Want More Animation in Nollywood? Introducing the Malika Animated Series

Have you ever wondered why there’s barely any presence for animations in the Nigerian entertainment scene? Would you like to be a part of a movement to change that? Then let me introduce you to the Malika Animated Series. This is a historical fantasy epic set in 15th-century Africa. Magical swords, dragons, love, betrayal, politics. This story has it all!

So what is this Malika Animated Series about you ask?

Malika is an award-winning graphic novel series and theonly African comic to ever be featured during Diamond Comics Free Comic Book Day (2017/18) and Halloween Comic Fest 2017, with comic book stores ordering more than 100,000 copies for those events combined.

SYNOPSIS: Set in fifteenth-century West Africa, Malika: Warrior Queen follows the exploits of Queen and military commander, Malika, who struggles to keep the peace in her ever-expanding empire. Growing up as a prodigy, Malika inherited the crown from her father in the most unusual of circumstances, splitting the Kingdom of Azzaz in half. After years of civil war, Malika was able to unite all of Azzaz, expanding it into one of the largest empires in all of West Africa.

But expansion would not come without its costs. Enemies begin to rise within her council, and Azzaz grabbed the attention of the most feared superpower the world has ever known: the Ming Dynasty. As Malika fights to win the clandestine civil war within the walls of her empire, she must now turn her attention to an indomitable and treacherous foe that plans to vanquish her entire people. From dragons to mythical relics, a feuding royal family and magical swords, the story of Malika: Warrior Queen stays true to the fantasy genre while adding something new by setting familiar concepts in an awe-inspiring African setting.

Here’s the kicker. As with most things in our dear country, finding the resources to make things happen is a bit of a struggle. Hence the makers of Malika have taken on a novel approach – they are reaching out to me, to you and to everyone in order to be able to fund this project.

If you are intrigued, if you want to find out more information, or/and if you want to do your bit to help bring Malika to reality please click over to their kickstarter page and do whatever little you can.

Animation? Yes, you heard that right! YouNeek Studios has decided to officially move forward with production of the Malika: Warrior Queen animated pilot/episode one. It’s a 3D animated episode (7-minutes long) that I will be writing and directing. The amazing guys at Anthill (who did the animated teaser for our Kickstarter video) will be handling pre-production and production, and YouNeek Studios will take care of post-production.

Our goal is to start small by creating one 7-minute episode that can act as both a pilot and as the beginning of a series (episode one). We need to raise about $15,000 to cover the entire animation production costs. We understand that there will be some other costs (post-production, miscellaneous additional and unexpected costs etc.), but as a company, we are also going to be investing our time and money to handle those things.

The cool thing is that if we’re able to exceed our goal, we can do even more! So in theory, just with this Kickstarter, we can produce not only episode one but two, three, four or perhaps an ENTIRE season or movie! Basically, the more money we raise the more episodes we can produce!
– Roye Okupe

To pledge and be a part of this project (and also get some nice little rewards for doing so) please click HERE