We were lucky to catch up with Steve Warky Nunez recently and have shared our conversation below.
Alright, Steve Warky thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. We’d love to hear about a project that you’ve worked on that’s meant a lot to you.
One project that really meant a lot to me was the anime, “The Titan’s Bride”. It was a significant project and a labor of love. It was wonderful being able to hire such an incredibly diverse and talented cast/crew. The two main leads Edward Mendoza and Kiba Walker, were from the LGBTQ+ community, and I don’t really think we’ve ever seen that before in a Yaoi/BL anime. Being a minority myself, it was always a pipe dream to see communities and characters being properly represented. Licensing the project allowed us to fulfill that dream.
Everyone worked very hard to achieve the best that we could during the global pandemic. This included remote recordings all across the globe. (We had many international talent) Our labors were recognized when we took home a Silver Telly Award for the show in the category Series:Animation.
It wasn’t just a win for Ascendent Animation, it was a win for every person involved on the project, and a win that proved a cast could be from any walk of life and be a wonderful success.
Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.
I’ve been in the Entertainment Industry for over 25 years now. I came from a poor background who always dreamed about being a singer, an actor, anything that would take me away from the life I knew. The library was a wonderful resource in my life, as I could read a book and travel to wherever I was reading about. I grew up with a mother who was blind, and one day I saw that the library was holding a Give Back! volunteer position for voice actors to read books. I inquired, and explained that I have no experience yet, and they were willing to take a chance on me. So I read books on tape (which was the style at the time). I was later reading books for the blind as well through the Lighthouse Project in the late 1900’s. My mother was so proud of me for reading books, because now she too, could enjoy new stories again. Eventually, a director in New York City, had a daughter who was blind, and she had heard me reading one of the stories. He got in contact with the library, and I was hired for a small indie project, and that was when I knew that this was everything I wanted to do in life.
Fast forward to this century…I’ve been acting, singing, and entertaining now for years. In the late 2010’s, I acquired a license for the Comedy Anime, “Ishida and Asakura”. Once the paperwork had been signed, Ascendent Animation was finally a reality! I assembled a ragtag motley crew. The Ascendent Team worked tirelessly and stumbled our way through this project. We hit so many snags and issues because the Global Pandemic was raging at the time, and we weren’t sure how to record everyone because no one could show up to our studio in person! We decided to record remotely – Making us one of the first studios to utilize remote recordings for anime. Joshua Waters and Cole Feuchter were cast as the titular characters, respectively. They brought the show together with our other talent some of which were international. (Dom Dinh as Kinoshita-Sensei ) It was an intensive labor of love. (Emphasis on Labor, Emphasis on Love) In the end, we had a successful run of the show, and even hit the top 100 on Amazon Sales Rankings for the Anime category. This show is still a personal favorite of mine.
Something that sets us apart from other studios, is that we believe in giving everyone a fair chance. I know that in my own life, I’ve been told by studios that I was too fat to voice a particular character, or my voice is too feminine to voice a boy/man. Being judged unfairly felt very wrong to me. I even had a terrible experience with a company that is no longer around, where the casting director told me point blank, “Look, if you want to be in an anime so badly, the only way I see you getting a chance to be in one is to start your own studio and put us out of business.” So, I did start an anime studio, but I don’t think we were the cause of them going out of business. :-)
Every time someone told me, “No!”, it fueled my fire and desire to work that much harder to either create a yes, or get a yes.
Now, thanks to so many people giving me chances, we’ve achieved so much together as a team at Ascendent Animation and in such a short amount of time! Thanks to Warp Graphics Inc, our newest project, “Masque of the Red Death” (Wendy Pini, Richard Pini, Gregory Nabours) is now out on Amazon Prime Video, and we’re so excited and honored that we could work with the creators of Elfquest, and more!
Thanks to the trust given to us from WWWave corporation, and Coolmic, We have over a dozen titles in Anime, and have even won more awards with our other series, “Fire in his Fingertips” (directed by Michaela Laws). We’ve been blessed and honored by so many people now, I can only pray that the kindnesses shown to us continue to bury the hate and hurt from the past as we move forward.
Any insights you can share with us about how you built up your social media presence?
My story is a bizarre one. Building up an audience on Social Media is not easy for anyone, and my journey is certainly not everyone.
I started out as a Mormon Pop Star (Mormon is no longer used anymore, they now call themselves, “Members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, but it doesn’t have the same ring to it.) I had 3 top ten albums on the Deseret Sales Charts, with my group, “They Might Be Elders”. I gained a lot of followers at the time on Myspace, and Youtube. It wasn’t until a Morning Show coined the phrase, “The Weird Al of Mormonism” that I started becoming huge in Utah, and surrounding Mormon Territories.
However, it wasn’t until I started singing the, “Yaoi Christmas Songs” each year since 2009. It all started as a marketing joke for Yaoi Press. CEO of Yaoi Press, Yamila Abraham, saw the fun and talent that went into creating them, and lovingly showcased them on her website. They became an instant hit, and later an instant classic to every Christmas Season thereafter. There are now dozens of Yaoi Christmas Classics. (My favorite being, “Grandpa Got Plowed Over by an Uke”, and most recently the one from 2023 that came out a week after Cher sang it. “Seme, Take Your Christmas Tree”)
Every Holiday, my follower count and listener count jumps up with excited people who love what I do.
The gist of it all is that if you want to have followers, you need to find an untapped market and make it your niche. Own it. Don’t stop believing in yourself. I always say, Follow your dreams, until they run out, then follow your nightmares cause that’s all you have left.
Is there a particular goal or mission driving your creative journey?
A lot of people might hate this answer, but honestly it’s true. In a word? Spite. Spite has driven me to keep going. Spite has fueled the fire of my heart to keep going. Spite. It’s every person who told me I would never be good enough. Each person who take my vulnerabilities and after mangling them, threw them back in my face, and laughed at me. Professionals who laughed at me, and told me that I would never amount to anything. Spite drives me to be the absolute best that I can be. Spite drives me to be kinder to people because I don’t want them to feel the pain and hurt that I had to feel. People who used me to get what they needed and then threw me away from the business, because I didn’t have any more new information. When my usefulness came to an end, so did my relevance. Spite has given me empathy to others. Spite gives me the constant will to grow, to learn, and to be better than I was yesterday.
Despite all of the people wishing I had failed, I am still here, and I am still making ripples that will change the course of the future for who knows how many.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.ascendentanimation.com
- Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/ascendedanime
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCvUGKa0PTo33YLULS1nUguA
- Other: Yaoi Xmas Songs : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P-OF1k4m-sA&list=PLCLfvRBY45BMVx8MFja15h1RUD27id8Ra&index=16 They Might Be Elders Videos : Mormonizer – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jn59zgmZDnc P-Day – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WIVZDQXo_fk
Image Credits
Spencer Johnson