Lately I have been interested in stories regarding the Japanese gods, myths and historical figures. Due to this interest, a lot of my work and ideas have been centered on such themes. For this particular assignment, I plan on making it about 2 characters that live on an shrine in Japan dedicated to the god of foxes Inari. I won't go into much detail about the specifics of the god or culture, as I can go on for awhile so here is a link to a page that gives detailed information. I know.. it's wikipedia info.. but I thought it was quite accurate, so here it is~ Inari
As for the idea.. I had thought of making a dialogue about the lives of the characters that live on the shrine. Ideas for what the characters will look like will be in the next post. I think I put quite a bit of info on this particular post. Future posts will go in this order: character designs, storyboard, animatic and however many versions of the dialogue i create.
Info on the characters:
Character #1- Nyanko
Character #1 is female cat named Nyanko. She is a kitten that was found outside the shrine at a very young age and was taken in by a kind, old lady who is current caretaker and owner of the shrine. Nyanko appears to be very young in her humanoid form and is about 1 year old in cat years when seen in her cat form. In her humanoid form, Nyanko retains her cat ears and tail, but has a humanoid body instead of a cat body. She is often found dressed up in the traditional Japanese shrine priestess outfit.
She currently lives at a Japanese Shinto shrine with the old lady, otherwise known as Grandma, and is friends with the shrine fox demon/herald, Mitsu. Nyanko is the shrine's mascot and is the self-proclaimed guardian of the shrine. She wishes to live a happy, comfortable life, while guarding the shrine from harm.
Nyanko isn't really any different from other cats. She is highly curious and especially loves play with yarn/string. She also likes to pounce and swat at anything that catches her attention, though she gets easily distracted at times. Nyanko absolutely detests water unless its for drinking. Nyanko is quite smart but she has her occasional dumb moments. She gets the majority of her knowledge from what she sees and hears. Her special talents include climbing trees, walking along fences,and catching rodents/birds. These special skills of hers have helped her immensely during her daily patrols around her territory, which includes the inside and outside of the shrine grounds. Nyanko has a habit of adding a 'nya/meowing' suffix to the end of her sentences and has a huge weakness for catnip and fish.
Character #2- Mitsu
Character #2 is the female fox demon/herald of the Inari shrine, Mitsu. She is about 400 years old though like Nyanko, she too appears very young. In her humanoid form, Mitsu retains her fox ears and tail, while having a humanoid body. She wears a more fancier version of a priestess outfit and has a fox mask tied to the left side of her head. When not in her humanoid form, Mitsu is often performing her duties as the guarding of the shrine as a stone fox statue along with her partner. Mitsu uses her fox magic to transform between her humanoid form and fox form. When not in either of those forms she reverts back into her stone form and stays dormant, watching the daily happenings of the shrine. She also has a lot of other tricks such as the fox fire. Before becoming a demon/herald of the shrine, Mitsu was a normal red fox kit that had died in a tragic accident. Not much is known about her unless she herself reveals the information or it is spilled out by fellow herald colleagues.
Mitsu duty is to be one of its guardians and act as the herald and messenger of the shrine between the human, spirit and god world. She takes her job very seriously but often cannot resist in pulling pranks on those around her. Mitsu currently has 1 tail and hopes to gain 9 tails to achieve the greatest powers and unlock her full potential as a fox demon/herald. Because of the level of her strength Mitsu's magic and pranks often goes wrong, which is another reason why she wishes to gain more of her tails. Her life's goal/ambition is to trick and prank as many people as possible, mostly because its amuses her and it is just in her nature as one of the trickster animals in the Japanese culture. She also wishes to live a carefree lifestyle.
Mitsu loves to eat fried, sliced tofu (aburage) and any other related dishes. In fact, she is a closet fried tofu freak, which makes fried tofu one of her known weaknesses, which often result in her being bribed/conned into doing things for others. Mitsu is smart and very cunning but she acts very childish at times. She has gained her wisdom from her experience in serving the Inari shrine and god over the many years.
Although Mitsu is best at being the typical Japanese stereotypical trickster fox, she is also adept at performing divinations, traditional dances and rituals, will-o-wisps and magic (foxfire). Though when things go wrong, she tends to panic a bit.
0 comments:
Post a Comment