Tasakeru

Ten Years

31 Jan 2011 Leave a Comment

by BHS in Author's Notes Tags: Author's Notes

I don’t remember exactly what day it was. It was January of 2001, and I was sixteen years old, halfway through 10th grade at Woods Charter School in North Carolina. Sega had just dropped out of the hardware market, the disastrous 2000 election debacle had ended, and 9/11 was still months away, with all the changes and chaos it would entail…

Several months before, I had started drawing an old Sonic fan character of mine again, a katana-wielding squirrel in black clothes named Zero. I intended to bring him back as part of a long-term project, perhaps as a rival to the blue hedgehog. His back story was considerably darker than it had been in years before: he was out to find and kill a wolf named Stalker, who had taken the soul of his girlfriend, a “flower mage” named Jenna (whose name would not change until several years later). Zero and Jenna lived in an ancient forest in a land inspired by Japan.

I don’t recall on what day it happened, but I clearly remember that I was looking at the drawings of Zero, Jenna, and Stalker in my sketchbook when an unusual thought struck me: I have something here. This could be its own story. This was unusual for two reasons, first because I was already deeply invested in writing an original superhero series, The Chronicles of the Light Phoenix, and second because I had honestly never considered writing about animal characters, despite my fondness for the Sonic series, Redwall, and others of the type. The idea stuck to me and didn’t let go. Over the next few weeks I did more drawings: a fox girl in red boots and a bandolier, a badger with a morning star, and a giant spider. Somewhere along the line, this proto-series acquired a name: Tasakeru. I honestly don’t know where the name came from… I liked it because it sounded nicely Japanese. I had barely any knowledge of the language back then, so I couldn’t have known that the word was in the form of a Japanese verb, and astonishingly similar to another verb meaning “to help”.

From that point on, the Light Phoenix fell by the wayside. The development process  for Tasakeru would take up most of my free time from then on; there has been barely a day since when I haven’t thought about my series in some way. In all this time I’ve gone through major surgery, graduation from high school, an extremely difficult cross-state move, enrollment in college, and a complete shift in focus in terms of what I wanted to do with my life, but Tasakeru has always been somewhere at the forefront of my life.

It’s been ten years since I looked down at my scribbles and had the first glimmers of a new idea. Tasakeru has sustained me and driven me for so long that I can barely remember life without Hanami, Zero, Faun, and Ashpaw. They’ve become so ingrained that I see the four of them not just as characters, but four distinct parts of my personality: Hanami is my idealism and my fascination with nature; Zero is my stubbornness, pride, and desire to make a difference; Faun is my wit and my rebellious streak; and Ashpaw is my philosophical and contemplative side.

The world that I’ve built and the characters that I’ve created are the result of ten years of effort. I hope it shows, and I’m glad to be able to share it all with you. Thank you to each and every one of my readers. The story is just beginning.

- BHS

1/31/11