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Sae Okamoto's Mecha-Ude Anime Kickstarter Ends After Reaching Stretch Goal For Short Episode

Animator Sae Okamoto's Kickstarter campaign for the Mecha-Ude (Mechanical Arms) anime project ended on Saturday after earning US$67,918.

The campaign had added a US$60,000 stretch goal to add an additional short episode for the Heroine. The short episode will have Japanese voice-over with English subtitles, and will be available only for those who pledged US$65 or higher. The project's previous stretch goal at US$40,000 is to include a Japanese audio commentary with English subtitles.

The project reached its initial US$25,000 goal on October 15. The campaign launched on October 1. The campaign aims to build a bigger production team for the project, which will produce a 25-minute pilot episode.

The campaign page describes the anime:

Hero was a high schooler living an ordinary life.

One day, he meets a very strong and intelligent mechanical arm named “Mecha-ude”. After a strange turn of events, the “Mecha-ude” started living inside Hero's hoodie and the two's life full of trouble begins.

As the boy and his “Mecha-ude” fights together and strengthen their bonds, the two also meets new friends who also fights along with each of their own unique “Mecha-ude” partners.

Out of those, one of the heroine has two “Mecha-ude” which appears out of her skirt. An active girl with a totally opposite characteristics from hero himself, he gradually becomes attracted to her.

But the two are confronted with other “Mecha-ude” users who are in search of the secret of “Mecha-ude” relentlessly.

In this work, an anima-machine named “Mecha-ude” with self-awareness appears. Even though they look inorganic in nature, they all show or express their own feelings and opinions. They can feel angry, sad, and even encouraged to fight against enemies.

The project plans to finish the anime by December 2017.

Okamoto and a "small group of production team members" are working on the project. Okamoto is directing the project at TriF Studio. She has worked as an animator on Sushi Police, Danchi Tomoo, and Tenkai Knights. The production team includes Tatsushi Momen (Sushi Police director) as the compositor, NARASAKI (Paradise Kiss, Penguindrum, Expelled from Paradise) as the composer, and Seiji Toda (Votoms Finder, Code Geass "Back to Zero") as recording and mixing engineer at S.O.L.I.D Sound Lab.