We've already told you about the Kickstarter Masaaki Yuasa launched for an animated short called Kick Heart, a story of love between a nun and a masked wrestler. Now, Yuasa has announced a pair of stretch goals that are awfully ambitious: if the fund reaches $400,000, they'll make a companion piece to the short film. If they reach $1,000,000, then they'll turn the whole thing into a feature film.

Like I said, ambitious.

Currently the funding is at a little over $70,000, and there are 25 more days to go to raise the money. I think it's possible for them to make the $400,000 mark if they really push it, but that $1,000,000 mark isn't going to happen without a real concerted effort by fans at large. Is it possible? Sure. But that'd mean that every person who attended AX would have to kick in about $55 a piece. This is presuming that 17,000 people had multi-day passes to get close to their numbers. Remember, anime fandom is not gigantic in the United States, and I'm not sure if overseas fans are really aware of this project.

If you've got $10,000 just lying around, why not kick in and get dinner with Yuasa and Mamoru Oshii, plus a flight to Japan. It's only for a night, but I guess you can jetset like that if the cash is just laying around, right?

We know that some of you hoped it would be expanded into a feature-length production, so with that in mind, now is the time to back it. Do so, won't you?

[Via ANN]