Latest news with #CR
Yahoo
24-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Critical Role's new Amazon-backed series is leaning hard into the art style that made Japanese anime so much money
Critical Role's "The Mighty Nein" drops on November 19. CR has also signed on for a fifth season of its other series, "The Legend of Vox Machina." That will be the last season of the Amazon-backed "TLOVM" — and a milestone for the nerdworld business. If there's one maxim the Critical Role team seems to be leaning into with its latest slate of Amazon-backed animation, it's to make the characters as hot as possible. And not just regular hot: Japanese anime-style hot. At San Diego Comic Con, the cofounders of the nerdworld business dropped the November 19 release date for their coming Prime Video animated series, "The Mighty Nein." The series is based on the team's second long-running "Dungeons & Dragons" campaign, which it streamed on Twitch and other platforms for 141 episodes from 2018 to 2021. The main characters in the "Mighty Nein" are voiced by their creators — the eight CR cofounders. There were also sneak peeks of the new character art. There's something for everyone! Japanese anime is a multibillion-dollar industry that the CR cofounders know well. Most of the team started their entertainment careers as anime voice actors. Matthew Mercer, the group's chief creative officer, was the English voice of the wildly popular anime, "Attack on Titan." He also voiced the devastatingly pretty Vincent Valentine, a fan favorite character in Square Enix's remake of the "Final Fantasy" video game series. At San Diego Comic Con, Prime Video announced "The Legend of Vox Machina" is getting its fifth and last season. The CR crew also announced that the hit show's fourth season will air in 2026. "TLOVM" was the initial project through which CR secured an $11.3 million Kickstarter fundraising round to create the show. It has aired three seasons of 12 episodes apiece so far. "It's so rare for any television series to get to tell a complete story, beginning to end, exactly as it was envisioned," said executive producers and Critical Role co-founders Sam Riegel and Travis Willingham in a press release. Read the original article on Business Insider Solve the daily Crossword
Business Insider
24-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Business Insider
Critical Role's new Amazon-backed series is leaning hard into the art style that made Japanese anime so much money
If there's one maxim the Critical Role team seems to be leaning into with its latest slate of Amazon-backed animation, it's to make the characters as hot as possible. And not just regular hot: Japanese anime-style hot. At San Diego Comic Con, the cofounders of the nerdworld business dropped the November 19 release date for their coming Prime Video animated series, "The Mighty Nein." The series is based on the team's second long-running "Dungeons & Dragons" campaign, which it streamed on Twitch and other platforms for 141 episodes from 2018 to 2021. The main characters in the "Mighty Nein" are voiced by their creators — the eight CR cofounders. There were also sneak peeks of the new character art. There's something for everyone! Japanese anime is a multibillion-dollar industry that the CR cofounders know well. Most of the team started their entertainment careers as anime voice actors. Matthew Mercer, the group's chief creative officer, was the English voice of the wildly popular anime, "Attack on Titan." He also voiced the devastatingly pretty Vincent Valentine, a fan favorite character in Square Enix's remake of the "Final Fantasy" video game series. At San Diego Comic Con, Prime Video announced "The Legend of Vox Machina" is getting its fifth and last season. The CR crew also announced that the hit show's fourth season will air in 2026. "TLOVM" was the initial project through which CR secured an $11.3 million Kickstarter fundraising round to create the show. It has aired three seasons of 12 episodes apiece so far. "It's so rare for any television series to get to tell a complete story, beginning to end, exactly as it was envisioned," said executive producers and Critical Role co-founders Sam Riegel and Travis Willingham in a press release.
Business Insider
24-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Business Insider
I followed Critical Role to their Australia megashows. Screaming fans and a 5-hour merch line prove nerdworld is now big business.
When I arrived at the Critical Role merchandise line in Sydney six hours before the show, I turned to my friend and said, "Oh, no." Over breakfast, I had proclaimed with entirely baseless confidence that the lines "wouldn't be anything like queueing for BTS merch." We'd traveled from Singapore for two stops of the Australian leg of CR's live shows, only to find a snaking queue outside the ICC Theater, a venue that seats some 9,000 people. Despite covering CR for years, I'd underestimated the pull this crew of eight people would have on the other side of the world. We waited in line for over five hours, lining up with fans clamoring to buy shirts and hoodies with the tour dates on them. For the uninitiated, CR is a nerdworld business that has sold out stadium shows in and beyond the US. Thousands of people have paid hundreds of dollars to watch them play "Dungeons & Dragons" — and now, their new game, "Daggerheart" — for close to five hours. Since their 2023 show at London's Wembley Arena, CR's touring machine has picked up speed, with a multi-city 2025 tour that'll end at Radio City Music Hall on October 7. The eight CR cofounders are also in their 10th year running their business, which spans animation, gaming, and book publishing. K-Pop concert-style excitement Before the show, I tried to soak in the full CR live experience. I mingled with fans decked out in full cosplay, some covered in purple body paint to turn them the closest shade of lilac to their favorite elf boy. Some attendees I spoke to said they'd come from Japan, Singapore, South Korea, and New Zealand. A fan based in South Korea estimated they'd spent close to $6,000 to see CR live. Another told me they'd spent close to $10,000 to fly in from Los Angeles, bent on following CR to every tour stop. Much like the K-pop concerts I was used to attending, people exchanged trinkets and traded friendship bracelets, Taylor Swift-concert style. Natasha Langdon, 25, organized a fan meet event in Sydney. "Last year, when I flew to LA to see Critical Role live, I went to a similar type of fan meetup, and it was one of the most joyous occasions of my life. I was on the other side of the world, and yet there was an immediate sense of homecoming and welcome," Langdon told me. The CR fever wasn't limited to the show nights. Weeklong events catering to the fandom mushroomed up at venues across both cities. One of them was "Realms Unleashed," a series of events organized by Fortress, a gaming bar and entertainment venue with outlets in Sydney and Melbourne. Nearly 18,000 people attended in the two cities, a Fortress rep told me. The crew's touring business is revving up I caught up with three of the crew's cofounders backstage at Melbourne's Rod Laver Arena, the Australian leg's second stop — a venue that seats over 10,000 people. Matthew Mercer, the team's chief creative officer and their longtime game master, told me it was still "terrifying" to step out onstage in front of thousands of people. CR records most of its content out of its LA studio, so Mercer often just has an immediate audience of seven as opposed to thousands of screaming fans. "I go in with the perpetual cloud of, 'I hope everyone likes this, because they paid to be here,'" Mercer said. The crew's 2026 tour will take it to Atlanta and Texas. Italso includes a whopper of an event at London's O2 arena in October — which rivals Madison Square Garden in size. The CR business is just getting bigger CR is also expanding other arms of its business. On the game publishing front, the company recently hired Chris Perkins and Jeremy Crawford. The two are major names in game design one might liken to the Steve Jobs and Jony Ive of "D&D." They left their roles at CR's Hasbro-owned competitor, Wizards of the Coast, in April. Perkins and Crawford now work for Darrington Press, the team's official publishing arm. And they're now pitching ideas on everything from improvements to "Daggerheart" — a sold-out game CR's been developing for years — to new products, Willingham said. "We're just going to let the kids kind of play in the mad scientist lab for a little bit," Willingham added. On other fronts, CR's Amazon-backed animation, "The Mighty Nein," is set to drop soon, pending a big announcement on Thursday out of San Diego Comic Con. And now there's more information about the long-awaited Critical Role video game. The team is working with AdHoc Studio, an indie outfit out of LA, to develop its original product set in Mercer's world of Exandria. Still, CR started on a stream, and creative director Marisha Ray says the cofounders aren't letting up on that, especially since they have their own streaming platform, Beacon. "We're very lucky in the way that Beacon has afforded us a lot of flexibility to experiment and stretch our legs," Ray said. She says the team is hoping to do more shorter-run series with the "Daggerheart" gaming system, and experiment with some genre-bending content. "Honestly, the only thing that's limiting us right now is our Google calendars," she added. The accidental empire Sitting backstage at an arena, waiting for thousands of excited fans to pour in and fill the seats, I couldn't help but ask the three cofounders a question I first asked Mercer and Willingham years ago: Does it feel like you're in the empire business? Mercer said the word "empire" was a term other people used to describe CR. "I don't think we intended to build an empire, but I would be remiss if we don't occasionally stop, take a breath, look behind us, and go, 'Oh, shit. I think we accidentally built an empire,'" said Mercer. "I feel like we've made a fun house more than an empire," Willingham said. "But we have made this tiny home game into a multi-headed production company." "And that's a wonderful thing. But it also keeps us up at night. It definitely makes us burn the candle at both ends," Willingham added.
Time of India
19-07-2025
- Time of India
Demand for 4 Rajyarani coaches for passengers from Manmad
Nashik: The Bhusawal Divisional Railway Manager (Commercial) has urged Central Railway (CR) to earmark four coaches of the Nanded–Mumbai Rajyarani Express exclusively for passengers boarding between Manmad and Mumbai. Responding to growing demand from passengers and representations from elected officials, the Bhusawal division has written to CR headquarters requesting that at least four coaches be made available for booking from Manmad. These bookings would be managed by the Bhusawal division, which cited a significant volume of daily passengers commuting between Manmad, Nashik, and Mumbai. "Given the representation by passengers from Nashik and recommendations from elected representatives, we have requested the CR to take up the issue with the South Central Railway (SCR) for the reservation of the coach, as the train is handled by the Nanded division of the Telangana-based SCR," said a senior officer from the Bhusawal Divisional Railway Manager's office. The demand comes in the wake of recent changes by SCR, which decided to remove two general second-class seating coaches from the 17611 Nanded–CSMT Rajyarani Express. As a result, the train will now have only four general seating coaches, with the addition of one sleeper coach and an air-conditioned chair car. These changes are expected to take effect from August 5. The train departs Nanded at 10:00 pm, reaches Nashik at 6:00 am, and arrives in Mumbai at 10:00 am. by Taboola by Taboola Sponsored Links Sponsored Links Promoted Links Promoted Links You May Like Cardiologists Recommend: Eat 1 Teaspoon Tonight – Wake Up With a Flatter Stomach Hollywood News | USA Click Here Undo According to railway data, around 100 passengers board from Manmad and approximately 140 from Nashik Road daily with current tickets, in addition to nearly 150 pass-holders. A large share of these are daily commuters and office-goers who rely on the Rajyarani Express to reach offices by 10:30 am, unlike the Panchavati Express, which arrives at CSMT around 10:45 am and is therefore not a feasible option for many. "The occupancy of all general coaches (six existing) of this train combined is 92% from Manmad and 130% from Nashik towards Mumbai. Slashing down the number of coaches by two is going to impact passengers. We have therefore sought the opening of the four coaches from Manmad such that the SCR will issue reservations for those coaches till Manmad only and not beyond. That business will be handled by the Bhusawal Division of CR," the officer added.
Malaysian Reserve
19-07-2025
- Business
- Malaysian Reserve
China Resources Group Participates in 3rd CISCE to Develop World-Class Supply Chain for Listed Companies
BEIJING, July 19, 2025 /PRNewswire/ — The 3rd China International Supply Chain Expo (CISCE), with the theme of 'Collaboration, Innovation, and Green Development', is being held in Beijing from July 16 to 20, 2025, gathering together 651 enterprises and institutions from 75 countries and regions. As a Fortune Global 500 company, this is the third time that China Resources Group (CR) has participated in the CISCE. CR brings its 12 business units to the expo, presenting the group's global strategic layout and competitive edge in relevant industrial and supply chains in three exhibition sections: Healthy Life, Green Agriculture and Clean Energy. CR is a leading Chinese conglomerate with six key businesses: consumer products, integrated energy, urban construction and operation, healthcare, industrial finance, technology and emerging sectors. It ranks the 72nd position on the list of 2024 Fortune Global 500. In the Healthy Life section, seven CR subsidiaries—CR Sanjiu, Dong-E-E-Jiao, CR Jiangzhong, CR Double-Crane, CR Pharma Comm, CR Healthcare and CR Land—offers a panoramic view of the group's global healthcare ecosystem. In the Green Agriculture section, CR Beer, CR Beverage, and CR Ng Fung highlight the group's green agricultural product matrix, premium international brand matrix, and achievements in global supply chain collaboration. In the Clean Energy section, CR Power and CR Chemical Materials exhibit the group's low-carbon energy supply chain layout marked by internationalization, environmental friendliness, and synergy, which is powered by technological innovation. Amid global industrial chain restructuring, CR has pioneered a standardized and flexible supply chain management system by leveraging the resources and taking into consideration the industry differences of its 22 listed companies. It has crystallized its strategic vision to develop a world-class supply chain ecosystem for its listed companies. Currently, 270,000 upstream/downstream partners, including more than 2,600 overseas suppliers, have engaged in CR's supply chain business, vigorously advancing the deep integration of global innovation, industrial, and value chains. Moving forward, CR will accelerate its green transformation and upgrading through coordination and innovation. It will collaborate with all parties concerned to consolidate and strengthen cooperation in global industrial and supply chains, maintain the stability of global industrial and supply chains, so as to achieve mutual benefits and win-win cooperation.
