Shin Aozora's Adventure: The Reboot that Never Happened

Over the past few years, there's a number of content in my series that winds up getting scrapped one reason or another, either due to loss of interest or after some extra thinking, realizing the plot wouldn't have worked so well in the first place.

One of these is Shin Aozora's Adventure, an attempt at another sub-series in the Aozora universe much in the style of Oriental and Darkness. The concept for such was triggered on January 12th of last year, right off the excitement and thrill of the big Nintendo Switch announcement that happened on that day and the reveal of ARMS, which I understandably was excited for. It even got me out of retirement for a brief moment so I could draw this:

This here would've been one of Aozora's many forms that he could transform into and fight with, along with a wide number of other powers. This particular form would've debuted in Shin Aozora, but my loss in furthering Shin Aozora's development along with a desire of avoiding "cameo powers" due to their complexity, minus Guts Aozora (which is based of Gear 4th from One Piece), whom I'm going to tweak to be as far removed from it's inspiration as much as possible. (also a hint, Guts Aozora may be who I draw next as I still have some progress of him form last year)

Without further ado, Shin Aozora. The plot would've been a cross between the infamous Super Mario Bros. film and the less controversial but still average Sonic the Hedgehog OVA. Unlike the original Aozora, the plot of Shin Aozora would be far more advanced and detailed, giving a reason as to how Aozora and co can use the various Power-Ups to transform (along with an origin story on Power Ups themselves). Most of it revolves around the existence of "Colored Energy" which would've been inspired by the concept of Lums in Rayman's lore (as described in Rayman 2/Revolution/DS/3D). The colors of energy directly mimicked what they did in the Rayman series: Red represents health, Blue is life, Silver grants powers. In the case of Shin Aozora, Silver grants the user the ability to use the Power Ups to begin with.

The world would be divided into three layers. "The Aboveworld", aka "The Land of the Sky", the "Surface World", and "The Underworld". If you've seen either the Mario and/or Sonic movies, you should have an idea on how each of the three layers would look on a grander scale.

As for Powerups, their described lore is that they were the reincarnated souls of heroes who were sealed into glass capsules by the world's gods after proving their worth to the world over the years. Because of this, Shin Aozora would have some religious themes strewn about, with the gods watching over the heroes and sealing their powers within the glass orbs when they finally pass. They later split and scatter the orbs across the globe in the hopes that somebody with Silver Energy would be able to use them for greater good.

In this universe, the major focus would be on Aozora, Satoru, Zik, and a fourth female character known as Brenda a badass no-nonsense fighter that mostly serves as a foil to the trio of boys. They all live on the Aboveworld, in a large beachside house made out of various abandoned transportation vehicles, much like Sonic's house in the Sonic OVA. The four, for unknown reasons, found and absorbed Silver Energy during their youth, giving them the ability to use Power-Ups. Due to the rarity of a Silver Energy user and Silver Energy (along with Silver Energy users) being highly sought after for potential wealth, strength, and fame, the four main characters were forced to stay in the Aboveworld where the amount of risk into getting captured or killed would be far lower than on the Surface or Underworld. As with the Sonic OVA, the Aboveworld is run by it's own president with a daughter, though unlike the Sonic OVA, both characters would actively play huge roles in the story and even would have moments of badassery themselves.

As for the other two worlds, The Surface World is much the same as regular Aozora's universe, with themes of urban science and urban fantasy mixing together. The Underworld, on the other hand, is a much different story. It's only location is a city that mimics Dinohattan from the Super Mario Bros. film, filled with humans that evolved from reptilian creatures instead of primates. Unlike the Mario movie, the residents are more reptilian like, with some residents having different degrees of human to reptilian. The more reptilian residents have different eyes, abnormal skin colors and ears, spikes on their skin, sharp teeth, and extendable tongues. This city would be run by a corrupt president, who would become one of the main antagonists of the story.

The true villain of the story would be a superpowered mastermind who seeks out a lone piece of Silver Energy to power himself up even further and turn himself into a super being, and he, in secret, targets Aozora and his crew as they run off to stop him on behalf of the Aboveworld's president.

With that said, there's not much else I can say about this project. I simply lost interest and the project didn't seem to go anywhere, along with how much it copied from other sources. Additionally, all the work that was (and is) still left to do in vanilla Aozora also strayed me away from Shin Aozora. Will Shin Aozora ever be reincarnated? Maybe, but don't hold your breath and count on it.