| A friend of mine, Ivan Mayne, got me interested in a Chinese animated series titled 'Red Cat and Blue Rabbit's Seven Knights" (虹猫蓝兔七侠传) by Hunan GreatDreams. Not only was I fascinated by the quality of the work, but the style appealed me greatly. I wanted to make a cartoon that can be described as "Disney Magic, Fox Attitude," and this series hits the mark exactly. Think of a classic Saturday Morning Cartoon or something from Disney, Warner Brothers, or Hanna-Barberra, and crank the settings up to Adult Swim levels. But you don't have to believe what I said; check out the series for yourself. Yes folks, those are cute anthro cartoon characters doing wuxia. Yes folks, that's blood. And yes folks, that Pig is a real @$$#*£&. The Happy Tree Friends can't hold a candle to this series. I'm want to see if I can get this series translated into English, or better yet, subtitled. But after that I had another idea: This series is based on the Chinese legend of a set of seven magical swords. Usually, the swords are discovered all over China and the people these swords chose as their owners are Chinese to do battle against a powerful enemy that threatens the country. What if this was broken out of that country's borders: The seven swords scatter all over the world and chose owners from countries all over the world. And these new Seven Knights need to find each other and combat evils that have a threat on an International Level. I haven't shared this idea with too many, but those who did not only tell me that this idea was good, but even GreatDreams might be interested in it if they heard of it. That got me going, and as I contact GreatDreams about these two ideas, I haggled with friends like Ivan about this prospective series I'm calling "Seven Knights International," and I'm putting all the notes I get into this Google Site for safekeeping. While this is considered a reference, nothing's actually set in stone. There's going to be a lot of haggling to do, especially if this series is actually accepted to be the next series. This is a collaborative work, and it is still early in it's development. General Notes: The setting is put in the modern day. The GreatDreams characters in the series would be the descendants of the characters in the original series. This will make for a very realistic global hop, as well as some stunning visuals with the wuxia moves. Hopping over rooftops and Bamboo Groves? Try hopping over skyscrapers! (Wake up, Hong Mao. The Matrix has you.) And as you have noticed, I'll be using the Pinyin spelling of a good number of the Chinese names, especially with the main characters. Hence, it's Hong Mao, and not Homer. The rest of the names are from Ivan Mayne's translation, and if it's necessary I'll change to their Pinyin names as well. (After all, I'm from Saint Louis, Missouri, in the central United States. What would just pop into our heads when we hear 'Homer?' There's a lot of people having a cow here.) Also, I'll be using the International Olympic Committee standard when designating countries, including the country codes. Therefore, Hong Kong  and Chinese Taipei/Taiwan  are distinguished from Mainland China  . This is purely for geographical reasons alone. I'll go on record and state that, while I wish for a peaceful resoltion twoard any and all conflicts in the real life political dynamic, I consider myself neutral about them and desires to be regarded as such. I chose neither side on an argument I have no business in. Hopefully this will keep me kosher with differing cultures all around. |
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