East VS West. Agents of Cold War-era spy agencies face off in a surrealist parallel history inspired by campy B-movies, TV and anime of the 20th century.
"We Love Cold War!!" is an original anime concept that I came up with sometime in the Winter of 2022 for my thesis film project in college, a Pilot film was finished in May 2023. I published it on Youtube in April 2024, with no expectations, and it was a stunning runaway success to levels I could never have expected!
But the original short film never made much money, ad revenue from the 1.8 million views was not possible as I used copyrighted music (the original film was made effectively with no budget and all scratch audio + temp music as I could not afford a composer back in school nor voice actors)
In 2025, I'd quit my day job & worked for a number of gaming sponsors from Zenless Zone Zero to Wuthering Waves to pursue an animation career full-time, however, focusing on sponsor work I believe, distracted from the project that I believe people were truly invested in, We Love Cold War!!.
As of 2026, We Love Cold War is my sole focus, I've declined work offers and sponsorships in order to fully invest my time and my savings into producing this series, so far we've produced 4 short animations for Youtube, we have 6 more fully written and planned, and 6 TV-length episodes scripted, however we lack the resources of a properly funded production to fulfill our ambitions within a lifetime.
Above is the We Love Cold War!! Opening Animation! Produced throughout 2025, released in November, production on the main series has been slow due to a combined number of factors, lack of money, lack of resources, and my own bottlenecks as a Director that also does most of the animation, sound design, scripting, storyboarding, and designs.
We currently have a small roster of BG artists, colourists, animators, and designers on contract, but we're unable to hire any more animators and artists without a formal budget, nor are we able to train any animators if they're working on a per-gig basis. All production expenses currently are being paid out of pocket, from my own savings, merchandise, and donations.
This campaign is asking for a budget of $55,000 to help fund the full series Pilot and to start up a studio, employ animators full-time, and ensure WLCW's production and continuation well into 2027 and beyond! We already have a plan and framework to keep operations going with merchandise sales and growth after the Pilot, however we lack the initial capital to invest in the series and scale-up in a short period of time.
In return! We'll be pressing all of the WLCW Illustrations, Comics, Concept Designs, Behind the Scenes and Unadapted Lore onto an ARTBOOK, and once we're done the Pilot, we'll also be pressing those onto BLU-RAY and VHS formats so you can hold onto them forever! (Personally I'm a huge fan of physical media so this is something I've wanted to do even if a T-Shirt or Keychain might have been easier, if you were more interested in merchandise, we already have the Capitalism Ho store if you wanna get some character goods! https://capitalismho.com/)
Right now we're asking for $55,000 to help fund and expand WLCW's production throughout 2026.
Our goal currently is to deliver the Pilot episode, and increase our output to 6 new WLCW short animations for the rest of 2026, and into 2027.
The Artbook and Volume 1 Blu-Ray is estimated to be delivered as early as January 2027, however all episodes and shorts will be available to watch on Youtube for free when they're complete. To help account for potential delays due to the scope of production, please anticipate a 2026-2027 release window for the Short animations while the physical artbook and home media releases will be compiled and shipped in 2027.
But, if we had a million dollars, our dream is a full professional level 6 episode "SEASON ONE" of "We Love Cold War!!"
We don't expect to hit those stretch goals, but if we did, we'd be able to fund a moderately-sized independent production to produce WLCW as an OVA series with a similar runtime to a full-length cinematic movie! Aim for the Top!
We've already produced FOUR short animations and a 22 page One-Shot comic (readable at https://welovecoldwar.com/ ! ) and we want to make more, and we want to make 'em better!
We have a proven track record of animating and delivering high-quality animations with small budgets and short periods of time. With this campaign, we hope to secure a budget to do MORE cool stuff, bigger, better, and FASTER!
If funded, all of these shorts will be pressed onto the Blu-Ray, with fully recomposed and original music and remastered HD animation.
Naomi "Bluebird" Kennedy - All-American Heroine of the CIA Peace Corps ! (CV: Maganda Marie)
Valeria "The Valkyrie" Konstanz - Red Starlet of the KGB PSAMU (CV: Kylie Rutzen)
Capitaine Yvette de Castelnau - 2e Bureau (CV: Morgane Brehamel) Adjutant Joséphine Leclerc - 2e Bureau (CV: Rune Carmes)
Loveday Eden & Waverly Redmond - MI6 - Ministry of Intelligence, Section 6 (CV: Stefani Keogh)
Anne Mackenzie & Ingrid Andersson - The United Nations (CV:????????)
Sidney Godfrey - Director of the Disabled War's Veteran Recreation Center & CIA Chief Chemist (CV: Overdose.mp4) Jean-Lynette Devoix - Peace Corps Handler (CV: Vanessa Benoit)
Izaveta Androvodka & Rosalie de Mon - KGB PSAMU (CV: Veronica Rotar)
Lena Wengels - East Berlin Traffic Polizei - (CV: Kylie Rutzen)
& more! (full character roster on welovecoldwar.com !)
Shipping is charged separately to your pledge and only once we're ready to ship! Please keep a look out for an email and survey once the merchandise is ready. We'll be fulfilling these orders both out of our studio offices in Texas and Ontario.
For US/Canada orders, please anticipate a cost of $5 for small items, $10 for bundles and boxsets, while for international orders, $20 for small items, up to $25 for larger bundles.
Please understand that animation production is a long and ardous process (a full-length TV anime series usually take 3 years in development) Deliverables will include a "Volume 1" Home Media & Artbook including the TV-length Pilot episode + short animations.
Rewards are estimated to ship in 2027 depending on production speed. Pilot is estimated to finish no later than Q4 of 2026. Blu-Ray mastering, VHS duplication, and artbook printing orders will be locked in once the Pilot and all associated material is finished. If production takes longer or demand is higher than expected, the schedule may be delayed but this will be communicated to backers.
Animation on a professional scale can get pretty expensive and we want to pay everybody involved their fair share! Animators are used to crunching on shoestring budgets and schedules, but this often means extreme burnout, rushed work, and having to sacrifice artistry for deadlines!
With our current production team (1 full-time animator, 1 full-time colourist, contracted animators/BG painters/musicians/VAs), we are able to produce about 1-2 minutes of animation each month at an estimated operating cost of $4000 per month. (all costs in USD)
(with these projections, we estimate a full-length 24 minute episode would take at least 1 year in production (not including work already completed), and cost a minimum of $48,000, going above this budget would allow us to hire additional animators, full-time staff, and pay our artists more!)
Currently, we've already paid for pre-production, character designs, scripts, & storyboards out of pocket with the help of Patreon & merch store income. To help finish the animation, we did the math and budgeted out enough to make sure WLCW is finished on time and with the proper quality and care it deserves!
Any additional funding will go towards expanding our team from this framework, producing more animations for WLCW (into 2027/2028 if we reach our stretch goals!) and ensuring our collaborators and artists a steady stream of work. (we want to build up a real studio, having a budget to be able to afford to staff new artists and talent on a consistent basis is important to us)
"We Love Cold War!!" and Nico Animeworks follows a strict philosophy of NO AI usage, in any of its artistic production pipeline, concepts, or artworks. (not even for conceptualization, pre-production, or scratch work!)
We believe in animation forged by humans for humans, for art and film to be valued and cherished and be made with genuine heart, blood, sweat, and tears!
Nico Animeworks Studio pursues a "artists first" mentality when it comes to the artisanal process of creating animation, we do not want to follow the same mistakes as corporate-run animation studios where artists and animators are shoved aside and devalued for being inefficient.
With the decline of corporate-backed animation, we want to make it clear that We Love Cold War!! is to be produced outside of the "industry" system, and will prioritize the happiness and well-being of its artists and workers first and foremost. All animation, music, voice acting, scripts, merchandise, artwork for "We Love Cold War!!" are to be made by humans!
We want to reward dedication to this craft, even at a higher cost or productivity loss, for a consistent salary, stability, and fair compensation for all of our creative collaborators.
By supporting We Love Cold War!!, you are not only supporting a project that I personally hold dear to my heart and have a dream of making, but the future of animation as a whole, so that after WLCW is completed, we can keep making cool stuff, adapt other artists' ideas, and make animation sustainable and creatively fulfilling.
