Surprise! It’s a bonus Thursday post! (Don’t worry, Zankyou no Terror will be happening later today.)

So, I recently backed the Kickstarter anime OVA Under the Dog (directed by Masahiro Ando, notable—to me—for his work as the director of Blast of Tempest) and since I’ve done that, the UTD team has been sending out pretty consistent updates on the project that get sent to my email.

Their most recent update, #27, details a piece of the animation process and, to be frank, it totally blew my mind. Like, I knew creating anime was no cakewalk, but the frame-by-frame focus necessary to produce this stuff (even on a crappy level) is just…amazing. For someone like me, who has essentially no skill in drawing at all (have you seen my manga?), this kind of stuff is almost beyond my comprehension.

Check out the post here: Under the Dog Kickstarter Update #27

Director Ando’s celebratory sketch for the achievement of the Kickstarter’s initial goal.

And while I’m talking about it, here’s the link to the Under the Dog website. The Kickstarter is over, but they’ll be opening up for Paypal backing soon. If you haven’t already, I really do encourage you to consider it if you love anime and are concerned about the direction the industry is heading. The producer of Under the Dog, Hiroaki Yura, did an AMA on reddit not long ago that addressed a lot of industry-related questions and how UTD fits in there. It takes a while to sort through some of the less interesting questions, but (again) if you care about the industry and anime, this is information you might find of interest.