Adventure Time I think has been a bigger inspiration for me and this project then I realised at first, style wise I’m going in quite a different way but character and narrative concepts used in adventure time are something that I’m intrigued about and hold many similarities between Studio Ghibli’s characters too.
For example, Pendleton Ward creates Finn, a character archetype that holds many similarities to Miyazakis characters. Finns characteristics are as follows; innocent at heart, wanting to do good, due to age and naivety; sometimes makes mistakes or acts on emotion instead of rationality. I love how young characters are used in these kinds of narratives, not only are they on their own journey of self discovery which we follow along with f rom beginning to end, but they’re also having to take on difficult and challenging situations which means their actions will lead to different outcomes affecting other characters etc.
Another area of inspiration in Adventure Time was the world it’s set in, I really like the idea of the world almost going into ‘reset’ or evolution taking it onto it’s next steps. For example we know that in Adventure Time there was a huge war (probably nuclear) which resulted in the human race being wiped out and new creatures to evolve.

I want to be able to create and construct a character which is fitting with the narrative and has the capability to make an emotional connection with the audience
I have looked into many well-known and some not so well-known fables and how they are constructed, I decided after reading through these that I didn’t want my story to have such a defining moral throughout that it didn’t let my imagination run wild when coming up with a concept. For example, I didn’t want to have to base my entire narrative on a moral/saying such as ‘Don’t judge a book by it’s cover’ but explore a wider area of messages and meanings.
I want to set my animation in post-apocalyptic Japan, many many years in the future the world has changed and technology was only getting stronger. However ‘something has happened’ which appears to have wiped out the majority of the human race and all of the technology.
The story now centres around a young girl, finding her way in this exotic and new landscape. We aren’t sure how long she’s been alone fending for herself but we get easter eggs from the way she’s dressed and when she’s hunting for items.
I want the story to show how a young human being, nature and technology can all come together as one and live amongst eachother instead of eradicating ‘the enemy’.
I was thinking design and narrative wise I would really like to have hidden easter eggs throughout this animation (dramatic irony). For example like the idea of having posters maybe war propaganda, tanks etc. Left around the world, overgrown with foliage.