First off I want to say I'm sorry I've been really behind on responding to messages and voice requests and doing lines and what not. I will catch up after AX this weekend. Let me just say that being crowded around a Denny's table having dinner earlier tonight with RubberNinja, Egoraptor, Suzy, Nalem, Spanio, Wonchop, Princess Aurora, Adrienne, ChannelCat, Vensy, & Alex = full of win and awesome.

But! Before heading off to the con, I leave you with the trailer for this documentary I keep talking about. I got a pretty good response from both "sides" of the rivalry so I am hoping this will be an interesting and objective look at the situation. People also came up with interesting variations of ideas on solving the problem (or reasons why it cannot be solved) which you'll find out when the actual project is completed.

Click me for the trailer!

The music was done by DoctorAttitude who is an awesome audio portal artist and a good friend of mine.

I have received submissions from the following people for my documentary. If you sent something in and you don't see your name on this list, please resend immediately to midori.ninja@gmail.com.

Aeonstars
AniGen
Billy Monks
Chester Kwan
Cz-backlash
DonaldM
Elder99
Gerkinman
Hadouken_dude
Jared Johnson
Jimtopia
Luke
Kenkaku
Kirbopher
Kliff
RabidSquirrel
RPGsrok
Rtil
Squeef
Weirdo
YungJazz

I kind of miss doing regular interviews too. :[ Too bad everything fell through with all the guests and most of the listeners had something the size of Ganondorf's fist shoved up their vaginas. HATING VIDEOGAME PARODIES IS SERIOUS BUSINESS.

Speaking of which. Funny hate mail of the week from Streetbob with an angry face titled "FUCK YOU UP THE ASS!" Intrigued, I opened it to see the following response:

fuck you for makeing "more brawl taunts"

LOL. I guess I did sort of miss the internet.

Updates!

+ New userpage banner was made by Ross aka RubberNinja! He is AWESOME and I'll get a chance to meet him in a couple of weeks at Anime Expo along with Egoraptor and TomaMoto :D If anyone else is planning to go, look for me if you can! I'll be volunteering most of the time but I'll be sure to watch the voice actor idol auditions (I won last year, so this year I'm just going to cheer on Ego and Toma~)

+ Thank you all very much for your support on my decision regarding Behind the Flash. I am waiting to make my final decision as to whether I will ultimately continue the interviews by seeing how people respond to the documentary (which will hopefully be out before July.) If it gets a good response, I may decide to do a few interviews again. If not, then I probably won't bother. We'll see. [I still do have a VERY special video interview planned for Comic-Con if all goes well.]

+ For all the people PMing me begging me for a third Brawl Taunts---I really do appreciate the enthusiasm, but it's not my choice. Kirbopher has got to work on his Parody Rangers movie and wants to put his time and effort into that rather than commissions right now. No, I do not want to write another one and have someone else animate it---this is a project for me and Kirb. Plus, quite a few people have accused us of milking the popularity of the first one in order to get awards so it's probably best to back off for a while there too. I am still always up for helping people out as a writer so if you are a good, motivated artist looking for an idea to animate, send me an e-mail and we can discuss!

+ I've also gotten several PMs asking for my Brawl friend code. I don't do online Brawl---it's too laggy and just ugh. However, if you live in Southern California and have a Brawl get together or tournament I will gladly versus you in person! And to answer this other question I get a lot... I main Peach.

+ I MET DAVID HAYTER AND YOU ARE ALL JEALOUS. It was at the Best Buy midnight launch in West Hollywood and he quoted Metal Gear Awesome and said he watches it :O I didn't get to talk to him for very long but several people cosplayed and I went as the Brawl Taunts version of Peach with the "I <3 Snake" shirt. We weren't allowed to get pictures taken with the guests but I do have a few shitty low-quality pictures from the event here. Oh, and I told him to his face that he's the hottest man alive. But urrrrgh I can't afford a PS3 so I can't play MGS4 yet ;__;

Since so many people asked me about it, I'm just going to say it here. No, I'm not getting "butthurt"; I'm simply expressing how irritated I am at how so many people have to take something fun and lighthearted and always turn it into a ridiculous conspiracy theory.

I'm still doing the documentary. Don't get my wrong---I'm not out to waste people's time, so you can bet I'll produce that. It's just going to be its own project and not a Behind The Flash thing.

The reason I cancelled the actual podcast *for now* is because everyone turned it into a fucking conspiracy game instead of just simply TAKING IT FOR WHAT IT IS. "Rina only interviews her friends. Rina only interviews video game parody artists. Rina only interviews people she wants to do voices for. Everyone she interviewed is part of the popular Newgrounds clique." Etc etc etc. No one could simply accept the fact that it was just something I was doing as a fun experimental project and I didn't have any specific 'pattern' in mind when I selected the guests!

Yes, I got a lot of shit for Brawl Taunts. But I didn't care. Why, you ask? BECAUSE PEOPLE LIKED IT. IT MADE THEM LAUGH. IT ENTERTAINED THEM. And entertaining people makes me feel happy and warm and fuzzy inside. But with Behind The Flash, about 10% of the listeners really enjoyed this and the other 90% said that it was stupid/the guests were stupid/I was stupid/my questions were stupid. Not to mention an 18 page thread making fun of it over at another animation forum, and a rather douchebaggy comment from a certain animator about it the other day via Skype. As if that wasn't enough, my guest bailed out on me and all the other guests I had lined up ended up flaking out or were never available.

Normally, I deal with criticism like an adult and use it to work on bettering my projects, but when there isn't enough support behind something and it's more criticizing/bashing than people saying "Hey, I enjoyed this" it isn't worth it to me to wade through PMs, emails and forum threads talking about how stupid these interviews are. I just can't deal with it anymore, for now anyway.

Honestly, I love Newgrounds so much, so it really pains me to see that trying to do something nice and unique for the community only results people hurling insults back at me instead of ignoring it and going on about their daily lives. I think this AIM quote from a friend of mine summed it up pretty well:

AnimatingGerkin (12:45:48 AM): hurts me to see someone in the community thats actually TRYING to be pro-active give up

+ I'm accepting podcast submissions up through Sunday, so get them in! See previous news post for details.

+ A few people have PMed me expressing an interest in seeing my Princess Peach cosplay. My friend Tim did an informal photoshoot for me and all the pictures are up @ myspace. (No, I didn't make the costume, but I did cut and style the wig myself.)

+ AIKA R-16: VIRGIN MISSION is now out!! Check your local anime store or Best Buy and please pick up a copy~ I do the official English voice for Eri, the redhaired girl who's the leader of the treasure hunting club. Plus, it's got tons of panty shots so even if you could care less about getting it for my voice, get it for the content? ;D

Lately, some of my Newgrounds buddies and I have noticed an interesting and slightly disturbing trend within the Flash community: a fierce division between two types of artists and their fans.

On one hand, we have Flash artists who produce random, often quickly animated shorts that are a parody of a videogame or movie. Such videos often end up becoming viral, getting hordes of 5s, portal awards, and plenty of fans for the artists, who may or may not have expected their projects to be so well received. Some may write specifically to target the Newgrounds audience while others just make whatever they find funny.

On the other hand, we have artists who spend several months to a year (or more) working on a project, often original, and find that while it may be featured on the front page for as long as the first type of submissions, their work tends to get overlooked. As a result, they may become resentful of artists who churn something out in less than a month and get portal awards and/or lots more views. They believe that the Newgrounds system should award quality and originality and that the average viewer is too focused on whatever is familiar or makes them laugh. However, they may have a hard time marketing their work to another crowd (such as YouTube, where because there are so many videos, it can be much harder to get one's work recognized).

Lately, a sort of rivalry has sprung between the two sides, with fans of each type of artist attacking each other through forums, review spaces, blogs, and even other Flash movies.

Newgrounds community, I want YOUR take on this for a special episode of the podcast. From both "sides" or those who believe that there are no sides at all. From a variety of artists, both well known and not as well known. It is important to note that I am going to do my absolute best to make this podcast episode a non-biased, documentary-style look at this phenomenon, which is why I want input from a variety of artists.

So if you consider yourself to be currently active in the Newgrounds community (preferrably as an animator, but exceptions will be made for community members who contribute in other ways), I want to hear your take on this. You must send in an audio file (mp3 preferred) as this is an audio podcast. Do NOT post your responses/opinions here; they will not be included. Please use the following questions as a guide for your response:

+ Start off with your name and/or NG username along with a VERY BRIEF summary of your involvement in the community (example: name of a couple of your most recognized movies). This is just a short introduction so everyone listening will know who you are.

+ When viewing submissions by other artists, how essential is the quality of the art/animation to your enjoyment of the flash? How about the humor? Do you think that in general, a flash needs to be funny in order to gain a large following?

+ Do you think that, in general, the voting system is a fair assessment of the quality of a Flash? (For instance, if a flash is based off a game or movie, the people who automatically vote zero tend to even out the amount of fans who will five it?)

+ What are the factors that influence the popularity of a Flash artist? Is it important to you that your work and/or you as an artist are well received in the Flash community? Why or why not?

+ Do you find you receive a large amount of criticism from a certain type of viewers in general? What is the biggest criticism they tend to give you?

+ What is your take on the rivalry mentioned above? Discuss your opinions and the reasons behind them. Please feel free to draw on your own experiences to support your views.

+ How involved are you in the critiquing aspect of the community? For instance, are you involved in Flash-related forums where discussion or debate on this subject tends to occur? Have you ever been involved in a "flame war" over your work or that of another artist you appreciate?

+ What do you think is the best solution to the current problem? Or do you think Newgrounds should stay the way it is and become "survival of the fittest"?

RULES. Read before you send!
+ You may reference specific Flash artists for examples but no abusive talk or insults aimed at specific Flash artists will be allowed. For example, you may say "I personally don't enjoy RandomNewgrounder's work because it seems to lack effort yet gets plenty of awards" but NOT something like "RandomNewgrounder is an unoriginal faggot". If the main point of your submission seems to be to take jabs at other artists (regardless of which "side" they seem to be on), your submission will probably not be used.
+ NO trolling/joke entries... it's simply a waste of both your time and mine.
+ In general, the time limit is pretty open...I will cut and paste quite a bit to fit the format of this edition of the show. But as a general rule, keep it under ten minutes total.
+ Please record in mp3 format in as clear, high quality audio as possible. If you absolutely cannot do mp3, I will accept wavs.

Email your file(s) to midori.ninja@gmail.com no later than Sunday, June 8.

(Important: If you're looking for the Brawl Taunts post, simply go to the entry before this one. But let me just say Brawl Taunts 2 is gonna kick some serious ass. Really, I took everyone's criticism into consideration.)

Anyway, I've recently started up an audio podcast called "Behind The Flash" where I will interview some of Newgrounds' most popular animators each week. My first two interviews featured RubberNinja and Kirbopher and my latest one features Hans Van Harken. So listen here and keep checking in for more interviews with your favorite Flash artists.

You can subscribe on iTunes by entering this link for the RSS feed--
http://feeds.feedburner.com/BehindTheF lash (Please let me know if it doesn't work; I'm still trying to figure it out.)

Also. Princess Peach costume for Comic-Con should be arriving soon...w00t

PS. LET ME KNOW WHAT FLASH ARTISTS YOU WANT TO HEAR AS GUESTS ON THE SHOW

This is the girl who wrote the script/audio for this flash.
NG won't let coauthors edit the "Author Comments" box, so I hope everyone reads this review.

First, I'm sorry if you don't like my style of humor. Please note that the audio for this mostly came as a boredom thing from some quotes my friends and I came up with while playing Brawl.

Second, I wrote the Sonic taunt when Brawl first came out and everyone was still playing with Smash balls...so it was easy to see how people thought Sonic was "cheap" and play off of his regular taunt with this one. I agree that certain other characters are much more overpowered; HOWEVER, you have to say I'd already predicted the response of the rabid Sega fanboys and added it in already so you guys wouldn't have to leave those reviews ;)

Third, although Kirb and I are both friends of Egoraptor and appreciate his work, I can safely say that neither of us were trying to copy him. Kirb's animation style and my writing style have both been with us since we first started doing this stuff, but it seems to be a trend these days to classify anything quickly drawn and with random cracked-out voice stuff as Awesome ripoffs.

Fourth, I AM WELL AWARE THAT I DID NOT INCLUDE EVERY BRAWL CHARACTER. The main reasoning behind this is because the longer I made the audio, the more work it would be for Kirb to animate. And did anyone notice how little attention span Newgrounds users these days have?

Fifth, no I am not just "someone who's pissed off at the game". I quite enjoy Brawl and am fairly good at it. Again, this was just random shit that I came up with when playing the game with my buddies.

Sixth, Kirb animated this in THREE DAYS... give him a break. If you want to see his serious work, check out the other movies he's made. You won't be disappointed :)

But finally, THANK YOU to everyone who enjoyed this silly little flash of ours and thank you Newgrounds for the front page and daily feature. It was certainly unexpected from both of us, and I'm glad if this brought a smile to your face :D

http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/
438529

Kirbopher made this animation for something I wrote/put together a while ago!
I know I didn't include every Brawl character but I didn't want to make it too long because as we can see on the Crack For All reviews, Newgrounds users don't have very long attention spans.

ALSO. I am starting a podcast where I will be interviewing various prominent flash animators from the Newgrounds community. I've already got my first couple of guests lined up, so expect to see something about that soon =)

I finally took some time out of Brawling to make a new voice demo, so here you go.

http://suzumiya-haruhi.net/voice.mp3

This is my standard animation demo. If you just want to hear my videogame character impersonations, go here.