Thread by @YuuRei20

Translation of Interview with Twisted Wonderland Creator Toboso Yana, March, 2023 (part 2/2)

This interview can be viewed in its original form in the App store:

apps.apple.com/jp/story/id166…

(thank you so much to #kyuberei004 for initial discovery and the link!)

*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!

An original culture woven into costume

An element 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 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.

A link to the entire part 2 of the interview combined, here

threadreaderapp.com/thread/1640834…

by the very kind #despisaI ♡