Chained Souls

Content warnings.:  Cartoon Blood and Gore, Physical violence, Death, Death by Mauling.

Overview
Chained Souls is an original animated series created by Alpha Infernex Productions. Alpha Infernes Productions is a joint channel that Rayaroth Kussow and Dragerous Bloadsukkar share and collaborate on. On June 2nd 2016, a trailer for Chained Souls was first released to Youtube. Chained Souls being the brainchild of Rayaroth Kussow. The video was an animated music video (AMV) to Run Boy Run by Woodkid that doubled as a trailer for the series. In the description of the video Rayaroth, also known as Ray, excitedly announced the series. They stated that at the time they’d already completely animated nine of the twenty planned episodes of the series. One April 27th 2019 Chained Souls episode one was uploaded to Youtube. Soon followed by episode two which was released on June 1st of the same year. The first episode of the series ended up just under nine minutes long and the second episode of the series clocked in at just over nine minutes.

Between the upload of the trailer and the first episode the channel saw the release of the official opening of the series, the credits for the series, and two public casting calls to recast certain characters. Three updates for the series were also released during this period. On November 8th 2017 uploaded a video titled “ Announcement by both Ray and Drage ”. In the video Ray explained that their laptop had recently been giving them issues however they were still able to work on Chained Souls during this time. Apparently having now made it up to episode fourteen of the series. On April 14th 2018 they shared more about Chained Souls and its production. Including that the most taxing problem for the series which was the lack of an editor. They also shared that the series had actually had five casting calls due to the fact that people had fallen out of contact with them during production.

On April 19th 2019 in the video “ ^Chained Souls^ UPDATE (w/ come lil sneak peaks) ” Ray talked about their journey while animating the series, their feelings towards it, and plans for its future. They stated that at the time of recording they’d now animated up to episode fifteen. They also showed two clips of the series, one clip from episode one and a clip from episode fifteen. And a release date for episode one was announced. On August 22nd 2019, only two months after the release of episode two, Ray uploaded a video and announced they would be rebooting Chained souls. In the video they explained that in the midst of editing episode three their feelings towards the series and the older animation had begun to spiral. While they had always intended to reboot the series at some point, they’d now come to the conclusion that they wanted to reboot it now and make it better over all. They planned to rewrite the script and rather than having it a series decided it better fit a movie format. Though the wait would be longer than they wanted they felt the final product would be superior and also invited their voice actors to reprise their roles in the movie if they so desired. After this on June 6th 2020 saw the release or the newly reanimated Chained Souls opening with a promise in the description of a casting call in the future.

Plot
Akeela and Namei have spent the last three days enjoying a quiet isolated life deep in a cabin in the woods. When the siblings have a small run in with two Soul Switchers, the pair spend some time searching Akeela and Namei’s home for a forbidden text. The search ends with the Soul Switchers leaving empty handed. Despite one Soul Switchers distinct feeling of the house being a little too innocent for comfort.

With the encounter behind them, Akeela awakes the next morning and offers to go pick some black berries for Namei. While collecting food Akeela is surprised by the return of one of the Soul switchers. The Soul Switcher requests Akeela to take him back to his home. Panic Akeela tries to compose himself, but the appearance causes him to lose control and reveal himself to be none other than a Chained Soul.

Characters
The two main characters in the first two episodes appear to be Akeela and Namei. But the credits in the opening allude to a larger cast of characters such as Xandre, Yakup, Jaku, Waqwa, Espian, Latchji, Gaxerzuza, Eyba, Milo, Clawdandus, Labira.

Links
Youtube, Vlare.