My Life Me
My Life Me is an animated series created by JC Little, Cindy Filipenko and Svetlana Chmakova, co-directed by Mr. Niko. The series is a slice-of-life comedy that follows Birch Small, a teenage otaku with aspirations of being a cartoonist, as she tries to survive junior high school with her friends. The series is notable featuring manga iconography such as sweatdrops, speech bubbles, and chibis.
The series first aired on the French-language Télétoon on September 19, 2010. It was shown on the English-language channel Teletoon from September 5, 2011 to September 30, 2011. It also aired in the United States on the short-lived PBJ.
Production
My Life Me received a development deal in 2006 from Teletoon. The series was a co-production between Canadian and French companies. The episodes were animated using ToonBoom Harmony, and the animation was split episodically between Toutenkartoon in Montreal, and Caribara in Angoulême, France. Backgrounds were created in Maya, then cel-shaded, rendered and imported into Harmony. The animators did a hybrid of digital and hand drawn to help the fluidity in the animation.Animated digitally, manga aesthetics were given homage "using various comic book manga codes and language such as stylish black and white comic book panels dropping behind the characters to express their suppressed feelings on screen." Even before production began My Life Me was planned to be "developed as a lifestyle brand, there will be a licensing and merchandising program to support the brand with a strong emphasis on publishing, accessories, gifts, stationery, apparel as well as a strong online component with a fully interactive website currently in production." The planned delivery of the series, shorts, and website was fall 2009.
My Life Me was "at the top of German co-production group TV-Loonland AG's offering in the 2009 autumn TV markets". In early 2010, TV-Loonland filed for bankruptcy/insolvency and its assets were sold off. My Life Me, at the time still in production, was one of such properties. The series was acquired by Classic Media in February. Classic Media took control of all media iterations of the property including the planned "heavily interactive" website. "Other than the television series, fifty-two eleven-minute episodes, the property is reported to include music video clips and more for mobile, online, and video on-demand distribution."
The series is now owned by DreamWorks Animation, due to their buyout of Classic Media in 2012.
Premise
Birch Small's school system requires her and her classmates, Liam, Sandra, and Raffi to work together in a group known around the school as a "Pod." The students don't get to choose who they are partnered up with; they must work together, despite their differences and shortcomings.Characters
- Birch Small : A 13-year-old cartoonist and otaku. She is shown to be very familiar with almost anything involving art, including various historical artist names. Birch has a crush on Raffi, and her crush on him causes her to constantly try to impress him, often doing absurd things, such as becoming vegetarian simply because Raffi was conflicted with her love of fast foods and meaty foods. She is also heavily interested with Japanese manga and is usually seen drawing comics in the style associated with them.
- Liam Coll : 14-year-old cousin of Birch. He's very close to Birch as he's often seen in Birch's house for one reason or another. His silly and ignorant personality often causes problems, even getting himself into a "duel" with another kid in school unintentionally; however, his personal skills and specialties have their uses and can come out to help and often come out to help his "pod" in tight situations. Liam also expresses a rather continuous problem of being unable to "find himself" as that he can't find one thing he wants to be or one thing to fully define himself as he will often express a different hobby or interest in different episodes. Like Birch, Liam is heavily into manga, and contributes the plot and writing to Birch's illustrations.
- Sandra le Blanc : A 14-year-old skateboarder. She's rude and tomboyish, and will often will do things to earn the discomfort and embarrassment of others for her own entertainment, and often would go so far as to try to get others including members of her "pod" to get angry at each other again for her own entertainment. She constantly denies of her "geek phase" that she had before, instead constantly bashing her own pod's geeky moments.
- Raffi Rodriguez : Love interest of Birch. An extremely popular student in school, he often gets chosen for events and fundraisers, and gets much attention from the female students, much to the jealousy of other male students such as Liam. He is 14 years old, and often concerned about his looks and expresses that as his only concern at times. He's shown to care for Birch considerably, and is implied in some scenes to also have a crush on her. One of the ways the official website has described him as, "would drive anyone crazy if he wasn't so darn nice".
Episodes
Teletoon original airdates follow the episode titles in parentheses:- Misconcepted Deceptions
- Reach for the Pod
- Big Man on Canvas
- The Pencil Assassin
- The Makeover
- The Pom-Pom Girl
- Unreasonable Facsimiles
- Planets Maligned
- The Big Flap
- Finding Neko
- The Raffi Raffle
- Crushed
- Friday the 13th
- Bossman's Blues
- Birch's Beef
- A Fine Balance
- Liam the Hero
- True Colors
- Love Lessons
- Miss President
- Bad Company
- Manga Slam
- They're Watching Us
- The Mascot
- Holiday Hijinx
- Rope Burn
- There's No Business...
- Growing Pains
- Comic Chaos
- Working Stiff
- Star-Struck
- The Big Switch
- A Bed for Raffi
- Back to the Stone Age
- The Costume Party
- Integrity Insmegrity
- Making a Mountain of a Molehill
- Here's Liam
- The Diary
- Raffi's Secret Love
- Skate Club
- Pinged and Ponged
- Love is in the Air
- Cyranette
- Liam and the Kid's Big Day Out
- Cut Out the Sarkasm
- Family Tree
- Just Say Nooo
- At Odds with the Pad
- Accept No Substitutes
- Fish Fiasco
- Birch's Trial