Acquisition Theories

Among S3K historiographers, the closing of Parakyo Films is a topic that is contentious and heavily speculated on due to its vague history.

Not much is publicly known about the acquisition. Parakyo Films declared bankruptcy in July 2002, with no public statements besides a "lack of funding." Shortly after, Disney announced its acquisition of the bankrupted studio for $1.5 billion USD in September 2002, with a similar lack of communication on its plans for Parakyo.

With this lack of public knowledge, fans have developed a number of different theories provide differing explanations for Parakyo Film's bankruptcy and Disney's subsequent acquisition.

The Yoink and Twist
This argument revolves around Disney's intentional decision to bankrupt and acquire Parakyo. Knowing that Parakyo was a newly founded studio, the massive multimedia company used their network connections and great amount of capital to deliberately force financial pressure on the small studio. This ultimately led Parakyo to declare bankruptcy on July 12, 2002, when Disney successfully acquired the studio for $1.5 billion USD.

Following the acquisition, Disney tried to rebrand and continue releasing S3K through their own studio, but widespread fan backlash led to them scrapping the idea and deciding to bury S3K in the annals of history.

Duckgate
The similarity between the names of S3K's main characters (Huey, Luey, and Duey) and those of the main characters in Disney's DuckTales (Huey, Dewey, and Louie), has led some fans to believe that the acquisition was related to conflict over intellectual property and name recognition in Japan.

DuckTales was a popular animated show in the US during the early 1990s, and Disney expressed some interest in expanding into the Japanese market in 1999. However, when they began the move in 2001, they found that many Japanese anime viewers already related the Ducks names to S3K. This dissatisfied Disney, so they retaliated by attempting to reduce the popularity of S3K by financially pressuring Parakyo into bankruptcy.

Animation Retaliation
Some historiographers believe that Parakyo's success in the field of machine learning animation led to jealousy from larger studios such as Disney.

Seeing such a technological marvel of animation produced by a small start-up studio in Japan, Disney attempted to recreate the technology for their own use, but were unable to produce animation of the same quality as Parakyo. Deciding getting the technology from the source would be easier, Disney put financial pressure on Parakyo until they filed for bankruptcy.

Machine Learning Budget Limitations
Some with experience in computer science have expressed concerns that machine learning should not have been practically possible in the early 2000s. The theory and algorithms were likely under-developed during that time and would, consequently, require powerful hardware to render each frame of S3K in its unique style. This theory just assumes that Parakyo Films had overestimated their capabilities in producing three entire seasons with AI-generated frames, and so ran out of budget before being able to finish the final season. Disney, during the time, was simply scouting internationally for unique animation studios, found Parakyo, and decided to take in the bankrupted studio via acquisition rather than let the disbanded animators work elsewhere in the industry.