Ena (Season 2)
— Ena, ENA Day 2023
Ena (also spelled as ƎNA) is a titular protagonist in the ENA series. This Ena is the protagonist of the second season of the series, having a pale blue, pale yellow, and red colored body.
Appearance
Ena is a feminine humanoid character. She possesses a multicolored body, with her right side being divided into pale-blue and pale-yellow sections and her left side being red (although, her torso is completely red). Her right arm, right leg, and torso are polygonal, while her left arm and leg are smooth. Unlike Season 1 Ena, her right hand has sharp, claw-like fingertips with more joint muscle, and her left hand is mitten-shaped. Both her right and left eyes are triangular and point down and up, respectively. Her right eye also has a small black triangle under it, which resembles an eyelash. She sports roughly the same style of uneven black hair as Season 1 Ena, although this Ena's hair length is more equal and shoulder-length. She also has the same triangular ahoges.
Her outfit consists of a light-pink collared T-shirt with red and pink striped suspenders. She wears green shorts and darker green socks. The sock on her right side reaches up to her thigh, and the sock on her left reaches up to her ankle. She also wears a cap, specifically resembling a student cap, that is the same shade of green as her shorts and is adorned with a navy-blue ribbon and silver emblem.
Alternate forms
Ena appears to have two alternate forms, which take on two different appearances revealed in various teasers and trailers for Dream BBQ:
Green form
This form's face and torso are both green and have several cracks, with their head leaking blue and purple liquid. Their right arm also leaks the same liquid, though it does not have any cracks. Their mouth is jagged and appears on both sides of their face. They have dark, round, sunken eyes with circular pupils. The color of the liquid and pupils is purple on their right and blue on their left. Their outfit and other features are unchanged.
This form was first teased in the Dream BBQ trailer, where they appeared in a red spotlight and spun upside-down. They appeared again in a music preview showcasing an upcoming song by METAROOM for Dream BBQ, titled "The Purge Event".[3] Their face is partially obscured, and only a small amount of their head can be seen, which is visibly green but uncracked. Unlike in the first trailer for the game, their torso is red and uncracked. Strangely, their right arm is missing from their body.
In the second Dream BBQ trailer, they are seen standing in a deserted landscape with large, rotating megaphones emerging from the sky. They have no arms or pupils, and their face gradually begins to crack while making a chewing or teeth grinding motion. Later in the trailer, their torso spins around and their legs jump and dance as black rocks (presumably coal) rain from the megaphones. While this occurs, their pupils appear, and liquid begins to leak from the cracks in their face. Near the end of the trailer, they sit lifelessly on the ground with their eyes obscured as bullets rain from the megaphones. Notably, their cap was updated to have different colors from Ena's base form, the ribbon now being the same shade of green as the panels, the emblem being medium-dark gold, and the brim being very dark gray; this change is also reflected in a piece of promotional artwork.
This form also appeared as an unlockable costume during the Halloween 2022 event on Joelgc.com under the name "Ena Chupacabras", in which they are dressed as a chupacabras. While this outfit is selected, they have white fangs and a red horn. They wear a spiked collar with a green costume and have red claws and black feet. They appeared as another unlockable skin for the Halloween 2023 event under the name "Blood Reaper Ena", in which they have two dark gray scythes dripping blood—blue on the left and purple on the right—which stick out of their head, some blood of the same colors on their hair below the scythes, a different hair style resembling a slightly fluffier bob cut, a missing jaw, a torn black cloak whose interior is blue on the left and purple on the right, a light green skeleton torso and legs, and black shoes.
Humanesque form
The second form is much more humanesque in comparison to Ena's base form, with a more realistic body, hair, and clothes. Their body colors and hairstyle appear to be similar to Ena's base form, although their entire face is pale blue, along with their right arm, right leg, and torso. Their body colors seem to be a bit darker than normal. They have martinique blue eyes with dark circles underneath, which could be due to exhaustion or possibly runny mascara. In most of the artwork depicting this form, they also have a small bit of drool leaking from the left side of their mouth. This form's outfit is also slightly different when compared to Ena's more geometric forms, as their shirt now sports buttons and is beige instead of pink. Unlike the other forms, they seem to have shoes, which are light green slip-ons with dark green soles. Their socks are equally ankle-length, unlike the other forms, and also a darker green. Additionally, they have golden buckles that attach their suspenders to their shorts. Of course, the most notable aspect of this form is the large, orange, vortex-like hole in their chest, which emits small particles.
Their cap is colored differently than in Ena's base form, as it has a yellow ribbon and a gold emblem. In the second Dream BBQ trailer, they are also seen with an orange outline around their mouth for a brief moment, not unlike the outline that surrounds the hole in their body.
Their first public appearance was on January 6th, 2023, in a Tweet by Joel Guerra notifying fans that a new Dream BBQ trailer would be released.[4] With the announcement was a GIF depicting this form of Ena crawling towards something, revealed in the second Dream BBQ trailer to be Spatulady. However, the connection between these two characters is currently unknown. Concept art of this form, showing their full appearance, was also revealed on February 9th.[5]
In the second Dream BBQ trailer, they are seen huddled on the ground in a barren landscape with many mannequin-like poles and various winding structures. They look up to see the Spatulady, who is dancing under a spotlight, and they begin to desperately crawl towards the Spatulady while sweating. Later in the trailer, this Ena form is seen shakily holding one of the mannequins under a spotlight, which sports red spiral patterns on its chest and face.
This Ena form's head and right side being entirely pale blue may suggest that the form is associated with Ena's pale/"meanie" side. However, the significance of this is unclear, as their skin does not have a pale yellow color.
Personality
Ena's red side, being her "salesperson" side, appears to have a more joyful expression, much like that of Season 1 Ena's yellow side. She is often seen smiling when her face is switched to this side. She also appears to talk much more often with this side, as shown in her various art appearances, which may mean this is her "primary" side, much like how Season 1 Ena primarily talks using her yellow side. This side of Ena acts very casual and friendly, offering types of deals. In a piece of merchandise, she is seen with a root-like object growing from her chest, causing the red side to take on a more neutral look, similar to her paler side's expression.
Her paler side, being her "meanie" side, appears to be serious, loud, and somewhat choleric, as she is often depicted with a slight frown or neutral expression, contrasting with her smiling red side. In a piece of merchandise, she is seen shouting into her megaphone with a serious expression. The only instance this side is seen smiling is in the Dream BBQ game trailer when she begins talking into the megaphone, which curiously also causes the red side to gain a small eyebrow, giving it an angry appearance.
It is currently unknown if there are more extreme versions of the salesperson and meanie sides that would cause only one side of Ena's face to show, similar to Season 1 Ena's sadder and drunk forms, or if the green and humanesque alternate forms are secondary or tertiary forms that are each or both associated with a particular side of Ena.
Just like her Season 1 counterpart, Ena has both a feminine and a masculine voice,[6] with Aleks Le voicing her masculine voice and Nola Klop voicing her feminine voice. In the same voice preview, her masculine voice appears to be associated with Ena's salesperson side while her feminine voice appears to be associated with her meanie side.[2] It is currently unknown if the voices are interchangeable between sides, much like how Season 1 Ena's voices functioned in Temptation Stairway.
Creation
Ena's first appearance was in the teaser for Dream BBQ, though only her back was shown. Despite this, the colors of her arms and legs revealed she was red, pale blue, and pale yellow in color. Alongside the new outfit, this confirmed that a new Ena would replace the one from Season 1 after Temptation Stairway.
Her full appearance was revealed to the public on May 26th, 2021, on Joel Guerra's Twitter, showing her face and outfit from the front.[7] Concept sketches of Ena were also shown on July 20th on the same platform.[8]
During the development of Dream BBQ several other pieces of concept art featuring Ena were released, some of which showed short animation loops of her that would be used in the game/episode. An alternate green form of Ena was shown on Joel Guerra's social media on November 11th, 2021, which was previously teased in the first Dream BBQ trailer, although the form's name was not revealed.[9] This alternate form would also appear in a music preview posted on Joel Guerra's YouTube channel.[10] This form would also receive a slightly updated design with the release of the second Dream BBQ trailer, having the colors of their cap slightly altered from what was previously shown in concept art.
On January 6th, 2023, a third Ena form was revealed in order to tease the then-upcoming third Dream BBQ trailer.[11] Like the previously revealed green form, this form remained unnamed. Concept art of this form was posted to Joel Guerra's social media on February 9th of the same year.[12]
Gallery
The Ena (Season 2) gallery can be found on the Gallery subpage.
Trivia
- Before the announcement of Dream BBQ, multiple Enas were hinted at in Temptation Stairway through The Shepherd's dialogue stating "Arghh...another ENA troublemaker".
- Ena is one of the unlockable avatars on Joelgc.com and can be customized with various unlockable colors.
- Unlike the Ena from Season 1, Season 2 Ena appears to have three different colors associated with her (pale blue for her upper right side, pale yellow for her lower right side and ear, and red for the entirety of her left side). Despite having three colors, both pale colors act as one emotion together.
- Ena's early concept art shows her with her left side being yellow, which is similar in design to Season 1 Ena.
- Coincidentally, Season 1 Ena's early concept art shows her with a white right side, making her slightly resemble Season 2 Ena.
- Ena's pose in her concept art slightly resembles the pose made by Demon Ena in Extinction Party; both bend their right arm behind their head, their left arm near their waist, and point their knees inward.
- It is possible that all three versions of Ena represent the three parts of Sigmund Freud's psychoanalytic theory about the psyche, where humanesque Ena is the id (the desire and want of a person, represented by their desperation and drooling), split Ena is the ego (the compromise between the id and super-ego, as represented by her split appearance and double voices), and green Ena is the super-ego (the denial and disagreement of the id, as represented by their inability to move, causing them to crack and break down due to a lack of will).
Cultural references and inspirations
- A small portion of the Dream BBQ trailer briefly showcases grayscale variants of Ena posing. These poses are nearly identical to ones quickly made by SALARYMAN 55/Otou-san in the animation Polygon Family - Morning Commute.[13]
- Ena's face was influenced by Pablo Picasso's painting, Girl before a Mirror, as is the case for Season 1 Ena.
- It is also possible she was inspired by another painting by Pablo Picasso known as Tête (Head), as it uses the same pale blue, pale yellow, and red coloration for the subject's face.[14] However, this may be a coincidence, as concept art revealed in a 2022 stream shows that Ena originally had red and yellow colored sides.
- Ena's outfit was stated on an ENA Day 2022 Twitch stream to be based on the outfit of Noppo, a character from the Japanese educational children's show Dekirukana. It was stated by Joel Guerra that he watched the show as a child, as it also aired in Latin American countries.
- Froggy is also based on the show's other main character, Gonta. This is likely why both Ena and Froggy are paired together.
- It was also stated in the same stream that Ena's hat was originally the same as Noppo's, though the hat was changed to a cap instead.
- Some of Ena's movements appear to reference the dance moves in the music video for "Taiso", a song by the band Yellow Magic Orchestra. These references include a GIF of Ena talking while dancing,[15] the pose that the green alternate form takes in their concept art, and her usage of a yellow megaphone in both concept art and the Dream BBQ game announcement trailer.
- Ena's green alternate form's head resembles structures in the game Space Funeral that appear as bloodied green heads.
- The hole in the chest of Ena's humanesque form may or may not be a reference to/inspired by the character Kaiba from Masaaki Yuasa's Kaiba.
References
- ↑ Description refers to Ena as "she".
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 https://twitter.com/JoelGuerraC/status/1628890353523736577
- ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-j2LJ0ktHoI
- ↑ https://twitter.com/JoelGuerraC/status/1611502107752026112
- ↑ https://twitter.com/JoelGuerraC/status/1623846290080559107
- ↑ File:S2EnaVoices.mp4
- ↑ https://twitter.com/JoelGuerraC/status/1397620398611632130
- ↑ https://twitter.com/JoelGuerraC/status/1417565725628289031
- ↑ https://www.instagram.com/p/CWJ2IcZME45/
- ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-j2LJ0ktHoI
- ↑ https://twitter.com/JoelGuerraC/status/1611502107752026112
- ↑ https://twitter.com/JoelGuerraC/status/1623846290080559107
- ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AMmIva74FmA
- ↑ https://www.clevelandart.org/art/2020.112
- ↑ https://twitter.com/JoelGuerraC/status/1531773993031811072
| Characters | |
|---|---|
| Main Characters | |
| Season 1 | |
| Season 2 | |
| Misc. | |