Hazbin has been

 

I've always found myself tickled by the prospect of Independent content, as though the creation of such was itself an implicit call to action of the availability of the creative world to everyone. Even when the obvious talents involved are so transcendent, such as they are for Vivzepop's adult animation hell-themed series, that she might as well just be an underfunded animation studio in her own right. What, in talent and presentation, separates the likes of Hazbin Hotel and Helluva Boss from any other 2D animated series in the world? Nothing but the delivery venue. And in fact, given that Hazbin Hotel has just dropped it's full first season on Prime, even the delivery venue is no longer 'underground' and 'for the people'. Still, it carries that magical word 'independent' and that somehow cements the series as belonging to 'one of us' as it were.

Adult animation is a criminally underserved sector of the animation industry, with most of the money and focus for animation falling into desperate shots for slots in the handful of kids channels out there. But one of the very few advantages of our new age of media, controlled by streaming services constantly at each other's throats, is that finally there's a place for these commonly shunned genres of media. No longer does every Adult Animation product have to fight for a place on Comedy Central or FOX, they can go get themselves proper distribution! And in this vein I am very happy to finally see the Helluva Boss universe get it's expansion with Hazbin Hotel, even if Hazbin Hotel was actually conceived of before Helluva Boss was. (Or at least, it made it to be actually developed before Hotel was.)

The Hazbin/Helluva universe is something of a celebration of the possibilities of high quality traditional 2D animation when uncoupled from restraint and plunged into an often juvenile extreme of adult excess- although what keeps me coming back is the fact that show never loses itself to meaningless shock factor drivel, but contains something of a battered and abused heart that it nurtures every now and then between meaningful character relationships. Also the songs are great. So good! It's quite rare to have a show that forces a musical into every episode to not become annoying after a while, but Helluva has managed to make their songs highlights of every outing. I can't think of any other show I would give that same praise. Except... maybe Phineas and Ferb?

Of course, with the coming of Hazbin, and the presumed high barrier to success that the product is juggling with- what with the 97 million odd views on Youtube that the pilot racked up over the years, so too come those stories leeching off the fame of the property. As is their right, I should affirm. There's nothing wrong with recognising the moment and seizing upon it. Why do you think I write so often about red hot topics? It's what scores the interest. But every now and then you get someone who either takes things a little too far, or just far enough to steal away attention from the big event in all the wrong ways. Or right ways, if you are indeed a greedy little clout goblin like so many are nowadays. (That has to be the number one profession of the current 'young generation'.)

There is, in the infinite expanse, one Youtube Channel known for cutting it's teeth on a grind of 'animated rap battles' that you might have seen clipped and cropped over the years on meme channels. Or heck, perhaps you're a regular viewer! The guy as been around long enough to warrant that sort of respect on his channel's name. Verbalase is not a low-effort content creator by any stretch of the imagination, producing fully animated evergreen videos that have earned him 10's of millions of views of the years. Expensive projects, no doubt- although none quite so expensive as a video he commissioned three years ago that has finally seen the light of day. One that the Internet has been flabbergasted over trying to figure out. An AMV that features the star of Hazbin Hotel, 'Charlie Morningstar Nee Magne', thirsting over Verbalase's OC self-insert and 'sensually' dominating him. (It's essentially fullblown Softcore.)

Now Vivziepop has always designed her characters with a certain amount of sexual appeal, that has been a cornerstone of her design philosophy since before she blew up for her animated projects. I don't think there's anything deeply abnormal about finding one such character attractive, but commissioning a $47,000 personalised animation? That's at a different level. In unconfirmed leaked Discord messages, this was apparently a big project for his secondary channel that he ended up just... never posting... for some reason. Well, given it's nature the video would no doubt get flagged as adult content by Youtube, affecting his second channels' CPM- but at least his $50,000 odd investment would start getting some returns, right? That's better than burying the thing for years until someone leaks it over discord, right? Unless... unless that wasn't the point...

It really is anyone's guess what this man was doing with a tailor-made sexually charged $47,000 animation sitting on his hard drive. Especially one that seems to feature some version of him in a story where an attractive fictional character is psychotically obsessed with him. But most who claim to have some sort of connection to the project at any time (not the animators themselves. They're keeping sensibly quiet in all this.) seem decently convinced that this video, produced somewhat more expensively than his typical rap vids which apparently cost $10-20 thousand, was a personal project. I'm sure it saw a great many plays over the years at it occupied an honoured position within the hell-themed goon cave.

Okay, enough speculation. As funny as it is, no one will ever likely know the truth as Verbalase seems happy to just ignore this entire situation until it washes away under the tide of the Internet. And I'm not going to roast the guy. There's plenty of people who pay for their 'entertainment'. (Not sure how many pay quadruple digits, but I guess my man has expensive tastes.) At the very least, I'll bet that Vivziepop got a good laugh out of all this. She seems like the type to see the humour in such deeply coated cringe. Although... one has to wonder. If this came out after being hidden for so long... who knows what other projects are still hidden on the darkest places of this man's hard drive? Probably best we never go digging, eh?