Aspergillus Oryzae (Temporary Name)

I’m taking a break from Battle Maid Chronicles. Cuz I like to take breaks from my creations and come back to them. I always think of new shit anyway, gotta put them down somewhere.

Upon seeing that name, you’re probably like…. what the fuck is that? Well its a type of mold or yeast or whatever that is used to convert starch to sugars, and is used in the brewing of sake and creation of miso and various other things and is supposedly Japan’s national microbe. What the fuck is a national microbe? Do other nations have national microbes too? At any rate it is currently a temporary name, one I picked because the heroine likes to drink sake.

Well that it is in this context, its a story about a trippy kimono wearing girl who hints to being a vulpine of some sort travelling in a trippy feudalistic acid rigged East Asian kinda world.

Not the best drawing but whatever, it needs to start somewhere.

Our heroine is Kumiho. She drinks sake all the time and never gets drunk and just travels this trippy world. Or maybe she’s actually perpetually drunk, hence the world is always so trippy, since its told in her perspective! Named after the Korean name for their 9 tailed fox.

Regarding her current design, I kinda wanted to make her a foxgirl at first. But with the appearance of Horo in Wolf and Spice and shit, I decided meh, lets be more original than just plop on ears and tail. So I gave her a Kitsune mask. Less apparent is the comb in her hair. It bears this bead thing, which is a glow in a dark pearl. Which will look like a kitsune-bi or foxfire at night. Maybe she’ll tie her hair up differently at night, so she can use its glow as a lantern. I decided to dress her up in a furisode kimono of sorts, which is a long sleeves kimono worn by single women during their coming of age ceremony at around 20 or something. Of course she will look younger than that. And her kimono is rather less embazzled with patterns than most furisodes. Well drawing kimono patterns is a pain! Lets keep it simple or something. I was gonna use some kinda pattern resembling the foxglove flower but it didn’t work out too well so I ended up with this. Whatever it is. Gave her long lashes and a beauty spot under her left eye for a more foxy look. Probably needs some facial work to minimize her resemblance to Erika Rosenthal.

Current ideas of her travels amount to -

Her meeting of a Tsuchinoko. Which is some eel/snake cryptid(an animal not proven to exist, the stuff of myths and folklore or the observations of a bunch of paranoids or attention wanters, examples include Loch Ness and Bigfoot). Which is supposedly 30 cm long or something and likes to drink sake. So Kumiho is probably fishing by a river or something and fishes this Tsuchinoko up who ends up scolding her. In the end, Kumiho somehow pulls some sake out of her long kimono sleeves and they have a drink while talking about some totally strange shit. The Tsuchinoko will probably talk about his origins and give his name, Orochi, and claim to be the descendant of Yamata-no-Orochi. Which is some 8 headed serpent, which was slain by Susanoo which is the Japanese god of seas and storms. I’m not gonna rave on about the whole story, go wiki it or something.

Then maybe at some point she’s lost in some forest and notices something is stalking her from a distance. And it turns out to be a Hibagon, some Japanese version of Bigfoot. And with its help, they make it out or something, I probably need to spice this up in some way. Maybe she joins in on some Hibagon party or something.

Then she’s staying at some inn in some town, when suddenly an Oni(Japanese ogre monster thing) attacks and terrorizes the town, and demands a virgin’s hand in marriage. Kumiho then steps in and deflects the Oni’s club with just her finger. Or a sheathed tanto. Well either way its an amazing act of deflecting a giant club. And somehow she ends up challenging the Oni to a drinking contest, where the Oni must never terrorize people again if she wins, but has to marry him if she loses. And the Oni of course scoffs at this tiny little girl challenging her to a drinking contest. But she wins. And the Oni is totally shocked, but is infatuated with her and hence ends up going on a journey to improve his drinking endurance so that he can challenge her again. He’ll probably appear again every now and then or something.

I’ll probably look up various East Asian folklore and attempt to stick them in. Maybe Ne-Zha will make an appearance. Or even Sun Wukong(Son Goku for the Japanese and Jap-o-philes, but I know my Monkey King as Sun Wukong). And there will probably be encounters with bandits, traveling merchants or herbalists, random arse ronin or talking horses amongst many things. I’ve thought of one where she ends up climbing a rainbow to ride some giant flying squid like creature that lives high up in the atmosphere and likes to congregate on rainbow tops. And she’ll probably end up having a trippy ride, talking to weird atmospheric creatures and end her ride on some mountain top, and have some drink with a wise man.

I’ll probably draw the current cast having a drink together or something. Kumiho, Orochi, the Hibagon and the Oni.

~ by depleted on February 22, 2008.