East Meets West: The Dawn of an Age for a NEW line of Asian SuperheroesBecause
Animation is Enjoyed by Both Adults and Kids Together
Growing up in America, many of us have fallen in love with characters from Greek Mythology like: Zeus, Hera, Athena, etc., and from their Roman counterparts: Jupiter, Juno, Minerva, etc. Then there is Norse Mythology with: Thor, Odin, Loki, Freyja, etc.
Now, it is time to introduce some beloved characters from Asian mythology, legends and folklore to the Americans, and global, community – starting with Vietnamese. Vietnamese myth, like all mythic systems, reflects influences from other cultures amongst which are: Chinese, Indian, Philippine, Korean and Japanese.
Thus, VAMN-TV has taken on this enormous project to create original anime-stylization animation series to share with the world the rich stories about Vietnamese (and Chinese) mythology, legends and folklore where family members old and young can enjoy together as part of its project to re-introduce Saturday Morning Cartoons.
Such stories would include the following:
The Monkey King is a 4-volume books set with 100 chapters:
Sun Wu Kong (Tôn Ngộ Không), also known as “The Monkey King”, was born from a stone that was shaped into a monkey by the wind on Mountain of Flowers and Fruits. “Tôn Ngộ Không” means “awakened to emptiness” and sometimes translated as “aware of vacuity”. The Monkey King is a mischievous and curious human-like monkey.
The stone was a magic stone that had received powers from the heavens and earth since the beginning of time. Kong was crowned the “Monkey King” when he took on the challenge and succeeded in going through the Water Curtain to find the source of water. He called himself the “Handsome Monkey King”.
Kong sought to become immortal and obtained supernatural powers through Taoist practices when he discovers that life is limited. He then established himself as the most powerful and demons in the world. The Ten Judges of the Dead came for him, but Kong fought back and erased his name and all the monkeys’ names from the Book of Life and Death. His wrongdoings were reported to the Jade Emperor in Heavens.
In an attempt to control the Monkey King, the Jade Emperor invited him to Mount Penglai, the immortals’ residence, and appointed him the Keeper of the Heavenly Horses. When Kong realized his low rank, he rebelled and created havoc in Heavens and called himself “Great Sage, Equal of Heaven”. He rebelled again when he was excluded from a banquet and stole and devoured the peaches of immortality, pills of longevity, and the Jade Emperor’s royal wine. Kong continued to wreak havoc and fight against the Heavens.
Buddha finally trapped Kong; and Quan Yin made him Monk Tam Tang’s disciple and bodyguard. The Monk was tasked to journey west to retrieve the sutras from India. The Monk named Kong (“Tề Thiên Đại Thánh”) which means “The Great Saint of Heaven”.
On his 7-years journey to collect the scriptures/sutras, Kong alternated between protecting his travel companions and causing mischief – it is the tendencies of being a monkey. Along the way, they face many calamities and must fight demons, monsters, ogres, Immortals; save the innocent; and walk the path of Buddha without fail to bring the scriptures back to China. Their reward is enlightenment and living in Buddha’s paradise. Kong ultimately achieved enlightenment and becomes a Buddha – obtaining his life-obsession for immortality.
3D Animation is very expensive to create. Here are some examples of TV animation costs:
We need an Animation DREAM TEAM to make our animation projects a reality.
For this first round of crowdfunding, we want to raise $250,000 for a pilot episode ($200,000) and ($50,000) to cover costs for legal, music scores, marketing, administrative, etc. Each season will consist of 12 episodes. Any money raised in excess of the $250,000 would be applied to production of more episodes for the series. It is estimated that we would need $4.0 million to complete our first season. Anything in excess of the $4.0 million raised will be used to produce a second animation series or the second season.
The money will be applied to the following:
We would like to raise enough capital to have, at the very least, the following talented and creative individuals, whom we have already discussed this project with, on our Animation Dream Team to take the lead:
United States |
China & Overseas Chinese |
Vietnam & Overseas Vietnamese |
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The risks and challenges are great. We run the risk of not being able to raise the funds to produce the films and TV series. We also run the risk of not being able to hire the right talents to help produce the contents.
However, we have a plan and are optimistic about our success in this project. We have several investors who have expressed their interests in our project. So through this campaign, we want to validate that our project has great potential.