The History Behind That Viral Bartkira Anime Trailer

The Simpsons has endured as a pivotal element of pop culture and animation for 35 years. Despite some fans noting a dip in quality over its long tenure, it still remains relevant in the public consciousness with its uncanny predictions that mirror life, sharp topical humor, and forays into different art styles in its unique couch gags (including Jorge Gutierrez and anime-inspired versions) and its special episodes, including a “Treehouse of Horror” segment paying homage to Death Note.

But The Simpsons‘ artistic adventures have also extended beyond the TV screen, and well beyond its official output. In 2013, 768 artists came together to make one of the boldest fan-made crossovers ever: redrawing 2,000 pages of Katsuhiro Otomo’s Akira manga in Springfield. Each artist contributed five pages to the six-volume fan project, painstakingly recreating every panel of the Akira manga and reimagining Tetsuo, Kaneda, and Colonel Shikishima respectively as Milhouse, Bart, and Principal Skinner. 

As YouTube video essayist Super Eyepatch Wolf notes in his video “The Bizarre Modern Reality of The Simpsons,” the texts share more similarities than one would assume on first blush. For starters, both future cultural touchstones were released in the U.S. a week apart in December 1989, and are still redefining both anime and American animation all these years later. Super Eyepatch Wolf’s Bartkira sentiment resonated with creator Ryan Humphrey and artists James Harvey and Kaitlin Sullivan.

“What made Bartkira special was the involvement of everyone on it and people having a connection with each subject matter. Akira being as big as it is to any Westerner experiencing anime/manga and with The Simpsons being as large as it is, it just felt right to combine the two—two big powerhouses coming together,” Humphrey told io9. “I wanted Bartkira to be like a ‘Treehouse of Horror‘ as those are my favorite Simpsons episodes (particularly ‘The Homega Man,’ as that was the single big inspiration of the whole thing).”

“Humphrey had done a few little mashup projects like Bart/Hellboy, Bart/Battle Royale, but none of them had the same alchemical frisson his Bartkira drawings had,” Harvey told io9. “I suppose it feels mathematically obvious that putting a very popular thing together with another very popular thing will yield something that is very popular, but there’s something about the combination of Kaneda and Bart that surpassed anyone’s expectations.”

He continued: “They’re both groundbreaking titles that got their hooks into us from an early age, and they both depict a world where children are forced to exist in a failed society created by adults.”

While the old-world internet of Tumblr was on the ground floor of the two-year-old project, folks on X/Twitter have only come to rediscover it recently through an out-of-context clip of Ned Flanders getting riddled by bullets. In the interest of being internet historians, we spoke with Sullivan, the creator of the Bartkira animated trailer, and asked her to tell the world how America and Japan’s cultural touchstones came together.

The interview has been edited for brevity.

Isaiah Colbert, io9: Walk me through how you discovered Bartkira was a thing. 

Sullivan: I’d seen bits and pieces on Tumblr. Other artistic collaborations were going on [and] I’d already done mine for “Moon Animate Make-Up!” that was influenced by something Bill Plympton had done, where he recruited people to reanimate one of his cartoons shot by shot. I thought, “I really want to get in on something in a comic form.” And I saw they’re doing Bartkira [and] I just lunged and jumped for it. I was really lucky.

I tried to do it as on model as possible. It’s really, really hard. But I am really proud. I was able to figure out a low camera angle for Otto when he was yelling from the front. And I spoke to a comic artist, and they said, “Yeah, there’s a reason we don’t draw them from that angle.” But they were impressed by what I had done.

io9: What is the cross-appeal to you? Were you initially a fan of Akira and The Simpsons simultaneously or was did you experience one before the other?

Sullivan: I definitely knew The Simpsons first. I grew up with that and had to sneak it growing up. It wasn’t as bad as South Park, but it was definitely like, you know, go read a book instead. They were my introduction to many classic films, which I think is true for many people in my generation, like Casablanca, Maltese Falcon, Clockwork Orange, just a whole bunch of things.

I definitely knew about Akira, but my anime interests were more the Toonami lineup of Sailor Moon, Tenchi Muyo, Cardcaptor Sakura, and anything by Clamp. If Akira wasn’t available at the video shop, I remember all you had was Ninja Scroll, three separate episodes of La Blue Girl, and maybe Devil Hunter Yoko (which is also great). But Akira was one of those, “Okay, I’ll make time for it” anime

When I watched it in high school, it was very cool. It was one of those things that I had to remind myself—even if there are other films I like better—that Akira invented a lot of the stuff we take for granted now. We see the knockoffs all the time. But going back and revisiting it, Akira is a monumental achievement.

io9: When did the idea come about for you and your associates to animate a trailer for Bartkira?

Sullivan: If I remember correctly, it was when “Moon Animate Make-Up!” was done. About a month later, I was looking for a way to recharge my batteries, and Bartkira was still going on. I wasn’t ready to jump into another full episode of Sailor Moon, but I thought it would be fun to do the trailer.

I reached out to the guys and was like, “Hey, I did some comic pages for volume one. Would you guys be open to the idea of me running the animated trailer project?” They were very sweet and supportive. When I was like coming up with the title cards of, like, this person’s an executive producer, such and such, like the fake part of the trailer, I had to argue with them to let me include their names because they didn’t want to take credit for my work. I was like, “Oh, no, you’re part of this too. This wouldn’t exist about you.” They were terrific from the very beginning.

io9: Were you all localized in the same place, or did you have to work remotely to assemble the trailer cuts?

Sullivan: It was 100% remote, and it’s something that I’m still a huge advocate for. Obviously way before the pandemic. I believe James and Ryan are both based in the UK. I was based in Seattle and ran the whole operation out of my apartment, which was great. One thing I noticed at the time I had been working at Blue Sky Studios as a storyboard color artist was, for security reasons, they prefer everything to be in-house because that’s a whole production.

I found that all animation could be done remotely. We didn’t necessarily have to be in one location like all the studios in LA because you can still do things on paper and cel. But we could. There’s so much more information that could be sent through the internet instead of carting it from one building to the other. So yeah, it was all done remotely and I was jumping up and down like “This is the future. This is the way we can do things.”

io9: What was the easiest/hardest part of working on assembling the Bartkira trailer?

Sullivan: This is so poetic. One of the hardest parts was me animating my shot. I went to school for animation at the School of Visual Arts one year below Rebecca Sugar and I developed tendinitis in part of my thumb and it’s now in my shoulder. A lot of us graduated with that. Even if I didn’t have tendinitis, I found drawing is something I enjoy doing, but I kind of hit my ceiling for as far as I was going to go, which I always hate saying out loud. But it’s good to be honest about these things.

One of the trickier parts where I felt like I was ice skating uphill was my love-hate relationship with After Effects. Sometimes it’s great. And other times, I was begging her to work. I wanted to get like a VHS effect going on the trailer but I didn’t know where to find it. Fortunately, the guys from Real Good Liars, which is a collective in the UK, reached out and asked if there’s anything they could do and one of the things was VHS effect. A big part of Bartkira‘s success was social media just worked. Everybody’s already promoting their work so whatever were done weren’t kept a secret and were posted on folk’s accounts, which got more people interested.

io9: How many people were involved to kind of make the trailer happen?

Sullivan:  Bartkira had 31 animators.

io9: How long did it take to make the Bartkira trailer?

Sullivan: I believe it was about nine months. I was just unbelievably lucky it worked out that way. I was able to keep the momentum going getting people to sign on, and occasionally pestering a few friends like, “Hey, can you take an extra shot? I want to get this thing going.” Every shot used to have YouTube annotations that had their name and a link to their portfolio so if a recruiter likes somebody’s work, they could just go directly and see if they’re available to hire.

io9: What was the scuttlebutt over on either Tumblr, Twitter, or Instagram at the time when you guys were promoting Bartkira‘s trailer project to fans? 

Sullivan: I feel so fortunate that it’s been universally positive. Very little drama, very little negative feedback. I’m still completely stunned. People have such positive reactions about it. And I’m really grateful to them for it, because it can be obviously such an up and down time on the internet. When it premiered, I’m pretty sure that project that was in Le Monde. I was like, “They’re talking about me in French? How why do they know me?” It was very cool. I’m very grateful to see how many people are reacting positively.

I’m really not on Twitter anymore because it’s just kind of all falling apart. But I just saw a tweet about it, and I was like, “Let me just jump in to like say hello.” I also wanted to make sure the animator was properly credited. It just means a lot to know that all of our work is still like really loved and enjoyed.

io9: The Simpsons has slowly been adopting the appeal of anime in its couch gags and episodes. Is there hope that they’ll go on to acknowledge Bartkira as well?

Sullivan: The Simpsons does not owe me a single thing. I think it’s so wonderful they’re still going. I love the couch gags where they bring on a guest animator. I know Bill Plympton has done one and Jorge Gutierrez recently did one. He’s actually a friend of mine. I was just dancing on the ceiling because he was just one of the nicest people you will ever meet. He’s such a beautiful unique style and to know that The Simpsons wanted to profile him and highlight his work made me so happy.

Matt Groening has wanted to do this for a really long time (and I’m a classical music nerd) so my dream project is to be part of his Simpsons versions of Fantasia. And I feel like David Silverman would be perfect for that because he did the whole chili pepper trip episode. If I could have one thing, I’d love to see that. But the fact that they haven’t pulled Bartkira from YouTube is all I need.

io9: Is there anything you’d like to add about your experience on Bartkira to anyone aspiring to make their own art project?

Sullivan: One of the reasons I started doing these animated projects was I had a rough final year of art school. My tendonitis developed and it was really difficult to finish a drawing. I was not happy with the final film I was doing. I had medical problems, personal life problems, and I graduated by the skin of my teeth and felt like I didn’t show what I could do. One of the reasons I started doing these was to get my personal life back.

I found that there is pressure at art school to be the best artist. You have to be like this kind of animator, you have to be this kind of illustrator. I really just want to stress people to do what makes you happy. We’re all here to have a good time and make something fun. Anybody who may be frustrated with their art or what they’re working on, figure out what makes you happy and go for it. They can’t take your paper and pencils from you.

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