Hideo, Satoshi, Reina, Rebecca… these characters are nothing without a world to live in. Creating a world is never easy. It is an ongoing process that will continue for us as long as Team Hideo is telling stories. That being said, we’ve come a long way from the blank slate we started with. Here’s how some of it went down.
Building Hideo’s world officially began in the winter of 2009 during pre-production for our original show. We started with two questions:
1) Should Hideo take place on Earth?
2) Should Hideo take place in the past, present or future?
It didn’t take us long to decide that creating a unique world for Hideo was the way to go. We knew building a world, while challenging, was an interesting opportunity for us to really let our imaginations go and see what we could come up with… leading us right into our second question. Did we want a futuristic world or something more old school? Would Hideo’s world be locked in the throes of its own Dark Ages? Maybe an industrial revolution? We thought about it for a while, knowing our final decision would have an immeasurable impact on our characters and their stories.
One of the first locations we laid out visually was Blackwell, the once-great city of the North where Hideo makes a pit stop. Kathy drew some concepts and we debated about what kind of architecture made sense. It was time to make a final call on when our story would take place and thus we decided Hideo’s world (more specifically, the nation from which our characters hail) would be close to our own in terms of its technological advancements, but reeling from a great calamity that caused the collapse of its previous government and economy. Refrigeration, electricity, running water, guns, keyboards… all are things present in Hideo’s world. Yet the means to support some technologies we take for granted (fuel, ammunition) are simply no longer available to our characters. Kathy’s illustrations started to reflect this, and we all liked the result.
With our setting firmly established as a once-powerful nation struggling violently to rebuild itself, the results of that choice rippled down through our characters, from mannerisms to costumes. For a concrete example of this, take a look at the various concepts on our character page. Notice the boots? We figured that if Hideo’s world is rundown and dirty, it would make strong, sturdy, and versatile footwear one of the most important parts of a person’s outfit. You may also notice that both Hideo and Satoshi have guns as well as swords. Remember that where they’re from, ammunition is sparse and no new weapons are being manufactured. Most people have no choice but to depend on blades for protection. Even so, those who do have firearms and even limited ammunition will keep such weapons close for the indisputable tactical advantage they afford.
So what disaster caused a nation to destroy itself? Good old-fashioned war. More on that next time.
