March, 2023 Interview with Twisted Wonderland Creator Toboso Yana
This interview can be viewed in its original form in the App store.
*Disclaimer: This is a fan translation and is not endorsed by anyone associated with Twst. Speaking on Yana's behalf makes me very nervous so I am very careful (and hire a professional proofreader for projects like this), but results may vary! Thank you for your understanding!
The Passion of Toboso Yana, the Creator of the Game’s Concept and Characters
Where did the inspiration for the world and characters of "Disney's Twisted Wonderland" come from?
The person who painstakingly took care of every creative element and holds the key to the entire project is well-known manga artist Toboso Yana.
“I love constraints and aiming to do the best I possibly can when surrounded by hurdles.”
- Toboso Yana (concept and scenario creator, character designer)
“I have a manga series—Black Butler—that is still ongoing, so I had been turning down offers for long-term projects. But then I heard about this, and I love Disney’s works and their characters, so I said I’d do it without a moment’s hesitation. Before I even saw it my editor told me that I would be taking this one on for sure, like a line straight out of a western TV show, and he was absolutely right.
At that time, however, the only thing that had been decided was that it would be a game themed around Disney villains. We started working with Aniplex without knowing what it was we were actually going to make.
Initially we thought ‘Well, the first thing that comes to mind when you hear Disney is Hollywood,’ so our initial proposal was that the characters were young actors performing the different Disney IPs in a musical theater format. That was rejected.
Disney has a lot of rules to ensure that their works are accessible to everyone regardless of age or gender, and a lot of our other proposals after the ‘training up actors for the theater’ idea were also turned down.
After that we came up with the idea of setting the game in a school, as a genre that is gaining recognition both in Japan and abroad.”
It took Toboso Yana about six months to come up with the idea that eventually became what the game is today. As she began creating stories and illustrating different elements, the world of “Twisted Wonderland” began to take shape.
“Working on my manga I would often submit different ideas over and over again until I received an OK, and then I would work closely with my editor to brush up on what had been approved. I think those experiences really came in handy.
Personally I love constraints and aiming to do the best I possibly can when surrounded by all the hurdles and decisions that come with game production. In the pre-development stages we were all communicating weekly with one another as I drew ideas for the rhythmic games, user interfaces and battle scenes. I think a big part of the fact that we were able to release Twst at all was that we were able to break through the parts of the game that we just couldn’t imagine or verbalize using the power of illustration."
The Message Entrusted to the Villains
In the main story you get to know seven dormitories and their unique students. You learn about the different sides to each of these characters, and, over time, the weaknesses and problems of these spiteful students who all seem to hate each other.
The depth of the storylines and character development also required a lot of effort from Toboso Yana.
“The story and the characters were created almost simultaneously. The story itself is an homage to the fates suffered by the different Disney villains, but when fitting the characters into the story, they shouldn’t be on a radically more developed stage than the story or vice versa.
The full main plot that I was to share with Disney seemed linear and uninteresting, so I submitted character details and sub-plots at the same time.
I received very thorough checks and made corrections to what was returned to me to be resubmitted in a process that took about a year before I was really able to start writing the scenario for the game in earnest.
And since Disney’s works are universal stories, villain underlings are often a bit comical and subservient to their villain…so there was some difficulty coming up with multiple, individual characters based on them.
For example, coming up with four different students based on the card soldiers from ‘Alice in Wonderland’, and creating a character based entirely on the poison apple from ‘Snow White’ was not easy.
Basically I would put myself in the position of a card soldier and think about how the poison apple must have felt, then I wrote that down and built upon it.
There is no way that apple wanted to become poisonous; it was forced into those circumstances against its will by the Queen just because it was the most appetizing option. Maybe that is what its thoughts would have been? etc.
While working out each character’s personality we created a huge character guide before the game was even released. Since we only had one or two lines for the voice actors to record in the beginning we had them read that character guide, and there were a few times that they showed genuine surprise at the sheer amount of information that was available for them to work with.”
And what’s beyond this story of villains facing their own weakness and frustrations that Toboso Yana has created? Therein lies a positive message that she hopes will reach the game’s users.
“Happy endings in Disney works come from righteous actions and love, but I believe that the villains are characters who do not get saved during the story. That is why, through this game, I want to portray the message that even if you get beat up all the way to a bad ending, you can grow from it and live your life without feeling discouraged.
Acting lame, obstinate, without hesitation, being open and honest—it’s not as bad as it sounds.
I would like to paint a positive picture of living honestly with yourself and not worrying about others.
In today’s society there are so many people who live in fear of failure and are always walking on eggshells, but nobody’s flawless. It is exhausting to try to live your life so that no one will hate you.”
An original culture woven into costume
One of the elements of Twisted Wonderland that has had the most heart poured into it is the costume design.
Toboso Yana explains the struggles behind creating entirely unique designs meant to reinterpret the worlds of the movies upon which the seven dormitories were based.
“I started the design process from the dorm uniforms based on the original works and their worlds.
I wanted the costumes to be modern while also portraying the worldview of each dorm within this school where different countries, cultures and time periods all exist simultaneously.
I also had to be constantly aware of whether some things were too close to existing cultures or fashion brands. For every look that actually made it into the final game, I created almost three times as many different designs for everything.
For example, for the designs for the Pomefiore dorm uniform, the more elements that were added, the wider the disconnect from the original, classic animation. It was very difficult, but eventually I settled upon using the silhouette as a starting point and reconstructing it from there, rather than focusing on individual elements. By incorporating what Japanese people consider to be classical (kimono), I was able to come up with a design reminiscent of the simple but elegant impression of the original ‘Snow White.’
For Diasomnia’s dorm uniform, I wanted to incorporate the relationship between Maleficent and her black-armored minion goons into the design. For that I chose leather as something that is both classical and rigid. I also incorporated harnesses, which were trendy in the world of high fashion at the time that I was making these designs.
While keeping the high fashion of the real world in mind, I also placed a lot of importance on expressing the unique culture of Twisted Wonderland itself through the clothing that appears in various events. For example the clothes in the ‘Harveston’s Kelkkalot’ and ‘Tamashina-Mina’ events aren’t reinterpretations of existing costumes. The starting point was designing a possible clothing history based on the daylight hours and the climate of those areas.
A region that is often deep in snow with short daylight hours is likely to develop a culture of embroidery, as people would spend long hours indoors. In hot climates, people might dye breathable materials such as cotton and linen, and maybe end up with something like this or that, etc. That was the thought process. That is how I design costumes based on the different textile histories and cultures of Twisted Wonderland.
The costumes for some of the events took almost two years to complete, including constant checks and revisions. There are often times when people will spend actual money in order to acquire these costumes, so I don’t want the quality to be anything less than one might expect to find at a fashionable store.
A member of staff at my own studio, D-6th, holds professional certifications in Western-style sewing and pattern making, so everything from the backs of the costumes to how they would be worn has been designed so that they could actually be functional. Since it is a world of magic, however, fantastical and dreamlike designs are just as important as realistic ones, so sometimes we decided, ’This part would look too awkward if it were sewn on, so let’s pretend it has been attached by magic.’"
The Epic Story of Twisted Wonderland
Since its launch in 2020, the world of Twisted Wonderland that you, the main character, have wandered into, has been developing spectacularly along the main story by Toboso Yana. Here, she explains the passion that comes from the creative development process:
“We have been able to achieve some degree of success through the combination of myself (who had only ever drawn manga), Aniplex (who were unaccustomed to creating games targeted at a female audience) and F4samurai (who handled the development and management on-site but had never attempted this genre before).
I think one of the reasons for this is how close all three of us were able to work with one another. I enjoy every meeting that we have. Despite having no idea how game development works I am always coming up with these ideas, and they are always so accommodating and are never caught off guard. It feels like we have always been working by trial and error together.
The text of the first book is 35,000 Japanese characters long but book 6 has over 250,000. Up until about book 3 users are still getting to know the characters, so we prioritized helping people come to understand the world of Twst and keeping things compact. After the game was released, however, it felt like people were reading much more deeply into the story than we had anticipated. So now I include much more information than was provided during those setup chapters.
Going forward things are going to be on a much larger scale, incorporating not only the vertical and horizontal axes of the story but also expanding upon elements such as a present, past and future.
Look forward to Book 7 (currently on chapter 2)!
What I thought of while writing the story is that villains can become extremely strong if they can keep their mindset flexible while developing mutual understanding without compromising their own identities.
The core of this game consists of becoming stronger while reaching an understanding with the strengths, weaknesses and points of view of those who are different from you.
I think that this might be similar to the stance that we all share as we create it.
I think that I have become tougher myself since I first got involved with the development of Twst. I am a manga artist, and this is my first attempt at creating a game. I was surprised, at first, by how many situations there were where my skills were completely useless: meeting the different team members for the first time, being so unfamiliar with the culture of the gaming industry and the strictness of being judged as part of a global work instead of as an exclusively Japanese form of entertainment.
As a result I have reached the point where I am able to adapt my approach to different challenges when my first attempts fail, rather than simply fight them.
Since the characters in the story are villains they do not admit defeat, but they will admit when their opponent does well. Even if they don’t like each other, they will recognize each other’s abilities.
We will continue to develop this game that emphasizes the spirit of villains that cannot be discouraged, and we hope that our users will continue to enjoy it."
