Sea of a Million Stars

Based On Disney’s Villains

The great attraction of this work is that the seven dormitories and magicians in the school are drawn based on the villains that appear in Disney animation works and their world views.

The seven dormitories at Night Rave College are Alice in Wonderland, The Lion King, The Little Mermaid, Aladdin, Snow White, Hercules, and Sleeping Beauty. Some people may immediately recognize the faces of the formidable villains who stood in the way of the hero.

For example, Riddle Rosehearts, the housewarden of Heartslabuyl dormitory, which was created in the image of Alice in Wonderland, sticks strictly to following the rules, and punishes those who break them. His personality is similar to the Queen of Hearts in Alice in Wonderland, and the personalities of the dorm students around Riddle also mirror the card soldiers surrounding their queen.

Yana Toboso’s passion that gave birth to the original idea and characters

Where did the ideas for the world and characters of “Disney Twisted Wonderland” come from? Yana Toboso, who is also a manga artist, holds they key to creating the creative elements.

“I love constraints and enjoy aiming for the best despite the hurdles”

Original draft, main scenario, character design: Yana Toboso

“Before receiving this offer, I had turned down long term project proposals because I still have a serialized manga called “Black Butler”. I liked the characters, so without hesitation, I replied, “I’ll do it!” Even the editor in charge of the manga said “You’ll definitely get it” before seeing the project, like something from a foreign drama, and it really turned out to be true.

What’s more, at that stage, we hadn’t decided what to make other than a game with villains as the theme, so we began planning with Aniplex (the planning and production company). At first, I thought when you think of Disney, you think of Hollywood. Since Disney has a number of rules to establish a work that is familiar to young and old around the world, many ideas other than this actor training game were rejected. After that, we came up with the idea of making a school game, which has been recognized overseas as a game genre unique to Japan.”

Ms. Toboso continued to submit plans for about six months until the concept of the game matched the current one. In order to explain the idea, the image of “Twisted Wonderland” was formed while assembling the story, imagining the elements of the game, and drawing pictures.

“Even with manga, I would come up with ideas over and over again until I got the OK from the editor-in-chief, and then work together with the editor in charge to brush it up. I enjoy constraints and enjoy aiming for the best despite the hurdles and decisions in game production. Because it was a pre-developmental game, I could express all the imaginary rhythm games, UI (user interface), battle scenes, etc., with pictures. I think the reason why I was able to clean up “Twst” until the release is that I was able to break through the parts that were difficult to imagine and verbalize with the power of drawing.”

The Message Entrusted to Villains

In the main story of this work, you will get to interact with each of the seven dormitories, and get to know the unique students. In the process, various aspects of their lives are depicted, and sometimes the weaknesses and troubles of the spiteful students secretly harbor come to light. The depth of the story and character modeling is also something Ms. Toboso worked hard on.

“The story and character creation progressed almost simultaneously. The story itself is an homage to the fate of the villains that appear in Disney films, but when placing the characters, it’s no good if the characters or the story come first. While sharing the plot up until the end of the story with Disney first, if only the main plot proceeded it, it tends to become linear and uninteresting, so I built and submitted character makeup and sub-episodes at the same time. It took me a year to start writing the scenario in earnest, repeating the process of having it checked in detail, and fixing what was returned.”

Also, all Disney films have a universal story, so the underlings of the villains are a bit comical and can’t stand up to the boss. I had a hard time giving individuality to the multiple characters I created. For example, when creating four student characters based on the card soldiers from Alice in Wonderland, or the poison apple itself from Snow White. I specifically put myself in the position of a card soldier, tried to feel like an apple, wrote it down, and complied it. The apple didn’t want to become a poison apple, but it was forcibly chosen by the Queen because it looked the most delicious among the fruits in the basket. It’s reluctant. I thought so? And so on.

Then, while we were working out the individuality of each character, we had a thick set-up material for each character before the start of distribution. I asked the voice cast to read it from the stage when there were only two lines during the recording, so I was surprised at the amount of information.”

What happens when the villains confront their weaknesses and stubbornness in Ms. Toboso’s story? It contains a positive message we want users to feel.

“The origin of Disney films is a happy ending with good deeds and love, but I think villains are people who aren’t saved in the story. That’s why I intend for the message in the game to be that even if we are defeated and have a bad end, let’s live without being discouraged by it.

Being uncool, undisciplined, not reflecting, being defiant, are not so bad as they say. I want to depict positively about not caring about others, and live honestly with myself. People living in modern society are afraid of failure or feel living with great care, but there is no one without flaws. Trying to live without being hated by anyone is exhausting, isn’t it?”

Original Culture Woven With Costumes

One of the elements of “Disney Twisted Wonderland” is the character costume. Ms. Toboso expresses the difficulty of creating completely original costumes for each of the seven dormitories, while interpreting the world of the films that serve as the source of the image as clothing.

“The design started with dormitory clothes that were inspired by the world of the original work. Different countries, cultures, and eras exist side by side in a single school, so while it is modern, I aimed to create a feeling that each carries their respective world view. In addition, we checked repeatedly to make sure we avoided plagiarism of cultures, or imitate existing fashion brands. In fact, I drew a number of costume proposals close to three times that of those adopted in the game.

For example, with the Pomefiore dormitory uniform for Snow White, the more elements were added, the more the impression and image of the classical animation were separated. It was difficult, and as a result, instead of just thinking about the elements, I decided to rebuild from the silhouette. By intentionally incorporating the elements of kimono, which Japanese think of as classical, I ended up with a design that gives off a simple yet luxurious impression of “Snow White”.

Also, with the dormitory uniform of Diasomnia dorm in Sleeping Beauty, I wanted to incorporate into the design the relationship of Maleficent and Goon, a minion wearing black armor. So, the material is made of leather, and both classical and hard. Furthermore, at the time of design, I incorporated harnesses (belts for the body) that were trending in the high fashion world.

While being conscious of today’s high fashion, it is important to express the unique culture of “Twst” in event costumes and so on. For example, in event costumes for “Harveston’s Kelkkarotu” and “Sunset Savanna’s Tamashina-mina”, we did not reinterpret existing ethnic costumes, but rather started setting the history of clothing that can be considered from local sunshine hours and climate.

Because it is a land with heavy snow, and short hours of sunshine, people spend more time indoors, and the culture of embroidery is developed. Or, in hot lands, fabrics like cotton or hemp that are breathable are probably dyed, so the color will be like this. This way, I design the culture and history of textiles in the world of “Twisted Wonderland”.

There are also other costumes that have been repeatedly checked and modified over the course of nearly two years. Costumes are often summoned with money, so I think that it has to be of a quality that makes you think you actually bought it at a fashionable department store. In addition, the D-6th staff (in my office) has a professional qualification in dressmaking and patterning, so even the back style, and how to put it on and take it off are designed so you can actually wear it. However, since this is a world with magic, I value not only reality, but fantasy and dreamy designs. If the parts are sewn on, it would be awkward, so let’s stick them together with magic.”

The Magnificent Story of Twst

Since its release in 2020, the world of “Twisted Wonderland” in which you, the main character, is lost, has shown a magnificent development along with the main story written by Ms. Toboso. Ms. Toboso talks about the passion from the creation and developmental scenes.

“I had never drawn anything but manga, and my main target audience was women. Aniplex, which does not have a lot of game production experience, and f4samurai, which handles development and management on site, took on the challenge of creating a genre work for the first time. I think one if the reasons for this is that the distance between the three companies is close. Each meeting is fun. It’s not like I’m working backwards from game production, but I’m not surprised by my ideas. It feels like we’ve been doing trial and error together for a long time.

The story, which has 35,000 characters in book 1, has become a volume of over 250,000 characters by book 6. Up to book 3, the users probably didn’t have a lot of feelings yet about the characters, so first, I made it compact so that they could understand the world of “Twst”. However, when it was actually released, I felt that the players read the story more than I expected. So now, I am writing with a denser amount of information than I anticipated during the preparation period. From now on, not only on the vertical and horizontal axes of the story, but also the spread of elements such as the present, past, and future will be incorporated, and the scale will be quite large. Please look forward to book 7 (currently available up to part 2)!

As I write the story, I think that if you can deepen mutual understanding without bending yourself, or if you can think flexibly, the villain will surely be insanely strong. The foundation of this game is to become stronger by understanding the way of thinking of others who are different from you, and by understanding their strengths and weaknesses. It may be similar to our stance in making this game. I think I’ve become stronger since I’ve been involved with the development of “Twst”. As a manga artist, it was my first challenge to create a game. I was surprised at first where my special skills were no good, the team members were meeting for the first time, we weren’t used to the culture of the game industry, and were judged strictly from the perspective of a global game rather than the entertainment unique to Japan. As a result, even if one method doesn’t work, instead of conflicting, we can change the method and challenge it.

In the story, they are villains, so they don’t admit defeat, but they admit to each other “You’ll do it.” Even if we dislike each other, we can still recognize each other’s abilities. We will continue to create games with an unwavering spirit of villains, and we hope that our users will continue to enjoy it.”