Ninjai Explained

Creator:The Ninjai Gang
Language:English
First Aired:[1]
Num Episodes:12[2]

Ninjai: The Little Ninja is a Flash cartoon.[3] The cartoon has not been available online since April 2015.

Overview

The cartoon is a creation of The Ninjai Gang.[4] Ninjai is a web-based animation that centers around the life of Ninjai, a young samurai/ninja who is traveling the world looking for meaning and purpose. Along the way, his path is crossed by rogues or people who help him. Ninjai's best friend is 'Little Bird', a cute and brave sidekick with whom Ninjai often converses.[5]

History

Ninjai first appeared on June 4, 2001 as a trailer created using Adobe Flash,[1] [4] and had a trademark filed for its title on June 14, 2001.[6] The animation series drew a strong following with its unique style and storyline at the time, and ended up producing a total of 12 episodes thereafter,[2] each a few minutes in length.

Despite being made by martial artists who did animation only as a hobby,[4] the quality of the animation grew steadily as the episodes progressed, with more time between each episode as a result. After the release of episode 12, production came to a pause, with the promise of further episodes on the way. Some time later, news broke that the group was abandoning the short-form animations and aiming for a feature-length production with a complete studio. In early 2015, the group posted to their social media channels on Facebook and Twitter with media kits and wallpapers, and asked their followers to recommend blogs to advertise Ninjai in exchange for inside scoops on the series' production.[7] On March 5, 2015, a Kickstarter crowdfunding campaign was announced and possible reward ideas were shared for the following 5 months,[8] but the campaign was never officially launched on Kickstarter.

Despite this, the Ninjai website remained functional through at least August 2019,[9] and at New York Comic Con in 2021, The Ninjai Gang had a booth set up to showcase a trailer and give away merchandise, advertising that the full-length feature production was still in the works,[10] with an initial release date of January 2022. However, as of January 2023, IMDb states that it is in post-production with an outdated release date of 2022.[11]

As of early January 2023, the Ninjai.com website had been accessible but showing only a message that it was "under maintenance" for a significant amount of time, with The Ninjai Gang not responding to inquiries. Later that month, the Ninjai.com domain ceased to resolve to a website, and became completely unavailable, though the domain is still registered until at least April 2025.[12] The social media channels and existence of Ninjai.com on the Wayback Machine have been removed. The trade names and licenses have mostly expired, though a license for NINJAI GANG, LLC is listed as "Active", having been registered on November 10, 2004 with a partner term date of December 31 1,000,000 AD.[6] [13]

Sunset Studios (another form of The Ninjai Gang) picked up the trademark for Ninjai and is currently listed as the owner party, but sometime thereafter seems to have dropped the series and the trademark is now abandoned.[6]

Characters

External links

Notes and References

  1. Web site: Ninjai Teaser Trailer . 2001-06-01 . 2023-01-05 . Newgrounds . 2022-08-08 . https://web.archive.org/web/20220808092856/https://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/19933.
  2. Web site: Ninjai: The Little Ninja . Ninjai . 2011-04-09 . https://archive.today/20110409152829/http://www.ninjai.com/generic/index.html.
  3. Book: Eastman. Susan Tyler. Ferguson. Douglas A.. Klein. Robert A.. Media promotion and marketing for broadcasting, cable, and the Internet. 29 June 2011. 2006. Focal Press. 978-0-240-80762-1. 239–.
  4. News: Little Ninja is a Big Hit on the Web . April 2002 . . 66 . 29 June 2011.
  5. News: Filmpjes als snacks: Atom onafhankelijk platform . https://archive.today/20120715113543/http://vorige.nrc.nl/media/article1679674.ece/Filmpjes_als_snacks_Atom_onafhankelijk_platform . dead . 15 July 2012 . Smith . Krispijn . 4 May 2006 . . Dutch . 29 June 2011.
  6. Web site: NINJAI THE LITTLE NINJA Trademark of Sunset Studios - Serial Number 76272124 - Alter . 2022-09-05 . alter.com.
  7. Web site: Ninjai: The Little Ninja - Home . https://web.archive.org/web/20170509082502/https://www.facebook.com/ninjaithelittleninja . 2022-12-20 . 2017-05-09 . Facebook.
  8. Web site: Ninjai: The Little Ninja - Home . https://web.archive.org/web/20190814163551/https://www.facebook.com/ninjaithelittleninja/ . 2022-12-20 . 2019-08-14 . Facebook.
  9. Web site: Ninjai: The Little Ninja . Ninjai . 2019-08-29 . https://archive.today/20190829143603/https://www.ninjai.com/.
  10. Web site: New York Comic Con - Twitter . 2022-12-20 . Twitter.
  11. Web site: Ninjai: The Little Ninja (2022) . 2022-12-20 . IMDb.
  12. Web site: Whois ninjai.com . 2023-01-23 . Whois . https://web.archive.org/web/20230124045436/https://www.whois.com/whois/ninjai.com . 2023-01-24.
  13. Web site: Business Registration Division - Search for Business Entity & Documents . 2022-12-20 . Hawaii State Department of Commerce & Consumer Affairs, Business Registration Division.

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