After years of largely translating and re-editing popular anime series from Japan, the popular streaming site Crunchyroll teamed with filmmaker LeSean Thomas to co-produce the original anime short film Children of Ether, released in 2017.

Set in a dark, dystopian future, the film was the first original animated film for Crunchyroll and boasted a level of diversity that's often unseen in the anime medium. Receiving a limited theatrical release in the United States during July 2017 before becoming available on the streaming service, here is an overview of Children of Ether, its subsequent legacy, and a look at Thomas' filmmaking career.

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What Is Children of Ether?

Children of Ether follows the adventures of a young woman named Rhonda, voiced by Camille Winbush (The Bernie Mac Show), with a mysterious past. Pursued by a relentless villain through a dying, dystopian city populated by roving gangs, bloodthirsty raiders and things that go bump in the night, Rhonda is accompanied by two young orphans as she struggles to elude her shadowy hunter while coming to terms with a new power, known as The Ether, awakening within her.

After a prolific career working as an animation producer and comic book artist, Thomas teamed with Crunchyroll to produce the animated short film, and was given the opportunity to personally select his animators for the project. Tasking animation studio Yapiko Animation (Dragon Ball Super: Broly) with the production, Thomas hired animation director Yuichi Takahashi (Gatchaman Crowds Insight) and animator Mituo Iso (Neon Genesis Evangelion). Thomas believed while representation in the medium was important, he knew that a poor quality film would diminish the representation depicted, choosing longtime anime creators to be part of the production.

The Legacy of Children of Ether

In a medium where African-American figures do not appear prominently and are depicted poorly when they do appear, Children of Ether provided an anime story from a top-notch production team that featured predominantly African-American characters properly rendered, including a strong, female lead in Rhonda. Similarly featuring a largely African-American voice cast, Thomas' film ensured an overdue sense of representation in the medium while creating a haunting anime world.

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While Takashi Okazaki's popular manga series and subsequent Emmy Award-winning anime adaptation Afro Samurai had depicted a strong, POC lead a decade earlier, Children of Ether was an original production by an African-American filmmaker putting together a similarly diverse original voice cast rather than have it initially recorded in Japanese and subtitled or dubbed.

The Legacy and Future of LeSean Thomas

Cannon Busters

LeSean Thomas had started his career working as the character designer and layout and key animator on the Showtime webseries WhirlGirl in 1997. After working as a storyboard artist on Kim Possible and The Batman, Thomas served as the supervising character designer and co-director of the first two seasons of The Boondocks on Adult Swim. The success of the series helped Thomas become the first American animator hired by an independent South Korean production company, working with Moi Animation as a producer and director.

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Returning to the United States, Thomas became the creative producer and supervising director on Black Dynamite for Adult Swim. After successfully crowdfunding an animated adaptation of his creator-owned comic book Cannon Busters, Thomas partnered with Crunchyroll to create Children of Ether. Since then, Thomas has been working on the Netflix adaptation of Cannon Busters and the Netflix original anime series Yasuke. The upcoming series follows the historical black samurai who served Oda Nobunaga, with Thomas working as creator, executive producer, and director behind the anime.