The Legend of "Legend of a Preparatory Vox": This is how a nerdy venture became a hit series

"Legend of the Wax Prep", which has just finished its first season, is another in a chain of successful adult animated series.

But her story is so much bigger than that, and includes an amazing mass campaign, a devout community, and most importantly: a group of creators and actors whose mutual love is shed from the screen

Songs of salvation

21/02/2022

Monday, 21 February 2022, 00:00 Updated: 00:03

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Trailer for the series "The Legend of Vox Machina" (Amazon Prime Video)

A story that takes place in a fantasy world where magic rules, and races like giants, dwarves, half-elves, dwarves, humans and more, fight side by side against monstrous creatures like dragons or the living-dead.

If this pattern sounds familiar to you, you may have read The Lord of the Rings books or played D&D in the past.

After all, a group of adventurers made up of different creatures with different abilities, who go on a journey and get into trouble - this is the basis of every game "Dungeons and Dragons", and not by chance is also at the heart of the series "The Legend of Vox Machina", whose first season ended on Friday The latest in Amazon Prime Video is a huge success.

This is an adult animated series (we are talking here about blatant language, sexual situations and full-blown graphic and bloody violence) that follows a group of warriors and warriors called "Vox Mechina", as they become entangled in a revenge plot in an imaginary world called Exendria.

The main characters begin the story as not-very-successful mercenaries who have somehow come together, and are mostly engaged in drinking liquor and quarrels in inns (classic), and in general are one big mess.

But then they crystallize throughout the series, learning to trust each other and work as a group, while trying to help one of their own take revenge on people past him, ones who are more dangerous than they seem.

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One big mess.

The "Legend of the Preparatory" group (Photo: Amazon Prime Video)

In "Critical Roll" they are very aware that at the base of everything, they are playing "Dungeons and Dragons" here, which is a super-geeky occupation.

Their product appeals to a segment of the population that often feels rejected or different, and they embrace their viewers from the first moment because they are part of them

Indeed, "Legend of the Wax Preparation" is based directly on a real "Dungeons and Dragons" campaign, held for years in a private group of eight successful professional actors and actresses in the Hollywood dubbing industry, and then became "Critical Role", one of the most successful network series on the island. time.

The characters in the series are exactly the ones that were created and through which the friends played, and each actor dubs his character in the series as well.

In fact, the name "Vox Mechina" is a tribute to the world they came from, and means "sound machine".

If you're playing computer games or amateurs of anime or Western animated series, you've no doubt heard the voices of the main cast - Matthew Mercer, Laura Bailey, Travis Willingham, Marisha Ray, Liam O'Brien, Sam Regal, Talisan Jaffy and Ashley Johnson.

Alongside them as sub-characters, the series features surprising voices such as David Tennant ("Doctor Who"), Tony Hale ("Family in Disorder"), Dominic Monahan ("Lord of the Rings").

Animated series aimed at an adult audience are becoming more and more common, not only - but also - due to the incessant thirst of content streaming services.

Amazon itself has in recent years produced series such as the incredible "Invincible", "Unfinished", and soon a sub-series for "The Boys" - "The Boys Presents: Diabolical".

And yet, despite the rise in popularity of illustrated series, and even though times are changing and content that was once considered completely geeky and niche is now money machines, Amazon's investment in a nerdy table-based animated series was considered a risk.

Luckily for the creators of "Legend of the Wax Preparatory", they came to this deal already very cooked, with behind them a whole world of complex content and a huge fan base, which has even already raised the money to fulfill the dream of producing the series.

In fact, Amazon took almost no risk when it gave the green light, because the story behind "Legend of the Wax Prepares" is no less fascinating than the series itself.

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It has an audience.

Lots of crowd.

"Critical Roll" (Photo: Screenshot, YouTube)

We started at the bottom and now we are here

It all starts when a bunch of voice actors who know each other from years of working together in the industry, start meeting in private and playing "Dungeons and Dragons".

In 2015, they receive an offer to continue the game live-streaming on Felicia Day's Twitch channel (which is a geeky icon in its own right).

Would anyone at all be interested in watching some nerds (beautiful as they may be) playing a game whose whole point is to imagine the whole plot, characters and action?

Twitch channels usually broadcast energetic and dynamic video games, there is something to look at.

Will there be an audience that wants to look at a split screen where a group of actors describe to him what is supposedly happening during an episode whose length sometimes reaches five hours?

It turned out very quickly yes, it has an audience.

Lots of crowd.

Within a few episodes, the "Critical Roll" twitch series became the most watched on the channel, and over the years its popularity only grew.

The network series has become so successful that the eight cast members have retired to their own channel, set up a limited company that they run in partnership, and rarely in the content world - hold rights to everything. Of "Critical Roll"), with millions of views.

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Completely colorful, collaborative and fun.

"Legend of the Preparatory Vox" (Photo: Amazon Prime Video)

A sweeping plot story with amazing twists (from the crazy mind of Matthew Mercer - game director and creator of the world) and complex characters who get into ridiculous or dramatic situations - these are elements that are sufficient for the success of any content.

But the secret of true magic, which causes hundreds of thousands of viewers to sit back and watch a live 4-5 hour game in each episode, where they are required to imagine for themselves everything that happens, is first and foremost the interaction of the cast among themselves.

Their mutual love, friendship and respect are poured out of every frame on the Twitch channel, and we watch what happens between them during the game no less (maybe even more) than in the plot.

They encourage each other, laugh and tease like brothers and sisters, are torn apart by childish private jokes that viewers already quite share, and it is very noticeable that despite all the intense time they spend together while running their mini-empire, it only gives them complete pleasure.

The cast's relationship with their audience was also from the first moment based on mutual respect and joy.

Unlike giant companies that underestimate their geeky audience even though that's where all their profit comes from (I look at you, Marvel), Critical Roll is very aware that at the core of it all, they play "dungeons and dragons" here, which is a super-geeky business.

Their product appeals to a segment of the population that often feels rejected or different, and they embrace their viewers from the first moment that they are a part of them.

Unlike giant companies that fight their fans when they want to express their admiration in creative ways (Fox, I see you), "Critical Roll" is one of those that encourages this work.

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A sweeping plot story with amazing twists from the crazy mind of Matthew Mercer, on the left.

"Critical Roll" (Photo: Screenshot, YouTube)

For years, the show ended with long minutes of pan-art gallery sent by viewers, and prizes were awarded to cosplayers disguised as characters.

Critical Roll continues to collaborate with creators and professionals from its fan base as it creates merchandise and prints books and comics.

In return, their audience returns to them an endless love, as could be seen two years ago, when the group asked fans to help fulfill their dream of creating a short animated series based on their first campaign, "Vox Preparatory".

The cast dreamed of a special episode - 22 minutes of animation.

After dozens of pitching sessions across Hollywood did not bear fruit, they came to the conclusion that the only way to do that and also to keep control of the content in their hands

Will be through mass recruitment.

The goal was to raise $ 750,000 in 45 days, but it immediately became clear that this was small thinking.

Right in the first hour from the moment the Kickstarter opened, $ 1 million had been raised.

At the end of the fundraising period, more than $ 11.3 million was donated, and the record for raising Kickstarter in the field of television / cinema was broken.

With such a sum, it was already possible to talk about a series of 10 episodes, and then also came Amazon, ordering two more episodes and a second season - and all this before one frame was drawn from "Legend of a Preparatory Vox".

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Lots of love for each other and towards the fans.

"Critical Roll" (Photo: Screenshot, YouTube)

Standing in the hype?

When a work comes with such a history, there are very many expectations from it.

How will the series be received by veteran fans who to this day have seen all the elements in the optimal way - in their imagination?

After all, just as the film is never as deep, complex and wide-ranging as the book, so too a series of 12 relatively short chapters can not reach the depths that have developed over hundreds of hours of acting.

On the other hand, the fans come to the series already out of love for the world, and they just want more of all this goodness.

They invested their money in this work, and waited for it for years at the time of production.

Needless to say, the fandom was in a frenzy as the series' release date approached.

And although everyone admits that beloved dramatic scenes have been altered or shortened, and what we got is like a summary of the epic of the epic that was the first campaign, the series still pretty much kept everything it promised.

The characters have retained their charm, the crude humor and the childish arguments that we so much enjoy in "Critical Roll" are still here, and on the other hand we also got all the drama.

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Aside from the veteran viewers, there are far more potential audiences coming in new and fresh, and although the series was written so that there would be no need to arrive with an early background, the question was how it would be received on a mainstream platform like Amazon.

Well, the numbers confirm that it was received with great love both among the critics (100 percent freshness based on 29 reviews of Grumbling Tomatoes) and among the audience (score 8.7 based on 10.5 thousand ratings on IMDB).

As the episodes progressed through the season, one could see that new viewers were also swept away by its charm.

Viewers of the animated series who had never heard of the original series and went to check out what it was all about, immediately fell into the rabbit hole of "Critical Roll", which means, among other things, thousands of hours of content on the Internet.

Despite this daunting amount, the animated series led to a new wave of viewing in the original campaign, and the veteran fans (called Critters) welcomed those interested with open arms and answers to all questions.

Despite the success, there was also criticism.

Viewers who connected less noted that the series is very clichéd in its archetypes, and it is impossible to argue with that - it is based on a game based on archetypes.

Some also noted that the quality of the animation was not uniform, and the series was compared to Netflix's "Arcane" that came out before it, whose spectacular animation does not see "Vox prepares" from a shower - not difficult, when one episode of "Arcain" is about the entire original Vox budget Preparatory. "

And yet, despite the criticism, "Legend of the Wax" and the "Critical Roll" people continue to do what they know - a colorful, collaborative and completely fun creation, with characters and a world that is impossible not to fall in love with, simply because heart and humor are in its DNA.

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