Special ANIWAVE INTERACTIVE Announcement!!!!!

Being born in 1993, I come from the last generation that wasn't raised from internet-based technologies. We grew up from syndicated cartoons (on Toonami, WB Kids, FoxKids, YTV, or Teletoon), 3D platformer video games, and although handheld video-games were big for us, they were only in their peak due to our obsession of already being outside with friends; thus, portability was key for our generation. Whether it was co-op or comp, split-screen was the way to play because the presence of your friends were required to truly enjoy the game. However, nothing was more ground-breaking than the introduction of trading card games, such as Pokémon, Yu-Gi-Oh, Duel Masters, & Magic: The Gathering.

I was born in downtown Toronto and was living on the other side of the fence from Long Branch Loop when Pokémon cards took over the game. Anyone who lived through the Pokémania of the 90s knew how pervasive it really was when it hit the market. I remember going to this local family-owned video store in a small plaza across the street from the bus loop and would rent Pokémon VHSes back-to-back until my Mama and the store owner told me we had to give other people the chance to rent them. There was no greater hype in my life than to witness crowds forming at recess during battles or when someone found rare cards, seeing classmates examine them in the sunlight to see what condition they were in and people fighting each other to have a look, and even in some cases, getting robbed over trading cards, which sadly included myself. I can tell you right now, I never brought my cards to school after that...

Once Yu-Gi-Oh took over Pokémon, I was beyond hyped and that passion lived on longer than most of my peers. Having Egyptian roots in my mixed-heritage, I found myself indulged in Yu-Gi-Oh the most because it was one of the first and only anime at the time that had was Egyptian lore all it. However, it's representation of the culture still didn't have many black or even mixed characters for me to identify with until way later when I was older, which only gate-keeped the culture at the time of my infancy. Not to shut down any of the classics that I LOVED growing up to – considering how some characters that I have obsessions identifying with are not black – but it would have been nice to have more representation for fans like myself and my friends; and I wouldn't doubt that some of my non-Black anime friends would be as obsessed with Black characters as much as I am with some non-Black characters (heheh like Luffy) because of the personality dynamics they would share that make us smile and give hope through life's challenges. However, people used to tell me that enjoying anime or playing card games was "too White" or for "losers", since some people even told me that I would never find a girlfriend if I loved anime, which I found really odd considering most of my friends who enjoyed anime have always been Black and so many women these days are into anime; thus, I refused any slander to be the truth. However, I would be lying if I said the hate on the culture didn't shake my soul at the time because some of the best times I had in my upbringing were over watching anime, as well as playing epic card games and split-screen games, all with some of my closest friends. Even if you had a beef with someone, you settled it over watching anime or playing game and you most likely squashed the disagreement over who won. Most of the time, that is... Let's be real haha some yute had to GWEH from yah suh, since there were some games that really ended friendships! However, these were still amongst THE BEST days I had in my life before technology took over our lives, making the world more individualistic. Nowadays, if you have an idea, people want to make a bag off it rather than coming up with something themselves, and we barely see or hear from our friends unless it's through an online game or direct messaging on social media. Like I said earlier in this anecdote, I come from a generation where, if anything, we were barely home because we were outside doing anything to stay out as late as possible because who wants to spend time playing games by themselves? Damn, the world has changed over the years...

As an only-child in his infancy, when I wasn't riding my bike with friends, or at any of their places playing split-screen video-games or trading card games, I spent a lot of my downtime making music, especially background music. However, music can thrive in a space where people ride around in their cars doing God knows what or it can act as a agent for allowing people to get high at home while spacing out to the music; which was unfortunately rooted from my own experience in later years of my childhood, considering how the car is THE BEST way to test out beats and I would join ride-alongs not minding where we went or what we'd do. This, however, went against the message that I originally wanted to convey in my music, even with the instrumental work. With that in mind, I wanted to find ways that breathed my soul-mission in the same way the music spoke, which would not only create more substance to the music, but also encourage to keep people turned off by the street-life to live fast and die young; since there would be new ways for the black community to find hope through vast representation that accepted us for who we are, whether it's at our lowest points when we felt lost or when we feel recognized by the right groups for being the intellectuals we really are. This is where I came up with the idea to get into gaming, and storytelling. Technology forces us to become accustomed to selecting and scrolling through songs and information, while tangibility forces the essence of patience in our lives by encouraging us to take things song-by-song, page-by-page, as each level is thoroughly accomplished. For as long as I could remember, I always wanted to produce music for video games. Thus, I want my contribution to the game to be through a game, and to encourage the culture to read more and unlock the potential of their minds more because the rest of the world needs to recognize how we are greater than they think, even when we sometimes don't recognize it in the moment.

When I was blessed to have Gregory Hawkins illustrate the original designs of my characters in 2023, I immediately went to Pokecardmaker.net to see what it would be like to have my own cards with his illustrations, and that concept stuck with me over the next couple years, eating at the back of my mind to the point of obsession. It wasn't until I had some health complications in 2024, where I realized that I couldn't let the days pass by trying to keep the lights on at home and needed to speed up the rate of my chasing my real dreams because it's not like I'm going to be here forever and I learnt that more than ever when my health caught up to the grind. I took a significant amount of time off for the first half 2025, since my off-season for stagehand work is in the Winter, but from late-winter until mid-spring of 2025, I spent every single day and night working on my first novel (giving life to Aniwave Pages), developing ideas for games (giving life to Aniwave Interactive), and putting together the strategy guide for what would one day connect all of my life's work and contributions for the culture together through a franchise ecosystem. Conceptually, I wanted to create a trading card game that was as Afrofuturistic as my characters were, and that even gave homage to the musical culture of my Canadian-Caribbean heritage; while being set up in a way that would allow me to expand on it as my future projects keep developing. I live by the philosophy that the best way to create something is to make it based on your own needs, because even if it's niche, one day it'll catch a following because we as human beings are more interconnected than we think and social groups evolve over time because people find themselves more and more as they grow, since we all grew up in the same world. Some of us just aren't the greatest at communicating their interests because they're so focused on fitting in, which is why they blossom into who they were meant to be later on; and that's coming from a late-bloomer, myself, who had to put the mask down to really delve into my passions as a Blerd, even if it meant growing out of any group that I once surrounded myself with that tried to mold me into someone I was not to gain attraction from people who wouldn't understand me to begin with. Most of the time we formulate our interests, based on the people we surround ourselves with, but if some aren't there for your greater good, you find yourself trapped in a cycle for gratification and acceptance. You need to follow your dreams, even if you have to walk alone in that chase for a while. I promise that you will always find your tribe that vibes with you when you follow your heart. With this philosophy, I knew I had to do it more grassroots than ever because I always wanted to contribute to putting on the culture of my surrounding communities, just as Martin Scorsese or Spike Lee have always done for New York, or what John Singleton always did for Los Angeles.

Toronto has always been a multicultural hub for me, throughout my entire life; and although I didn't appreciate it at the time I moved around a lot, I was really blessed to experience living all over the Greater-Toronto-Hamilton-Area to really grasp the culture of each borough. In Canada, whether it's in suburban communities or rat-race cityscapes, we often ignore our roots in order to blend in with the general census; however, on the flip, some of us also represent our heritages in the most beautiful ways by serving the community with what made us who we are. The GTHA is the only place in the world I knew where you could get Jamaican Patties at a subway station on your way to eat Trinidadian Roti with Bubble Tea on the side from next door, then stop by a street-stand that sold Asian-baked goods for dessert, before you smoke shisha at Middle-Eastern bars and finish the night off at underground Somalian after-parties with your European and Asian friends, ALL ON THE SAME BLOCK... Although, I have St Lucian and Trinidadian roots, our family had a massive appreciation for Reggae music; asides from our obsession with Soca music. Not to mention, having a step-family with Jamaican roots only made the appreciation grow for my inner-Rasta. Having family-friends who used to burn mixtapes of dubplates by various Soundsystems around the world first exposed me to the culture, then years later, once I worked at a studio that would cut dubs for selectas, my passion only exploded. I ended up meeting so many heroes that I grew up listening to, which made many of my relatives really proud to hear that I was having sessions and befriending many artists that they used to listen to in the 80s, 90s, and 2000s. This really broke the bridge between people we used to sonically-worship and realizing that they were human beings just like us. It gave hope more than anything, as a young artist myself. These artists were and will always be heroes to me, which is an important point to mention for substance, when discussing what i'd to share next...

Confiucus once said, "If one wants to run, one must learn to walk. If one wants to teach, one must learn. To define the future, one must study the past." I appreciate you for reading this far into my journey, which brings me to the fact how I would like to announce that I am working on a trading card game, by the name of "SoundClash All-Stars!!!!!".

In sound-clash culture, selectas (DJs) and their crews (which are called sound-systems, or sounds for short) battle each other with exclusive dubplates that have rare instrumentals accompanying customized vocals recorded by heroic artists of the culture. The sound that has the best selection wins the sound-clash. I wanted to take this concept and apply it to a card game, since the Caribbean culture in Toronto is predominantly Jamaican; and for most of my projects I really want to contribute to the communities I grew up around. You'd be surprised how many people don't know about the true application of dubplates and how they're originally meant for sound clashes, so I hope to teach communities about it to potentially contribute to promoting the culture more in that sense. From my angle, there is no better way to do this than to use all the characters I make in my projects (such as AUDACI, SalvadorAudi, BaBa NtchR, R0N1N, or TimeMaster) as playable mascots to hype up and promote the culture to an international audience; especially when considering the fact that a large amount of anime fans are, in fact, from the Afro-Caribbean diasporas. Although sound-clash culture started in Jamaica, it is not strictly limited to Jamaica, as there are sound-clash fraternities across the Caribbean in each island, as well as world-wide throughout their diasporas. Therefore, one does not have to be of Jamaican roots to enjoy SoundClash, which makes this is a Pan-Caribbean contribution that respects and honours the roots of the culture through a unifying approach.

Accessibility is paramount for what I stand for with many of my projects, so I made an online version of the strategy guide for those who cannot afford the physical book version of the guide. Eventually, the action figures that Chi Ho Lo is creating will serve as figurines to heighten the game experience and bring the characters to life more, however, the game can still be played without the cards. With the power structures and special abilities provided in the strategy guide, players can use their imagination more if they just want to play with the action figures. The "SoundClash All-Stars!!!!!" game will involve a lot of mathematical skills, so once this game catches some traction and gains popularity, I hope to eventually develop an app in later updates for players to monitor their statistics easier, as well as scan later editions of the figurines via NFC chips to integrate with the app, so they can unlock exclusive abilities, see animations of the attacks, as well as connect their phones to those of their opponents (just like how GameBoys used to use link cables to support battles/trading in multiplayer games, such as Pokémon or Yu-Gi-Oh Dark Duel Stories). I want to bring people together more with the efforts of my projects and promote them.

This is a completely self-funded project, and I work everywhere in the Golden Horseshoe, as a stagehand between Niagara and Scarborough to make this dream come true; while also living alone trying to keep the lights on, despite any challenge I come to face. It's been a longer journey than I ever expected, through all the blood, sweat, and tears. However, hills and valleys only help build character and I believe God rewards those who stick to their passions through the power of perseverance. Either way, any help to make this vision come to reality sooner would be much appreciated, as it isn't mainly for my benefit, but more so for those who will be able to become more culturally-empowered by having proper representation and guidance through a culturally-significant gaming experience driven by a passion for the arts. All of the sales I make from this game will only go back into the studio to support artists all over the place who are contributing to bigger projects, such as an open-world video game that I always dreamed of developing, as well as an anime series I am working on, or live-action adaptations of a novel I am writing. The TCG is only the first step towards building a franchise that I hope can help keep one more person (and hopefully many) off the street by being indulged in an Afrofuturistic ecosystem that inspires them to have a better future, despite any challenge they come to face. We often identify with cultures from outside of our own communities, which only contributes to identity-issues fuelled by gate-keeped expectations and in the end, we still have to battle the behemoth of systemically-driven issues in society. However, if I can contribute to saving a life through my artistic endeavours, then I'll know I did something right for my people.

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