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An Interview with Richie Roberts and PhatTony from PhatDog Studios PT 2
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We continue our discussions about making abridges, new projects and what goes into the process with Richie Roberts and Phat Tony from Phatdog Studios.
(the copyright episode)
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Oh boy guys, this has been a fun night. Hey, it looks like the sky fixes itself.
SPEAKER_00Wait. Where the hell are we? Is that a cactus? Cactus juice. Ooh, cactus juice. Yeah, no.
SPEAKER_02Nothing's quenchier.
SPEAKER_03If I had to say this looks like Tucson, Arizona.
SPEAKER_00Oh shit, where are my cousins in Neck of I'm back in Arizona? No! Give me back my trees.
SPEAKER_03We have trees. They're just up north.
SPEAKER_02You know, my problem with Arizona is I can only take off so much clothing to stay cool until it becomes a problem.
SPEAKER_00My problem with Arizona is that my problem with Arizona is that it's Arizona.
SPEAKER_03Um hey, look, we don't change our clocks when it comes to daylight savings time, all right?
SPEAKER_00I know that's a look. Look, look. Every look, a broken clock is right twice a day. Okay.
SPEAKER_03Oh boy. So where were we? Oh so we were talking about the most difficult aspect when it comes to working on your guys' projects.
SPEAKER_00Hmm. And Tony immediately said copyright. So the next 30 minutes are brought to you by Tony. All right, Richie. We'll see. We'll see you here in a bit.
SPEAKER_02So YouTube's copyright system, while confusing back in the day, as long as you understood the lay of the land, you could navigate it. It was a slow just annoying mess, but it was consistent. But somewhere around the line, YouTube decided that they were going to start arbitrarily deciding whether or not someone had uh the rights to submit fairy uh, you know, uh a counterclaim. So it let me explain. So uh Company A would come and claim a no, actually, no, we're gonna use we're gonna use an actual uh example here of what happened to us. There was this shit stain of a company called Mark Scan Enforcement, I think is what it was, right? Third party and yeah, some some shit stain of uh you know company that went around mass claiming uh abridge channels. They claimed literally our entire library. And they didn't even do it right. Like they claimed a log horizon episode saying that the footage claimed was reincarnated as a slime.
SPEAKER_00Wait, what?
SPEAKER_02You can't make this shit. I'm not ch I'm not joking.
SPEAKER_00They claim the wrong they claim the wrong series for the wrong video, yeah.
SPEAKER_03And YouTube still use the strike on that? I know I've heard things about the YouTube uh algorithm and uh the copyright bots and how quick they are to strike, because like I've heard of different let's players that have had issues. Um obviously following the abridges, like I think I even can think I can think back to the time when you guys are even talking about because wasn't it when like basically all the abridges had stuff going down?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yep, yeah.
SPEAKER_02So some channels still do back in the day when uh company would claim your video, you know, they would try and scare you with uh some legalese language and saying, hey, you know, you could be taken to court over this, blah blah blah, basically just trying to scare you. Um and that's not to say that it can't happen, it absolutely can. However, how it used to work back in the day was YouTube was hands-off, they were merely the uh they were the messenger, you know, delivering the the legal notice to you from the the company, and then delivering your reply to the company, if any, back and forth. That that was their job. They hosted the video, and then they were the messenger between party A and party B. Somewhere along the line, they decided, no, we are now uh guilty until proven innocent, and we are also going to go out of our way to hinder you every step of the way. And so when we had videos get claimed, YouTube would just arbitrarily decide, yeah, you haven't sufficiently proven that you have the rights to even submit a counterclaim, which by the way is illegal, they're not allowed to do that. And until someone takes them to court over it, they're going to continue to do it.
SPEAKER_03But doesn't YouTube have Big Daddy Google behind them? So, like the even the idea of taking them to court, it's like how much money can you put towards it?
SPEAKER_02Yeah. That's why no one is taking them. And believe you me, if I won the fucking lottery, that'd be the first thing I do.
SPEAKER_03Fair enough.
SPEAKER_02Just out of out of fucking principle.
SPEAKER_03Fair enough.
SPEAKER_02Um sheer spite. Oh yeah. Uh so that uh so that was how it was. And for a short time we were signed on with an MCN. And and that really helped kind of take the burden off. Because while YouTube was being an absolute cockwaffle about it, we at least had a direct line of someone that could basically bring it to them and wag their finger menacingly at them and say, no, do your fucking job. Um, but then uh for one reason or another, we were dropped by that MCN for a while. Uh still don't know why. Having said that, during that time, the basically 80% of what I did for the channel at that point was fight copyright. Um and and that is a much more involved process than it sounds. You know, not only am I having to do the legalese, you know, through email exchanges, but like I'm having to try and get to an actual person on YouTube. And it always starts with using their quote unquote uh help chat, you know, in the in the creator dashboard. And it is 99.999% of the time a bot. And until you, and I am not joking, I genuinely wish I was waking, I was making this up, until you start swearing at them in all caps, they don't take you seriously. And even then, it's a coin flip on whether or not you're gonna get a person. And most of the time, they aren't gonna be able to do anything, they're just like, Yeah, sorry, can't help you. Um, so then you gotta go start making a stink on Twitter. And if you yeah, and uh specifically adding at team YouTube, and if you don't get enough retweets and likes, they genuinely will just fucking ignore you.
SPEAKER_03Oh wow.
SPEAKER_02And so if you don't have a big enough following to make a big enough stink where they will take notice, your only recourse is to get a fucking Chinese bot farm. I wish I was making this up. I'm not. And so you know, we've had we've got several teams, you know, making a bunch of different videos. And there was a time where I just stopped working on my stuff to solely focus on on getting everyone else's you know videos through copyright hell, and it was oh my god. I I genuinely got a fucking ulcer from it. I was losing sleep.
SPEAKER_03Are you finding with uh the copyright it's newer shows that get copyrighted more or the older shows?
SPEAKER_02Everything it does everything. Yeah. Yeah. No, the copyright trolls will come out of the fucking woodwork even if they don't own the uh the rights, hoping that they can just say, nope, fuck you, this is our video now.
SPEAKER_04Mm-hmm. That's crazy.
SPEAKER_02Um Yeah, I mean, there there was uh, you know, there was a time where, you know, because Richie was the only one that was kind of like even remotely aware of kind of like the kind of shit I was going through, but even for a time, even he wasn't aware of like the the amount of just garbage that I had to work through to to get these fucking videos to stay up. And so there was a there was a time where you know it was I I didn't share it with people because I'm like they don't need to worry about this. This is this is my burden, this is what I bring to the table. I take care of the admin and and background stuff, which I still do that. That that is primarily my job outside of you know um shield hero. I I handle a lot of the back end stuff that you know most people don't even notice.
SPEAKER_03But for a while, uh you probably felt like Atlash shoulder in the world of the copyright stuff, keeping Fat Dog going.
SPEAKER_02In fact, there um there there was this uh so when Richie actually kind of got a full scope of like, oh, oh wow, okay, no, this is the kind of shit you've been dealing with.
SPEAKER_00Um and I I still have I still have this document saved actually because it it really I turned around I turned around and uh like people that I had been uh talking with, like uh there were uh fans and patrons that have been talking with me about things that they didn't like or other or whatever. I turned around and told them to shut the fuck up. Um and I said, You don't know the degree to which Tony's been fighting copyright stuff. And keep in mind, these are these are not simply just fans and stuff, these are also people that help support the channel. They they help support the channel, but they talk to me on a regular basis, and I was like, look, with stuff concerning this, you need to shut up. Like you don't know the severity of things. And I had to straight up tell them, I was like, look, it the copyright is this bad. And they're like, oh god. And we're like, yeah. Like it's it's bad, bad. I didn't even know this stuff. And I'm a man. You know everything about the channel, I go, apparently not. Uh yeah, yeah. I mean, the thing that hurt us the most with the algorithm is um funny enough. When the channel went down, uh 2019, we found out that December is the time that Japan likes to mass claim a lot of stuff because they know that during the holidays, all the personnel at YouTube, all the people are away for the holidays. And the bots are elected stuff around. And so they will start mass uh striking channels, yeah.
SPEAKER_02Yep. And so our channel went down, and to kind of put this in perspective for you, we were averaging, we were averaging before the channel went down on a new episode 400,000 in a week. Yeah. 400,000 views in a week. That was our average.
SPEAKER_00We were lord doesn't even have that.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. We so I am confident, I can say with a like a genuine degree of confidence that if our channel had never gone down and we had carried that momentum, we would be up there with um like in terms of uh altered anime and potentially even knocking on something witty's door on in terms of subscriber count.
SPEAKER_00Uh yeah, yes, and also if we had kept going to where we are right now with grabbing some of the outside talent that we did from like the communities that we're grabbing them from, we would easily I think we would I think we would definitely be up to uh something witty stuff. Like we would have caught something witty.
SPEAKER_03I mean, realistically, in my opinion, just as like a fan, I do think your guys' quality is right there with something witty. You guys do have a different take on your guys' abridges, which is what makes you different, but quality-wise, what I see is right there with SAO abridged.
SPEAKER_00Like also uh in uh in a background kind of behind the scenes thing, I feel like also we are more open with the community uh at large. Not just about like behind the scenes stuff, but we're like we're we're free to like we are more open about working with other like uh reaching out to other groups to work on stuff and and bring other people in. Uh we've had people that we've had other Tiba uh people that we've worked with on our projects that came in and they were like, Oh yeah, I saw your your fat dog submission, your uh your log horizon submission. It was really funny. I liked it. I I wanted to work with you guys. We're like, oh, that's awesome. Why didn't you tell us? Uh we've also had people that we reached out to because uh you know, we we were shooting stuff out into the dark. And uh I will I will admit to a little bit of cloud chasing because they do come with a an established and uh very like consistent audience, but like we reached out to people and then we heard back from them, and like in my mind they're bigger than we are, and they're like, Oh my god, you're the logarizing guys, and we're like, How the hell do you know us?
SPEAKER_04Yeah, right.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Um but like yeah, uh so the algorithm uh we like to say that we got shadow banned by the algorithm, and we're just starting to climb our way back into the positive side of that.
SPEAKER_02And and even then it's still it's it we have to clock it for every every inch.
SPEAKER_03I mean, it is well I mean I know I said it, I said it in the last part, but I recommend all my DD fans go check out Log Horizon A Bridge. You will love Krusty's character. Uh Kono Sula One Shot six is a lot of fun if you know a lot of D.
SPEAKER_00There's a there's a funny story. There's a funny story about that with Krusty. Um like I'm not gonna I'm not gonna get into uh the former voice of Krusty, but um like for the first five episodes, I mean Krusty didn't show up for like the first two or three, but like for episode four and five, Krusty shows up and it's a different voice actor. And you know, um I'm not gonna name them. I don't want uh I I don't need that to be the focus. The the important thing is is like it was around that time that they the we didn't find this out until much later. They like we reached out, we were like, all right, we're ready with episode six, and they're like, Yeah, I don't wanna I don't wanna voice uh like I'm I'm moving on, I want to focus on my professional career.
SPEAKER_01Yep.
SPEAKER_00And that that and we were like, no, totally understand. Absolutely. And so we recast Krusty, not thinking anything of it, and then we found out that they didn't have a very high opinion of us or whatever, and they felt like we were beneath them or whatever, and that's exactly the episode where Krusty became pop. Like that was the that was the episode where that was the episode with like the the Star Wars stuff and like with with crit happens and all that stuff. Like that was the episode where Krusty came into his own. That's the episode that ended with Natural 20, which was at the time the most quoted thing that we have. We we felt like we were on cloud nine because like literally like we had we had like a big quote thing going on. Everybody was quoting natural 20, and some people still do that to this day. It's so good. Yep. But um, but yeah, it was like I the irony, the irony of like right when it turned, like when it popped off being the episode that he was like, No, I'm not gonna do this.
SPEAKER_02Uh fun fact, happens was actually my World of Warcraft guild, so that's why we oh that is fun.
SPEAKER_03I'm not gonna lie. Yeah, yeah. Uh the tavern, the coffee shop, came from my first D my first actual DD campaign. Me and my crew made a whole coffee shop with the idea of spriggin in the back room. And if you know what spriggin is, you know. Um, and my friend, he had a giant praying mantis that made coffee. Hence the coffee shop. It's a double innuendo. But I remember way back when I asked permission to use the coffee shop how I saw fit down the road. So here we are. We got the full coffee shop uh fully made out now.
SPEAKER_00Forget I forget the creator's name, but uh he's uh he's a TikTok creator that does um um DD TikToks where he's like a tavern keeper or a tavern owner, and he makes like different foods and stuff or drinks and things like that. Um yeah, it's pretty cool. And he sometimes he he sometimes he'll do like a themed thing, like sometimes it could be fallout themed.
SPEAKER_03I mean, Richie, if you don't mind, I had a special cocktail made for you. Oh no. Okay, so hear me out.
SPEAKER_00I'm almost afraid.
SPEAKER_03Okay. It's blue sparkling water that comes from the freshest of blue slimes. All you gotta do is squeeze them over the glass. Here you go.
SPEAKER_00Okay.
SPEAKER_03Now, Tony, don't don't think I didn't forget about you, alright? For you, I have a six-hour long smoked fox right here. It is a delicacy in some lands.
SPEAKER_01You said a fox, right? Absolutely.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, we're in Arizona only. The finest of fine. Oh yeah, we're definitely in Arizona. Uh-huh.
SPEAKER_02This uh this fox didn't talk at any point, did they?
SPEAKER_03Uh I will plead the fifth. We're still on America.
SPEAKER_00They give they they gave the news.
SPEAKER_02Now Yeah, last the last thing I need are my kids screaming at me for eating a demi-human.
unknownThat's great.
SPEAKER_03So I am very curious about some of your projects. And I have some questions that I'm hoping you two can fill me in on.
SPEAKER_00Sure.
SPEAKER_03One of the first ones is concerning Log Horizon Abridge.
SPEAKER_00Okay.
SPEAKER_03What are the entities considered that have come out of this simulation as far as AI, UI, or CI?
SPEAKER_00So artificial intelligence, uploaded intelligence, or computerized intelligence uh okay, so for a lot of for a lot of the stuff, I would say there uh for about half of the quote unquote adventurers, I would say uploaded intelligence. I would say that now uh Nautsugu would be considered UI. Uh because he he is like an uploaded consciousness from the time that his memories and everything were saved. And uh Akotsky's kind of a special case because she is AI that wants it be like okay, so the we say self-awareness, it's the difference between an AI becoming uh gen intelligent to actual to like super intelligent. So they're like there's there's gen AI, there's there's your general artificial intelligence, and then there's like your self-aware, like it's the difference from going from like say the intelligence of a child to a teenager. Become more aware of yourself and you become a bit more introspective and stuff like that. Uh or or if you need something a little more modern, it's like year one neurosama versus year three neurosama. There's a there's a vast difference between the two. But I would say uh I would say that because they also keep in mind that the majority of every one of these quote unquote AI is based on humanity or thinking that they're human. So there's not so much of that cold machine logic going on there. They truly believe they are genuinely human. So that's another that's another point I'm gonna get across at some point in slime season two. Um is the difference between the the different way that certain AI are raised and how they can behave based on that. I I'm definitely gonna be throwing shots at OpenAI and uh towards the latter half of season two.
SPEAKER_02Uh and then you've got Rudy.
SPEAKER_00Wait, wait, are you telling me Rudy comes back? But then you've got Rudy in Log Horizon who becomes like who just decides I'm gonna be a day and like oh man It's a whole different thing. Uh but for as for the ones who made it outside this emulation, I would say that you're you're s uh your uh your true super artificial intelligence uh beings, the ones who are actually like properly uh intelligent and run all of this despite their personality foibles, that would be uh though those would essentially be Akotsky, Shiro, Rimaru, Milim, Vildora, and very accidentally crusty. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Uh oops, did I just accidentally sentience?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, right. We're just accidentally sentiented. But okay, so we got that. Uh, but yeah, there there is a distinction. That's a really good question because I do wanna I do want to delve a little bit deeper into that, and I need to have a conversation with some of you guys because uh yeah, we've talked about this, I don't know how much publicly, but we're gonna be doing a um a patch update, essentially, for the 10th anniversary of Log Horizon Abridged. And what we're gonna do, uh I like to call it the patch or the batch update. So what we're doing is we're going through and we're gonna do uh we're gonna do the first four episodes as like one batch, and we're gonna uh we're gonna do a little continuity patches. So like uh we're gonna keep the voices consistent through the whole thing. So the people who voiced character because we went through uh it wasn't just Krusty, but also like Sarah had different voices between episode two and three, and then once we got back to Sarah, it stayed one voice, I think, from episode five all the way through. So we wanted to keep that consistent. There's a couple other voices that are different in early on versus where they ended up, and so we want to have that voice consistency in there, and it's also a chance for us to go through and fix episode four because we've really wanted to do that for a while. Um, I mean, I can understand the concept of fix and not to go too much. Not to go too deep into the weeds on this one, but episode four, we had a transition in editors at that point in time. So the person that had been doing our editing for the first three episodes left, and Explodacy had to kind of pick up after that and like kind of like pick up the pieces and it was this whole thing, dude. And it became not only that, but it was like I had to edit all of the like audio and audacity because that's what I had at the time, and it was it's absolutely terrible. And yeah, we want to go through and fix things, we want to do some sound balancing, some scene balancing. We're gonna do some re-recording with some people, but uh for the most part, we we might do some minor rewrites of that, and then we'll do the first four episodes as one batch, and then we'll do five through eight as a second batch, and then we'll do um I don't think we're gonna touch uh Goblin Slayer. I think it's fine as it is, but yeah, but we'll do nine through eleven, and then twelve will be its own separate thing. So kind of like um so you could say like uh Log Horizon Abridged one version 1.1, 1.2, 1.3, and 1.4 essentially for like the re-release. And that can be that's a thing we're we're looking at for the um the 10th anniversary thing.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, and to be clear, that's more of a passion project than anything else.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, but it is something that we want to do, and it's not gonna take us a huge amount of time to do it because we're not changing too much about a lot of the episodes, we're just gonna kind of make minor adjustments so that one, we're only using an intro for one intro per version. So we're not putting an intro in the in every episode, we're just going, going, going, and having them all kind of almost consistently one episode. And if we have to make like um if we have to make a transitory uh scene to kind of bridge two episodes together so it doesn't feel jarring to go from like one episode to the next. That's so it feels naturally cohesive. But other other than that, I don't think there's a lot that we would necessarily have to do. I think the way most episodes end, honestly, like we could just go from this episode to the next episode, and just like if we wanted to, we just put like a like a black title card up that says episode whatever on it, and then just start the episode. If we wanted to. Yeah. No, I can imagine that's gonna be exciting when that starts to drop. So I I also know that there's some writing choices that I want to fix and correct for episode 12. That like if I if I could go back and redo some of this dialogue, especially between Rimaru and and uh and Shiro, if I could go in and redo that dialogue, I would. Absolutely.
SPEAKER_03Oh, I'm gonna have to wait to see that because I do love that dialogue at the very end, especially as it starts to go into the full idea of the extended universe.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I I especially I especially love well not only that, but we can also start adding like uh we can add visuals, extra visuals to it, so we can show like uh we can show like um slime images when that's going on. We can also show like maybe uh dude the problem is a lot of our stuff happens after Overlord. We don't do a lot of stuff before Overlord. So it's pretty much just slime, but like we can make jokes, like there's always one joke where I said like we uh I said if we ever did a re-zero, my stipulation is this uh everyone everyone is allowed to talk except for the main character. He never gets to say anything. Because I hate because I dislike him so much. Uh but yeah.
SPEAKER_03Uh now correct me if I'm wrong, with the shared universe you guys are created, and it incorporates the slime abridged, the log horizon abridged, the Kono Sebo abridged, spider abridged, and Overlord Abridged.
SPEAKER_00Yes. Uh trying to think if there's anything else that's connected, but I think that is everything. Yeah. No. That's all so far.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. My first question on the idea of the shared universe is have you found it difficult at all or tedious to try and incorporate these different stories into your universe?
SPEAKER_00Actually, no. Uh if anything, it actually makes things a lot more fresh. Uh the weirdest thing is uh some stuff with slime because of how we ended uh Log Horizon Abridge 12. Uh so with uh especially if you saw the end of episode 9 of Slime, you realize that our quote unquote real world shares uh two distinct anime together. So Dr. Stone and Stein's Gate are quote unquote part of the real world.
SPEAKER_03Will we ever see an extension on that, you think? Slime 10. Slime oh, okay. Yeah so we'll I have questions about that here in a second.
SPEAKER_00I do have questions about Slime 10, so Tony has seen Tony has seen it, he knows.
SPEAKER_03Now real quick, touching on the Overlord, the end of Log Horizon Abridged, the idea that this is a shared, simulated universe between a whole bunch of different entities. In Overlord Abridged, we know that Shiro is trapped inside the avatar of Ainz Agu.
SPEAKER_01Yep.
SPEAKER_03How long has he been trapped there, like in actual time? Can you tell us that for one?
SPEAKER_00The same period of time that uh that Overlord season one took place.
SPEAKER_03Okay. So with that being understood, will we ever see like a little extra or will it be on the Patreon where you have all of the other simulation owners in a subspace, we could say even a subspace coffee shop, and they're talking about the absence of Shira.
SPEAKER_00Oh god, if I thought we could get if I thought we could get it animated and done, I would literally like have a black, like all right, so just kind of like thinking of like like some kind of background void-esque area with like a a glowing screen in front of them, like a like a holographic glowing screen in front of them, and they're all sitting on they're all sitting on a couch. Millem is just voraciously, you know, the Michael Jackson popcorn thing. That like that's Millem. Meanwhile, meanwhile, Rimuru is just trying so hard to hold in laughter, almost doubled over because all this, all this shit that Cheryl was talking about beforehand, Akotsky is just face palming, and uh like Vildora is on the floor, pounding the floor with you you see why I have this idea, guys.
SPEAKER_03You see why I watched Overlord and I'm like, wait, what's going on in the background?
SPEAKER_00And and and I can just see Krusty being like, you know, suddenly my suddenly that panic attack I had doesn't feel doesn't seem so bad. You know, suddenly that existential crisis I went through perfectly normal.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, well, because like we've we have actually had this exact conversation.
SPEAKER_00We have we know so much. I was like, I was because we were like, oh yeah, he totally gets trapped in Heinz's body. Oh yeah, Akotsky's gonna love that. Are you kidding? Akotsky is face palming so hard, it's like I can't believe I married. Like, that is literally like it's so good. We know how our like we've been we I have written for these characters for so long, I like I know how they're going to react because like I we've we've just we've lived it. Like, dear god, a decade of my life has gone to a lot of these characters, and it's been so much fun. But yeah, we absolutely know how they how they would be reacting if we could do it. And if I could, if we could do it, and we could like if we could just like have you seen some of those like comic dub things where they like put like yeah, I would do a video of just that, like we switch to a different image, and it's just like maybe a text box, or or maybe we just you don't even need the text box, we just switch, we zoom in to one specific person, like they have like their own little panel, so it's like what is going on in Akotsky's head? I believe I married this, you know, or um or like Veldora just in the background. Like it's like or just like or just like over to Krusty, who's just looking at it like, hmm. Yeah, you know what? I don't feel bad about myself anymore. If we could just zoom in, I would absolutely put that on the channel. That shit would be hilarious. Yeah, oh my god, if I could announce season two of Overlord that way, I absolutely would. If you guys had a way, I think it'd be great. Yeah, we've already got ideas for what we're doing with chapter two of Overlord and uh like the the few ideas that we pitched, because we haven't sat down and started like really writing it yet, but soon we will do very soon.
SPEAKER_03Um, I know with Overlord.
SPEAKER_00But they've made us giggle.
SPEAKER_03You guys took a new approach on it. You guys tackled the entirety of the first season.
SPEAKER_00Is that the same with Konosuba, yeah.
SPEAKER_03Is that something we're gonna see more consistently moving forward, you think, or are you guys gonna still stick to somewhat of an episodic release on some other projects?
SPEAKER_00Shield and solo leveling are definitely gonna be episodic. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And same with slime. Slime's gonna be sort of episodic.
SPEAKER_02Shield is the episode five is almost done. We're we're kind of in the final stages. Uh uh, same with slime 10. Due to some life shit happening, it's been delayed several times.
SPEAKER_03Oh, don't tell us that.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_03Real quick, you know, some what can you tell us about season five?
SPEAKER_00Or episode five.
SPEAKER_03Sorry, episode five. Please, season five.
SPEAKER_00Well, um, so tell us. Does it suck?
SPEAKER_03Oh, please, please don't tell me that.
SPEAKER_02The the shield will be making an appearance, and uh, by that I mean her human body will be making another appearance, which hasn't happened since episode two.
SPEAKER_00And a brief in a brief chibi cameo. Oh no. Overlord. Oh, that's true, yeah. Oh, really? We she had a brief yeah, uh, if you alright, so there's a shot in uh Overlord of Breedai Quartet. With the Isekai Quartet, where uh you cut to Nalfamy and sitting right next to him is a chibi form of the shield in her human form, just swinging her legs.
SPEAKER_03I'm gonna need to rewatch that.
SPEAKER_00So goddamn adorable. I missed that one. So adorable and it fit. Yeah, the thing is, like, we had comments. Who's that sitting next to Nalfamy? That's our human version of the shield. What? Like, yeah, they were like, they were like, I don't remember anybody because it looked because the art was done so well, it looks exactly like she belongs to like she was always there, and no, she wasn't. There, that was an empty spot, and we just put her there.
SPEAKER_03And real quick, I gotta ask while we're on the topic of the sheet.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, right.
SPEAKER_03How did you guys come up with that character? And was it difficult to add in an entirely new character canonically into this show of yours?
SPEAKER_02So Fat Dog has a history of giving inanimate objects voices or creating characters that aren't originally in it. Um a menu, a menu, uh giving the uh the uh King of Red Lions a voice, bringing in uh uh a second personality for Link in our Wind Waker bridge.
SPEAKER_00Technically, the King of Red Lions had a voice in the game. Oh, fair enough.
SPEAKER_03He could speak two languages, ancient Herulian and right, my bad.
SPEAKER_02Sorry. The the set the second uh the second Link in uh the second personality of Link for us, uh just so on and so forth. And so that's old hat. That that is something that we've we have done since Fat Dog's inception. Um having said that, the creation of a whole new character that I wish could say was planned from episode one. But like I'm looking at this scene in episode two, the the one where she actually does show up, and I'm looking at it and I'm just like something's missing. This is it's like we need to have the scene so that we can have this um kind of heart to heart and and have the characters grow with each other. But it there's just it's just now for me, and that's not working. So I pitched the idea to the to the rest of the writers. I'm like, hey guys, hear me out. We give the shield a body, and they're like, what the fuck are you going on about here?
SPEAKER_03Yeah, that's it. Did you get into the back cupboard over there, Tony?
SPEAKER_00That's another reason. That's another reason, by the way, why we are uh so uh why we push for our Patreon so much is because like if we're not only do we can we afford to like you know feed our editors and like keep the lights on and stuff like that, but like you know, it helps us to pay the cast, and eventually one of the things that we want to be able to do is to hire an animator to come in because there's lots of times where we've written something we really like, and then we have to go back and change it because it does not fit the animation that we have, and we can't just get something animated because we don't have the money for that. Uh I can't pull that out of my pocket, I can't ask anyone else on the staff to do that too, you know. Um, so we've had times where, like case in point with the uh with solo leveling bridge, like I said, we had to hire an artist and an animator so that we had the system screen that we could put anywhere we wanted for any jokes or dialogue that we wanted to have that don't exist in the anime, and that we had to do a fundraiser, uh a fundraising stream for that on two uh two days in two specific weeks. And thankfully we got it funded and everything, and that was great. But like, yeah, that's these these unfortunately are the constraints we have to live in when we're working with uh a property that is different from ours. Also, the more that we can add something like that to an episode, the harder it is for them to claim copyright on something.
SPEAKER_02Exactly.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so yeah, um because it becomes more of our own thing, yeah.
SPEAKER_02So uh the fun fun fact about that actually is that the actress for the shield is actually our lead artist, so she got to design her own character. Oh, that's her body. And so uh I I came to I came to her, I'm like, I'm like, okay, here's the things, here are a couple of the key defining traits that I want. And I'm like, she got she gotta be tan, she gotta have that darker tan. Um gotta have excuse me. Gotta have white hair, white hair and tan. From there, we just kind of uh we and she ended up looking a little bit like oh god, what was the bitch's name? Paimon, I think.
SPEAKER_03And oh, from Genshin Impact?
SPEAKER_02Okay, so literally, no one in the SHIELD writing team, nor the artist, has played Genshin Impact.
SPEAKER_03We knew nothing about oh I have I have a mixed idea of Genshin Impact because I think the world itself is cool. The idea of mixing spell elements is cool. My problem with Genshin Impact is it's a game that just gets bigger, and my computer memory does not store 500 gigs for one game.
SPEAKER_00My favorite my favorite uh mod for Resident Evil 2 is turning Mr. X into buff Pi Mon and having that chase me around. It's so freaking funny. Um that's an image I won't get out of my gets Oh no, it's great. You need not only that, but instead of the Mr. X music, it when it gets close, you hear Katamari Damasy start playing. So funny. Oh a smile on my face every time. It's so good. Back back to Fat Dog.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, so to start sort of um to kind of wrap up the question here. So uh in episode five, you'll be able to see um rather the the shield will be making another per uh in-person appearance. And um uh Richie, uh, because by by the time by the time this comes out, I I believe episode five of Shield Hero should be ready to go. Uh Richie will be making his appearance as one of the lead antagonists.
SPEAKER_03That will be something to look forward to.
SPEAKER_02And and and and and in classic Tony fashion uh and in classic Tony fashion, he's going to die horribly.
SPEAKER_03Oh no.
SPEAKER_00And no no, no, no. Also, also in classic me fashion, it's another fucking religion. Yep. Damn it! I'm in charge of another religion and another abridge. Damn it. I mean, to be fair, there's menu worship.
SPEAKER_03I was gonna say menu cultures. If I remember correctly, Richie, in one of your recent streams, I know this dates the episode, didn't a certain someone start the cult of Richie Richards?
SPEAKER_00Oh for Christ's sake. Oh god, no, no, somebody didn't.
SPEAKER_03Who do you think that certain someone was?
SPEAKER_00How dare you! How dare you!
SPEAKER_03You gotta understand there was somebody that kept that chat active, and if a certain chat member keeps their promise, there will be a Richie avatar for you in your future streams.
SPEAKER_00Oh my god.
SPEAKER_03So I really, really hope that that that commenter listens to this episode and remembers what they promised me because oh, Richie, you gotta use it at some point.
SPEAKER_00Oh goodness. Alright, uh, you guys need to become a lot more active in chat on a weekly basis.
SPEAKER_02Listen, guys, you know, if like alright, you know, at this point, it's like, look, guys, put up or shut up, alright? If you're gonna if you're gonna fucking do this religion, do it all the way. Get us tax exempt status.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah. Ooh. That that'd be great. Yeah. Also, also, we uh like any good religion, we need tithes. Visit our Patreon.
SPEAKER_03Uh now I know we're going into a slightly extended part two, but I do have a question about solo. Leveling abridged.
SPEAKER_00Okay. Okay.
SPEAKER_03I understand following episode one and two. Sun Jin uh Sun Jinwoo is supposed to be a Batman character, right?
SPEAKER_00I love I love that Batman leveling has been the moniker that has been adopted by the community. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03What I want to know is what are your guys' plans if you can tell us? Because every Batman needs a Joker, and every Batman needs a Robin. So how are you gonna address one, the Joker side? Because ultimately in the anime, Jun Woo doesn't really leave anyone alive.
SPEAKER_02So funny story, we actually got Mark Hamp now.
SPEAKER_00But I am curious. The funny story is literally that's so funny because my Jalal. But uh yeah, I have a I have a Mark Hamill Joker voice that I can do from time to time. Um but uh as for Joker, well, we haven't really gotten there yet, and we're not trying to lean super heavy into Batman. It's it's more referential, but uh we'll have to figure it out. It's it's more like he's he's trying to find he's trying to find like the rest of the crew, uh his Justice League counterparts and his Bat family. We're gonna let that kind of play out first. Um I mean we've already had Shut Up Aquaman, and you saw how that worked. But uh but yeah, it's so it's it's so funny. Like the the aspects of like, okay, what do we want to take from Batman? What do we not want to take from Batman? Because we won't we don't want to lean too far into Batman that it doesn't feel like solo leveling anymore, but also see that's the tightrope you kind of have to walk. It's like how much do you change and how much do you stay faithful to? And like now, and no matter what we do, we're not gonna please everybody. There's some people that want us to not be faithful to the story and just tell something silly and wacky, and there's that's an abridgement. There's a difference between an abridged and an abridgement. So a meant is more in line with like uh none piece and uh code meant, those are abridgement where the actual story of the anime doesn't matter. You're just gonna make up some random silly stuff and go on with whatever you're doing. And then, but that also gives us great stuff like I'm at soup.
SPEAKER_03I mean, ultimately Oh, sorry.
SPEAKER_00And then there's abridged, which is more kind of aligned to what we do, uh, which you could think of like as the team four-star model, where you know you're telling your own story, but you're also trying to stay faithful to the original. Like within reason. You don't want to yeah, within reason. And so that's that's always the interesting, and uh that's always the the really it's it's like a tightrope act, you know. You gotta you gotta maintain your balance, and uh no matter what, somebody's gonna boo you for it.
SPEAKER_03But I I ultimately agree when I talk to uh people and different friends, different groups, and I've recommended different abridges. One of my big points on what to me makes a good abridge is can I show this to somebody who hasn't seen the story and they can still get the base story told in a different way. That's what I think makes a good abridged.
SPEAKER_00Also, I think you should love the project you're working on, uh, just from the standpoint of I'm gonna be staring at this project for a long time. But if you don't have love for something, I don't think like uh if you don't have love some for something, I don't think that uh your passion will come across with what you're doing.
SPEAKER_03In the work without naming any projects or anything, um there is a long-going project where you could tell the creators definitely got burnt out, and the releases they came out showed that. The jokes felt lazier and it was just something to get them through. But they ran it for a long time.
SPEAKER_00And that felt like um with okay, so going back to your early your solo leveling stuff, so the core of things is we figured out who Ginu was. Now, is he are we going to have Batman stuff that we're comparing Ginu and Batman to each other? Yeah, of course we will. Uh, but at the at his heart, Ginu is just straight out a nerd. He's like us. Like the beautiful thing is like some conversation that we have with each other that will literally be Ginu. Ginu is the type of person that would hold someone in a coffee shop for five hours to explain JoJo's bizarre adventure. You know? He he's the person that will quote a bridge series to himself because it's hilarious. And he will quote everything they say. Uh so he's already referenced us. We can do self-referential humor. Uh he's gonna quote like he's we've already referenced Team Four Star in episode two with the Super Saiyan diet, push-up, sit-ups, and plenty of juice. Um they have so yeah, he's got he's got a lot of that kind of nerdy stuff. Like we say he comes from our world, so he knows about a bridge series. And he's very nerdy, so he's gonna talk nerdy.
SPEAKER_02And it's canonically, canonically, um you could all you could say uh Sun and uh or Sung and Now for me are from the same same world. Yeah, they they both know about Fat Dog Studios, and they're yeah, they know about the Abridge series.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah. They they know they exist.
SPEAKER_03Oh, you know what, guys? I'm not gonna lie. I'm enjoying the way this conversation's going. I'm gonna give the viewers the rest of the questions. I have four more questions for you guys, if you guys don't mind staying late.
unknownSure.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah. We've got a few more things we can talk about too.
SPEAKER_03So and a special surprise. This next question, Tony. How does it feel having Richie as god of most of the universes?
SPEAKER_02Um, I mean, it's something that we've actively uh been trying to stop from happening for years now. Uh Menu wasn't even meant to be a recurring character. It in fact, he didn't even have a name in the original script. It was just menu voice.
SPEAKER_00Menu voice.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, it wasn't until the the fans named him Menu Sama in the comments that we just decided to kind of run with it, much to our chagrin.
SPEAKER_03Oh it's it's actually kind of it's actually So you're saying it's the fans' fault that Rishi has the power he does now.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03Did that lead into menu becoming Rimru in the story?
SPEAKER_00Yes and no. Uh yes and no. Yeah, uh, so okay, so to explain that, I need to quickly explain a little bit of uh the menu's lore from episode two. So it was around episode two that we were like, well, I guess we're keeping this character. And so we were like, okay, menu sama, and they're gonna refer to him as menu sama, you know, kind of a subtle nod of uh towards the audience. Yeah, we see you guys, that's awesome. Uh, and that was when that was when I pitched to you, Tony. I was like, what if this whole thing's a simulation? And that menus like so we had this idea that the whole thing was a simulation since episode two. Yep. So that was that was the concept, and we were like, yeah, but we don't wanna like I don't want that to be like ever present in everybody's mind because I want it to feel like you know the world is still lived in and things are moving about. So we didn't, I was like, yeah, we're not gonna really reference or put any subtle hints in that something's wrong or that they're in a simulation until we get towards the end. So it's not until like a little bit into 10, uh, a little more in 11, and then all over 12 that you start to see, hey, shit's falling apart, shit's going wrong, what's going on? And um, yeah, I mean the you can blame you can blame the uh the you can blame the speech on Nalphamy. You have to blame the on breaking the breaking of the world on Millum. Uh but yeah, and and but around the time that I had thought of Slime, like the the joke basically was like around that time season one of Slime had come out, and I was a big fan of it, and still am. And the joke I had was that he was basically blue Kirby, but I started coming up with more jokes and realizing, oh god, I'm gonna make a series out of this because I'm already trying to write a script. And I came to Tony and I was like, and I came to Tony and was like, Alright, I have this idea, let me know if I'm going too crazy. And I was like, what if this slime series is a is a prequel to our Log Horizon of Bridge series, and at the end, when we get to the end of Log Horizon of Bridge, we reveal that Menu is actually Rimuru and has been this entire time. And so like what slime becomes is like the origin of how you go from like uh how how you go from this this thing that we're doing to where you end up 300 years later in Log Horizon. So it's kind of like it's it it kind of isn't isn't the origin story of uh of Rimaru as this character that gets named Minu later on, but yeah, you can also I love that Min Yu is super super sassy in Log Horizon because it feels like Rimaru is doing his best Akotsky impersonation. Oh no, in a way, and that brings up another thing because I voiced Great Sage in almost the same style of voice in slime, so people are like, oh, menus in slime, oh my god, menu is great sage, and we were like, no, and we did that on purpose to like throw people off. Um so if menu isn't great sage, who's great sage? And we revealed that in episode nine, and you're gonna be you're gonna get that in a big way in episode 10. So I'm looking forward to that.
SPEAKER_02We also went to Great Lanes to make sure that people weren't trying to uh insert menu into solo leveling.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, no, no, we went through I I I literally put that rant specifically in there. Uh menu thingy. I had him call it menu once and uh and immediately did that on purpose to shoot that down. I wanted to make sure that was not happening.
SPEAKER_02There's a lot of instances where we we have to kind of for lack of a better term, kind of butt heads with with the fans, because they're like, oh, we want X, Y, or Z. Like, fuck you.
SPEAKER_00It's like it's like, yeah, they're like like the like we have to I have to go out of my way on certain ones to go, this is this is in the simulation, and this is not in the simulation. So uh as long as as much as I like to call it the Log Horizon Abridged universe, that's not what I call it outside of like the public. I call it the simulation verse, and then everything is outside the simulation. So everything, so everything that's in the simulation verse is all connected to uh like Log Horizon Abridge, because that's like our origin point or whatever. But I call it the Log Horizon Abridged the Log Horizon verse to the public because that's what they're familiar with, but to me it is just the simulation verse, or or essentially just the simulation. Uh it doesn't have to be like the big long uh thing. It can just be like yeah, a short name. I guess everything is in that. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_03Now, Richie, so similar question for you. How does it feel being the god of your universes?
SPEAKER_00Um well, actually, uh it wasn't it was never on purpose. Um funny thing is, uh you'd have a better job of asking uh Pandora how how they feel about being the god of the universe because they voice Rimaru, I don't. So uh and maybe you can arrange that sometime for me. Pretty soon I will not be voicing Great Sage anymore. I can't say why, but I won't be.
SPEAKER_03And so does it have uh certain reason to do with evolution?
SPEAKER_00No, no, uh yes and no, just as a nerd, just as a nerd. Well, it takes it it has not evolution in the sense of like uh what you're thinking of within the simulation, but evolution in the sense of what happens in season two of slime. Yes, okay, so yeah, we'll leave it at that. But yeah, the um I I would say it it the the better question to ask me is how does it feel to have Tony constantly killing me and all of his bridge series? Oh no, the fans love that. I mean, okay, so it it at first it wasn't multiple characters, multiple characters dying in One Piece, multiple characters dying in shield.
SPEAKER_03To be fair, he did ask me to put some cyanide in your uh drink. I refused it as a good tavern host.
SPEAKER_00I appreciate that. Yeah. Um I I don't think you've killed me off in rollerblades, but the I I'm just waiting for the day. It's gonna happen. So we we shall see.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, well, I mean, like I said, and it was it didn't start off as like intentional, it was just kind of like uh, oh hey, that's kind of funny. Uh and we just kind of ran with it.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, now it's just a running joke. We just like yeah, yeah. Now Tony murders Richie in every show he does.
SPEAKER_03I know you guys have a lot of secrets. And you're gonna keep a lot of your secrets, but a couple months ago, you did drop a surprise announcement.
SPEAKER_00Yes. Uh beginning of the year.
SPEAKER_03Yep. Saga the Tanya. Oh, Saga of Tanya, the evil abridged. Is there anything you can tell us about that?
SPEAKER_00We're working on it. Um I I can tell you, I can tell you one thing. I will tell you one thing that we have decided on, and it's it's going to make us giggle. It well, it already has made us giggle so much. So the relationship between Tanya and being X is very one-sidedly antagonistic. Okay.
SPEAKER_02I can tell you, I can tell you one other thing. It will be in video format. You're welcome.
SPEAKER_00It will be in video format. That is good to know. Uh so Tanya is very antagonistic towards being X, and being X is an absolute chocolate delight, cinnamon bun, teddy bear, just just the most wholesome little bean, and and like Tanya just like fucking hates them, and it's so good. It makes it makes interactions between the two of them so much funnier. Yeah. Uh, so we've got we've got some ideas. Uh, we're gonna we've we've also figured out some more character stuff. Like, we're we're slow the the the process with this is we're figuring out how we want the characters to behave before we start writing the story and uh and their interactions with it, but uh yeah, we're gonna have a lot of fun with that. Uh everybody's favorite psychotic child soldier, yeah. Uh, I can also say that Rosedoodle will be voicing them. That we can say because she she voiced Tanya, she had like one line in Overlord uh in the um the Isekai quartet thing, and so she will we are keeping her for that specific.
SPEAKER_03No, I'm excited to see that when that comes out, but I know it's getting late. Before we head out, can you please tell our listeners how they're gonna be able to support you guys, find you guys, and support all of your future projects?
SPEAKER_00Uh yeah. Uh Fat Dog Studios, fat with a Ph, all one word, P H A T uh Dog in Studio spelled the way you would think. And you can find us up on YouTube, and uh of course, uh we have a Patreon link in all of our descriptions, and at the in the description for every video that we have is our socials. So if you check out one of our silly little videos, um you can find all of our info there.
SPEAKER_02Yep. And um, actually, that that pretty much covers it.
SPEAKER_00I was like, wait, what did I forget?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I mean, you know, we we are we are entirely crowdsourced, we we can't monetize 99% of our videos. So if you like what we do and and you want us to and you want us to continue to do it, you know, consider becoming a patron on Patreon as for as low as two dollars a month. And it genuinely every bit helps. Like, like if even just one percent of our subscribers became two dollar patrons, we could fund the channel year round.
SPEAKER_00Like we could fund the we could fund the channel year-round, and uh any extra that we make after that could go towards like uh animation to improve the quality of our episodes.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, or hell, even Gasp original IPs.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, that's another thing we've been working on in the background, but like they've all been on the back burner because our we know they don't pay the bills, they don't pay the bills, yeah. Even though we really want to. Like, I have a whole story of stuff that I uh worked on, and hold on. Really?
SPEAKER_03Ah, the joys of live recording.
SPEAKER_02Yep. Yeah, no, I mean that's you know, we we've got some uh original IP stuff kind of on the back burners, and uh we we've put a lot of work into them, but uh unfortunately it we're we have to stick with what keeps the lights on and and makes us money. It's unfortunate, but that's just how it is like prime example, uh, you know, uh we've got an air gear abridged on the channel called Rollerblades Abridge, and I have so many ideas for that, but you know it averages you know, tops out at maybe 5,000 views. So there's like, you know, that's a passion project, and I cannot justify giving that thing a budget, even though I run the damn channel. It's like nope, I I have people I I have people I have to answer to, and I can't just fund this because I want to.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_03All right. Well, guys, I want to thank you both for coming on and sharing all of these wonderful thoughts and ideas of how the background work goes into making these projects and making sure that they stay up. Um this has been a lot of fun for me. Uh, one last question. How did you guys enjoy the blue slime cocktail and the roast fox?
SPEAKER_00A little more gelatiny- than I thought it would be. Exactly. That's my response. That that means it's fresh, Richie. I don't know. I always wondered what Kirby tasted like.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, just make sure it doesn't try to crawl its way back out.
SPEAKER_03Thank you both for uh joining us with the tavern. You guys are welcome anytime. We here love Fat Dog Studios and can't wait to cover more fat dog-related subjects.
SPEAKER_01So thanks for having us.
SPEAKER_03Just one more time, please go ahead and start signing us off with an idea of the weather and where you're at.
SPEAKER_02Uh, it's flurring, got some snows going on, so I'm still in Arizona, it's hot as hell.
SPEAKER_00Get me out of here.
SPEAKER_02Honestly, yeah, it is hotter than fuck right now.
SPEAKER_03And from a balmy 68-degree Arizona, I'm Danny with our Tavern Talks, and that is another chow.
