Mesoamerican Gods

We catch up with Sofía Alexander, the talented creator of Crunchyroll’s hot new animated series Onyx Equinox.

One of the animation highlights of the new fall season is the arrival of the highly original new show Onyx Equinox. The 2D-animated show, which will premiere on Crunchyroll, follows the adventures of a a young Aztec boy named Izel who is saved from death by the gods and is chosen to act as ‘humanity’s champion,’ forced to discard his apathy toward his fellow man and prove humanity’s potential on a journey that will take him across ancient Mesoamerica. The show’s creator, exec producer and showrunner Sofía

Alexander was kind enough to answer a few of our questions about her exciting project:

Animag: Can you tell us the origins of the show and the inspirations behind it?

Sofía Alexander: The concept of Onyx Equinox began in a college assignment. Back then, it was only Izel, Yaotl and Izel’s sister, Nelli. The story began evolving through my time in college, with a concrete story pitch developed for my senior project. There are many inspirations behind the idea. I was born in Quintana Roo, Mexico, a state nearby many Maya archeological sites. My grandfather was proud of our indigenous heritage, and it was important to him we learned and were exposed to it as much as possible. My childhood memories are heavily tied with visiting the sites. It was an obvious choice to tell a story set in such a beautiful time. When I learned how much history had been lost during Spanish colonization, I found myself wondering what that world looked like, what parts of these huge civilizations were completely wiped away? I loved Lord of the Rings, which of course is inspired by a mix of European mythologies. I started to imagine a Mexico that was just as magical and epic as that. Onyx Equinox is also heavily inspired by my own experiences growing up and fguring out my own perception of the world and society in general.

When did you start working on the show?

Onyx Equinox began as a comic strip, a college assignment back in 2007. Izel and Yaotl looked about the same back then, too. The story went through many concepts and rewrites, redesigns and character development, and then I developed a pitch for my senior project in 2011. I let the story sit for a while, thinking one day I would draw it as a graphic novel. When I came out to L.A. I revisited it, and reworked it into a pitch for an animated series, and through a fortunate series of being in the right place at the right time, we began writing the show in October 2018.

How many people work on the show and where is the animation being produced?

The production studio is located in L.A., but the animation was made at Tiger Animation and DR Movie in South Korea.

Which tools/software do you use to produce the animation?

Everything from concept art, character sheets, storyboards, editing and even writing is all hand-drawn/typed on the computer. We used programs like Storyboard Pro, After Effects and Photoshop in our L.A. studio., but when it came to Tiger and DR Movie, we did have some of the animation process done with more traditional tools.

What would you say were some of your biggest challenges on this project?

Translation between cultures was a big one for sure. Beside language, there’s a lot of culturally different concepts and history to unpack. Mesoamerica doesn’t get as much spotlight as we think, and when we see it in media,