My biggest story inspirations (aside from Akira)

Behind the Scenes 11.2023

I enjoy rambling about my inspirations, but one thing I’ve realised when writing this is how difficult it is to pinpoint the specifics. I’ve tried to compile the ones that seemed like the biggest to me, but there’s always a chance that I’m forgetting some important piece of the puzzle or giving more emphasis to something that didn’t have that much of an impact in the grand scheme of things.

But I’m probably just overthinking.

Anyways, let’s get the obvious out of the way.

STALKER / Roadside Picnic

Duh.

I first watched Tarkovsky’s Stalker when I was 13 and it was akin to a spiritual experience. I’ve never seen anything like it before. And really, since. I’ve watched other Tarkovsky movies afterwards to scratch the itch, but it wasn’t quite the same.

Everything from how the “stalking” itself looked, to the titular stalker’s religious reverence towards the Zone, to the latter being very low-key and subtle – all of that has carried over into PAFL. The wishing room behind the grinder is almost directly lifted from the movie, though the mechanics of the tunnel are completely different.

The Grinder as depicted in the film.

To a degree, some characters were also inspired by the ones in the movie. Aspects of Kolya’s personality can be attributed specifically to the Stalker (complete infatuation with the Zone and disillusionment with humans), just as aspects of Nikita’s can be attributed to the Writer (having a cynical view of the Zone and never shutting the fuck up).

PAFL doesn’t hold nearly the same atmosphere as that movie does, but it was for sure the biggest inspiration for the lore overall.

Nikita and Olya as the Writer and Professor in the movie.

I read Roadside Picnic a couple years after watching the film. It was far from my first exposure to Strugatskys’ work. Surprisingly enough, it left me with far less dismal a feeling compared to their other stories (Beetle in the Anthill and Hard to Be a God definitely felt more depressing). It was a great and easy read.

Naturally, it was also a major help when it came to PAFL’s worldbuilding. The concepts that I lifted from the book haven’t affected the on-screen story of PAFL too significantly, but helped me work out how the stalker business worked, some rules of conduct, and aspects of how being next to the Zone has affected the city.

While the world of PAFL serves mostly as a backdrop for its characters, the book is much more focused on exploring its own setting. So I strongly advise those interested in the concept of the Zone to give it a read – it’s short and very engaging.

And while you’re at it, I do recommend you check out the brothers’ other works. They’re all great pieces of sci-fi!

Higurashi no Naku Koro Ni

Sanya in the style of the original VN.

The Higurashi no Naku Koro Ni visual novel is probably my favourite story of all time. It’s far from perfect and has many questionable elements to it, but it features some of the best characterisation I’ve seen in media, ever.

No matter how tropey the characters come across at first, all of them end up extremely nuanced, and most importantly, very human. It is probably the number one influence for my approach to character writing.

If we’re talking about particular characters, Mion and Rena inspired certain character traits of Sanya and Katya respectively. There are also some scenes and developments in PAFL that have been seriously influenced by Higurashi, but going into more detail would be a bit of a spoiler.

Katya and Sanya as Rena and Mion from Higurashi.

The way earlier scenes in the narrative are recontextualised with information revealed later in the story left a huge impression on me as well. It always feels so satisfying when done right – and I sure hope that someday I’ll learn to use that writing trick as effectively as Ryuukishi.

If you wanted a reason for the seemingly scattered way PAFL songs are ordered in terms of timeline, this is it. Though, it’s funny that I’m writing this when the timeline for the rest of the series is planned to be pretty straightforward.

In any case, if you’re into my style of character-centric storytelling, I urge you to give this visual novel a shot. Or the old manga. Don’t touch any of the anime or newer adaptations with a ten foot pole, I’m so serious.

Neon Genesis Evangelion

PAFLxNGE crossover doodle from 2019.

If you've read my old Behind the Scenes posts on here, you'll know that my characters used to be much edgier. This was because I was coming fresh off Evangelion’s school of making every character deeply fucked up in some way, but tackled it with all the maturity of a high school freshman.

Still, similarly to Higurashi, it made me pay more attention to what issues tropey characters would have depending on their environment, as well as how they would realistically react to said issues. First I did it in a “wouldn't it be sooo fucked up if X character acted like this” way, but of course I started taking a more nuanced approach to that over time.

It also pushed me to consider characters’ familial relationships more. A lot of anime suffers from disregarding the role parental figures play in how a teenager behaves, and Eva made me pay more attention to this particular aspect.

Considering how important family ties are in PAFL, I'd say that's a pretty big influence. Also Dima living at Olyas place with Anya occasionally crashing there was 100% inspired by Misato, Shinji and Asuka living together. Now who would be Pen Pen, I wonder…

Scott Pilgrim vs. the World

Sanya and Yura (vaguely) in the style of the comic.

I don’t think the background gang, particularly Tsar and Arthur, would exist in the form they do if it weren’t for Scott Pilgrim. I really liked the vibe of the crappy musicians from that series. Sure, Tsar would be there either way since he started out as a parody of an actual artist (King Krule), but I’m moreso talking about the whole unit.

The atmosphere of early PAFL drew a lot from this comic, too, especially since I was still a bit “afraid” of making the setting come across as too slavic. The shitty clubs and alleyways felt really homely - they grounded the wild cartoony story in a very nice way. I always loved it when authors drew from real life locations for their settings, and this one helped me to do the same.

I think the series has also affected my art style and approach to designing characters at the time. I enjoyed how everyone in the main cast looked distinct despite having extremely normal, sometimes even boring clothes and haircuts. I try to more or less do the same with PAFL.

FLCL

Katya as that one Haruko shot.

This is a big one. The aesthetic and musical vibe of FLCL had a massive effect on me. It captured teenage growing pains and awkwardness in such a fun, cool, but accurate way - and early on, I really wanted to do something similar with PAFL.

In retrospect, I don't think it would be achievable: nothing can really replicate the way the Pillows music blended with that beautiful visual direction. And to be frank, PAFL is too doomerish and grounded at this point to go for that sort of aesthetic.

But it really did influence the way I wanted to present the story and the teenage characters in it. I still hope to make something that has similar punkish vibes someday…

Ah, but I'm probably too old for that shit.

Soviet and early post-Soviet films

Katya as Alisa in Guest from the Future.

Obvious statement is obvious: PAFL took massive inspiration from 60s to late 90s Eastern Block cinema. It's all been filtered through a hundred layers of anime, but I feel like the way I write characters would be way different if I didn't have so much love for Soviet films.

I think I became more willing to approach that kind of aesthetic as time went on, since, like I said, when I started PAFL, I was afraid of making it look too slavic for fear of alienating my Western audience. But now that I got all of you yanks in a chokehold I can go more ham with it.

I think you can see my videos gradually featuring more and more obviously region-specific locations as the series goes on. Nowadays I actively think: okay, what makes an alleyway look like it's from a post-Soviet country as opposed to New York? What do local apartment block windows look like? What do WALLS look like? Things like that.

It's funny how this kind of Soviet/post-Soviet aesthetic became fashionable in recent years. When I just started the series, I told my friend about it, and she said, “But why does it have to take place here? Isn't that kinda awkward? Why not America or Europe?” And it was a popular sentiment. I'm glad there's much less of it these days.

Kolya and Nikita as Danila and Victor from Brat.

As far as characters go, Soviet films have majorly influenced the way I write and portray the older cast. I think Nikita, Kolya, and Nadya would easily fit into any one of those.

That said, I can also totally imagine Katya, Dima, Tsar and Anya in a coming of age or kids film from the 70s or 80s (either something like 100 Days After Childhood or Guest from the Future). Ivan, Arthur, Yana and Sergei have more 90s criminal movie vibes to me, like Balabanov-core.

I think I'd you want to see a Soviet film that has a vibe vaguely similar to PAFL, I'd recommend Courier. A weird aimless teenager fucking around with a sheltered girl that’s too good for him kinda beat - it has a cool silly energy with a doomery undercurrent throughout. If you like the atmosphere of PAFL, you'll most likely enjoy it! It's free to watch on Youtube.

Miyazaki (for general character writing)

I remember Miyazaki’s words about modern anime copying other anime instead of real life really sticking with me. They forced me to take a look at my own approach to characters – and I didn’t quite like what I saw.

It pushed me to look around myself for inspiration and actual reference. And on top of helping me make my characters more realistic, it actually made me appreciate how interesting and varied real humans were, as banal as it sounds.

Nowadays it’s always obvious to me when character interactions or events are written based on the things seen in other films, cartoons, manga, and so on. It isn’t always bad, of course, but can really hinder immersion in serious stories.

If you’re a writer, it’s really good practice to try and look critically at what you base your characters on. Not just in terms of inspiration or the basic trope they’re built on, but in terms of how they actually behave and react to their environment.

Is this how you’re used to seeing such characters act in other media? Is this how you’d want them to act for the sake of drama or a cool twist? Or is this how a person like them would actually behave in real life? It’s important to acknowledge these things.

Conclusion

I think those are the main inspirations I can list off the top of my head! I hope this urges you to check some of these works out. Though, considering how mainstream the ones I’ve listed are, you’re probably familiar with them already, haha.

It’s a little embarrassing how obvious and popular the media inspo is, but it’s genuinely hard to pinpoint the more specific influences among, say, Soviet films or all the books I’ve read. So gotta use broad strokes. Maybe I’ll be able to go into more detail someday or remember something specific that I’m forgetting.

Regardless, I hope this was at least a little interesting for you! See you in the next Behind the Scenes, where I will talk about the production of 100 Epitaphs🤸