Cookie Jar Entertainment is hoping to gain ground in the market for boy-aimed action cartoons with its anime-flavored series Spider Riders, set to debut on Teletoon in May. The series is a copro between the Montreal toon house and the Yomiko advertising agency in Japan, which brought in Tokyo animation house Bee Train (Ghost in the Shell).

The show is an even blend of eastern and western style, unusual for the genre which tends to favor Japanese influences, says Cookie Jar exec Toper Taylor.

‘We wanted to truly engage in a coproduction where the creative content for the program was being created together,’ he says. ‘There really hasn’t been a true copro between Japan and the West.’

The 52 x 30 toon also airs on TV Tokyo, and follows a boy’s adventures in a subterranean world where giant, benevolent spiders make war with marauding insects. Taylor hopes the project could lead to a franchise on par with those of Pokemon or Yu-Gi-Oh. An online game is in its early stages at www.spiderriders.com and a toy deal has been struck with Mattel, with products looking to launch in late 2007.

Spider Riders is part of a bigger push by Cookie Jar into the boys action genre, says Taylor, noting that the company hopes to launch two new titles per year.

Cookie Jar’s Michael Hirsh exec produces with Lesley Taylor, Yasuharu Iwakiri and Kouji Kumode. The voice cast includes Julie Lemieux (Care Bears: Big Wish Movie), Stacey Depass (Braceface) and Cameron Ansell (Skyland).