerly Oppai-chan but I want to change her trait from being "r/animemes" to just a funny looking mean person in general, kinda like Iyami from Osomatsu-kun]) wants to steal a secret recipe of a famous sandwich shop in the heart of New Yorsaka; All for Imusa to have to herself.
Jozai uses Aimaiko and Meer Moor to carry out this task and in attempting to go to the back of the shop to steal the recipe, they get caught by the owner (I'll get more into detail about her in a bit!), but it turns out that she's too overwhelmed from all the business she gets so she just takes them in as employees. Aimaiko and Meer Moor have to get up to whatever trouble ensues as they run the restaurant.
The owner character in this chapter is a cat lady named 'Kaoru Kitematsu', here's her model and character bio. She was designed by Mari.
(I don't really recall Lulu working at the shop to be planned in the chapter, but if this character bio says so, it must be true.)
She's actually a redesign of a older character, from a set of background characters that Mari had made in 2023 when the comic hadn't been made and the series was supposed to be a (now obviously cancelled) animation called 'Slice of Life Quest'.
You can probably tell, but that's her all the way on the right.
Mari wanted to redesign her for this chapter, and I gave a small draft redesign for her to work with based on the personality she was looking for, right here:
I still like the one that I did, but Mari's one is still really great too (I like all three of the designs here!)
Moving on from the cat woman, this chapter was also supposed to introduce Lulu into the comic (something that I still need to do).
Lulu's been around for a while, her lore has been really developed by her creator (hi mo :money_mouth:) to a point where there's a lot of things that I can work with, and Lulu has of course been present in many SOAUSDSFP cast drawing artworks. And yet, In SOAUSDSFP's main work, - the comic - Lulu has still not appeared. I plan to fix that soon with SOAUSDSFP's new serialization!
Unlike the 1st cancelled chapter 5, this chapter wasn't really ambitious. I gave up on it for these factors:
My art style was changing. I was experimenting drawing Aimaiko more cartoony looking (which led to the whole pipeline that is my current art style). These are some examples from October-November.
Now compare these examples with this:
I hope you can see where I'm coming from with this reason.
I had no clue what to write for the story. This is typical of me, I hadn't really any idea of what to do after the basic exposition of this chapter. What would Aimaiko be facing at the restaurant? How would they steal the recipe? Would they fail or succeed? I had no clue for any of this, and this is probably due to the next reason;
It got boring to draw this story. Around this time, something clicked in be that just made me COMPLETELY unable to make the long stories that I used to (this is probably for better in my opinion) and it just made me lose motivation to work on it.
I'd love to revisit it, but I'm most certainly going to condense it down to around 8-11 pages if I do.
I guess it's time to finally put this blog to use more often.
On 10/28/2024, It was officially announced that a SOAUSDSFP animation would start production. And so far, it's going along pretty well!
For the production, the production is being mainly done by the SOAUSDSFP team (Brilliant Uniform) but we are also being assisted by a group known as 'Tex Mex Animation' (TMA in short) and have animators who could assist us and suggest things and such.
As for the art itself, various model sheets have been made so far pertaining to specific episodes as well as other assets like background characters. Here's the guidelines for Mini Meer Moor as well as a model sheet for some background characters!
The intended goal in mind is for 13 episodes around the 11-minute mark to be made, and so far 3 have been put into planning. Attached are two stills.
The intended goal is for at the very least the pilot to release at some point in 2025, and with how production is going currently going it seems possible! Thank you to all who have supported us thus far. Hopefully we'll see you soon in the SOAUSDSFP animation!
