Pplpleasr’s streaming platform is back with 5 short films

The shorts looking for funding range from charming animated series to gritty live-action dramas

article-image

PixieMe/Shutterstock modified by Blockworks

share


This is a segment from The Drop newsletter. To read full editions, subscribe.


Crypto artist Emily Yang, known online as pplpleasr, hasn’t given up on her plans to make blockchain-powered filmmaking happen. 

Her streaming and crowdfunding startup Shibuya — which raised $6.9 million back in 2022 and counts a16z and Variant Fund among its investors — launched this week. 

Shibuya is hosting five pilots as part of its “Season One” and will ultimately let viewers decide if they want to further fund those projects with fiat currency donations that go entirely to the filmmakers (and supporters get refunds if the target amounts aren’t reached).

While Shibuya’s site doesn’t mention crypto, it’s in the process of adding blockchain rails and features, a spokesperson told me in an email. Coinbase’s Base chain sponsored the Season One launch event.

“We built Shibuya to disrupt the traditional studio system and put power back into the hands of creators and fans,” Yang said. “With the launch of Season One, we’re spotlighting bold, original work and inviting fans to decide what comes next.”

Back in 2022, Shibuya released an animated short, White Rabbit, as a proof-of-concept for the platform. It raised $1.2 million in less than 30 minutes. Yang also sold “Producer Pass” NFTs for Cannes that year, with NFTs costing anywhere from $14,000 to $19,600 worth of ETH each.

The question: Are successes like that still possible three years later, now that the NFT bubble of that era has popped and Hollywood struggles forward, with filming in Los Angeles at historic lows?

Artwork for Shibuya’s five platformed projects

Some of Shibuya’s shorts up for funding are animated, while others are live action, with runtimes ranging from six to about 27 minutes per episode.

Ultrasound, from director Julian Lamadrid, is about a punk rock band in NYC. Every episode will be one shot (in Hollywood, that’s called a “oner”). Oners have been trending recently (like Adolescence on Netflix), and the choice makes sense here, too. 

Diaboli, a creepy medieval animated series about demons, religion and family, is about seven minutes long and has a video game-like feel with its dramatic, dark aesthetic and great voice acting. This one is like an episode from Netflix’s Love, Death and Robots, and is also a good watch for Castlevania fans.

Don’t Forget About Me from Elle Mills is a story about teenage siblings who meet their favorite childhood character from TV, while The Funny Thing About Losing Socks from Ben Christensen is about traveling to another dimension to retrieve socks lost in the dryer — but there’s a twist.

Last but not least, Spiritual 100 from director Jordan Cooper is a “satirical anime mini series” with humorous charm. In it, a broke guy joins a TV competition where a total of 100 people compete on a reality show that’ll determine who is the most spiritual.  

It’s a great mix of talent — we’ll have to circle back to see which ones get funded.


Get the news in your inbox. Explore Blockworks newsletters:

Tags

Decoding crypto and the markets. Daily, with Byron Gilliam.

Upcoming Events

Old Billingsgate

Mon - Wed, October 13 - 15, 2025

Blockworks’ Digital Asset Summit (DAS) will feature conversations between the builders, allocators, and legislators who will shape the trajectory of the digital asset ecosystem in the US and abroad.

recent research

Unlocked by Template (10).png

Research

Innovations on Aptos’ technical design through Raptr, Shardines, and Zaptos approach near-optimal latency and throughput by unlocking 100% utilization of network resources, with the capacity to settle 260k transactions per second with latencies less than 800ms. The original Move language was revamped with the launch of Move 2, supporting more expressivity in smart contract logic and a scalable ability to interact with high volume datasets. The ecosystem has benefitted from strong asset inflows, now hosting over $1.3B in stablecoins, $450M in bridged BTC, and $530M in RWAs. Activity in the Aptos ecosystem has grown notably over the past year, with monthly application revenue reaching ~$835k and monthly DEX volumes growing to over $5B, both at new all time highs.

article-image

Interchain Labs will focus on sovereign L1s and institutional demand, abandoning plans for smart contracts on the Cosmos Hub

article-image

Also, only three tokens have outperformed bitcoin so far this year: XMR, HYPE and SKY

article-image

The fund group has submitted proposals in recent months for other funds that would hold litecoin, solana, XRP, HBAR, Sui and others

article-image

Momentum’s back — BTC leads, risk assets follow

article-image

Ondo Finance’s acquisition of blockchain development company Strangelove follows its buy of Oasis Pro

article-image

Cryptocurrency and stock traders alike had a lot to unpack Wednesday