High Guardian Spice - Tumblr: The CalArt Anime

Rosemary was created in 2013, so there had to have been a story in mind and Raye thanks a Japanese artist as an influence for the character design:

View attachment 2903727

So literally Madoka Magica came out and Raye drew a brand new totally original donut steel character that just happens to be an exact rip off of the main character.

203-2037111_puella-magi-madoka-magica.png

Oh you know what else came out in 2013? Little Witch Academia.

Little_Witch_Academia_TV_official_poster.jpg

It wasn't the budget, Raye, you're just untalented and bad at hiding what you're ripping off.

I've been saying since the delays started I think Ryne was conned. That the diversity hires took the money and ran, to the point where I was expecting the show to never be released. I'd be interested in seeing if any producers or leads worked on both projects, or if they had massive salaries.

As if she wasn't also a diversity hire. In trying to find out her age I found her website https://www.rayetoons.com/

It only has one proto-HGS comic on it labeled "Witchy +Stuff", maybe a more adept farmer than I could find out if this was ever a full webcomic.

Witchy+Stuffsmall.png


She also has a comic of what she did with Crunchy Roll's money

goodbyemoneysmall.png


I was going to end it there for comedic effect had I not also stumbled across her Youtube channel, which has an animated pilot of Rosemary from 7 years ago on it.

 
You know, I'm usually skeptical about creators when they say shit like this, but I honestly believe Crunchyroll took a pipe to HGS' knees, and then expected it to run a marathon. From the word "go" they poisoned the show against anime fans by suggesting it was some woke thing. I mean, it was woke, but not in the way where they were going to jump up and down and act like every frame of animation was stunning and brave. Honestly, I think these were just some faggots who wanted to make a gay show, and then Crunchy Roll looked at it and said "But how can we score woke points with this?"

Oh, and after ruining HGS' chances, they buried the show. Yeah, as much as I like to blame the creators of shit like this, I feel like Raye has a point.
 
I was going to end it there for comedic effect had I not also stumbled across her Youtube channel, which has an animated pilot of Rosemary from 7 years ago on it.

Archive.

This was an animation project for university according to her credits. While it looks better than someone like Rory's CalArts animation projects, it's still very much a novice work and relied so heavily on parody and "lul randumb" stuff all artists her age were/are into. That stuff was getting old by 2014.

Also she voiced Rosemary herself. Her voice was higher-pitched than it is now, even though she still sounds like a woman.
2022-01-20 13.03.28 kiwifarms.is 7114f43b4111.png

2022-01-20 13.03.45 kiwifarms.is 078109ac8737.png
 
Archive.
View attachment 2904553
This was an animation project for university according to her credits. While it looks better than someone like Rory's CalArts animation projects, it's still very much a novice work and relied so heavily on parody and "lul randumb" stuff all artists her age were/are into. That stuff was getting old by 2014.

Also she voiced Rosemary herself. Her voice was higher-pitched than it is now, even though she still sounds like a woman.
View attachment 2904557
View attachment 2904559
Sad to see John Canemaker involved on this. He did more than Raye could ever accomplish.
 
This rabbit hole is just getting funnier. She literally made her cat a catgirl in her shitty show. This was drawn in 2017 right after she trooned out. Which had to be around the time the show went into production.

Screenshot_21.png
MV5BMjFkZjJkNWQtYmMyYy00ZjNmLWJlYmItNDc5YzUxOTA1MGY1XkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyNzEwODIxNzE@._V1_.jpg


She also had the name "High Guardian Spice" from ages ago. There's no way this wasn't your personal vanity project. I think most troons suffer from Peter Pan Syndrome, Raye here having the mentality of a 15 year old writing her very own animu just reinforces it. It's just for some reason someone actually gave her money to make it into a show.

Screenshot_22.png
tumblr_msdfobIbs81qi42hmo1_1280.jpg
 
You know, I'm usually skeptical about creators when they say shit like this, but I honestly believe Crunchyroll took a pipe to HGS' knees, and then expected it to run a marathon. From the word "go" they poisoned the show against anime fans by suggesting it was some woke thing. I mean, it was woke, but not in the way where they were going to jump up and down and act like every frame of animation was stunning and brave. Honestly, I think these were just some faggots who wanted to make a gay show, and then Crunchy Roll looked at it and said "But how can we score woke points with this?"

Oh, and after ruining HGS' chances, they buried the show. Yeah, as much as I like to blame the creators of shit like this, I feel like Raye has a point.
porquenolosdos.gif
 
Well, we can blame both, but I just think the way Crunchyroll treated the show was odd. Its like they fought their hardest to make it fail, which is weird.
Imagine you're a Crunchyroll executive. With HGS being the train wreck that it is, both in terms of writing and animation, not to mention the massive backlash the initial "reveal" trailer got, and your options are......
A. Promote the shit out of it, risking even more backlash and potentially lost subscribers, which = lost revenue, or
B. Bury it faster than a Harrier jet infused with Sonic the Hedgehog's blood and pray that nobody notices it
Which one would you choose? If you chose A, you're the poorest network executive in the world, and should an hero yourself for the sake of the rest of us in the gene pool.
 
Well, we can blame both, but I just think the way Crunchyroll treated the show was odd. Its like they fought their hardest to make it fail, which is weird.
Crunchyroll gave them the same budget as their other original shows (according to Raye's own tweets) and put out an obnoxious video with nothing but character designs and everyone working on it sniffing their own farts.


I don't know how it's Crunchyroll's fault that everyone interviewed here talks about how stunning and brave they are and how they're going to make a show better than anything that's been done recently in animation. Those words came out of their own mouths.

Some insight into Raye's creative process from her tumblr from 2017. No doubt this is a spoiled rich Cali kid whose parents probably paid for art school and who had an in with the prog cult after trooning out. I can't prove that, of course, but I got a gut feeling here.

1642715722727.png
 
A budget couldn't change that a pivotal moment in the show is one of her self inserts telling her other self insert about being trans.

View attachment 2901087View attachment 2901088
gee i wonder why troons like Raye almost always have a prior history of things like "chronic depression" or crippling anxiety.
So literally Madoka Magica came out and Raye drew a brand new totally original donut steel character that just happens to be an exact rip off of the main character.

View attachment 2904446

Oh you know what else came out in 2013? Little Witch Academia.

View attachment 2904453

It wasn't the budget, Raye, you're just untalented and bad at hiding what you're ripping off.



As if she wasn't also a diversity hire. In trying to find out her age I found her website https://www.rayetoons.com/

It only has one proto-HGS comic on it labeled "Witchy +Stuff", maybe a more adept farmer than I could find out if this was ever a full webcomic.

View attachment 2904466

She also has a comic of what she did with Crunchy Roll's money

View attachment 2904469

I was going to end it there for comedic effect had I not also stumbled across her Youtube channel, which has an animated pilot of Rosemary from 7 years ago on it.

I wonder if breaking up with this guy had any long lasting effects on her.
 
Imagine you're a Crunchyroll executive. With HGS being the train wreck that it is, both in terms of writing and animation, not to mention the massive backlash the initial "reveal" trailer got, and your options are......
A. Promote the shit out of it, risking even more backlash and potentially lost subscribers, which = lost revenue, or
B. Bury it faster than a Harrier jet infused with Sonic the Hedgehog's blood and pray that nobody notices it
Which one would you choose? If you chose A, you're the poorest network executive in the world, and should an hero yourself for the sake of the rest of us in the gene pool.
Ha, I see what you mean, but as I said I think the blame falls on both sides. It was CR's dumbness to greenlight the show in the first place, and it was their dumbness to go to anime fans and say "You know what you guys would like? This cartoon made by transpeople! It's pretty much going to be the first cartoon ever made! Look at how stunning, brave, and original we are!" Its like if you went to gamers and told them to wash because they stinky terrible people. And I know its exactly like that because we're seeing that exact thing with G4's current debacle. Still, I understand there's only so much an exec can do.
Crunchyroll gave them the same budget as their other original shows (according to Raye's own tweets) and put out an obnoxious video with nothing but character designs and everyone working on it sniffing their own farts.
I agree, but character designs alone won't kill a creators vision. At least, not always. Remember, the art One Punch Man's manga was terrible when it started, but people liked it because it was fun to read. I really think if CR went "Alright, we got this anime inspired cartoon, I'm sure you guys will like it!" the public opinion of HGS would be different even if people still thought it was bad. And, lets be real, it is pretty bad.

Also when it comes "how its Crunch Roll's fault", I'm pretty sure it was CR that put the camera in front of them, and they might have even told them what to say. It was a video for marketing; they'd have the people in it say whatever that would make the show (and therefore the company) look good.

Crunchy Roll could have just not shot that video. Its not like the people working on the show did it, and then uploaded it to the official Crunchy Roll youtube channel. Also, its their fault for even trying to make a show like this and putting it own their premium service. HGS should have been a show on CR's youtube channel.
 
Last edited:
gee i wonder why troons like Raye almost always have a prior history of things like "chronic depression" or crippling anxiety.

I wonder if breaking up with this guy had any long lasting effects on her.
The most shocking thing about this is that she actually was in a hetero relationship at one point. Then again, she's a fujoshit. Many fujoshits had boyfriends at one point or still do, while others decide they want to live out their yaoi fantasies and become genderspecials.

Also her YouTube should most likely be archived. She probably doesn't want people to remember she got dicked down at one point. So local archive featuring her ex, Taylor Caswell.

EDIT: Lol wait, there's only three videos. Nevermind, then. But that's fucking sad, you'd think an aspiring animator would've had more work to show. How the fuck did she even get connections to get Crunchyroll to greenlight her show, then, if she literally has nothing to show for it? Or has she privated videos in the past?
 
I wonder if breaking up with this guy had any long lasting effects on her.
She became the boyfriend.

EDIT: Lol wait, there's only three videos. Nevermind, then. But that's fucking sad, you'd think an aspiring animator would've had more work to show. How the fuck did she even get connections to get Crunchyroll to greenlight her show, then, if she literally has nothing to show for it? Or has she privated videos in the past?
Good question. So I searched to see if there were any interviews.



I created High Guardian Spice in 2013. It started as a 5-minute storyboard pitch for Frederator while I was interning there...Since that first pitch I used Rosemary in my college thesis film “Treasure Hunt” and then continued to develop HGS and pitch it every opportunity I got
Meaning the show pitch predates even Treasure Hunt, which was released 7 years ago, and yet apparently there just wasn't enough budget to write a good story.
Eventually I pitched it to Crunchyroll in 2016 and they liked it a lot, though they didn’t have the bandwidth at the time to make it as a show. We started developing it as a comic in 2017, then I repitched it to them as a show when Marge Dean started at the company in 2018
Well there's your answer.

Helmed by Raye Rodriguez and a diverse production team, High Guardian Spice is a show that isn’t afraid to showcase its queer identity. It’s characters are bright, colourful, loving, and geared towards a younger audience
1642721462125.png


For a long time I was chasing down female characters in cartoons that I felt represented me, and it’s only now as an adult who’s come to terms with being a transgender man that I’ve realized the biggest reason I didn’t click with the characters from my childhood was me, not them. But I still love my spice girls who were born of that angst
It was never meant to be an anime since we weren’t working with a Japanese animation studio
As I got older I got really into boys love/yaoi, which was great at the time but often pretty #problematic when I look back at the stories I loved
In a nutshell, what is High Guardian Spice about from a narrative perspective? Does the show have an overarching message it hopes to deliver that will resonate with viewers?

High Guardian Spice is a story about four girls working together to follow their dreams of becoming heroes. Rosemary and her best friend Sage travel from a tiny village in the middle of nowhere called Pebble to the large city of Lyngarth, where they attend High Guardian Academy, a school for adventurers. There they meet Parsley and Thyme, who quickly join their adventuring party. The girls start the show naive about what it means to be a Guardian, a protector of the land, and they learn over the course of the season that it isn’t just a cake-walk. Being a Guardian means putting your life on the line to stand up for what’s right, and the girls each have to decide for themselves if this really is the path they want to walk down.

To address the elephant in the room, Crunchyroll would not take questions about the controversy or delays.
The backstories of each of the girls have become a lot more fleshed out as the years went along, but the core of each girl is pretty similar to what it was when I came up with High Guardian Spice back in 2013.
[F]or some reason, they have a "mature audiences" warning. Are we gonna see heads bitten off Madoka-style or something?
Haha no, I wouldn’t go into this show expecting any big Madoka-like twists. There’s some violence, blood and curse words later on that I think are more on par with Naruto -- stuff that’s normal in shounen anime but never shown in American kids cartoons.
And history repeats itself:
I’m developing a brand new animated adult drama that I am very excited about. I’ve had the characters from that show in my head since I was in middle school, so it’s a real dream come true to finally bring them to life! It’s a show that’s unlike anything I’ve seen in American animated TV before, so I’m VERY STOKED!
Any drama or animation Youtubers who lurk here for content wanna take all this go for it. It'd be hilarious.
 
This rabbit hole is just getting funnier. She literally made her cat a catgirl in her shitty show. This was drawn in 2017 right after she trooned out. Which had to be around the time the show went into production.

View attachment 2904689View attachment 2904691

She also had the name "High Guardian Spice" from ages ago. There's no way this wasn't your personal vanity project. I think most troons suffer from Peter Pan Syndrome, Raye here having the mentality of a 15 year old writing her very own animu just reinforces it. It's just for some reason someone actually gave her money to make it into a show.

View attachment 2904703View attachment 2904704
Huh, so someone in Twitter was right, HGS came all the way back from 2013, and even from that time it has shit writing. Also notice all of the characters used to be pasty white girls. Something must have happened between 2013 until she pitched it to CR
Crunchyroll gave them the same budget as their other original shows (according to Raye's own tweets) and put out an obnoxious video with nothing but character designs and everyone working on it sniffing their own farts.


I don't know how it's Crunchyroll's fault that everyone interviewed here talks about how stunning and brave they are and how they're going to make a show better than anything that's been done recently in animation. Those words came out of their own mouths.

Some insight into Raye's creative process from her tumblr from 2017. No doubt this is a spoiled rich Cali kid whose parents probably paid for art school and who had an in with the prog cult after trooning out. I can't prove that, of course, but I got a gut feeling here.

View attachment 2904901
I always hates creators like this, who thought they have to consume or smoke something to get some "creativity". Imagine being slaved by something just to let your brain works
Ha, I see what you mean, but as I said I think the blame falls on both sides. It was CR's dumbness to greenlight the show in the first place, and it was their dumbness to go to anime fans and say "You know what you guys would like? This cartoon made by transpeople! It's pretty much going to be the first cartoon ever made! Look at how stunning, brave, and original we are!" Its like if you went to gamers and told them to wash because they stinky terrible people. And I know its exactly like that because we're seeing that exact thing with G4's current debacle. Still, I understand there's only so much an exec can do.

I agree, but character designs alone won't kill a creators vision. At least, not always. Remember, the art One Punch Man's manga was terrible when it started, but people liked it because it was fun to read. I really think if CR went "Alright, we got this anime inspired cartoon, I'm sure you guys will like it!" the public opinion of HGS would be different even if people still thought it was bad. And, lets be real, it is pretty bad.

Also when it comes "how its Crunch Roll's fault", I'm pretty sure it was CR that put the camera in front of them, and they might have even told them what to say. It was a video for marketing; they'd have the people in it say whatever that would make the show (and therefore the company) look good.

Crunchy Roll could have just not shot that video. Its not like the people working on the show did it, and then uploaded it to the official Crunchy Roll youtube channel. Also, its their fault for even trying to make a show like this and putting it own their premium service. HGS should have been a show on CR's youtube channel.
One of the production and CR's mistake regarding HGS, aside from making it in the first place, is how they first marketed it. No story trailer, no characters preview, just some bragging about woke points. That trailer unironically was just "MUH DIVERSITY" in a video form, and its not even good

That said, there has to be something about it that made them shelved the damn shit for two years. They released the arguably worse EX-Arm, and yet they can't release HGS? Something fishy must have happened and I want to know what it was
The most shocking thing about this is that she actually was in a hetero relationship at one point. Then again, she's a fujoshit. Many fujoshits had boyfriends at one point or still do, while others decide they want to live out their yaoi fantasies and become genderspecials.

Also her YouTube should most likely be archived. She probably doesn't want people to remember she got dicked down at one point. So local archive featuring her ex, Taylor Caswell.
View attachment 2905160
EDIT: Lol wait, there's only three videos. Nevermind, then. But that's fucking sad, you'd think an aspiring animator would've had more work to show. How the fuck did she even get connections to get Crunchyroll to greenlight her show, then, if she literally has nothing to show for it? Or has she privated videos in the past?
Let me try out some few things. I did some digging in the VTubers thread and through sheer luck found a way to see a list of privated videos
 
Crunchyroll is only at fault for the fact that they thought this show would be good to have on their streaming service while they simultaneously get their shills to act like supporting Crunchyroll is some valiant act to help out Japanese animation.

Like I seriously believe this show would still be poorly received and talked about in a not so good way but it would have had less attention on it if it was a show on any other streaming service like Netflix or Hulu.
 
Back