50+ Questions of Literary Enquiry

Crossover Sagas Questions Part 4

You have said in the past that you want to develop the characters through the story of this show, but you have already thought out the characters for the last couple years. Do you still think there’ll be any room for development?

Of course. I say I’ve developed them, but it doesn’t mean they’re going to start out how I have them developed. Like, Manasa is going to start out being very weary of the world; she’s not very world-knowing. Both she and Nadia, and Imaran all spent their lives cooped up somewhere, they didn’t really see the world that much, so they don’t know that much. So Manasa would start out with wanting to find her family, but can’t, but eventually she would try and develop into, you know, she’s found her family, and then once she’s found them, she’s going to change greatly. So you know, I would be, you know, hoping that I can develop them in a way that’s not fully developed, but eventually become fully developed. That’s how all my characters are going to be. They’re going to start off with a virtually clean slate, with only minor parts of their character and such developed, and by the end, they’ll be fully developed.

If no one watched Crossover Sagas, or if they did they hated it, how would you feel?

Well, as I said, I’m doing this for my own entertainment, really. I don’t really care if other people watch it. It’s for my own entertainment, and if they hate it, then well that’s their opinion. Everyone’s entitled to their opinion.

(OK, but that means that there’s no fan base for Crossover Sagas.)

Loads of series don’t have that big of a fan base. Well, I mean, I doubt that no one would watch it, because you know, with the people I know, it would get a fair amount of advertising. So someone will watch it, and if people hate it, yeah, that’s their own opinion. But due to the Law of Averages, there has to be at least one person who will like it. Law of Averages, my friend.

Do you think Crossover Sagas can raise the bar for online web shows?

I think it could. I think it very well could. I think it could also raise the bar for crossover series, because so very few people are daring enough to do them. So I think it could very well raise the bar.

(And the only good ones are like Super Smash Bros., or Marvel vs. Capcom, or The Avengers.)

Yeah, the only good ones out there usually belong to a specific company. Like, Marvel vs. Capcom is one of the few cases where they do have crossovers between two different companies, and the same with Tekken/Street Fighter, and Kingdom Hearts. But it’s very rare that you see multiple different ones, and I think that it could very well raise the bar for both online web shows and crossover series.

The average episode for an animated series takes place over a period of nine months. Keeping in mind the time limit, not to mention the hiring of staff, all of whom have to agree to work for free so that you won’t get into trouble with lawyers whilst simultaneously under-profiting, wouldn’t it just be simpler to write the story, and post it on the internet as fan-fiction?

Really I don’t think that Crossover Sagas would work just as a written thing. I think it would really work best as an animated show, and just to let you know, there are a lot of people that are willing to work for free, especially if you’re friends with them; this is why I originally had it working with friends. You don’t need that many people. I mean writers? You only need writers. You need one or two writers, not multiple writers, one or two will do. And I can do directing myself. Animation, we only need one or two animators. In fact, a lot of series have very small teams. You don’t need really large teams. And I know it might be simpler, but it certainly wouldn’t be what I would like. Because often times, the simplest option does not mean it’s the best option. Let’s look at history. Let’s look at what would have happened if people had taken the simplest option, OK? Let’s say if the Jews had decided not to walk through the desert and just stayed where they were. That’s an example, OK? The simplest option isn’t often the best option, OK, and I think for my story the best option is for it to be animated.

How would you feel about fan requests being made to you about what forms of media they want to see a crossover for in Crossover Sagas?

Yes, I would be willing to take requests. If someone would want a series to be crossed over with in Crossover Sagas, then I would say "If I had already thought about using this series, then if it’s already going in, then it’s going in." But if loads of fans came up to me and said they wanted to see Bleach, or Death Note, or Family Guy, (actually I’m not going to be using Family Guy because I don’t want to be sued by Fox,) then I’d take a look at the series, see if I can get it to work in terms of character interactions, and if so, how it will relate to the plot. So that would require a lot of in-depth analysis. But if a series gets enough suggestions, if loads and loads of people ask me to do it, and after a bit of analysis, I might say "Hmm, this might not actually be a bad idea". Better yet, if the fans could give suggestions on how the crossover might work, I’d be happy to do it, because if they can think of ways for it to work, if they can think of what can be going on, what kind of jokes can be made, I can look at it, hand the suggestion to the writers, and if they can come up with a way that might make it work, if the script they hand me in is a work of art, or just good enough, then I can say "Yeah, we can do this. This could work". But for the most part, fan suggestion for this series could be pretty brilliant, especially for Season 5, because by then I’ll probably have run out of ideas for which series to crossover myself, and I’d turn to the fans and ask them what they’d want, what they’d like to see. But Season 2 and 3 would not be so interactive, because they have a few predefined arcs that are definitely going to be there, but I do have a few arcs open where at the moment I don’t have a series set into them, but I hope to have ten or more series in each season, some of them taking longer screen time than others. But if someone says that a series would work really, really well, and I’m not just talking about one fan because I’d just consider it, but loads of fans are telling me "We would like this", then I would take a good look at it to see if it would work. I would be flattered, really, if they thought I could make something work in my story, and if I can, then I will try my best.