It’s said there’s no power in the world that can stop you from achieving your dreams. This turns out to be the case with the young Netherland based studio, Daichi Studios. Started recently in April by Daan Machielsen and Ricky Raaymakers, the studio creates concepts for entertainment products such as animated series, computer games, comics and other entertainment media.
At Content Tokyo 2016, AnimationXpress got the chance to meet Daichi Studios’ dynamic co-founder Daan Machielsen and marketing consultant Robert Bulters.
“The studio currently comprises of a team of 10 that includes three animators, two illustrators,a writer, creator of content and a marketing person. Being a fairly new company, Raaymakers and Machielsen are the only investors whereas I am working on volunteer basis,” adds Robert Bulters.
Here comes the interesting part. None of the three core members are from this field! Machielsen who’s currently working at a gas station, has studied psychology and has worked in the health industry previously and that’s where his understanding of the human mind helps him churn out and give shape to a story. Whereas on the other hand Raaymakers is a police officer and head at his police division. He has been drawing since childhood and always wanted to do something in this field. Lastly, Bulters is a health and safety manager in a company that produces cardboard boxes.
The question arises how did these three collaborate and get to know each other? Raaymakers and Machielsen have known each other since childhood whereas Bulters knew Raaymakers and thus this trio came into formation.
“Since the past two years we were in talks of starting our own studio, however on 1 April Daichi Studios kicked off officially,” says Machielsen. “Currently we are focusing on creating our own IP content in the animation, gaming or comic space. So far we have three concrete story ideas for our studio for which we are looking for companies with whom we can collaborate with to give shape to our projects.”
The Legend of AntarcticEarth, The Marbles and Space Vein are the three story titles that the studio is going to come out with. All three of them follow the same theme – good vs the evil – however, each has its unique storyline which can be churned out either as an animated series or comic books. Daichi Studios is in the process of acquiring licenses for these three storylines so that the studio can then move on to start producing them.
The Legend of AntarcticEarth follows the story of a boy and his dog who are up against the biggest threat the world has ever seen. There are five main characters and a dog who are regular people having the heroic traits in them who are bound to fight an enemy so powerful that he warped the very fabric of the world itself and created his own: AntarticEarth.
The fun part is the dog is named after Daichi Studios co-founder, Ricky Raaymakers’ dog himself and that’s how even the studio’s name fell into the picture. Daichi basically means Earth/intellect in Japanese.
The Marbles on the other hand follows the trail of an Utopian marbleised world thrown into the bowels of chaos and the world’s ancient protectors, The Marble Knights are revealed as a weak conceited group of warriors. Without the knights the world would fall until a group of four friends stumble upon the armament of the true Marble Knights and are now the only hope to save the world.
Space Vein follows more of a sci-fi narrative inspired by the hit Japanese mecha series ‘Gundam Wing’. The Earth is dying and finally after decades humanity colonises the stars and these colonies become the new life line. The largest political party in the galaxy declared war believing Earth had become a burden and Earth responds with their own project: Earth’s Hope that includes a small unit of Exobursts, giant robots who are piloted by Earth’s finest pilots and a talented mechanic. The plot basically tries to showcase how war affects people.
With these three powerful plotlines and strong determination to rise against the odds, Daichi Studios is on its expedition to collaborate with like minded, passionate personnels as they believe in ‘Visualising Dreams’.
We give our best wishes to Daichi Studios for their future endeavours.
