Kappa Mikey
Encyclopedia
Kappa Mikey is an American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 animated
Animation
Animation is the rapid display of a sequence of images of 2-D or 3-D artwork or model positions in order to create an illusion of movement. The effect is an optical illusion of motion due to the phenomenon of persistence of vision, and can be created and demonstrated in several ways...

 sitcom created by Larry Schwarz
Larry Schwarz
Larry Schwarz is the founder and CEO of Animation Collective, the New York City-based producer of children's programming for television, the Internet and home video....

, who chose 4Kids Entertainment
4Kids Entertainment
4Kids Entertainment is an American film and television production company in bankruptcy since April 2011. It is known for English-dubbing Japanese anime and specializing in the acquisition, production and licensing of children's entertainment around the United States...

 as the worldwide licensing, marketing and official promotional agent of the series. The show is Nicktoons's first original half-hour series, bought during the same period as other Animation Collective
Animation Collective
Animation Collective is an American animated cartoon studio formed in 2003. The studio is based in New York City and is founded by Larry Schwarz...

 series such as Three Delivery
Three Delivery
Three Delivery is an American animated sitcom and action adventure, inspired by kung-fu movies. It is created by Larry Schwarz, who also created similar series, Kappa Mikey and Speed Racer: The Next Generation. It is a collaboration between Animation Collective in Manhattan, New York and the...

and Speed Racer: The Next Generation
Speed Racer: The Next Generation
Speed Racer: The Next Generation is an American animated television series based on the classic Japanese Speed Racer franchise, in which the internal events take place decades after those in the 1967 Japanese series. It is the fourth television adaptation of the franchise, and is executive produced...

, as well as Flash shows from other studios, such as Edgar & Ellen
Edgar & Ellen
Edgar & Ellen created by Simon and Schuster Children's Publishing, is based on two twelve-year old twins who cause mischief and mayhem in their sickly sweet town, Nod's Limbs. The series currently contains seven books, a new companion guide: The Mischief Manual, and plans for more in the works...

and The Secret Show
The Secret Show
The Secret Show is a British animated show commissioned by BBC Children's in partnership with BBC Worldwide. First debuted in 2006, it currently airs on CBBC, The Den, ABC, BBC One, BBC Kids, MBC3 and TSR 2...

, though the latter was made from BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...

. The series premiered on February 25, 2006, as Nickelodeon
Nickelodeon
Nickelodeon is a US cable TV channel.Nickelodeon may also refer to:-In television:*Spinoffs of the Nickelodeon channel:** Nickelodeon Magazine, a children's magazine.** Nickelodeon Universe, an amusement park....

 aired several reruns and premieres as a promotional movement from August 20, 2006 to January 2007. The series is MTV
MTV
MTV, formerly an initialism of Music Television, is an American network based in New York City that launched on August 1, 1981. The original purpose of the channel was to play music videos guided by on-air hosts known as VJs....

's first global acquisition, and is currently available on iTunes
ITunes
iTunes is a media player computer program, used for playing, downloading, and organizing digital music and video files on desktop computers. It can also manage contents on iPod, iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad....

.

Kappa Mikey was marketed as "the first anime
Anime
is the Japanese abbreviated pronunciation of "animation". The definition sometimes changes depending on the context. In English-speaking countries, the term most commonly refers to Japanese animated cartoons....

 to be produced entirely in the United States", according to press releases from MTV, Nicktoons Network, and various other sources, as the term anime in English is generally reserved for animation originally produced for the Japanese market. It uses Japanese animation and culture as inspiration for its concept, rather than being "true" anime. As a matter of fact, the series is a homage/parody of the Japanese anime genre. On February 16, 2008, during their "Music Week", Nicktoons Network aired their first and only original television movie, an hour-long Kappa Mikey musical entitled "Kappa Karaoke". Officially, the episode's title is "The Karaoke Episode".

The last three episodes aired after the show was stuck on a hiatus. These episodes were aired in September 2008, and declared the season (series) finale after September 20.

Plot

The series centers around Mikey Simon, a 19-year-old actor who just graduated from high school and is from Cleveland, Ohio
Cleveland, Ohio
Cleveland is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and is the county seat of Cuyahoga County, the most populous county in the state. The city is located in northeastern Ohio on the southern shore of Lake Erie, approximately west of the Pennsylvania border...

. He embarks to Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...

 after winning a scratch-off card contest to star in the country's formerly popular live-action series, LilyMu, which is presented as an "anime
Anime
is the Japanese abbreviated pronunciation of "animation". The definition sometimes changes depending on the context. In English-speaking countries, the term most commonly refers to Japanese animated cartoons....

". In doing this, he rockets the show back to the top of the ratings, and becomes Japan's biggest star in anime history.

Segments of LilyMu are seen at the beginning and end of each episode, but the show focuses primarily on the actors' and producers' lives off-set and Mikey's adjustments to the new world he has entered, similar in concept to The Famous Jett Jackson
The Famous Jett Jackson
The Famous Jett Jackson is a joint Canadian and American Disney Channel Original Series coming-of-age television series for children ages 12–16 about a boy named Jett Jackson who plays a teenage secret-agent on a fictional TV show-within-a-show called Silverstone...

. The humor comes from the fact that because Mikey is an American, he actually stands out visually from the other cast members, similar to the mix of styles in Who Framed Roger Rabbit
Who Framed Roger Rabbit
Who Framed Roger Rabbit is a 1988 American fantasy-comedy-noir film directed by Robert Zemeckis and released by Touchstone Pictures. The film combines live action and animation, and is based on Gary K. Wolf's novel Who Censored Roger Rabbit?, which depicts a world in which cartoon characters...

. While most characters on the show are drawn in an anime
Anime
is the Japanese abbreviated pronunciation of "animation". The definition sometimes changes depending on the context. In English-speaking countries, the term most commonly refers to Japanese animated cartoons....

-inspired style (thin outlines, big, detailed eyes, small mouths, and all ten fingers), Mikey (and all other American characters) is drawn in a retro-inspired American cartoon manner (thicker outlines, single black dot pupil eyes, a larger mouth, and only eight fingers). The humor is delivered in a rapid pace, and also consists of light satire, incongruity, slapstick, character quirks, and a fair amount of gross-out humor.

Production

The show's title is a variation on the word kappamaki, a type of sushi
Sushi
is a Japanese food consisting of cooked vinegared rice combined with other ingredients . Neta and forms of sushi presentation vary, but the ingredient which all sushi have in common is shari...

. It is suggested that it was the inspiration for naming the title character Mikey, and uses the prefix kappa. Like Mikey, who is a 'fish out of water' in Japan, the kappa creature itself is a water demon who can live on land. The kappas first appeared on this show in the episode "Mikey, Kappa", on August 5th, 2007, where the origin of the title was explained. Mikey also shares his name with the actor who supplies his voice.

Kappa Mikey is different from other cartoons produced at the turn of the century, in that the property was owned by the studio instead of an agency, the animation was not out-sourced, and the episodes were written by a full-time staff. After producing Internet-based projects and television spots, the series became Animation Collective
Animation Collective
Animation Collective is an American animated cartoon studio formed in 2003. The studio is based in New York City and is founded by Larry Schwarz...

's first television series. The series was produced in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

 starting from the summer of 2005. Production for the two seasons wrapped in September 2007.

Schwarz conceived the series in 2000, when he was running Rumpus toys, a toy design company in New York City, but they folded before any storyboarding could commence. They resurfaced years later as Animation Collective, and produced an early test pilot for a pitch to MTV Networks
MTV Networks
MTV Networks is a division of media conglomerate Viacom that oversees the operations of many television channels and Internet brands, including the original MTV channel in the United States...

, where the character designs and backgrounds resembled more like those found in Adult Swim
Adult Swim
Adult Swim is an adult-oriented Cable network that shares channel space with Cartoon Network from 9:00 pm until 6:00 am ET/PT in the United States, and broadcasts in countries such as Australia and New Zealand...

 series Perfect Hair Forever
Perfect Hair Forever
Perfect Hair Forever is an American comedy animated television series which is largely a parody of anime. It was created and produced by Williams Street, and aired on Adult Swim and The Detour in the US and Canada respectively...

, and the humor was also more adult-oriented. Much of the current cast was voicing their characters even this early in production. MTV declined the deal, and Nickelodeon eventually picked up the project. The series was tweaked heavily in order to be aimed at a younger audience. Voice talents were usually local, and its audio was recorded at Manhattan-based NYAV Post
NYAV Post
NYAV Post is an American recording studio founded by Michael Sinterniklaas in 2000. The studio is located in New York City, with a West Coast branch located in Los Angeles, California...

, which Michael Sinterniklaas
Michael Sinterniklaas
Michael Tremain Sinterniklaas is a Dutch American actor, voice actor, ADR Director and script writer who has worked for Viz Media, Bandai Entertainment, Funimation Entertainment, DuArt Film and Video, 4Kids Entertainment, and Tripwire Productions...

 owns. Larry Schwarz
Larry Schwarz
Larry Schwarz is the founder and CEO of Animation Collective, the New York City-based producer of children's programming for television, the Internet and home video....

, along with the other executive producers, oversaw all phases of production, but only had writing credits on the pilot episode, "Mikey Impossible", and "A Christmas Mikey". All the episodes were directed by Sergei Aniskov. The instrumental score was composed by John Angier, who also wrote the lyrics to "The Recycling Song", "Ori and Yori's Hits", "Living With Mikey", "How Did We Get Here?", and the songs in "The Karaoke Episode".

The series was animated in Adobe Flash
Adobe Flash
Adobe Flash is a multimedia platform used to add animation, video, and interactivity to web pages. Flash is frequently used for advertisements, games and flash animations for broadcast...

, with some moments of CGI
Computer-generated imagery
Computer-generated imagery is the application of the field of computer graphics or, more specifically, 3D computer graphics to special effects in art, video games, films, television programs, commercials, simulators and simulation generally, and printed media...

 rendered in Maya
Maya (software)
Autodesk Maya , commonly shortened to Maya, is 3D computer graphics software that runs on Microsoft Windows, Mac OS and Linux, originally developed by Alias Systems Corporation and currently owned and developed by Autodesk, Inc. It is used to create interactive 3D applications, including video...

. To further emphasize the contrast in animation styles, one group of animators was assigned to the anime characters, and another group was in charge of Mikey and the other American characters. The vehicles on LilyMu and around Tokyo, as well as the weapons, the Gonard balloon, Pirate King's ship, the Karaoke Genie Machine, etc., were created in Maya and exported into Flash using the Toon Filter. The backgrounds were modeled in Maya, and texture, details, and clouds were added in Photoshop. Some of the backgrounds were inspired by actual locations in Tokyo
Tokyo
, ; officially , is one of the 47 prefectures of Japan. Tokyo is the capital of Japan, the center of the Greater Tokyo Area, and the largest metropolitan area of Japan. It is the seat of the Japanese government and the Imperial Palace, and the home of the Japanese Imperial Family...

. The show's anime-style characters perform with large comedic overuses of face faults, such as a face and/or body turning into an exaggerated general appearance, or becoming much smaller. This allowed animators to have more control over how a character looks and acts than on many other Flash shows, and they didn't always have to be on-model. The show uses clichés common to anime, including the sweat drop, lines over the eyes or no eyes at all, big heads, flaming eyes, bodies becoming smaller
Super deformed
Super deformed or SD is a specific style of Japanese caricature where characters are drawn in an exaggerated way, typically small and chubby, with stubby limbs and oversized heads, to make them resemble small children...

. Sometimes Mikey will try to do these things, which was one of the show's running gags, but cannot due to being drawn in an American style.

Characters

Character Voice actor
Mikey Simon Michael Sinterniklaas
Michael Sinterniklaas
Michael Tremain Sinterniklaas is a Dutch American actor, voice actor, ADR Director and script writer who has worked for Viz Media, Bandai Entertainment, Funimation Entertainment, DuArt Film and Video, 4Kids Entertainment, and Tripwire Productions...

Gonard Sean Schemmel
Sean Schemmel
Sean Schemmel is an American voice actor, ADR director, and script writer who has worked for NYAV Post, Bandai Entertainment, Funimation Entertainment, OkraTron 5000, DuArt Film and Video, and 4Kids Entertainment...

Guano Gary Mack
Lily Annice Moriarty
Kether Donahue
Kether Donahue is an American actress and voice actress who was born and raised in New York City. She is best known for the voice of the temperamental divaesque Lily on the Nicktoons Network "anime" series Kappa Mikey, Angela Rains on Yu-Gi-Oh! 5D's, and Zoe and Chomp on Dinosaur King...

Mitsuki
Mitsuki
is the Japanese word for . It is also a Japanese given name natively written in a variety of forms. While a unisex name, it is more commonly used by women.-Possible writings:Mitsuki can be written using different kanji characters and can mean:*三月, "three months"...

Evelyn Lanto
Carrie Keranen
Carrie Keranen is an American actress, voice actress, production manager and voice director known for her work with 4Kids Entertainment, Bang Zoom! Entertainment, DuArt Film and Video and NYAV Post...

Ozu
Ozu
Ozu or Ōzu may refer to:Places*Ōzu, Ehime, a city in Ehime Prefecture*Ōzu, Kumamoto, a town in Kumamoto PrefecturePeople*Yasujirō Ozu , a Japanese filmmaker*Ozu, a character on the TV show Kappa Mikey...

Stephen Moverly
Yes Man Jesse Adams


These characters are modeled on cartoon stereotypes, to varying extents. The show also features secondary characters and extras, mostly in crowd scenes, whose designs are directly inspired by famous anime characters, but who are different enough to avoid copyright infringements. Sometimes this is done to spoof the films and television programs intentionally, such as the character Masaka Masako, whose appearance spoofs Yubaba, or her twin, Zeneba, from the film Spirited Away
Spirited Away
is a 2001 Japanese animated fantasy-adventure film written and directed by Hayao Miyazaki and produced by Studio Ghibli. The film tells the story of Chihiro Ogino, a sullen ten-year-old girl who, while moving to a new neighborhood and after her parents are transformed into pigs by the witch Yubaba,...

, or Takashi Katashi, who shares a similar appearance and name with Kakashi Hatake
Kakashi Hatake
is a fictional character in the Naruto manga and anime series created by Masashi Kishimoto. Kishimoto originally planned to introduce Kakashi in the manga to the series' titular character, Naruto Uzumaki, early on, but pushed back this meeting so that Naruto's teammates could be better developed.In...

 from the manga/anime franchise Naruto
Naruto
is an ongoing Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Masashi Kishimoto. The plot tells the story of Naruto Uzumaki, an adolescent ninja who constantly searches for recognition and aspires to become the Hokage, the ninja in his village who is acknowledged as the leader and the strongest of...

. The person standing next to him could be a character that s supposed to resemble Sakura Haruno
Sakura Haruno
is a fictional character in the Naruto manga and anime series created by Masashi Kishimoto. Sakura has become the series' female lead, although she was not immediately intended for the role...

, also from Naruto, note the clothing. On another episode there is an anime version of Ami and Yumi from the TV series, Hi Hi Puffy AmiYumi
Hi Hi Puffy AmiYumi
is an American-Japanese animated series from Cartoon Network, produced by Renegade Animation. The show was created by Sam Register, who also serves as the series' executive producer....

, which was running on Cartoon Network
Cartoon Network
Cartoon Network is a name of television channels worldwide created by Turner Broadcasting which used to primarily show animated programming. The channel began broadcasting on October 1, 1992 in the United States....

 at the time. Also in the final scene of the episode "Reality Bites", there is a person in the crowd that was designed like a persocom from the anime Chobits
Chobits
is a Japanese manga created by the Japanese manga collective Clamp. It was published by Kodansha in Young Magazine from February 2001 to November 2002 and collected in eight bound volumes....

. Other times, it is done to continue the show's original concept, without any intention behind it.

Episodes

Seasons Episodes First Airdate Last Airdate
Season 1 26 February 25, 2006 April 28, 2007
Season 2 26 June 9, 2007 September 20, 2008

Home media

A Kappa Mikey DVD was released on September 18, 2007 under the Starz Home Entertainment brand, and includes the episodes "Lost in Transportation", "Easy Come, Easy Gonard", and "The Man Who Would Be Mikey", all from the first season, as well as bonus material, including a fictional music video of "I'm Alright" taken from "Battle of the Bands", wallpaper, an interactive game parodying Hollywood Squares
Hollywood Squares
Hollywood Squares is an American panel game show in which two contestants play tic-tac-toe to win cash and prizes. The "board" for the game is a 3 × 3 vertical stack of open-faced cubes, each occupied by a celebrity seated at a desk and facing the contestants...

, and a How-to-Draw-Mikey tutorial.

In 2008, the Animation Collective site advertised a second DVD that was scheduled be released sometime later that year. However, the announcement was removed from the website, leaving the exact release date to be unknown. The DVD was intended to include the first season in its entirety, with DVD extras, and would have been considered more of an "official" volume than the last one. No further announcement has been made as the status of this DVD. As of 2009, this release is shelved.

Season 1 (Episodes 1 - 13) was released on DVD on September 12th, 2007http://www.anchorbayent.com.au/Detail.aspx?ID=STZ1019 , and Season 1 (Episodes 14-26) was released on DVD on March 12th, 2008http://www.anchorbayent.com.au/Detail.aspx?ID=STZ1111 by Anchor Bay Entertainment in Australia.

The soundtrack for "Kappa Karaoke" is available as a downloadable album on iTunes.

See also

Other anime about Kappas unrelated to Mikey:
  • Kappa no Coo to Natsuyasumi
  • Kappa no Kaikata
    Kappa no Kaikata
    is a comedy manga series written and illustrated by Yūgo Ishikawa which was adapted into a 26-episode anime series, broadcast by Animax in 2005.- Story :...


External links

from Nicktoons Network
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