My First Comic: "Shintaro: Legend of the Cursed Fox"

Artist Statement

Legend of Shintaro (LOS) was my first comic concept. I created the concept when I was 9 years old, and worked on the concept from 2009 - 2014. I lived in Japan between 2004-2006, when I was a little girl. After coming back to America, I was faced with severe racism and bullying while coping with reverse culture shock. "Shintaro" was made as a comfort project to connect myself back to Japan, where I was surrounded by Japanese folktales, Shintoism and Japanese Buddhism. I was born into Japanese Buddhism, so this project means a lot to me in many ways. In 2019, I started bringing some of the concept back to practice my fantasy art style. Recently, I changed the name to "Shintaro: Legend of the Cursed Fox"

"Shintaro" won a Gold Key award in the Scholastic Art and Writing Regional Competition in 2014.

The comic tells the story of a Japanese boy in feudal Japan whose Mom is killed by a demonic fox named Rakurai. The fox then curses Shintaro, transforming him into a immensely power demon fox. Thankfully, a samurai and priestess save him from the curse before the full transformation, and give him Buddhist beads that control the curse. As a result, he's able to suppress the curse and take advantage of it - it allows him to transform into a red fox as he pleases. He's taken in by the samurai and the priestess, who he trains under until he's in his late teens. At the age of 16, he goes on a journey to find the origins of his curse, and to destroy the increasing plague of demons haunting Japan.

View the recent artworks and older pieces below