WTF is going on in this project? Seems there's a change in management

TOKYO... With over 12,000 backers on Kickstarter (KS) raising over $878,000 (151% of the budgeted $580,000) the upcoming sci-fi thriller anime, Under the Dog (UTD), became the top funded animation project on the popular crowdfunding site.

After a brief hiatus and silence from the project on the Kickstarter page, the team managing the UTD project, Creative Intelligence Arts (CIA) is announcing its departure from the UTD project and handing over the management of the project to Kinema Citrus. Hiroaki Yura and his company, CIA, spearheaded the overall production and Kickstarter campaign for UTD.

“In order to comply with certain requests from members of the UTD creative team, and to deliver an unhindered product to our backers, CIA is hereby removing itself from the UTD project,” said Producer for UTD and CIA founder Hiroaki Yura.

“We were very excited to concept and develop UTD but believe this decision is in keeping with our goals for enabling creative teams to retain as much rights and autonomy as possible and to have production move forward with full force. It is also an effort to more directly link backers and fans of anime with the creators making the works that they love.

“It is a testament to the enthusiasm the UTD team has that they wished to take over the production and directly handle it themselves. They were awed and inspired by the show of support and dedication from the backers on KS. We leave UTD in Jiro Ishii (original author), Muneki Ogasawara (CEO of Kinema Citrus) and Koji Morimoto (replacement producer)’s capable hands and trust that they will carry on where we left off with such an excellent pedigree of artists to back them up every step of the way.”

Stuart Massie, CIA’s KS campaign manager, PR, and community relations for UTD added, “I think any time you have a significant amount of time, creativity, and money invested in a project as CIA has in UTD, it can be difficult to let that project go. You want to see it through, and I think in a way we are; it will just be without our direct involvement.

“We connected with a lot of fans and we learned a ton on this project. We will take those lessons with us as we move on to other projects with our newly found “extra” time and fans of CIA will not be disappointed in what we have planned.”