Flying Colors Foundation

The Flying Colors Foundation was a "non-profit organization" that was promoted by many anime YouTubers with its initial goal to introduce a new model for anime production. However, in March of 2018 it was found out to have been a scam organization.

It's Creation and Initial Plan
The organization was founded by Francisco “Fran” Lee, who originally worked for LootCrate as their Brand Consumer Insight Strategist in October 2016. Primarily focusing on anime and video game franchises, he created 14 successful monthly surveys for the company’s product lines. His interest in anime would inspire Francisco to develop his own company called Otaku Pin Club with Daniel Suh and Brain Li. Specializing in selling unlicensed anime pins and merchandise, Otaku Pin Club began business dealings in February 2017, though it would not be officially registered until July 12, 2017.

On May 31, 2017, Otaku Pin Club’s Instagram announced that popular anime YouTuber Gigguk had joined them as their advisor. Gigguk recalls that this collaboration began after mentioning in his Discord server that he was considering merchandise of his channel when a Patron of his, who happened to be a member of the company, approached him about the emerging business. Out of appreciation for his endorsement, OPC produced a series of pins based on Gigguk that was released in October 2017. During a meeting held at Anime Expo 2017 between Gigguk and Otaku Pin Club regarding these collaborative pins, OPC offhandedly mentioned an idea for a not-for-profit company focused exclusively on the Western anime fanbase and thus Flying Colors Foundation was found.

The initial goal of this non-profit was to introduce a new model for anime production. Despite not being fully agreed upon, the founders promoted this potential goal anyway to garner support. With anime’s emerging popularity in the West and more series being produced than ever before, they feared that streaming services such as Netflix and Amazon would monopolize the streaming rights to anime shows as they expanded their anime streaming libraries, leading to a decline in the quality of future anime series in conjunction with limiting their availability.

Flying Colors additionally disliked the control that production committees had over anime production, feeling they pushed for too many anime series to be produced, most of which are unnecessary and are a component contributing to the grueling work conditions Japanese animators face daily. To combat these problems, the foundation offered a Sampo Yoshi-style model for anime production. Originating from Feudal Japan, the Sampo Yoshi business philosophy dictates that any transaction made must benefit these three parties: the buyer, the seller, and society. In Flying Colors’ case, this was the anime studios, the influencers, and the anime community. Flying Colors wanted studios to be so independent that they stated that studios affiliated with them would be able to retain their intellectual properties, or allow these studios to invest their earning towards complete independence. However, a PowerPoint press reel about FCF’s proposal also states that the foundation sought to acquire streaming licenses for themselves as one of their means to provide anime globally. Nevertheless, Flying Colors wanted this studio independence so that anime producers could have unlimited creative freedom on their projects.

The Influencers, which were anime YouTubers, were to “define the development of the anime industry’s future” by serving as marketers for new anime series with plans to have them become “leaders, producers, and investors” that could “transform fan resources into a non-profit production committee.” Finally, the Western community’s input would determine which anime series would get greenlit. If everything went as planned, this would culminate in the foundation attempting to acquire a loan from the Japanese government to support their cause.

Influencers
On August 6, 2017, Youtuber The Anime Man announced the Top 100 Anime of All Time poll four days after previously covering the results of a similar poll conducted in Japan by NHK titled “Best 100 anime”. Striving to be the largest of its kind, Joey’s poll had a similar purpose to NHK’s, to find what fans considered the best anime series of all time. However, Joey’s focused on Western audiences rather than the Japanese. While seemingly innocuous on the outside, Joey’s poll was secretly a data mining experiment for the newly formed Flying Colors Foundation. Introduced to the company by Gigguk, Joey’s poll was one of the foundation’s means of establishing themselves within the anime community.

By late September, FCF had five confirmed influencers working for them: Gigguk, Glass Reflection, Digibro, Mother’s Basement, and The Anime Man. Gigguk credits himself as introducing the foundation to several of these YouTubers. On October 6, 2017, the results for the Top 100 anime of All Time poll were publicly released on a 12-page document on Issu.com. The poll was considered a success with a turnout of over 120,000 participants. In conjunction with its release, Joey the Anime Man uploaded a video overviewing the published results where he openly thanked Flying Colors for their collaboration with him as well as Gigguk for introducing him to the company. In the wake of the release of the results of the Top 100 poll, Digibro enthusiastically promoted Flying Colors on a podcast simply named “The Podcast” where he shared confidential details about the company’s plans with his fellow co-hosts. Three of the podcast’s co-hosts, anituber Kenji the Engi, My Anime List reviewer Rido, and Joe from the YouTube channel Pause and Select would go on to participate in a phone interview with Francisco Lee and Daniel Suh six days later on October 28, 2017.

Controversy
In the months-long silence, many became increasingly distrustful of Flying Colors. Suspicions had begun as early as September when Miles, public relations manager for Crunchyroll, questioned them over Twitter about their knowledge of the anime industry. These suspicions would worsen when Kenji the Engi, who initially liked the idea of the foundation, began publicly describing it as a scam utilizing methods such as surveys and email registrations to extract data from anime fans. Several even made comparisons between Flying Colors and OtakuCoin, a shady cryptocurrency made by Tokyo Otaku Mode that seeks to provide income for underpaid Japanese animators. (It should be noted that on November 16, 2017, the Flying Colors Foundation officially registered as a non-profit organization and had shifted their goals from changing the anime production model to solely collected the data of Western anime fans.)

Forbes would cover the release of the census in an online article describing the foundation’s members as “a staff of six anime fans, several of whom have day jobs in anime-related fields when they’re not working on the nonprofit.” But this coverage would only further escalate the worsening reception of the foundation. Another suspicion arose that the foundation was planning on selling data collected from the census to advertisers after Francisco Lee’s LinkedIn, which displayed his career at LootCrate, was discovered. In response to this accusation, Flying Colors bizarrely stated that Lee had quit working at LootCrate the previous month to work full-time in the foundation, contradicting their own press kit and Fran’s own LinkedIn that states his involvement in the company was voluntary.

On March 21, 2018, The Anime Man uploaded a video promoting the census that was commissioned by the foundation. In this now deleted video, Joey openly admits to having direct involvement with FCF and urges his fans to participate in their census to “make a change” to the anime industry. Joey assured viewers in the video’s comment section that the accusations against Flying Colors were no more than false rumors with “baseless reasonings” and that the census was a “passion project” with “nobody on the team, including [himself], getting money from this. It is 100% voluntary.”

As the organization became more suspicious YouTubers like Akidearest, Gigguk, and The Anime Man denied the idea that FCF was a scam and selling data with Gigguk stating that they were “wrong assumptions, misinformation, and straight up lies.". On March 27, 2018, an article titled “The Concealment and Lies Behind the Flying Colors Foundation: Further Revelations” from Socialanigirl contained a timeline of the foundation’s history up in till the time of the article’s publication, this lengthy article notably revealed details about hidden members within the company citing a recording of the October 28, 2017 phone interview as evidence. The article then proceeds to unveil that, contrary to what FCF had previously stated about tracking Census participants, the software typeform that the anime Census ran on states in its privacy policy that it collects the IPs of individual users using third-party tracking services. More alarming was the foundation’s lack of a privacy policy of its own that violated several laws. These being the California Business and Provisions code sections 22575-22579, the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act of 1998, and the California Online Privacy Protection Act.

Socialanigirl then called into question the founders’ alleged divestment from Otaku Pin Club stating that Francisco Lee and Daniel Suh were still involved in the for-profit company while working with Joey on the Top 100 anime Poll and the fact that both men remained as administrators of the OPC community Discord server as of March 26, 2018. Finally, the article concludes with the reveal that Digibro had been paid for his consultation with the foundation. Admitting that he was unaware of the details revealed in the latest expose, Gigguk maintained on Reddit that his involvement with Otaku Pin Club ended upon joining FCF, even though his pin series was released while he was a member, nor were there any plans to link the two companies together.

Downfall
On March 28, 2018, the Flying Colors Foundation announced that it would be officially closing on March 31st after feeling that “personal identification information of their team” had been leaked online that resulted in “threats to their personal safety and harassment of their members.” They promised that the results of the anime Census would be published before their closure, but they would delete the data that had been collected from it afterward. Gigguk proceeded to delete his defense of the company stating on Twitter, “In light of recent events I have deleted my previous statement about FCF. For now, I will be waiting on the sidelines to see what happens and will halt any involvement until further notice.” Concurrently Joey’s video about the anime Census had been deleted.

That same day Socialanigirl would release yet another article about the controversy. Revealing that the founders had intentions to create FCF pins sold through Otaku Pin Club and that they wanted to share data from the foundation with the cryptocurrency OtakuCoin, the pinnacle of the article was the extent of Joey’s and Gigguk’s involvement within the organization. From an anonymous source that was in the foundation itself, Joey had become more involved in the foundation in January, searching and pitching the foundation to Japanese companies, some of which were his contacts. There were even plans for Joey to be involved with the planned Japan office mentioned in the March 2018 press kit. Gigguk is suggested to have had a deeper involvement within the company, citing a screenshot of private Twitter conversations between him and a censored party as evidence.

Gigguk responded critically to the latest exposé on Reddit, believing it had been written with libel against him and Joey. He accused the author of incorrectly portraying his involvement as deceptive and that though FCF did consider a partnership with OtakuCoin, this never occurred due to it being advised against. Acknowledging that the company had been severely mismanaged, Gigguk assured that his support for them was out of genuinely wanting to see their plans achieved rather than to intentionally scam people.

Socialanigirl then replied to his Reddit comment with several screenshots to support her stance. The first was of Francisco Lee conversing with someone over Discord about planning to work with OtakuCoin and the other an Asana page for the company. This Asana showed Joey in BizDev as well as a member suspiciously similar to Gigguk named “G(” with the role of contacting the Influencer team like how he had mentioned in the leaked Twitter conversations.

Aftermath
After the closure of FCF, Daniel Suh and Francisco Lee seemingly vanished. Lee deleted his Facebook page, the only confirmed social media he had. Brian Li, arguably the most silent of the founders, continues maintaining a YouTube channel shared with his girlfriend that focuses on Vlogs and Kpop.

Otaku Pin Club remains operational, but it is apparent that since Fran and Suh’s absence their social media presence has stagnated with their last post on Twitter being March 22, 2018, the day before the release of Socialanigirl’s first article on the Flying Colors Foundation. All traces of OPC’s highly publicized Gigguk line have been erased entirely, not even being featured in the section of their website dedicated to retired products. The banner ad for the Youtuber’s line was later restored sometime in September 2018, but redirects to the company’s latest products.

Despite distancing himself from the failed non-profit, his time as an influencer has clearly affected Gigguk. Joey has since released a sequel to the Top 100 anime of All Time Poll called the Top 100 Manga of All Time, but it has received only a fraction of the popularity its predecessor had. It is unknown at this time if Joey is working with a hidden party for the Manga Poll. As mentioned, Joey also deleted his videos in relation to FCF and went silence on it not making any kind of response and was supposedly deleting comments that mentioned FCF. Digibro released a video discussing his involvement in the foundation on April 1, 2018, a day after it officially closed. Considering his involvement as tangential at best, Digi admits to having lost touch with FCF after 2017. He was so ill-informed that he says he was unaware of the controversy and its importance when the foundation contacted him about it. Perhaps the most intriguing detail Digi provides in the video is his description of one of the organization’s members:“…and the other one involved in the company was a fucking weapons dealer for the US government or something.” Mother’s Basement spoke out about his involvement during the controversy but provided very little information about it outside of the fact that he says that the foundation ceased donating to him after asking him if he wanted to go beyond paid consultations. Glass Reflection, on the other hand, acted surprised when Canipa revealed that Otaku Pin Club was a side-company to FCF and may not of known what was going on behind the scenes. Everyone else including Akidearest and Sydsnap went silent.

The results of the 2018 anime Census were never released. Nevertheless, the data collected by the census would have been useless as the information gathered from its target audience can be accessed elsewhere.

Gallery

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