How the Onyx Equinox extracts characters, gods and settings from Mesoamerican myth

Onyx Equinox, the third original production from anime distributor Crunchyroll, is an animated fantasy series that spills blood and delves into temples, gods, and rituals from Mesoamerican history and mythology.

Designer Sofia Alexander, formerly storyboard artist for Infinite trainhe tells Polygon: “I hope that the love I have for Mexico and our culture and our heritage is translated correctly.” Alexander grew up in the state of Quintana Roo, in southern Mexico, which is home to Mayan ruins, and spent his early years surrounded by Mesoamerican iconography.

I was initially nervous to launch Onyx Equinox, which started out as a comic book, due to Mesoamerica’s dearth of animation, with Victor and Valentino

being one of the few exceptions. “There are no Mesoamerican stories for a reason, right?” Alexander remembers thinking. “Nobody cares. So why?” Thankfully, Marisa Balkus, a Crunchyroll executive, loved Alexander’s tone and the series became the first original series produced entirely by Crunchyroll Studios.

Onyx Equinox, which premieres on Saturday, November 21 at 1 p.m. PT, follows young Aztec Izel, humanity’s reluctant training hero. As one of the gods devours humanity, others turn to Izel to shut the five doors to the underworld and stop the annihilation. Izel must put aside his doubts about his neighbor to save his world.

While the series is one big fantasy engaging in a violent spectacle, Alexander’s legacy is woven into the narrative. In anticipation of the premiere, these are just a few of the places, names, and key facts you should know.

Capture Mesoamerica

Imagen: Crunchyroll Studios

Mesoamerica generally refers to the pre-Columbian societies of “Central America” ​​in parts of North America. Over the millennia, beginning with hunter-gatherer societies, their civilizations flourished thanks to innovations and inventions in mathematics, art, architecture, astrology, calendars and codices before the Spanish conquest and colonization of the worlds around the sixteenth century. To this day, Mesoamerica past remains a rich historical theme. Many of their living descendants, like the Mayans, seek to overcome cultural suppression and preserve their culture, language and medicine.

To build a presumably inhabited world, Alexandre and his team sought resources from the National Institute of Anthropology and History to recreate the liveliness of these cultures. He needed to say that “these are not ruins, they were colorful and populated by millions of people.”

Interestingly, Izel and his sister Nelli are Aztecs who mentioned early on that they were from Tenochtitlan and now live in a Mayan city as maids of a Mayan master. Studies of the skulls of Mayan sacrificial victims suggest they came from “all over Mexico and far beyond,” meaning they may not have come from where they were sacrificed. The fact that siblings are portrayed as strangers living in fear makes the world even more alive.

The Onyx Equinox Gods

Imagen: Crunchyroll Studios

Quetzalcoatl
As the god of the “feathered serpent,” his first appearance in a human shell is laden with feathers and scales. He makes the bet with Tezcatlipoca to find the human champion to close the five doors of the Underworld.

Tezcatlipoca
Tezcatlipoca, or “smoking mirror of obsidian,” exudes sculptural smoke. He charges his trusted jaguar envoy, Yaotl, to oversee the human champion of Quetzalcoatl. Fun fact: The bony left foot of his human shell hints at a battle in Creation Myths.

Mictlantecuhtli
“Lord of Mictlan” is the god of the underworld. Greedily swallow the city of Danibaan, exacerbating the drought of blood among the gods and the gradual annihilation of civilizations.

Onyx Equinox locations

Danibaan
Zapotec town known today as Monte Albán. This is the city Zyanya fled from when the Underworld Lord Mictlantecuhtli swallowed his people.