About

The 13-episode animation was adapted from the comic book “Jobert at Iba Pang Super Pinoys”. Jobert is essentially an action-comedy series with some twists and turns. The animation series is dubbed in English and the look is somewhat in ‘anime’ style for international marketing and distribution in some developing countries.

Jobert at Iba Pang Antipatikong Pinoy volume 1 came out in 2000, with the Super Pinoys volume 2 published and marketed in 2001. The comic was stopped at volume 4 due to low margin and the small local market. In 2003 there was an experimental effort (see Youtube Jobert Animation 2003 or under credits) to make it into animation, but due to budget constraints it did not push through. In November 2004, production started but budget constraints again hampered the continuous production.

There may be similarities in terms of look (Team Galaxy- appeared 2006-source wikipedia) or power generation – clapping of hands (Full Metal Alchemist –appeared August 2001 comic form – source wikipedia). The inspiration of the clapping of hands came from the cartoon Shazzan, when I (Edward L. Tan – creator of Jobert) watched as a kid then in the 70s, where two teenage kids will bring their rings together to form some symbol and out comes the giant genie Shazzan. So instead of rings, I just thought of bringing the hands together. For the record, the costume look and superpower came out of the Jobert comics before the other said animation. There are other unintended similarities such as the Manta ship used by Balhalya which was eventually changed. But due to prohibitive costs, not all unintended similar looks for characters and other things were changed.

Story

“Ordinary” people in the Philippines are suddenly abducted by aliens from the planet “Akala”. The said people are either abducted by the good aliens under “Frogee Mercury”, the friendly cop or the bad guys under the mad scientist “Balhalya”. Balhalya wants to rule the earth, having the Philippines as a starting point. The people who are abducted are infused with super powers that are latent and unknown to them.

The unique powers are activated by the orbs in their super costumes whose powers are from the star formations and manifested in the various crop circles occasionally occurring in some parts of the globe. The classic encounter with good versus evil culminates in the last episode where the fate of the planet rests in the hands of “Jobert” and a few others against “Balhalya” and his team of warriors.

Development

Jobert started out as a joke book in the vernacular or Tagalog, but I wanted a future for the characters that is not limited to jokes. Hence, the action story came about, with collaboration from freelance writer and comic illustrator Rhonnel W. Ferry.

The look of the comic and the animation was made in a somewhat ‘anime’ style, since the style is popular, and hence more marketable (less risky) in the Philippines. Some hard core anime fans are disappointed with the look of the cartoon – that its not really anime. Well, I did not really want it to look like a real Japanese-anime, if I wanted it that way, I would have hired someone to do it that way from its inception (comic form). To have some original identity, influences from Japanese, American, and Filipino animation styles were used in the cartoon by animation contractor Top Peg Animation Studios Inc. It could be called Filipino-Anime style which was used in other local cartoon series such as BIDA and Super Inggo. Some Western cartoons also look somewhat like anime but they are not pure anime.

Inspiration for the Powers

The source of powers of the characters was hard to think about; it came about as an epiphany in the latter stages of the animation production. Whereas in the comic book; the powers were just from the orbs. There were a few crop circles added to the animation storyboard, but it was not yet connected to the orbs in their super costumes. The origin of some crop circles remain a mystery; some are just man-made, and the idea just came one time that the stars are the source of the crop formations in one of the episodes. Each person or character with super powers will have his or her own crop circle design, hence each person will have a unique super power. All the crop circle designs are random, meaning there is no meaning on it, just as long the design is not too complicated and it fits the orb. The cartoon and the crop circle designs used have nothing to do with consciousness, messages, predictions, healings and other new age stuff. The designs are just plain infused super powers to the characters to keep it simple and free from any other numerous interpretations and speculations. For those who are looking for deeper meanings of the crop circles, this is not the web page to look for those kinds of topics.

The idea from the stars came as I remembered the books I read many years ago: The Orion Mystery by Robert Bauval and Adrian Gilbert, where it explained the orientation of the pyramids of Giza were based from the star formation of Orion. Other books of some influence were: The Message of the Sphinx by Graham Hancock and Robert Bauval and The Fingerprints of the Gods by Graham Hancock. A few months passed before the idea that the star formation, the crop circles and the orbs were connected.

Note: “Jobert and the Crop Circle Warriors®” is a work of fiction, the viewers of Jobert and would be readers of the mentioned books are not in anyway persuaded to believe what the mentioned authors wrote. For some readers, the books mentioned maybe worthwhile and interesting, but for some it maybe just nonsense. The same goes with the subject of UFOs which is used in the story; the viewers are not in anyway persuaded to believe in them.