ABOUT

No one knows for certain how the Universe started, but many will tell you that in the beginning were powerful beings called angels and demons. They waged war for centuries, and eventually reached a compromise by splitting the Universe between Heaven and Hell, with Earth as the middle ground.

This peace, however, will not last for long.

SPHERES OF HEAVEN

The responsibility of most of the world rests on the angels. There are nine known classes of angels divided into three Spheres of Heaven, whose hierarchy is in the following order:

— The First Sphere, Stewards of Creation —
Seraphim, Cherubim, Ophanim

— The Second Sphere, Stewards of Nature —
Dominions, Virtues, Powers

— The Third Sphere, Stewards of Earth —
Principalities, Archangels, Guardians

The people of Earth believe there is a Creator that resides here too, but that has yet to be confirmed.

ORIGIN

It begins with the disappearance of thousands of Second Sphere angels, whose empty shells of their angelic cores are left on Earth. The Dominions surmised these cores belong to their missing Virtue and Power colleagues; and with rumors of a “demonic beast” awakening, they realize they are dealing with something much more sinister than they thought.

CHIISA

DOMINION OF CELESTIAL HEAVEN

Angelic cores are the source of an angel’s divine power — and who better understands this than Chiisa, the Dominion of Celestial Heaven? While their research focuses mainly on cosmology, their work is intricately tied with angel core genesis that makes them the perfect investigator for the case.

HELLBORN DEMON

SEN

Everything takes a turn after Chiisa tries to enlist the help of an unassuming Hellborn demon named Sen, who happens to be the source of those rumors. Knowing they are not the beast, Chiisa offers a powerful contract: in exchange of Sen’s partnership in the investigation, they will lend their divine power.

REVERSE

ROLE REVERSAL — Thousands of Second Sphere cores are turning up on Earth, and the Dominion of Celestial Heaven vanishes without a trace. While Heaven erupts in chaos as the first of this class disappears, their acquaintance the Dominion of Celestial Moon finds a lead on a clandestine group called “The Extractors”, and recruits his friends to go privately investigate.

SEN

VIRTUE OF EARTHLY WINTER

Often too passive to participate in any sort of cause, the Virtue of Earthly Winter unexpectedly steps up to spearhead the case with the resolve of an unyielding blizzard. They have an extremely slim chance of finding their dear colleague after all, and they will stop at nothing to find them.

UNKNOWN DEMON

CHIISA

Searching for answers, Sen encounters an amnesiac demon of unknown origins sifting through empty angelic cores on Earth. Chiisa does not give their name, unable to remember it, as they block their path. However, only one objective lingers in their mind: to protect these cores with their life.

STORYBOARD

Here are my storyboards for the entire AMV! My work process is as follows:

Storyboard* → Animatic → Art → Editing

I divided them up by 6 different scenes, and collapsed them into 4 acts. An empty panel with lyrics below means it follows the same panel art as the one directly before it; a dash between panels means they are connected by the same lyrical line. An empty panel without text is simply a spacer for the next sub-scene, since I grouped parts of a scene up together for ease of workflow.

There are certain scenes that I end up changing in the final art, due to stylistic choice or some other reason.

You’ll notice I didn’t storyboard the last act, and that’s because it was my “reach” act — it wouldn’t have made it in if I didn’t finish early. And I worked hard to make sure that I did!

*Secret Step 0: Looping your chosen song over and over until you’ve manifested the whole thing in your head.

DESIGN

The Gear-Winder and the Bird of Heaven is an animated alternate universe project that showcases this world through the eyes of Sen and Chiisa, original characters of Flan and I, while incorporating the imagery and themes of the song used in the video: ネジ巻き師と太虚鳥 by lasah × sasakure.UK.

SONG & TITLE

I chose this song for a multitude of reasons. Obviously it was because of the matching symbolism, but mainly it’s also the notion of a mechanical “clockwork universe” I envisioned for this world, as well as its allusions to Deism.

As for the title, sasakure.UK had ネジ巻き師と太虚鳥 written in English as “taixu”, but the implications of that name never quite fit. So, I translated the full title instead. The singer, lasah, tweeted that a part of it「太虚鳥」can be read as「おおうそどり」and of course, I had to play with this idea and adapted it in. Shoutout to my friends who helped me with translating the title!

INSPIRATION

I was raised in a Catholic household for the entirety of my childhood, and as I matured, I adopted the mind of an agnostic scientist through studying astrophysics in university. You can kind of see how everything eventually sort of panned out.

For this fantasy world as a whole, I drew a lot of inspiration from:
Neon Genesis Evangelion, Chainsaw Man, Helltaker, Puella Magi Madoka Magica, Everything Everywhere All At Once, and multiple branches of philosophy, religion, and schools of thought.

Lastly, I have Flan to thank for its initial inception, which wouldn’t have happened had they not scribbled the earliest rendition of Demon Sen back in 2020.

This project was a large endeavor so there may be more I missed, but it was one born out of passion that I am very proud to have stuck with until the end.

Thank you for supporting Snapshot of A Waking Dream, as well as for peeking into mine! ♥