ƎNA

ENA (stylized as ƎNA) is a Peruvian avant-garde animated comedy series published on YouTube and Newgrounds and created by Joel Guerra. The series uses a mix of 2D and 3D animation and takes inspiration from many pieces of surrealist media and worldwide culture, typically of Peruvian and Japanese origin. The series takes place in a strange, almost post-apocalyptic, world inhabited by bizarre characters and creatures. The overall tone of the series uses surreal and comedic elements. The series follows characters named Ena, with one appearing in Season 1 and another appearing in Season 2. Other characters also appear, such as the deuteragonists Moony (Season 1) and Froggy (Season 2), and minor characters, such as Robert and Brick Frog, who appear and act as NPC-like characters showcased in short interaction segments in the episodes. All of the current episodes differ in their formatting. In the first episode Auction Day, it is presented as an animated episode primarily using dialogue and humor, particularly with Ena and her friend Moony interacting. Starting in the episode Extinction Party, the episodes gain a first-person computer game aesthetic from Ena's point of view and, starting in Temptation Stairway, seem to emulate video games even more with the introduction of many different locations within an episode (such as the Hourglass Meadow) and "items" that further progression into said locations (such as the Turrón). In Power of Potluck, Ena's adventure is instead largely shown from an isometric third-person point of view with the usual interactive cutscenes now having unique backgrounds with an added border and subtitles. Finally, Dream BBQ is a first-person walking simulator/puzzle platformer, marking Ena's final descent into videogame madness. The design of Ena was first revealed on February 23rd, 2020 (which would become ENA Day), on Joel Guerra's Twitter.[1] The post showed off Ena's design while explaining that Joel wanted to create "characters with strange shapes in a very colorful world where nothing makes sense". Due to positive reception, another image featuring Ena (alongside Moony) was posted with plans to use the concept in the future. Her initial name, ƎNA, was later revealed.[2] On May 2nd, more concept art involving Ena and Moony was shown off with the announcement of a short animation that would introduce them. On May 26th, the first episode, titled "Auction Day", was released on YouTube, Newgrounds, and Twitter. This episode marks the debut of the main characters Ena and Moony. A preview for another ENA episode was shown on Joel's Patreon on August 1st, though its title and public reveal were not shown until seven days later when the teaser for Extinction Party was posted. On September 13th, 2020, an announcement stated that Extinction Party would release "next week" and would run for five minutes.[4] Two days later, Extinction Party was released. Throughout September, another ENA episode was mentioned and teased. The title Temptation Stairway first appeared on Joel's Patreon on October 9th, though the teaser for the episode would not be released publicly until October 23rd. On November 20th, a preview for a new character was shown,[5] revealed in the episode to be The Shepherd. It was also stated that the next episode was "the end and beginning of something", hinting at the future of the series.[6] Some specifics about the episode were also given, stating that it would be fifteen minutes (which was later changed to seventeen minutes[7]) in length and had three different musicians (METAROOM, tertiaplox, and Oliver Buckland) composing music for the project.[8] On February 11th, 2021, a Tweet with the text "Very soon!!" announced Temptation Stairway was near,[9] to which it was released four days later.[10] Joel also thanked viewers on Twitter after Temptation Stairway got to Trending on YouTube and encouraged viewers to support the talented people who worked on the episode. On October 20th, 2023, alongside a delay announcement for Dream BBQ, a "special announcement" was stated to be revealed in the future,[12] which was revealed on October 25th to be a teaser for another episode titled Power of Potluck. On November 24th, Joel posted an image of a new character, revealed to be Ivy upon the episode's release, on his social media, with the caption "The next ENA short is closer than you can imagine".[13] Power of Potluck was released four days later. The first three Season 1 episodes have a letter pattern in their titles. The first word in the title ends with "-tion" while the second word ends with "y". This trend is broken with the release of Power of Potluck. So far, it has not been continued in Dream BBQ, with the first chapter being called Lonely Door. None of the Season 1 episodes feature recurring characters other than the protagonists and deuteragonists. It is also unlikely that any minor characters will return in future episodes, according to a Tweet by Joel Guerra.[15] However, certain types of characters that have appeared in large numbers in the series have made appearances in multiple episodes. For instance, the Hourglass Dogs appear in both Auction Day and Temptation Stairway, while the Mannequins appear in both Temptation Stairway and Dream BBQ. Some Season 1 characters do show up again as Easter eggs in Dream BBQ, such as Phindoll and Auctioneer. 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. Ena is a feminine humanoid character. She possesses a dual-colored body, her right side blue and polygonal/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 being a four-fingered human hand and her blue hand being geometric with blocky fingers. Her black hair is of different lengths on either side, her right side being longer and straight with a triangular cut at the end of her hair (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, the right one being a rhombus with a black triangle under it (resembling an eyelash) and the left a semicircle. Occasionally, shown in Temptation Stairway, her eyes can turn into squares with black scleras and white pupils. Ena’s arms are notably detached from her body and can float away as shown in Temptation Stairway and in a short animation loop for ENA Day 2022. 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 reaching her thigh and the other reaching her ankle. Her clothing, as well as her hair and blue side, has 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 slowly transforms into a new and slightly different appearance from her original, nigh-resembling a "complete" version of her yellow/left side instead of just half of it with her blue/right side (e.g., her right side and torso completely yellow, her ahoges fused, a complete bob-cut, and matching semicircle eyes). Though some parts of her blue/right side remain, with her right limbs still polygonal, her right ear visible, and wearing a thigh-high sock. 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. When one of Ena's emotions becomes 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 her mouth and nose are on the black side). On the white side, her sclera turns black, and the black side is blank, and the color of her iris changes to correspond with the color of the emotion that she is feeling: yellow for when she is "drunk" (presumably her second phase of happiness) and blue for when she is in her second phase of sadness. In Extinction Party and Temptation Stairway, some of her more extreme movements while in her second sad form leave behind a faint afterimage of herself. During or after being in her second phase, 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, and appears 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. Her mouth is in the middle and more akin to a realistic mouth. 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 and slight smile, 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, and her right side lacks longer hair. As seen in Temptation Stairway, her sad side also has an alternative, corrupted form, being officially called her "Full-Sadness" form.[4] 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. Similar to her form at the end of Temptation Stairway, this form resembles a grayed-out, "complete" version of her blue/right side instead of just the half of it with her yellow/left side (e.g., a singular ahoge, complete longer hair that shows both ears, polygonal/geometric limbs, matching thigh-high socks). 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. For her corrupted, aforementioned happy/drunk forms, it's unknown whether both or one of these forms count as Ena's "full-happiness/drunk" form(s) (being a counterpart/counterparts to her Full-Sadness form) or if they are simply random, glitched-out versions of her due to her instability in her drunk state. Ena's overall personality is affected by her emotions, namely her happy and sad states. In Auction Day and Extinction Party, her 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. Ena’s yellow side, her happy state, comes across as very kind, friendly, optimistic, and overall sanguine, as she has a frequently polite manner around others, even if some do not treat her as well in return. She can also be quite oblivious, such as when she is apparently unaware that Merci is warning her about the Maze possibly being dangerous. She also appears to talk more sophisticatedly, typically substituting various words for longer or more detailed synonyms. When entering her drunk state, presumably from being dizzy or "too joyful", she adopts a demeanor resembling intoxication. She laughs at everything and speaks in a slower, more slurred manner, exuding a euphoric aura. In this state, she occasionally takes short pauses when speaking, elongates certain words, and glitches into her Demon and Diablada forms. However, mentioning pessimistic things or being in slightly stressful situations, such as large social gatherings, is enough for her to shift Ena into her blue side, being her sad state. In each phase, 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 is very gloomy, timid, and overall negative, as she will begin to self-deprecate, usually making disparaging remarks about her intelligence. She will also often beg to be killed or agree with the notion of death when it is presented. Compared to her first phase of sadness, her second form seems to be more frantic, melancholic, and overall unstable (similar to her drunk state). Ena's second phase of sadness can come out randomly or after experiencing the first phase, resulting in her being more prone to having childish-like outbursts. She sometimes assumes the worst, such as taking Keeper's rejection as a way of them trying to kill her, and throws random tantrums, such as losing her arms and spinning around while sobbing during the same encounter. Her outbursts are even more intense when in her corrupted state of complete sadness, as she is seen swinging her arms around and yelling in Temptation Stairway after throwing up, and does nothing but sob violently until she is forcefully snapped back to her senses (when Brick Frog kicks her). In these ways, her sad side contrasts with her happy side's more positive, mature, and calmer demeanor. She seems to have an easily upset stomach while in this state, 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 seems to is instead more concerned about the impact they have on her friends. Ena is also shown to be stubborn in situations that do not involve her own emotions; 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 politely begging. Even with the fact the two sides are contrasting in their behavior, Ena’s happy and sad states contrast in their actions and speech as well. The two seem to always conflict with each other, with her sad states usually coming out abruptly while Ena is in her happy state. In Auction Day when Ena’s happy side was excited to go to the auction, she switches to her second sad side who immediately thinks pessimistically. Ena seems to be aware of this and occasionally apologizes when it happens. Through Extinction Party and Temptation Stairway, Ena’s happy side seems to ignore the sad side when it comes out and continues doing what she was initially doing before her sad side came out, which gives the impression her sad side seems to be random bursts of emotional impulsivity. As shown by the end of Temptation Stairway and Power of Potluck, Ena seems to be on a quest for (possibly permanent) happiness, as doesn’t seem too fond of her sadness side by her (presumable) attempt to make a wish for it to be replaced with "happiness" in the former episode, and wore a mask to hide it in the latter episode. When meeting The Therapist (which it’s stated she has been to therapy before), she admits that while she still acknowledges enjoyment and pleasure, she still cannot understand her own feelings and struggles to enjoy little moments of joy. While speculative, considering she has a presumable second phase happiness state based on being drunk, tries to push away her sadness, goes to therapy, and goes to each different "act" to find joy and fun, she may struggle with and/or symbolize toxic positivity. 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. 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. 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. 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.[8] 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.[9] 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. 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. 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. After Ena's encounter with The Shepherd, she comes across a room of three other static Ena-like entities suspended in the void, sometimes glitching into Mannequins for a split second. This is later further implied with the version of Ena seen in Dream BBQ. Ena smells like chocolate milk. Ena’s appearance at the end of Temptation Stairway is often thought to be her "Full-Happiness" form, though it’s not confirmed that this is the case. Possible references to her reference art pose in Season 1. Ena’s reference art pose appears to be referenced throughout the first three Season 1 episodes: Before turning into her second sad 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 second sad 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. 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. 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. Figures resembling the two Enas in the Dream BBQ game announcement trailer. 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.[14] With this, it can be inferred that Ena's psuedo-"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 pseudo-"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. Notably, Linda references her in Dream BBQ, using her "allergic to people" line from Temptation Stairway, but slightly changed. Laura laughs, and says that "they get that reference." 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. 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. 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. Ena's masculine voice was inspired by Matthew Broderick. A similar division of the body into blue and yellow halves was used in the cartoon Absent-minded Giovanni (1969). Ena’s happy and sad expressions may be a reference to the ancient symbols of comedy and tragedy, the sock and buskin.