The brand new Netflix-produced animated present from Tonko Home, ONI: Thunder God’s Story, is an excellent, four-episode story about discovered household, neighborhood, identification, and outsiders. On October 18, Sara Sampson, Robert Kondo, and Daisuke “Cube” Tsutsumi sat down with io9 to speak about their animation course of and the way they approached storytelling whereas protecting each kids and adults in thoughts.
“This can be a very Japanese story,” defined Tsutsumi, “so it was essential for us to work with Japanese animation studios.” They took inspiration from early Japanese anime, with their restricted body charges and choppier animation, and tried to translate that right into a form of stop-motion laptop graphic animation. “We truly began as a cease movement sequence,” Sampson mentioned, “After which as quickly as we began digging increasingly more into the story, the scope began to broaden and take form in ways in which we by no means imagined. With that, we felt like we wanted to pursue CG to inform the complete story that ONI was shaping as much as be.”
The present nonetheless retains the cease movement aesthetic, with textured felt-doll Kami characters contrasted towards the waxy look of the people that Onari finally runs into. When requested in regards to the episode two twist, when Onari realizes that the world past her house of Mount Kamigami is way larger than she might have imagined, Tsutsumi mentioned that this was a core a part of their storytelling growth. It’s, in truth, the entire level of the story.
“As , in Japanese folklore, Oni [are] at all times the villain.” Tsutsumi mentioned, referring to the folkloric Japanese demons. “And I learn this actually fascinating historic idea that the oni may need initially been an outline of foreigners, or individuals who didn’t appear to be the native Japanese individuals… I assumed it was actually fascinating as a result of that’s not that completely different from the world we reside in in the present day.”
After we use folklore in up to date tales you must make it connect with the world we’re residing in in the present day, Tsutsumi mentioned. It was essential for the midpoint to be the connector between the 2 worlds. He credit the story group and lead author Mari Okada for making the twist so surprising.
Sampson spoke about how the north star of the sequence—the ethical of overcoming and understanding worry—helped them create a present that may attraction to each kids and adults, not simply mother and father. “We simply targeted on the idea of what’s worry, when a lot is unknown,” Sampson mentioned. “You may strategy worry with curiosity, and it offers you the braveness to discover a brand new path and transfer past that.”
Kondo agreed, and mentioned that for him, he at all times needed to concentrate on the father-daughter relationship between Onari and Naridon, and particularly problem the ways in which kids view their desires and themselves. “For me, on the finish of the day, tright here’s this little lady who has this dream,” Kondo mentioned. “She desires to be one thing larger than what she at present is. And I feel that plenty of youngsters however plenty of adults can also relate to that—we all have desires. And he or she’s type of confronted with the truth of what she’s able to and who she is. And I feel on the finish of the day, the guts of the story is, is the story of a father and a daughter.”
When you can watch ONI: Thunder God’s Story on Netflix proper now, click on by way of for an unique take a look at a few of the film’s incredible idea artwork from Tonko Home.
