For Onyx Equinox, it's the Olmec civilization, which was a real civilization that experts consider to be the cornerstone of Mesoamerican culture, but which we know extremely little about.
Onyx anime series#
Whether it's Greek mythology stories like Rick Riordan's Percy Jackson series or Assassin's Creed Odyssey including Mycenaean ruins, stories of Atlantis, or even Númenor in Lord of the Rings. If you buy the story and the characters triumphing, you don't need to understand everything about the cultural significance of the world, but you might still appreciate it."Ī typical part of mythology-based stories is the idea that there have been civilizations before the one we're following. "A lot of these shows brought their own history and culture with them, but you focused on the character and whether you find them relatable. "I saw this with confidence as someone who grew up in Mexico consuming American and Japanese cartoons," she says. His is a stereotypical shonen - or young adult - anime story, and that was the key for Alexander, who wanted to take the tropes of the genre and use them to tell a story about "growing up emotionally, mentally, and physically." By focusing on making Izel a good and likable protagonist, Alexander believes the show is capable of translating to everyone, no matter how familiar you are with the subject matter. While a war between gods brews in the background, our main story is about Izel, a kid tasked with closing the gates to the underworld and imprisoning the god of the dead. "Most of the sacrifices that had a lot of symbolism to them were actually done by the nobles."Ī big task for the show is introducing this mythology and culture to an audience that is, for the most part, unfamiliar with it. "Sacrifice is literally what makes the sun rise and set," Alexander explains, alluding to the belief that Aztecs offered their own blood because the sun god Huitzilopochtli needed it for nourishment to battle the darkness and ensure the sun would keep rising. In the show, we see different types of sacrifices, varying in intensity from slitting your own throat to simply a little cut on your finger and having blood droplets on a parchment. As Alexander tells it, it's more than just offering blood in exchange for favors like in Greek myths, but is instead a debt to be paid in order to make the world continue. From what we actually know of the Aztecs, the sacrifices were an essential part of their religion and the way they viewed the universe. The inciting incident starts out from a conflict over which god gets the blood sacrifices from the other gods - sparking a total war. It's not only showing the sacrifices as more than savagery, but also the way Onyx Equinox makes them an integral part of its world and its plot to give it an added layer of nuance. It's in the name, 'sacrifice.' It's not that different from me growing up Catholic and being taught that sacrificing yourself is the ultimate act of love and the most wonderful thing." But we're showing someone giving up his own life for his people. "When we do show someone slicing their own throat, it's very violent, yes. "We definitely didn't want to use it for shock factor," Alexander tells SYFY WIRE. Show creator Sofia Alexander knows that most people watching the show will be familiar with depictions of Aztecs doing blood sacrifices and holding still-beating hearts up in the sky like in Apocalypto, and the show doesn't shy away from the sacrifices, but it does show them in a different light.
While some of the visuals may seem familiar to those who only know these rich cultures from Hollywood tropes - like the show's opening scene, in which a priest slits his own throat as an offer to the gods to save the town from the monsters - Onyx Equinox offers a much more nuanced, layered depiction. The show, which is streaming on Crunchyroll, is about a young boy named Izel who is chosen to be humanity's champion in the upcoming war between gods, after the god of the dead, Mictlantecuhtli, raises arms against the other gods and steals their blood sacrifices. Thankfully, the new anime-inspired show Onyx Equinox tries to change all that.
More often than not they are reduced to one of two things: either a desolated, mystical place deep in the jungle and filled with treasure, or a savage and bloody civilization whose only pastime is to cut people open and take out their still-beating hearts as sacrifices to the gods. Hollywood productions have long portrayed Aztec and Mesoamerican cultures very differently than, say, Greek or Roman ones.
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