Ena (Season 1)
| “ | "Nice weather! What conspiracies are we cooking on the menu today?"
— Ena, Temptation Stairway
|
” |
Ena (also spelled as ƎNA) is a titular protagonist in the ENA series. This Ena is the protagonist of Season 1 of the series, having a blue and yellow colored body.
Appearance
Ena is a feminine humanoid character. She possesses a dual-colored body, her right side blue and geometric and her left side yellow and smooth (although, her torso is completely blue and geometric). Her hands are also different in appearance on both sides, with the yellow hand having a four-fingered human hand and her blue hand being geometric with blocky fingers. Her black hair is different lengths on either side, her right side being longer and straight (also showing her blue ear) and her left side resembling a bob cut (also covering her yellow ear) with two triangular ahoges. She also has blunt cut bangs. Her eyes are unique in shape, one being a diamond with a black triangle under it (resembling an eyelash) and the other a half circle.
Her outfit consists of a beige collared T-shirt, a black skirt with black overall straps, and a single strap connecting the two going across her chest (however, her chest strap is oddly absent in Auction Day and in Power of Potluck, both in her 2D and 3D appearances, making her more closely resemble her reference art). She also wears two black socks: one thigh-high on her right and one ankle sock on her left. Her clothing, as well as her hair and blue side, have a grain effect over them, causing various scattered pixels to appear over her.
When happy, Ena's mouth and nose show on her left side, and they move to the opposite side when she is sad. They are meant to look like the silhouette of a head looking to the side.
At the end of Temptation Stairway, she has a new and slightly different appearance from her original; her right side and torso are now yellow without a trace of blue (though her right limbs remain polygonal), with her eyes being both semi-circles. She has a full bob-cut hairstyle with her ahoges fused together. Her outfit remains the same as well.
In Power of Potluck, Ena has her debut appearance; though, she temporarily has Mask attached to the blue side of her face through a long, colorful tether connecting the two. During their connection, Ena's blue side lacks any facial features that are typically present. By the end of the episode, the tether detaches from both Mask and Ena as she gains her normal appearance that appears throughout the other Season 1 episodes.
Particular emotions
When Ena's two emotions become too extreme, half of her face becomes white and the other black. Her mouth and nose move to the white side when this occurs, though there are very brief instances in Auction Day where they are on the black side. Her sclera turns black, and the color of her iris changes to correspond with the color of the emotion that she is feeling. When she is happier, or "drunk", her white side is on her left side with a yellow iris; when she is sadder, the white side moves to the right with a blue iris. In Extinction Party and Temptation Stairway, some of her more extreme movements while in her sadder form leave behind a faint afterimage of herself.
Alternate forms
When experiencing a particular emotion, typically to the point of which her face becomes half white, Ena will occasionally shift into other forms. These vary from small to prolonged instances and usually reflect the emotion she was feeling before transforming.
As seen in Extinction Party, Ena occasionally shifts into other forms when she is drunk. These appear to be transformations from her happy/drunk side. These forms have been dubbed her "Demon" and "Diablada" forms.
- For her Demon form, her blue side is now orange (with her nose also on the orange side), and her yellow side and her torso are now green. Pointed ears appear on each side of her head. Her geometric hand now has sharp fingers, and she often puts it around the back of her head. She now only has one eye, which is on her smooth side, and has a white sclera and pupil with a maroon iris. She also sports dark green horns on her head while having a small Ena face on her forehead, resembling her normal blue and yellow appearance. The chest strap connecting her overall straps is also absent.
- When in her Diablada form, again, her dual colors change. Her smooth side has white skin with a triangular eye, while her geometric side sports a face resembling a dark purple Diablada demon mask. The geometric side has a large bulging eye, pink lips with jagged, outward-facing teeth, a large, winding yellow horn alongside smaller horns, and a frill that resembles fire. Her limbs are also different colors, now having a green geometric leg and a yellow geometric arm with a clawed purple hand. Her shirt is yellow with white sleeves. Also, it seems like her long hair on her geometric side is not there anymore.
In both of these forms, Ena's mouth is in the middle and not on either side, with the said mouths being more realistic to a degree.
As seen in Temptation Stairway, her sad form also has an alternative form, considered her full-sadness form. She will turn into this form after usually having a major tantrum beforehand, which will cause her to remove the yellow side from her body. Her skin will turn gray and entirely geometric when she is completely sad. Her hair will be completely long, and she will only have one ahoge instead of two. Her socks will change into complete thigh highs and her left sleeve will become geometric. Her face will turn blank, with either half of her facial features appearing on the back of her hands. She usually covers her face with her hands in this form, making a full face. When using the avatar that resembles this form on Joelgc.com, she is shown to quickly run back and forth, faster than the speed of the other avatars. In the Temptation Stairway teaser, her form seems to be slightly different from her current one, as her left leg was smooth with an ankle-height black sock.
It seems the happiness and sadness sides of Ena have "phases". The first phase is when the nose and mouth move to the blue or yellow side (via when she is happy or sad), the second one is when her face turns black and white (via when she is drunk or sadder), and her third phase is when she is in her full or glitched form of that emotion (via her full-sadness and Demon/Diablada forms). As she progresses through each form, she acts more unstable.
Personality
In Auction Day and Extinction Party, Ena's mood would affect her voice, with her happy and drunk forms sounding masculine and her sad forms sounding feminine. However, in Temptation Stairway, her voice and different emotional states do not have a strict correlation, with her voice regularly fluctuating between masculine and feminine regardless of how she feels.
In her happy state, she seems to be very kind, optimistic, and somewhat insightful. She is frequently shown to have a very polite manner around others, even if some do not treat her as well in return. Despite being insightful to a degree, she is mostly quite oblivious. For example, she happily greets and talks to Merci upon finding her in the Maze, despite Merci's translated dialogue revealing she acts aggressive in return and warns Ena about the Maze possibly being dangerous, though Ena seems completely unconcerned or unaware of her friend's advice. She also appears to talk more sophisticatedly, typically substituting various words for longer or more detailed synonyms. When becoming too joyful, or in a type of dizziness as with meeting Moony in Extinction Party, she transforms into her drunk state, in which she adopts a demeanor resembling intoxication, laughing at everything, speaking in a slower, more slurred manner, and exuding a euphoric vibe. She usually glitches into her Demon and Diablada forms. While her voice is slurred, it occasionally turns more laggy, taking short pauses when speaking before exclaiming and elongating certain words than normally intended, usually when she is in her aforementioned tertiary happy/drunk forms.
However, mentioning pessimistic things or being in slightly stressful situations, such as large social gatherings, is enough for her to turn into her sad states; for both forms, her voice begins to break as if on the verge of tears, and she produces some sounds incorrectly (such as replacing her Rs and Ls with Ws). She will begin to self-deprecate, usually making disparaging remarks about her intelligence. She will also often beg to be killed while in these forms, as shown in her conversations with Keeper and Phindoll, or will agree with the notion of death when it is presented, such as when she talks to Robert. Compared to her base form's sad state, her sadder form seems to be more frantic and childish with these outbursts, as this side of Ena comes out randomly (as with Auction Day and meeting Phindoll in Temptation Stairway), though sometimes when she is first experiencing her first sad state (as with Extinction Party and at the start of Temptation Stairway before heading to The Great Runas). She sometimes assumes the worst (as when rejected by Keeper, she takes it as rudeness in her sad form, but her sadder form takes it as a way of Keeper trying to kill her) and throws random tantrums, such as losing her arms and spinning around while sobbing in Extinction Party, also contrasting her happy side's more positive and calmer demeanor. She also seems to have an easily upset stomach while in this form too, as she is shown vomiting in both Auction Day and Temptation Stairway, the former of which shows her puking out noise. It appears that her happy side takes over as soon as possible whenever she is sad, possibly to keep her from putting herself in serious danger. Whenever this happens, Ena will apologize for her behavior or engage in small talk.
Ena does not seem to mind her different emotional states and is instead more concerned about the impacts they have on her friends. Ena is also seen to be stubborn in situations that do not involve her own emotions, in which she will quickly give up, change, or split back and forth. For example, in the instances where she is asked to give blood identification in Extinction Party and Temptation Stairway, she quickly switches to her sad side and appears to brush off the need for such actions by shouting.
Creation
The first known creation of Ena is from a Tweet by Joel Guerra, showing a short, animated GIF of Ena followed by stating that he was thinking of making characters with strange designs in a nonsensical, colorful world.[4] The Tweet received positive feedback, and so Joel replied by talking about his gratitude and potential for the series. Attached to the reply was concept art of Ena and Moony.[5]
On Joel's YouTube channel, a video was posted simply titled "ENA" that showed a simple idle animation of the titular character as the song "Browser History" by Graham Kartna played. It was revealed that her design was inspired by the painting Girl before a Mirror by Pablo Picasso, as well as the art of Romero Britto as stated in the video's description.[6]
Her name was formatted as "ƎNA", but the spelling was later changed to "ENA" as Joel thought it would be too difficult for people to type when they wanted to say her name.[7] However, her name is formatted as "ƎNA" on the screens that appear when she obtains the Turrón and Blood ID in Temptation Stairway and also appeared during the ENA Day 2nd anniversary. It is possible that these are either references to the old name or that it is her real in-universe name, which may explain why Moony often mispronounces it.
The first episode of the series, titled Auction Day, was released on May 26th, 2020, marking the debut of Ena.
Early concept art of Ena was revealed on ENA Day 2021, a year after her initial Twitter reveal.[8] This concept art showed vastly different designs than the final that showcased various face, eye, and hair shapes. One of the greatest changes shows Ena's blue side to be initially white. These early designs were later referenced during ENA Day 2022.[9]
Her overall design has changed from artwork revealed before her debut in Auction Day. Her first reveal shows several differences in her design, including a white shirt instead of a beige one, a smooth blue side as opposed to the final design's more geometric shape, a black wristband on her blue arm (which was completely removed in the final), a triangular eyelash on her yellow side's eye (which was also removed, though still appears in her 3D reference model), and the presence of two thigh-high socks instead of only one. Various other pieces of concept art also show her with a rounded diamond eye on her blue side and individual fingers on her right hand.
Gallery
The Ena (Season 1) gallery can be found on the Gallery subpage.
Trivia
- Ena uses she/her pronouns, as Joel Guerra refers to her as such.
- Ena's name could be a reference to the Japanese words "笑顔" (egao, smile) and "涙" (namida, tears), likely reflecting that she has a happy and sad side.
- Ena has a strong love for turrón, as revealed in Temptation Stairway.
- One line from The Shepherd in Temptation Stairway implies that there is more than one Ena, presumably as a form of species. This is evident after Ena's encounter with The Shepherd, as she comes across a room of three other Enas floating in the void, sometimes glitching into Mannequins for a split second.
- This is later proven through the Ena seen in Dream BBQ.
- Ena smells like chocolate milk.[10]
- Ena's appearance at the end of Temptation Stairway is often thought to be her "full-happiness" form.
- Ena's reference art pose appears to be referenced throughout the first three Season 1 episodes:
- Before turning into her sadder form at the beginning of Extinction Party, she briefly glitches. During this time, a black-and-white monochrome version of her "reference pose" from above can be seen.
- In Temptation Stairway, she can be seen swinging back and forth in this pose while talking to The Shepherd.
- Though it may be a coincidence, the pose she takes while Moony asks her what she thinks the auction item will be in Auction Day is similar to the "reference pose", though the pose appears much more slumped, possibly because Ena is in her sadder form while this happens.
- According to Joel Guerra, Ena's name is pronounced as "eh-na" as this is the Spanish phonetic pronunciation of the word.[11][12]
- Additionally, dialogue from both Merci and The Shepherd both have Ena's name pronounced as "eh-na", which possibly furthers this as an official or canon pronunciation of the name.
- However, it has also been stated on Twitch streams that Ena's name does not have any definitive pronunciation and it is entirely up to fans on how they want to pronounce the name.
- Additionally, dialogue from both Merci and The Shepherd both have Ena's name pronounced as "eh-na", which possibly furthers this as an official or canon pronunciation of the name.
- Ena is one of the unlockable avatars on Joelgc.com and can be customized with various unlockable colors.
- Ena's early concept art shows her with her right side being white, which is similar in design to Season 2 Ena.
- Coincidentally, Season 2 Ena's early concept art shows her with a yellow left side, making her resemble Season 1 Ena.
- As shown in Temptation Stairway and a short animation loop for ENA Day 2022, Ena can detach her limbs and make them float.
- A Tweet from Joel Guerra states that either Ena or Moony will appear in the future with their new appearance that they gained at the end of Temptation Stairway.[13] With this, it can be inferred that Ena's "full-happiness" form may appear in the future, possibly even in Dream BBQ. However, the Tweet is largely ambiguous and does not confirm if Season 1 Ena will appear in Dream BBQ or in any future episodes.
- For a short moment in the Dream BBQ game announcement trailer, a figure resembling Season 1 Ena (with her blue and yellow sides) can be seen. This has led to speculation that she may appear in the episode, though not in her "full-happiness" form.
- In the RASH A1M Japanese dubs, Ena has a solely feminine voice and no masculine counterpart. In these dubs, she is voiced by Yuka Nagahara.
- For the Japanese dubs of Auction Day and Extinction Party, Ena's voice also gains a slight filter whenever she is feeling sad or switches to her sadder side. This is absent in the Temptation Stairway dub.
- According to Joel Guerra on one of his Twitch streams, Ena is "taller than the average person". Though this was likely a joke, fans have taken this to mean 9 feet tall, though no official height has ever been confirmed. One later Twitch stream also referenced the statement.[14]
Cultural references and inspirations
- Ena's face was influenced by Pablo Picasso's painting, Girl before a Mirror.
- Ena's design was also inspired by the art of Brazilian artist Romero Britto.
- Her design is also inspired by the geometric design aesthetic of the game Super Paper Mario.[15]
- Her outfit bears a striking resemblance to that of a standard schoolgirl uniform in Peru, where the author, Joel Guerra, is from. However, this resemblance has never been acknowledged or confirmed to be based on a Peruvian schoolgirl uniform.
- One of her drunk forms also resembles a Diablada demon mask, especially the types present in Peru, which often sport bulging eyes alongside pink lips and spiraling horns. This was later confirmed with the "Ena Diablada" skin name on the Joelgc.com Custom Character Creator.
- Ena's movements are somewhat based on the dance moves in the 1980 music video for "Once in a Lifetime" by Talking Heads, as well as the movements by Osamu Sato in "THE EARTH IS ROUND" for his film titled THE ESOTERIC RETINA.
- Drunk Ena's movements were based on the Drunk Master from the Jackie Chan film, Drunken Master.
- Gabe Velez's portrayal of Ena's masculine voice was inspired by Matthew Broderick.[16]
- A similar division of the body into blue and yellow halves was used in the cartoon Absent-minded Giovanni (1969).[17]
- Ena's happy and sad expressions may be a reference to the ancient symbols of comedy and tragedy, the sock and buskin.
References
- ↑ https://twitter.com/JoelGuerraC/status/1362895216173285379
- ↑ https://twitter.com/JoelGuerraC/status/1342202308092899336
- ↑ https://web.archive.org/web/20210723043852/https://twitter.com/RealGamerduck/status/1418387412187697156
- ↑ https://twitter.com/JoelGuerraC/status/1231746194780688384
- ↑ https://twitter.com/JoelGuerraC/status/1231767707156197378
- ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lF3O-TXURX4
- ↑ https://twitter.com/JoelGuerraC/status/1328936184886800386
- ↑ https://twitter.com/JoelGuerraC/status/1364371153540812801
- ↑ https://twitter.com/JoelGuerraC/status/1496508514281340932
- ↑ https://twitter.com/JoelGuerraC/status/1362924109093625856
- ↑ https://twitter.com/JoelGuerraC/status/1328938921296846848
- ↑ https://twitter.com/JoelGuerraC/status/1322945267642044421
- ↑ https://twitter.com/JoelGuerraC/status/1362880268021993484
- ↑ File:EnaHeightClarified.mp4
- ↑ https://twitter.com/JoelGuerraC/status/1231750154857963521
- ↑ https://web.archive.org/web/20210322032922/https://twitter.com/RealGamerduck/status/1373839079641509890
- ↑ https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1075385/
| Characters | |
|---|---|
| Main Characters | |
| Season 1 | |
| Season 2 | |
| Misc. | |