The Anime That Tumblr Invented Based on a Promotional Video’s Really Happening
This is kind of complicated, but the facts boil down to this: A 30-second promo spot for Animation DO, a studio that was spun off from Kyoto Animation, featuring a bunch of young male swimmers dropped, this got picked up on Tumblr, which in turn created an entire fandom based around the fictional anime series. Still with me? Okay, well, to add another layer to this cake of Internet goodness, Kyoto Animation has officially announced that they’re now going to actually make it a real anime series. Yeah.
I’m honestly not sure the rabbit hole can go any deeper, but I guess we’ll see come July, since that’s when the series is supposed to come out. It’s no longer Swimming Anime, though it probably always will be in the eyes of Tumblr. The official title for the anime is Free!
Here’s the original Swimming Anime clip that Tumblr picked up on:
And here’s the one about Free! from Kyoto Animation:
Yeah, I don’t know what else to add here. Fandom is what fandom does, I guess, and cashing in on that seems like a sound business strategy to me.
(Crunchyroll via The Daily Dot)
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