9 years later...

Hi Raven,

I happened to be in China a couple months ago and saw this outside one of the mall stores (monster madness I think the name is). I don’t really know what exactly the promotion was and couldn’t find any details online, but it’s called encore squared. The style reminds me a bit of twst, especially as these look like twisted versions of Mickey and friends and there’s a bit of a music theme that fits the joseimuke aesthetic. They also had a few zootopia characters (kind of pictured here).

Looking at all the upcoming art and silhouettes for Spalink, I thought there was possibly a connection between the two. Anyway, just wanted to share and see what your thoughts may be on it, have a great rest of your day!

[ More news about Sparklink Stars here and here!

My personal thoughts + warnings about coly inc. and AI usage here. Just be aware that this doesn’t necessarily mean they will use generative AI for the final illustrations. ]

Hihi, and welcome back from your China trip!

"Encore Squared" (or "Encore²") is a collaboration between Disney, the Chinese merch company MarchMonster, and the Japanese artist @ug0nba. It isn't attached to anything other than a collection of music-themed merch featuring gijinkas or humanized versions of Disney characters. They also did a Zootopia collaboration more recently, called Guardian Days.

These are completely unrelated to current and upcoming Disney mobile game projects!

A quick look at the comments on XHS indicates that the Chinese audience doesn't seem to like these designs, with the main issue being that "they don't look/feel like the Disney characters, they just look like the artist's OCs in Disney-themed clothes". Personally, I like the designs a lot and how the clothes take more inspiration from the characters rather than the models actually being the characters.

I know people are gonna view the interactions with R.O.B. to be like the Flash scene in Zootopia.

And while that scene is very reminiscent of it, it's technically also a crack at how slowly the old R.O.B. toy for NES use to move.

Bogo:

Clawhauser:

Flash:

Nibbles:

Gary: