A Revisit?
For the past half a year, I have been working on 3000, an idea for a comic I had 12 years ago. I revisited it t a semester ago, if I recall correctly was part of a 3 week project and was a little upset that I didn’t get to see it to full completion.
I always wanted to produce my own set of characters, a story, and see them become action figures I could proudly place on a shelf. Having always find that to be super cool since I was kid : Ninja Turtles, Power Rangers, Ultraman to the more recent Gravity Falls, Adventure Time, Rick and Mortyβ¦.the list can go on a lot longer.
The idea begun with these kids having had enough of school and some rough illustrations were done from 12 years ago. Over the years there were attempts in claying the main character: a practice I turn to when I want to see a character design from a certain perspective, but I was never fully satisfied with those attempts.
Yet to ask for permission, I am hoping that a past project would be accepted as a submission for the FYP design piece. Before I propose this idea I need to gather everything I have now and look at this from a new angle, so far the content seems to match the intentions of my critical report, and that I think that in tweeking certain details in storyline and distribution of the comic itself, everything will be able to fall in line.
Vision
Before getting in to the details of the developement in to my characters, environment and story in the coming posts, I would like to share what must’ve been the biggest inspiration; yet my biggest ghost of a piece of anime that has lingered in my veins for the past decade or so.
The anime which inspired me the most when it came to thinking up project 3000 some 12 years ago was Tekkonkinkreet. The original manga/comic was by done by TaiyΕ Matsumoto in 1993 and it’s a real shame I haven’t read that yet, but, the later 2006 anime was directed by Michael Alias was crowned by many as an absolute masterpiece.
It showed the two lead orphans/brother and sister : Black and White establish themselves as the owner of the fictional city of Takaramachi. In plot (without spoiling anything), the two are the very definition of rebellion, how they jumped from building to building in a packed metropolis on rooftops, lamp posts and on top of people’s heads, changing their wardrobe from one silly costume to the next, bashing full grown men in the head with fluid kung-fu moves, this, was a life changer for me. The background work really made this work for me also, the setting holds resemblance of anything to Tokyo to Hong Kong’s now demolished Kowloon Walled City, which are foundations for cyber punk today: Blade Runner, Ghost in the Shell, Tekkonkinkreet etc. It is this anime that made me realise that constructing a convincing environment equals to attention to detail.
The problem is, when something as epic (to my world) is THAT established, it really stuck. I have spent so much of my teenage life trying to put this behind me and to establish something uniquely my own. Although I do think that fully doing so would be impossible, but in some way or another, the washing away of this big chunk of inspiration that has loomed over me for years needs to be done, or else I worry that I am just making another Tekkonkinkreet.
If I were to work on this comic say 5 years ago, the influences either I like it or not would be obvious, but having purposefully not watching this anime in years, I think I am ready to take my own cue and be thankful the influence of Tekkonkinkreet exist only in my genes but not on the surface.
Looking back it even feels like a childhood crush or something, but believe me when I say this: this was one hell’a piece that I knew would be toxic if I keep on obsessing over it.
ANDY WAS HERE
ANDY was here π€ 