Final Fantasy, Frutiger Aero and Everything In Between!

The research and aesthetics that inspire The Seventh Kingdom PLUS updates on my upcoming release!

Cybercore

There are so many intuitive things in my creative process that I rarely take time to record or share (social media is teaching me otherwise) so…I sometimes struggle to figure out where to start with things like this.

As of lately, I’ve been looking into character design and world building to flesh out the depth of my series The Seventh Kingdom: Fukushuu no Oukoku. While I strongly believe in using your imagination muscle as much as possible, I’ve found that taking inspiration from pop culture aesthetics has been just as rewarding and integral to my process!

Cottagecore

How Aesthetic Wiki Saved Me…lol

First and foremost, IT IS ESSENTIAL that a writer knows their character, their desires, their obstacles etc. Point blank…word? But, after you’ve figured that out, the world they exist in has to feel lived in. I believe people want to see the flare of human creativity in a character’s setting.

For me, that took the form of different architectural styles like: Brutalist, Parametric and Rococo. Beyond that, adding the glaze of pop culture to the architecture was literally me just being extra (lol.) Even better, stumbling upon Aesthetics Wiki gave me the knowledge to add nuance to that “glaze.” I was able to learn about things like the distinction between Cyberpunk and Cyberprep—empowering me to decide how and when that distinction shows up in my story’s setting. Going further down the rabbit hole, I learned about a myriad of other aesthetics like Frutiger Aero, Cottage Core, Sea Punk and so much more.

Art By: Akihiro Yoshida

While gathering references for a character in our light novel adaptation, I went digging through my Tik Tok saves for as many overviews and breakdowns as possible. [Big shout out to @mike_sunday and @kllybdk lol ya’ll are life savers!] The creative takes of Tetsuya Nomura and Akihiko Yoshida came up and got me thinking.

For those who don’t know, Nomura is a game director and character designer for Square Enix who is known for his unique integration of zippers and belts into character design. He essentially took the edge of Visual Kei and Y2K aesthetics and applied them to create his own signature look within the Final Fantasy franchise. Likewise, Yoshida was another game artist who left his mark in NiER: Automata and Final Fantasy as well (before Square had merged with Enix.) Aside from the painterly, storybook art style, his character’s fashion sense was a hybrid of brown leather, belts and medieval armor combined with steampunk elements.

Given that each kingdom in my series has it’s own history, architectural style, food specialty and unique biome—it only made the world building more fun to add a layer of fashion sense as well. Seeing how popular game designers used elements of pop culture and even cherry-picked specific components from existing aesthetics has been essential for me. Ultimately, it’s helped ease me into a different perspective and appraoch to creativity.

I’ll skip the whole, “I highly recommend this” speech and simply end with this: studying other creatives and doing my own research showed me that crafting your own aesthetic is equal parts inspiration AND pattern building according to your own taste. There is so much beauty in this world and all you’ve got to do is pull together the parts that sparkle for you!

…Now for the updates!

UPDATES:

Art By: Stephen Giann

Releases:

📍The Seventh Kingdom: Book One will be releasing in Fall (2026)! The first volume of the manga showed you what happened…this light novel will tell you why. Click here to preview a sample of it and click the link at the end or here to subscribe for updates on it’s release as well as ARC reads!

Events:

📍We’re headed to Dream Con in July and Anime NYC in August. If you’re in Texas or New York around that time—come say “Hi”!

📍I’ll be doing a panel at Dragon Con titled, “The Fun in Fantasy and Sci-Fi: Making Your Own Manga” on Friday at 10 AM in Galleria 6.

📍We’ll be hosting a ramen-themed pop-up event in collaboration with Ramyun Gallery x Lucky Claw this Fall as well. Click her to RSVP and access ramen-themed merch, fun games, author Q&A and more the day of!