About Judgment: In short, I think RGGS was intending to continue the series. There were indeed rumors at one point that the series would end at Lost Judgment due to a disagreement with Kimura's agency, Johnny & Associates, about porting the games to PC--I'm unclear on why, there was speculation but I don't think it was ever stated. Obviously the PC ports are out now, so either that wasn't the issue or they moved past it.
There's also just general disbelief around there being a third entry simply because there's this idea (joke?) that Kimura never does three of anything, which isn't true at this point. It is true RGGS historically hasn't done three of anything in terms of spinoff series (Kurohyou, Mobile+Kizuna, and arguably Kenzan+Ishin), but it's also true that none of their past spinoffs have been as successful as Judgment, and we're seeing a lot of "firsts" from the studio lately.
The fact is that Yokoyama himself said something along the lines of "and of course, we won't forget about Judgment" (not literally, just the closest English expression I can think of that can be misinterpreted in the way I'm about to explain) while talking about future works. But for some reason, people took it as if he meant it "in mourning" rather than an obvious confirmation of more to come, I guess? A TV show was also announced, so I really don't get why they'd invest so much into a series they were going to end. I know Kurohyou got a show too, but this seems different.
Anyway, that's the most recent information, but it's from some years ago. There is a major new development, however: J&A talents' contracts are being cancelled left and right as of the last couple of months due to the agency's dogshit handling of and response to an investigation into Johnny Kitagawa's serial abuse of allegedly hundreds of his talents. That's been going on since the man died in 2019, basically, but a lot's happened this year.
This has left the talents with the incredibly tough decision of either remaining at an agency that refuses to even change its name and is rapidly breaking down or leaving. It has historically been very difficult to do the latter. On top of what you'd expect, J&A controls their talents to an insane degree and has leveraged their control of the media to suppress the careers of those who leave.
Broadly, in terms of how media companies have responded so far, I understand not wanting to associate with J&A and that J&A would likely benefit from the contracts more than the talents, but it still feels like the talents are the ones being punished... I have to imagine at least some of them were victims, so to be victims of the blacklist on top of that... That, and some of these companies kept the truth from coming out for decades.
With J&A losing its foothold in the media, though, there may be no better time than now to leave the agency. I don't know if Kimura will--rumors have been circulating ever since his idol group were forced to break up years and years ago, but while they all went independent, he never has--especially because a lot of seniors like him feel a responsibility to stay and change the agency for the better. As of right now, I'm not aware of Kimura's contracts getting cancelled, so I can't say one way or another if that'd have an effect.
I don't know what happens from here. I'm not sure if RGGS will look at it as collaborating with J&A or with Kimura or both, and how they'll factor in what's going on right now into working with him. Hypothetically, it would be possible to continue the series even without Kimura (any of the other mains do or would make great protagonists), but at the same time, Judgment is hugely reliant on Kimura's charisma. That's why people who play the dub (or people who don't like Kimura) often come away with the impression Yagami's kind of a dick or doesn't stand out much.
So... that's the state of Judgment right now. We won't know until we know, I guess.
OHHHHH OK saucy... sucks about J&A- it'd be cool if yk. they could face the consequences of their actions LMAO but that Could involve displacing hella workers now wouldnt it
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Hi!! I'm curious as to the main inspirations for your artstyle is? It has great cartoony vibes I really like it (smth about its vibes really reminds me of a cartoon called detentionaire in particular? I'm not sure what tho asides from the general aesthetic)
Hi hi! My default artstyle is pretty much an amalgamation of what I liked (I like both animes and cartoons) but I can't deny it totally leans heavily on cartoony sides hhh. I never heard of Detentionaire and decided to check it out and I think I'll watch it one day since I dont really have the time to do so rn _(:3」∠)_
I referred a lot to early 00s cartoons like PPG and Clone High since both are my favourite shows (although I didnt bother to finish S2 of Clone High because.... yeah) so both are a big influence for my art style in general.
Most of the time, I based them off PPG Movie like ugh I have so many words to describe how much I adore this movie and I have dedicated a ridiculous amount of time to this series but anyway I really love how they manage to translate the PPG character designs into digital animation (since the original was made traditionally) so beautifully like everyone is so much angular and since they have so many budgets for the movie, they added gradients and color balance each scenes. This movie means so much to me art wise because I just never thought that just by adding gradients to such a simple looking art makes it so prettier so I just started doing gradients after I watched this movie lol
My other art inspiration is definitely Jeluto! She drew so many anime characters in this art style and I just love how each character she drew just fits their personality and appearance 💗💗💗
But if you want a more specific term for this kind of artstyle, the name for this art style that a lot of cartoon from this era you see in the late 90s-early 00s (My life as a Teenage Robot, Fairly Odd Parents, Dexter's Lab, El-Tigre, etc) is widely known as UPA Artstyle! There's a really interesting blog post explaining this art style in general that people should read :3
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