Café Menagerie Blues is here!

It's been manic over here in real life land but that hasn't stopped us from working hard behind the scenes to bring Menagerie back! We really kicked this project into gear once SJ was settled back at home and I recovered from the wedding. We're so excited to bring this project.

It took some time for us to decide on the direction we wanted to take our series. Given that Menagerie was a bit of a spontaneous project, we didn't give it a lot of thought in the beginning. We have bit and pieces of ideas but no real way to marry it all together. But we loved our cast and it seemed you all did too.

In the end, however, we wrote ourselves into a corner. And, in many ways, we lost the joy that this series used to bring us. Eventually, we decided to press the refresh button and start from scratch. Without the weeds from the previous series to get lost in, we found we had so much more explore!

Why the name change?

For us, it reflects not only the new direction we want to take Menagerie, but also it's a subtle call back to the a series we still love dearly. I was actually asked why add "blues" at the end on the name? I recalled that in Cowboy Bepop, episodes that brought up aspects of people's pasts were often had "Blues" at the end. Given that the titles of Bepop's episodes were references to song genres, blues does suit this iteration of Menagerie well. Much like the genre, this version, though definitely steeped in the sitcom genre, also works on the premise of a call and response, melancholy notes and, at its heart, soulful.

We hope that this version of Menagerie is as cosy and fun for you as it is for us so far!

Once again, thank you for all your support and love. It's what keeps us creating. :)

XOXO

Emi & SJ