Michael Arias of Softimage began the project as a short CG exercise. It drew the attention of Morimoto, who agreed to develop it using Softimage’s 3D software. A few months later, Visual Director Wilson Tang and Animation Supervisor Lee Fulton presented a pilot to the Softimage staff; the entire pilot was created on computer with a team of only twelve people. The pilot received the Excellence Award in the Digital Art Division at the 3rd Japan Media Arts Festival.