I recently watched 3D Mainichi Modern on YouTube. It’s an incredibly funny show with 2 episodes at the moment. The show is created by Wynton Yang, Mre, and Courtesy and is uploaded to the Mario radio show channel.
The show uses a limited retro 3d art style and features some really great music.
What’s 3D Mainichi Modern?
3D Mainichi Modern means (more or less) 3D modern everyday. it follows the 9 year old robot girl Thompson(Gumi v3), her older mummy brother Biff (Mre), and their friend Ghillie (Wynton Yang) who together make up the band Skycolourgirl.
As the name implies, we follow the gang through their everyday life as they try to get their music career going. The most apparent thing when you watch it is that it’s made with 3D movie maker, an older 3D movie making software mainly targeted towards kids. Imagine a significantly older SFM alternative but with prerendered backgrounds.
Note that I have no practical experience with the program. The software in itself is rather extensive regarding both characters and backgrounds. There are also many mods for 3dmm and you can ad your own animations too it. I am unsure exactly how much is originally crafted for 3D Mainichi Modern.
The creators has spoken a little about the production on their Patreon (this is readily available for free) and seemingly the production of one episode takes a little under 2 months while Wynton Yang, the co-writer, editor, and animator, also works part time. An episode turn over is extremely fast given the small team and that we are talking about animation. A lot (if not all) of the assets used are stock assets from 3dmm but I think they are used very well.
I’ve seen a lot of projects try to emulate older graphical styles and I think there is a lot of charm to it. just because modern graphics are advanced that don’t really mean that older stuff has to be worse. It makes a lot of sense for a show to make use of older tools rather than recreating them in modern software and engines. I think the reason they use 3dmm for 3D Mainichi Modern is probably due to constraints in production, but it by no means look bad.
The animation in itself is in a lot of ways limited but it never really affected my enjoyment. Would I have preferred a show of immaculate beauty made by James Baxter himself? Sure, but there is a very tangible charm to how 3D Mainichi Modern looks that can’t be exchanged by “better” animation.
I guess my harshest criticism would be that it uses stock characters for the program, I have no idea how easy or hard it would be to implement new ones but its a little sad that they aren’t fully original. Mostly because it to me feels like it sort of breaks immersion when you recognize something. That being said, many online shows use pre existing characters and models regardless. It’s not the end of the world to use assets explicitly meant to be used in this manner which the 3dmm models are.
The sky colored girls
The main cast seem to be a collection of different “actors” from 3dmm who seem to have been modified in some minor ways. Thompson is seemingly using Shizuka’s model from the Doraemon expansion, but with a green color scheme rather than pink. Over all I see Thompson as something as a Yotsuba like character but with a lot more spunk and sass. Thompson is voiced by the vocaloid Gumi v3 which fits well given that she is the vocalist for the band. She is impulsive, childish, and seemingly has a hyper interest in the ambulocetus, the great ancestor to modern whales.
Thompson’s older brother and caregiver, Biff, is a mummy who plays sort of the straightman of the trio. He is a lot more levelheaded than the rest and tries to keep his friends out of trouble to no avail. He plays the drums in Skycolourgirl. The last member of the gang, Ghillie, is a 37 year old man who wears a bag on his head. He is mentally vacant unemployed slacker and don’t take anything too seriously.
The world of 3D Mainichi Modern also face an other reoccurring character, that being an unreasonable and unnamed Walgreen employee (Wynton Yang). She spends her time generally being unhelpful and condescending and I love her immensely. The gang is also being followed and hit by a mysterious red car who is prophesized to one day kill Thompson.
3D Mainichi Modern is extremely funny
The main strength of 3D Mainichi Modern is its fun and snappy comedy. The creators has explained that the writing is their highest priority given that they are working with very limited visuals. Sometimes when you watch a comedy you don’t find it funny at all but you see that they are trying to make you laugh which sort of makes it worse. I didn’t feel that for a second while watching 3D Mainichi Modern. You really should just go watch it but if you want to hear me gushing about it then read ahead.
It’s just genuinely funny at all times with no real stops. Its probably not for everyone, comedy seldom is, but its a sitcom with a slapstick pacing and many visual gags despite the limited animation. I love how every time they mention a number it pops up on screen like its an educational children’s show. The unnamed Walgreen employee really do make an colorful “0” pop up to call a little girl broke. The signs for Walgreen also becomes a more and more misspelled in different ways between shots. By far my favorite visual gag in the show is how Ghillies ID designates his gender as “dl trade”. If you know you know.
3D Mainichi Modern is very much a comedy of errors. The first episode is about the gang needing new bass strings which Walgreen deny them cause it’s a “controlled substance” and they must do everything in their power to convince the unnamed Walgreen employee to give it to them while she generally is just unhelpful and refuse to explain.
The ending for the first episode sort of sets up that there will be a new music video for every episode with a song by Skycolourgirl that gets mentioned through the episode. Episode 2 instead subverts that expectation with treating us to Spazzmatica Polka by THE GOAT Kevin MacLeod who they somehow got to make an appearance in the show. (Seriously though, I need that ambulocetus song)
It’s a really funny show and I hope they keep going with many more well written episodes like the 2 that are out. They have said that they want to make over 20 episodes and that would just be incredible.
You can watch the first episode of 3D Mainichi Modern here
READ NEXT: Peetledoodle Sweet and genuine (review)
Leave a Reply