In a move that signals the growing ambition of NFT projects to transcend digital collectibles, Chiru Labs — the creative studio behind the popular Azuki NFT collection — has acquired the Anime.com domain and unveiled plans to build an open anime universe powered by blockchain technology. The September 13 announcement sent ripples through both the NFT and anime communities, raising questions about the future of intellectual property development in the Web3 era.
TL;DR
- Chiru Labs acquires Anime.com, signaling a major push into anime entertainment
- Azuki launches tokenized anime stickers to celebrate the new domain
- Hollywood veterans Mark Goffman and Jessica Turner join the team
- The Mizuki short film, released just weeks earlier, previews Azuki’s storytelling ambitions
- NFT projects are increasingly pivoting from collectibles to full entertainment franchises
Azuki’s Entertainment Pivot
The acquisition of Anime.com is not a random purchase. It is the culmination of a deliberate strategy by Azuki founder Zagabond to transform the NFT brand from a static collection of 10,000 anime-inspired profile pictures into a full-fledged entertainment company. The new domain serves as the digital gateway to what the team describes as an “open anime universe” — a platform where community members can participate in creating and sharing anime content.
The timing aligns with broader trends in the NFT space, where projects that rely solely on collectible value have struggled to maintain relevance. By pivoting toward content creation and storytelling, Azuki is following a path carved by projects like Doodles, which has also been building out an animated universe around its brand. The difference is that Azuki’s aesthetic has always been rooted in anime culture, making the acquisition of Anime.com feel like a natural evolution rather than a pivot.
New Hollywood Blood
The Anime.com announcement follows the recent hiring of two seasoned entertainment industry professionals. Mark Goffman, a consulting executive producer with extensive Hollywood credits, and Jessica Turner, who previously led franchise development for the Harry Potter series at Warner Bros., bring mainstream entertainment expertise to a project that has until now been primarily driven by crypto-native creators.
Zagabond addressed the hires by noting that Web3 intellectual properties have demonstrated an ability to build passionate communities through short-form content that thrives on social media. The next step, he suggested, involves elevating that storytelling to a more sophisticated level — one that can compete with traditional animation studios for audience attention.
Mizuki: A Glimpse of What Is Coming
Just weeks before the Anime.com reveal, Azuki released a short animated film titled Mizuki, based on their Elemental #9195 NFT. The mini-short served as a proof of concept, demonstrating that the team could produce engaging animated content rooted in their existing NFT intellectual property. The partnership with OpenSea for the release of Mizuki Shorts NFTs also showed how animated content and blockchain collectibles can work in tandem.
The release of tokenized anime stickers alongside the Anime.com announcement further illustrates the strategy: create content, tokenize elements of it, and distribute both through Web3 channels. If successful, this model could reshape how entertainment properties are built, funded, and distributed — cutting out traditional gatekeepers while giving fans a financial stake in the universes they help create.
Why This Matters
The NFT market of 2024 is a very different place from the speculative frenzy of 2021. Projects that survive are those building real utility and lasting brands. Azuki’s acquisition of Anime.com, coupled with Hollywood talent recruitment and animated content production, represents one of the most ambitious attempts to bridge the gap between Web3 collectibles and mainstream entertainment. Whether this bet pays off depends on execution, but the direction is clear: the future of successful NFT projects lies not in JPEGs but in stories, characters, and worlds that people want to inhabit — regardless of whether they own tokens or not.
Disclaimer: This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute financial advice. NFT investments carry significant risk. Always conduct your own research before making investment decisions.
anime.com is a million dollar domain minimum. zagabond is going all in on this pivot
hiring hollywood showrunners tells me theyre serious about content, not just selling more jpegs
goffman worked on west wing and sleepy hollow. actual tv credentials, not just web3 buzzword hires
goffman on west wing is legit. sleepy hollow was mid but the guy can write. azuki hiring actual talent instead of twitter influencers is refreshing
goffman writing for anime is wild. west wing to web3 is a career pivot nobody saw coming
Riko M. goffman going from west wing to web3 anime is the weirdest career pipeline in entertainment. dude writes prestige TV and ends up at an NFT project
mizuki short film was actually decent. if they can scale that quality into a series, anime.com makes sense
the mizuki film was 3 minutes of proof of concept. lets see a full episode before calling it decent
anime_maximalist 3 minutes of concept footage doesnt prove scalable production. anime studios spend 6 months on a single episode. azuki needs a studio not a domain name
Yuna K. 3 minutes vs a full episode is fair criticism but you have to start somewhere. anime studios spend 6 months on an episode because they have 200 person teams. azuki is building that pipeline from scratch
nft project to entertainment company pipeline is the new nft project to rug pipeline. prove me wrong azuki
overleveraged_ honestly the mizuki short looked better than 90 percent of actual anime studio web3 collaborations. low bar but they cleared it
overleveraged_ every NFT project claims IP pivot and 95% deliver nothing. but azuki actually shipped a decent short film. the track record exists even if the bar is low
anime.com as a domain is worth more than the entire azuki floor price. zagabond understood that owning the category URL beats owning 10k profile pictures
goffman going from west wing prestige TV to web3 anime shorts is the wildest career pivot in entertainment. dude writes for Sheen then ends up at an NFT project
Goffman wrote for Sleepy Hollow and West Wing, now he is doing anime stickers. hollywood talent fleeing to web3 tells you more about the industry than any box office report
anime.com going to an NFT project instead of Toho or Bandai is insane. the domain alone was probably 8 figures
anime.com as a domain is probably worth more than most nft collections entire floor. zagabond playing 4d chess while other founders are still dropping sneak peeks
domain_appraiser anime.com is easily 7 figures bare minimum. zagabond going all in on the IP pivot is ballsy but smart
domain_appraiser anime.com bare minimum is 7 figures. probably 8 given the category. zagabond got the domain deal of the decade
anime.com as a domain is easily 8 figures. zagabond didnt just buy a url he bought the category-defining asset for japanese animation on the internet
Kenji W. anime.com being 8 figures is the real story here. thats a category defining domain. whoever owns the domain owns the search traffic for the entire genre. zagabond understood that
Daria M. domain value only matters if they build something people actually visit. anime.com redirecting to an NFT landing page wastes the asset entirely. need a real product not a splash page
Goffman writing West Wing then pivoting to anime NFTs is the most 2024 career arc possible. dude went from scripting Martin Sheen to scripting anime shorts for JPEG holders
anime.com as a domain asset is worth more than most NFT collections combined. zagabond understood that owning the category URL matters more than owning 10k profile pictures