Original Author: MemeMio
Original source: The SeeDAO
Original source: The SeeDAO
Azuki is on fire!
Created by TeamAzuki, the avatar NFT "Azuki", which features a two-dimensional style, captured a lot of popularity in January 2022. Its Dutch auction launched on January 13 was sold out within three minutes, and 8,700 NFTs were sold at a unit price of 1ETH, raising a total of 8,700ETH. As of now, its Twitter has gained 130,000 followers, and the floor price of Opensea has climbed all the way to 7ETH since its opening in January last year. The current total transaction volume exceeds 51,000 Ethereum.
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The two-dimensional NFT market before Azuki
I would like to take you to review the two projects 0n1Force and The Sevens first.
After the popularity of European and American NFT fashion brands represented by BAYC, the Asian market has been looking for NFT hype targets that can represent the oriental aesthetic style. The emergence of 0n1 Force made up for the gap in the market at that time, which is why it was able to gain a lot of attention in a short period of time. Even though the team of 0n1 Force itself is not well-known, it has successfully reaped the dividends of the market, and the transaction volume has basically rushed into the historical TOP30 of NFT projects before the flameout.
But 0n1 Force's actual art is not ideal after all, and the team has no way to obtain market resources to continue to hype, such as continuing to interact with stars for marketing like BAYC, and launching its own game, and the corresponding token distribution plan. These all lead to the failure to attract investors to enter the game during the increase of 0n1 transaction volume, which makes the follow-up of the project silent: Roadmap cannot continue to be realized, so it can only go to flameout.
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Azuki: Two-dimensional trendy brand, filling the gap in the oriental market after BYAC
Come see Azuki.
Azuki's goal is very clear, namely"Co-construction based on the Azuki community"——"Create the largest decentralized metaverse brand, and the community is the main body to create and own". And this sentence is not casually said, as a trendy brand, it is indeed "good-looking" enough.
Before Azuki, NFTs like BAYC had already formed a strong influence in the European and American fashion brand markets. From Hollywood to the NBA, to European football stars have Fomo BAYC. However, the design style of BAYC has the obvious characteristics of western trend aesthetics. Although the Asian market has followed this trend, the market demand has not been met. Now, this need is fulfilled by Azuki.
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The comparison of the two fashion brands of East and West
Offline, TeamAzuki plans to launch Azuki co-branded products such as fashion casual clothing and trendy toys, and plans to hold various offline activities (meetings, Azuki exhibitions, music festivals, etc.). In 2022, TeamAzuki may release Azuki-related music NFT.
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Azuki: A group spanning animation, trendy brands, art and products
The Azuki team has what it takes to realize this vision.
The Azuki brand was founded by TeamAzuki, the core team includes:
Founder ZZZAGABON, designer HOSHIBOY; Artists STEAMBOY, JOO, GENGHISKW; Engineer LOCATION TBA (former software engineer at Facebook); community operator PIZOOKIE (former PM at Google)…
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Powerful art style, taking care of the psychological projection of many users
With such a strong art team, Azuki can quickly distinguish itself from other projects in art style and win the favor of the community. Almost all anime lovers can find their favorite anime characters from Azuki, such as Ling Boli in "Evangelion", Kusanagi Motoko in "Ghost in the Shell", and "Demon Slayer: Blade". Mizuko and others. This list of characters can be as high as several hundred, and some people even find Wu Yifan from it. It is actually not easy to achieve such an effect in art, create psychological projections from such a large group of people, and arouse their love in a short period of time.
Specifically, in terms of art composition, Azuki obviously has a strong Japanese style. Members represented by HOSHIBOY directly embrace the attitude of the second dimension, presenting to the market an art style that is consistent with mainstream Japanese anime, coupled with American-style thick outlines, it is very convenient to mix the two-dimensional route and NFT market classics European and American style. TeamAzuki incorporated the world-class IP Street Fighter and the Japanese Ninja craze in Europe and America as key elements into Azuki's character design, intentionally analyzed the Japanese manga meme in recent years, and designed a visually appealing meme accordingly. Azuki NFT.
In the announcement, zuki chose a very two-dimensional approach-playing memes. At the beginning of its birth, Azuki used a large number of memes mixed in the East Asian secondary market and European and American regions in NFT design and Twitter. The pictures used in the early days of Twitter are very representative of Azuki’s two-faced pleasing approach:
This is the best fit for Azuki's early announcements"Take the red bean"On the one hand, the Japanese Azuki (あずき) was used as the name of the entire project, and on the other hand, it used the classic impression of Matrix red and blue capsules to play a pun, and at the same time hit users in the European, American and East Asian markets.
Here, this very classic phenomenon-level meme not only means choosing reality in Matrix, but also points to choosing to join the Azuki metaverse in Azuki, which in turn implies the choice in the official manifesto"image description"。
Azuki#9250
The same approach is more prominently reflected in Azuki NFT. Azuki#9250, Last 6.6ETH, in terms of image selection, it used the image of {ball head+nian Shang+cold face+red hair} - similar to the painting style and template use of the work "The Storm in Jueyuan", it was very successful Accurately grasp the psychology of consumers paying for love.
"Take the red bean"secondary title
Community building: core NFT community members such as institutions and BAYC pour in
To successfully create an NFT trendy brand, in addition to a strong team, strong resources in the animation industry and fashion industry, in addition to its own excellent art style and good products, it also needs to have a strong community. For all NFT projects, the quality of community members directly determines the reputation and vitality of subsequent projects.
So, who exactly is buying Azuki? What attitudes do they have towards Akuzi?
Looking through Azuki's Discord, we will find that the Azuki community atmosphere is very active. Discord's Chinese discussion area mainly revolves around Avatar transactions and the relevance of the two-dimensional characters, with a huge amount of information; the Japanese area is more inclined to agree with Azuki's style of painting and the discussion of Roadmap; the topics discussed in the US area today focus on On the operation of the core team...
And by browsing Azuki's Twitter, we will find that many "high-end users" are pouring into the Azuki community.
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Katherine Wu of Coinbase Venture bought Azuki and changed her avatar
In addition, Azuki has also begun to expand its influence in the European and American star markets.
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How do you see the two-dimensional NFT market after Azuki?
Azuki's completeness on Roadmap, the strength of the team, and the vitality of the community are obvious to all. On this basis, Azuki still has room for improvement, and very foresighted, Azuki has already made a certain prediction in the Roadmap: Azuki will not only build Azuki 3D venues, but also put NFT into RPG games and original animations.
I think this is an emphasis on worldview and storytelling.
The previous projects, including 0n1 and The Sevens, except for the team's various market behavior problems, qualitatively did not open the track of the two-dimensional NFT.
The project party gave you a group of Avatars, but these Avatars have no story at all-and this is actually the most important part of the second dimension.
Although Azuki has established an art style that takes everything from Europe, America, and Japan and Asia through its core team, it still needs to be improved in terms of character construction. At present, it is a way that the image is first and the story is behind.
The original two-dimensional content requires a stable world view skeleton and a narrative based on it. All characters are settled in a certain position, and the plot is scheduled to unfold harmoniously within the scope stipulated by the world view. And it is in this kind of story development that the characters themselves are shaped, and a certain character's attributes are also deepened through the iteration of each character to become a well-known template.
But under the logic of Azuki and other current two-dimensional NFT projects, the situation is just the opposite:Form a consensus by pursuing the template itself.
But Azuki's community can see a lot of"#XX like XX character"This is not only evidence of Azuki's precise grasp of the template, but also evidence of the lack of Azuki's metaverse structure of its own worldview. throughout the process a"hollowness of character"Lingering. In general, the two-dimensional NFT still has an uphill road to go. And climbing depends precisely on the"Two-dimensional"further hugs.
Now Azuki is facing the problem of "Avatar is strong and hollow" in the two-dimensional NFT track, and has chosen the path of RPG quite insightfully. The analysis is as follows:
1. Under the current industry situation, consumers are actually extremely willing to pay for a character who has accumulated stories and a complete story, so the key lies in:We need to deliver this world/story.
2. The problem of worldview - dig deep and involve the viewer
The world view sets an upper limit for the popularity of the work. What a project like Azuki lacks is this level of construction, so it shows a tendency to develop towards animation and RPG games on the path, aiming to dig deeper into the world view and further stir up enthusiasm.
We need characters to be designed not only to interact with the spectator, but also to interact with the world,Create a personal history for an Avatar, making him an indispensable member of Azuki or other two-dimensional NFT worlds, Only in this way can there be real empathy and an IP with positive consensus can be formed.
3. Template problem - not limited to combination, but to create
Azuki's meme usage is layered and has depth. But it is obvious that Azuki's 10k Avatars are a combination of existing classic templates - we need new elements to form Azuki's original templates,Let Azuki's world view and its original template derive its own red bean rice。
4. Destiny decision under the owner's choice - a part based on the game or world view
The acme of interaction lies in the moment when the uniqueness of the story is confirmed.Profound world view, exquisite Avatar, smooth story line... On this basis, when it moves towards animation and games, it needs not only the interaction between characters and characters in the story, but also NFT holders and The interaction of the storyline requires that the choice in a storyline be given to the NFT holders, so that a branch line and a copy of the storyline can be created just because"You hold this NFT"And be changed. In any case, the atmosphere of the community, the creation of users, and the development of the original world view are all upward, and here"NFT Meant to Buy Destiny Here"is a huge driver.
