Manga Reborn: bringing more manga to the world

Welcome back to another Kickstarter Conversation!  Today I am joined by Naotaka Kumagai, who is here to talk to us about an interesting Kickstarter project called Manga Reborn.  Thank you for joining us today Naotaka.

A pleasure to be here.

As an anime and manga fan your project immediately caught my eye, would you care to tell us about it?

The goal of our Kickstarter project is to localize ten different manga series into English for the first time. All of these series are relatively unknown overseas, so the hurdle may be a high one, but we believe that all of them possess their own unique charms. We are also doing each series in its entirety, so for example, with Black Angels, that means a whopping twenty volumes! When the titles are localized, they will be available to view online and as digital downloads.

Basically you’re trying to be the Comixology of Manga in the US?  Why make your own site and not just publish your translated manga through that existing service?  

The original reason Manga Reborn was started as to give lesser-known manga artists in Japan a way to send their work out to a larger audience. Comixology is great for US comics, but does it have a presence in Japan? Not really. If you went to a starving artist in Japan and told them about Comixology, I don’t think they’d have the courage to make such a sudden leap. Manga Reborn, however, is stationed in Japan, and we have a team of dedicated people who are working together with Japanese publishers and artists to get more manga online for the first time ever. We also invite artists from around the world to join in on the community and work side-by-side with professional manga artists from Japan.

We also want to let the artists take charge at Manga Reborn. Artists can set their own prices for their comics, the manner in which it’s distributed, and basically how people view their manga. We want this to be a community where artists can congregate and push manga beyond what it currently is. This is currently happening with big name artists and their publishers, but what about the little guys? There is a lot of great undiscovered content in Japan, and we want to make it easier and more comfortable for Japanese artists to release their work to the world.

Not your grandfather's Gyroscope!

Welcome back to another Kickstarter Conversation!  Today I am joined by Adam from Manuka Makers who is here to talk to us about their wildly successful

Kickstarter project: Precision Gyroscope.  Thank you all for joining us today.

Thanks for having us on the show. It’s a real pleasure to speak to you from the UK.

Gyroscopes are great and have been around for centuries, heck we use them in the Spacecraft I track all the time!  What makes your gyroscope so special and

so popular!

I used to have a gyroscope as a child and I always loved it as a toy. I then studied the underlying maths at Cambridge and it continued to fascinate me. It's such a simple yet mind boggling device and that's what I love about it. You can give one to a child who understands none of the underlying physics and they’ll be amazed by it and you can give it to a rocket scientist who understands everything about it and it still appears impossible. Part of my inner geek wanted to have a proper machined, engineered version of it and so I made a precision version of the childhood toy. I didn’t really set out to make something that would be really popular. I just made something that I liked. When I showed it to my friends they liked it too so I decided to put it on Kickstarter. I now believe we have the best looking, most precision made gyroscope on the market and I think that appeals to a lot of people.

Did you have any idea you’d have over 3,000 backers funding you to the tune of over $200,000 with almost 3 weeks left to go?  What are you doing right so we can all copy your success?

I think you just have to focus on something that you’re passionate about and forget trying to be commercial about it. Kickstarter is about sharing your passion and if that’s lacking you won’t succeed. We a super passionate about making beautiful things with care and precision and I think that shines through in the project.

I have to admit it’s a pretty sweet looking gyroscope, but what makes it worth$55?  I can find the same ones I had growing up as a kid for under $10.

The gyroscope you probably had as a kid is still produced and it still costs around $10. It’s pressed out of cheap materials. The reason ours is more expensive is that it’s precision milled from solid brass and aluminium. That’s an incredibly accurate but very very expensive way of doing things. The methods we use are usually reserved for military or medical applications and very rarely end up in consumer products. We have kept manufacturing local and in the UK because it’s the only way we can 100% guarantee unparalleled quality. Our gyroscope might struggle to succeed in retail because our margins are small. We can afford to keep our prices low on Kickstarter because we have a direct relationship with our backers and there are no middlemen.

As I mentioned before, I work in an industry that relies on gyroscopes and their simple yet powerful science on a daily basis.  Do you think your project canhelp spread the knowledge of these powerful forces so that future engineers,scientists, and makers can appreciate the power of a simple spinning weight?

Yes! I know that I was inspired to study engineering (at least in part) because I had these toys as a kid. I think that things that seem magical can inspire kids to explore and find out what makes them work.

Fred Perry's Calcula's Level Up!

Welcome back to another Kickstarter Conversation!  Today I am joined by the one and only Fred Perry to talk about his own personal passion project, Calcula’s Level Up!  Thank you for joining us today Fred.

Hi, James. This project is my first kickstarter campaign. It’s something I thought I’d never get to see otherwise, and I’m glad the forum and technology exists to make small endeavours, like this one, possible.

As long time fan of your work I was excited to see your project show up on Kickstarter.  Can you tell us about it?  

I’ve been playing Final Fantasy XI since 2004. It’s a great game and I’ve made lots of new friends while playing it. We’ve had a lot of good times too. One day in 2005, I decided to make a few comics about the weird and quirky scenarios we’d get into, and I’ve been doing it ever since.

I’ve always been a little sad about not being able to collect those comics into a real hard-copy book. I wouldn’t be able to make it a retail project. I didn’t have enough money to print enough to make it available everyone who was a fan of Level Up. But Kickstarter came on the scene and a few of my friends have been urging me to try it, so I decided to go for it.

How familiar with Final Fantasy XI and MMO’s in general do you need to be to enjoy Level Up?

Level up was written so that some of the guys here at the AP office could get the jokes too. They don’t play FF11 so if they get the situations and gags I figured they were reasonably accessible.

Since I’m at the office a lot, I like to use the editors here as a litmus paper to test how good or bad or out-there some of the jokes really were.

When is losing 40 pounds a bad thing? When you're a plus size model!

Welcome back to another Kickstarter Conversation!  Today I am joined by the beautiful Nikki Muffoletto who is here to talk to us about her Kickstarter project Model DIEt.  Thank you for joining us today Nikki!

Thank you James, I feel honored that you chose me for an interview

Your project is one of those personal journey kind of documentaries like “Super Size Me” would you care to tell us more about it?  

For the past 11 years I have been a plus size model, about 4 years ago I started training to become a professional basketball player and lost almost 40lbs. Now I am stuck in the middle of both straight and plus size modeling. Through the years I saw many models do crazy things to try to reach this perfect size and measurement. I started personal training models and found that the requirements are very small, so small in fact that it is considered underweight and on the bmi charts considered criteria for anorexia.

So I decided to take a stand and see if it is possible to get down to the specific criteria to be a fashion model. I will need to lose 40lbs in 3 months, can I do this in a healthy way?

How did losing 40 pounds and 6 dress sizes cause 90% of your modeling jobs to go away?  What’s considered “Plus Size?”  What’s considered “standard size?”  One would think you could just continue modeling just with a more standard size clothing.

Plus size models are 5’9-6’ sizes 12-16 .  An ideal size if you will , is  a size  1 4 in the plus size modeling world. Standard size models are  5’9-6’ sizes 0-4, with  an  ideal  size of  a  2.   There are exceptions to the rule, but for the most part that is the standard sizing.

Why did I lose clients?  If I am a size  8 and the clothes I am modeling are a size 14 I simply cannot fit into them. I wear padding, but it only get’s me to a  size 12  and alot of clients want models that do not pad.

One would think I could just model for clients  that like a size 8, but there are very few of them out there. It’s really 2 extremes , you either have to be very thin or a little bit overweight to model.

Single Men + Rural Location + Money = the perfect storm for Human Traffickers

Welcome back to another Kickstarter Conversation!  Today I am joined by Anthony from iEmpathize to talk about their important new Kickstarter project, Boom: Exploring the Social Impact on Oil Boom Communities.  Thank you for joining us today Anthony.  

"thanks James for allowing us to share our project with you. We are excited for more people to see and experience our work.

Your project tackles a very serious, and in my opinion under reported, issue of human trafficking and how boom towns such as the oil towns of the Dakotas bring them out in droves.  Can you tell us all about your project?

"Our project is focused specifically on educating and empowering oil boom communities to respond to the issue of human trafficking in their current spaces. Our work in Williston, ND came about through a connection of ours. Upon further investigation we realized how dire the situation is up there. Our project is in direct response to those findings. We want to help the community in which these atrocities are happening see it, and then respond. Our organization is dedicated to seeing the exploitation of men, women, and children stop! That's the bottom line. That's what this project is about."

Buff the Vampire Slayer mixed with Doctor Who and you get Tart! Demon-Ass-Kicking-Time-Traveling Heroine!

Welcome back to another Kickstarter Conversation!  Today I’m joined by artist Kevin Joseph who is here to talk about his comic: Tart.  Thank you for joining us today Kevin!

Absolutely. Thanks for letting me share my book with your people!

Your project’s tagline is, “Buffy meets Doctor Who meets Sandman.”  Could you go into more detail about your project because honestly that tagline just demands finding out more.  

Thank God! We were praying that would be the case.

We feel Tart is really it’s own story, but when you’ve got 10 seconds to grab somebody, you’ve got to boil it down to it’s most compelling parts. In doing that, we felt we should spotlight the most glaring influences that went into its genisis.

1st and foremost: Buffy. When you’ve got a teenage girl hunting demons, you’re going to be told you’re like Buffy. When you as a writer absolutely adored Buffy and idolise Joss Whedon, you say screw it and shout it out yourself.

Next would probably be Dr. Who for the time traveling element. Though this influence comes from the artist and cocreator Ludovic Salle, as I have yet to watch it. I’ve always been too intimidated on about where to start. And now that I’m writing Tart, I’ve decided to hold it as a reward for finishing (and to protect me from unintentionally stealing).

And finally Sandman, because it more than any other series taught me what you could do with a comic book. And because there might only be one writer I idolize more than Joss Whedon, and that would be Neil Gaiman.

How does someone become a demon-ass kicking time traveler?  

Oh, sorry. You’re going to have to learn that when Tart tells you. I can’t give away all of her secrets.

Caught MY Eye 9-23-2013

Caught My Eye

9-23-2013

As always I try to bring you various Kickstarters that catch my attention for various reasons.  They could be cool ideas, small projects I think deserve more attention, or just something really odd.  As always I list the projects in descending order from ending soonest and then give them a rating.  My ratings are on five point scales based on the quality of the campaign in how well it’s laid out and get the point across as well as a separate rating on the product itself.  

Her Whim by my wonderful Wife Sharyn

Nice Parking Job Business Cards!
by John Pozadzides

Have you ever seen a car parked so badly that you just want to smack the person who parked it and say, “Don’t you even look at how you park afterwards?”  Well how about telling them with a handy business card that you can just leave behind and share with them what you really think?  Well this Kickstarter is for you!  I’ve seen this idea tossed around before but I never wanted to print out my own so it’s good to see someone doing it for me.  My problem with the campaign though is there are lots of pictures of bad parking, but none of the designs!  I want to see what they’re selling without seeing the video and it makes it hard to share the cool idea in a quick blurb like this without a picture of the card.  Also BUDGET BREAKDOWN.  

Product: 5 out of 5   Campaign:  3 out of 5

FORAGER: An all ages Sci-fi graphic novel.

by JIMMY PALMIOTTI

As a sci-fi fan I always like seeing new stories and I think graphic novels/webcomics are some of the best ways to tell a sci-fi story since you can show as well as tell.   This is the fifth Kickstarter from Jimmy and the art is still great looking and the story concepts seem to be interesting enough to keep drawing in the backers.  My only complaint is that the campaign page itself seems to rely almost completely on the art with almost nothing else which seems to work well for those who know Jimmy, but to anyone else it is a bit bland, not quite “will draw for food” but definitely very brief.  Oh and again, BUDGET BREAKDOWN.

Product: 4 out of 5     Campaign:  3 out of 5

When the guy in the suit isn't the protagonist, you get The Fall.

Welcome back to another Kickstarter Conversation! Today I am joined by our Canadian friends from Over the Moon games to talk to us about their Kickstarter  The Fall: dark, story driven exploration in an alien world.  Thank you for joining us today!

Thanks for having me, it’s a pleasure!

The fall is a very atmospheric work with some pretty obvious influences and some not so obvious.  Would you tell us a bit about the game and what brought you to Kickstarter.  

The Fall is about an artificial intelligence onboard an unconscious spaceman's suit, who must take control of the suit to move said human's body towards medical attention.  The Fall didn't actually have a strong premise when I began work, actually -- it started as a vague idea that making something kind-of "Metroidy" might be fun.  The premise, and anything high-minded came about slowly in it's own time. Perhaps that's the reason why it has so many influences; I love a lot of different games and it seemed natural that this is the type of game that I'd make.

As far as Kickstarter, my goal was to get the game to a polished enough state where it would at least clearly show what I had in mind. Then, if I showed it to people and they hated it, I could simply cut my losses and move on, without sinking a year into a doomed project.  Kickstarter is really just a way of gauging public interest so that I don't waste a whole bunch of time. Thankfully, people seem to be interested!

Episode One is mentioned several times throughout your campaign, which implies there are more episodes planned.  How many do you have in mind?  How long will each episode run?  

I have three episodes planned.  Initially, I was targeting a solid 3 hours per episode, as that's more or less what it took me to play through each "The Walking dead" episode. However, after some initial testing, it seems that players are taking a bit more time on average to play through what I have.  If average playtime goes over 3 hours, nobody will be more happy than I.

Trooper: A film about what happens after the war

Welcome back to another Kickstarter Conversation!  I’m pleased to welcome Christopher Martini who is here to talk to us about his first Kickstarter project: Trooper.  Thank you for joining us today Christopher.  

Hi James, thank you for having me. I really appreciate the opportunity. Interviews are a very important way to spread the awareness of a Kickstarter campaign.

Trooper is an interesting sounding movie; can you tell us a bit about it?  

“Trooper” is the story of an Iraq veteran who returns from combat with a host of physical and psychological “invisible” wounds. His brother is in a different unit, and is still deployed. Upon his return, he discovers his father, a Vietnam veteran, is dying -- not the homecoming you expected. His father, also struggling with his own combat-related issues, has lymphoma (Hodgkins Disease), presumably from his exposure to agent orange in Vietnam. By showing the problems facing veterans, on this multi-generational level, we show that soldiers experience the same problems over and over again, over time, from PTSD, to TBI, to exposure to poisonous components in the weapons that we issue to our soldiers, from Agent Orange to Depleted Uranium munitions. The irony is that although our country likes to advertise that “we support the troops”, we find that when soldiers return from war, they arrive to an apathetic nation, that basically does not understand their sacrifices, and to a Veteran’s Administration health care system that is not giving back to them, after their sacrifices on the battlefield. Today there are 860,000 veterans awaiting benefits from the VA, 360,000 diagnosed cases of TBI. Arguably 70,000 to 130,000 veterans homeless on the streets of America on any given night. 22 veterans a day commit suicide. “Trooper” is essentially about father and son veterans, helping each other to get through each day and heal the wounds of war.

Return to the Mysterious Cities of Gold

Welcome back to another Kickstarter Conversation!  Today I am pleased to be joined by executive producer Fleur Marty and by communication wizard Pascal Clarysse who have reached back into the past to bring out a great “trans-generational” title to Kickstarter: The Mysterious Cities of Gold - The Video Game.  Thank you Fleur, Pascal and the rest of Ynnis Interactive for not only joining us today but for bringing this project to all of us English speaking fans.  

Fleur Marty : Hey there :) Thanks for having us!

Pascal Clarysse: Thanks for your kind words. It’s our pleasure really.

I guess I’m revealing my age with this question, but I totally remember the original US release of The Mysterious Cities of Gold on Nickelodeon.  It wasn’t until much later that I realized it wasn’t a US production.  Can you tell us a bit about The Mysterious Cities of Gold both the TV show and now your game?  

FM : Well, originally, The Mysterious Cities of Gold was a French-Japanese animated series born in 1983.

PC: It will turn 30 years old this month actually! We’re having a party about that in Paris on the 30th.

FM: It told the story of three children (Esteban, Tao and Zia), and their quest to find one of the seven cities of gold, in the 16th century South America. They traveled with a Spanish navigator named Mendoza, flying the Golden Condor, a solar powered mechanical bird, and uncovering many mysteries. The show was hugely popular in France, where it left a mark on a whole generation of children. Besides France and Japan, It was also broadcast in other European countries, as well as in the US, Australia, and, as we discovered thanks to our Kickstarter, in the Middle East.

In the past few years, French fans have made a lot of noise, asking for a rebirth of the show through Facebook. They were finally heard and a new season has been produced by the French studio Blue Spirit Productions who worked with one of the creators of the first season: Jean Chalopin. The events of this new season take place immediately after those of the first one. This time, the children are travelling to China, searching for the second city of gold.

When Cedric Littardi, head of Ynnis Interactive, heard about the second season being in production, it felt obvious to him that a game should be made. He managed to acquire the licensing rights and then came to me and very casually said: “I have bought the rights to adapt The Mysterious Cities of Gold into a video game. Do you think it’s something you’d wanna work on?” I almost fell from my chair! As every 30-something who has grown up in France, I am a huge fan of the series, and getting to work on a project like that was incredibly exciting. So I started working on a game concept with the French indie developer Neko Entertainment, we presented it to Cedric, he liked it and gave his go. And.. voilà !

Caught MY Eye 9/19/2013

Another week, another collection of interesting looking Kickstarters!  As always lets go down the list from ending soonest!

3D Virtual Tabletop: Visually Stunning RPGs on iPad, Android
by Brendon Duncan

Now I had meant to get to this project earlier but luckily it didn't need any mention from me to blow the doors off it's goal!  Here in the home stretch the project has already earned 800% of it's goal!  He had an app that worked, he just wanted to add cross platform multiplayer, and thanks to the stretch goal web browser support, and it looks like he wasn't alone in that desire.  This campaign has done quite a bit right in my opinion: it's ground game was awesome as I found out about it before the campaign even launched from multiple sources!  They've continually put out messages both in their social media but as well as the Kickstarter page itself (27 updates in 45 days?  Well done!).  The campaign page itself is very, busy, but it seems to work for them as it does provide quite a bit of information.  There's even a budget breakdown of sorts, since the goal of the project was a Unity Pro licence which costs $5,000 I guess he could have just put a circle with a single item marked "Unity Pro Licence," but he got the point across and I guess 667 backers agreed.

Product: 4 out of 5   Campaign:  4 out of 5





Jadepunk: Tales From Kausao City Roleplaying Game

by Ryan Danks

Wuxia + Steampunk + Fate Core = WIN!
Seriously that's a lot of niche markets to appeal to but the crossover sounds just so fun! Unfortunately for the campaign that seems to be all it's got going for it.  It's a very bare bones campaign page that may have launched a little early as there isn't any art, or preview builds, or budget breakdown, or pretty much anything beyond a wall of text and a short video.  Even the video is a bit "meh."  With a campaign setting that just sets my mind ablaze with ideas and stories how can there appear to be so little enthusiasm and excitement in the campaign?  On the bright side there have been ten updates during the campaign and they are very close to their goal but there isn't much time left!  Can the Wuxia masters of the Steampunk city of Kausao  pull off  a miracle and get them across the goal line in time?  Find out soon only on Kickstarter!   

Product:  4 out of 5        Campaign: 2 out of 5  

Straight from Akihabara it's Akiba-Anime Art Magazine!

Welcome back to another Kickstarter Conversation!  Today I am pleased to be talking to the team at JH Lab about their first Kickstarter: Akiba Anime Art Magazine Vol. 00.  Thank you for joining us today.

Hello everyone! We are a team “JH lab” from Akihabara, Japan, the only professional Otaku Researching group in the world.

Let me start off by congratulating you on a great opening to your project!  You quickly reached your goal and are approaching 10 times your original goal with around a month left.  Can you tell us about your project and why you think it has done so well?  

Before we launched our project we did a lot of research into Akihabara (Akiba) pop culture on tons of blogs, magazines, and SNS.  We understood that what many people thought of as Anime, Manga, and Otaku things in the world outside of Japan weren’t authentic but were merely imitations of what we had.  So we decided to try and introduce the real Akiba culture to the world!  This includes all of the so-called “Otaku” stuff such as Japanimation, Manga, “Moe,” robots, and other high tech electrical appliances that don’t show up much outside Japan.

We called this first order of the project our “Akiba Project” and the first challenge of that project was to share the art aspect of Akiba culture. As we are the first professional Otaku researching group in the world our main tasks are researching on Otaku and implementing the Akiba Project.  We decided the best way to do this was to develop the idea of a AAA magazine (our second order project).  

Kickstarter is a great platform to discover the consumers needs directly before the official start of publishing a AAA magazine series.  So we created the vol. 00 project on Kickstarter to judge the consumer interest.  Based on our previous research on the scarcity of real Akiba art publications we expected to reach our base goal of $4500, but approaching nearly ten times that amount has far outstripped our expectations!

The art on your campaign page is just gorgeous.  How’d you get such talented artists onboard for this project?  

Some of our fellow researchers are artists themselves, as well as their friends so we have lots of resources of artists and art. Even big name artists will join us starting with the vol.01 issue!!

What artists can we expect to see in the final release?  

John Hathway (John Hathway has been featured in TOKYO OTAKU MODE!), RCO WADA, FUJICHOKO, MATAYOSHI, YUKO TSUKISHIMA, HASHIMOTO SHIN, HIME+YOU, KEI (famous for Original illustration of Miku Hatsune), Julie Watai and other artists (Depending on stretch goals)

Being a Japanese company how hard is it to create an English language magazine?  Why go for an English market?  

There are crowdfunding sites also in Japan. However the goal of our professional group is to spread the real Akiba culture to the world, so we should go global!!!!

Your $35,000 stretch goal lists a special textbook, will this be a separate companion book or inline with the Kickstarter exclusive magazines?  

It will be a separate one, and this textbook is Kickstarer exclusive reward. Welcome to the world of Nippongo!

Why is their a warning label on your campaign?

Even nowadays when Anime and Manga things became major popular culture, we think a large number of Not-Otaku-people regard Anime art as something like porn stuff, at least in Japan. We believe Akiba culture should be put as universal concept and design, without notions of religions, human races, nor specific languages.

Did you get a lot of questions about this at launch or did Kickstarter ask you to put this in before launch?  How annoying is it that you needed this kind of label for your project?  

Yes we did, but because it was a requirement for launching the project on Kickstarter, which makes the crowdfunding platform safe, it is acceptable.

What kind of fun stories of Akihabara life can we expect to read in this issue?  What other articles can we expect beyond the illustrations?  

It will be a variety of Otaku life styles. Needless to say, there are many portraits of cosplayers, news articles about Akiba trend, introduction of art-working progress from begin to end by starring artists, short-novels, and how to make “Chara-ben” etc., Moreover, a special "Akiba Paranoia" page has some exciting content: The concept of "Akiba Paranoia" is more Classic-Manga-art rather than modern-Anime-art, focusing on illustrations involving AAA magazines’ Otaku readers and interactive contents. The special page will add tastes of Akiba “sub-” culture.

Since this is Volume 00 does that mean Volume 1 and beyond are already in the planning stages?  Will there be subscriptions available or are you working on this one magazine at a time?  

Since the vol.00 is Kickstarted successfully, vol.01 and beyond volume are already planned and will be published! The AAA magazine will be a quarterly. We also have a plan to translate to other languages, though it depends on distributors in each country. Now, we are looking for publishers to be our official agent especially in the US, the UK, Canada, Latin America, and EU countries.

As someone who watches a lot of Kickstarter projects one of my biggest concerns are projects that do extremely well.  By hitting multiple stretch goals quickly it often spins out of the creator’s control.  One thing I like to see to alleviate these concerns are budget breakdowns to see how well planned out a project is.  Why doesn’t your campaign have a budget breakdown?  How much has the speed in which you’ve hit your goals affected your budget planning?  

Actually we have lots of exciting stretch goal ideas along with budget breakdown in each stage (total pledge amount). Though the most fluctuated factor is absolutely printing cost, the total pledge amount is including many of add-on items. So, at regular intervals, we check the total number of magazines and 3-D books (thus, “add-on effect” is excluded) and dynamically adjusting upcoming stretch goal rewards which is associated with total pledge amount.

How did you discover Kickstarter?

Some of our fellows have been backers of Kickstarter since a few years ago. Through market analyzing, we thought KS was the best platform for the AAA magazine project at the present.

A key part of successful Kickstarters is backer participation and how to convert a potential backer into a full backer.   How are you engaging your backers?  What kinds of things do you have planned for updates to give notice to those who just hit the “remind me” button and surf on?  Interviews?  Videos?  Stories from the project?

We think stretch goal and its exclusivity is one of keys to success on KS (needless to say, beautiful design of the main page and detailed setting of pledge level are basic requirements). However, to reaching stretch goal require actual number of backers and total pledge amount. Therefore, it can be forecasted that early-bird pledge level does work well in this mechanism at “recently launched” period. The early-bird backers will be an initial influencer.

Then, after passing start-up period, frequent contact with a real backer and potential backers through BBS, press release, and other SNS. But, we also haven’t found exactly the best way to let potential backers to know of the project. We hope this interview becomes a chance to let more people know of our cool project!

What kind of media attention have you received with your project?  How are you spreading the word?  Facebook?  Twitter?  Google+? Youtube?  Advertising?  Are you using Kicktraq to track your progress?  

We are trying to spread out the project through fans of Artists, using SNS such as FB and Twitter,  the Japanese medias is also interested in our project; but we haven’t succeeded very much to reach media in the US and other countries.

Do you have any tips/advice would you give to anyone looking to start a Kickstarter?

1. Have a good project of course.

2. Beautiful editorial design of the main page.  

3. Detailed classification of pledge levels (but not too complicated!)

4. Contents of video must explain the project well and fit the taste of the project (Cool? Elegance? Scary? Funny? )  

5. Early-bird level

6. Unique stretch goals to reward your amazing backers!

Thank you for spending your time with us!  Do you have any final thoughts for our readers?

Thank you for the interview, we are looking forward to realizing our amazing magazine! We believe the AAA magazine series will be a coolest representative of Akiba, Otaku and Anime- culture in the world. So the vol.00 is very limited premium edition. Don’t miss it!

Thanks again and I hope to hear good things from your Kickstarter!

Best regards!

ありがとうございます！！(^O^)／

JH lab : The professional Otaku researching group