Comic Creator Mira Ong Chua on How Fantasy Anime and Boys’ Love Inspired Their Latest Work

Like many readers with a TBR list that's bigger than their bookshelf, I find myself at the bookstore quite often. During one of my trips, I picked up a copy of ROADQUEEN: Eternal Roadtrip to Love , a fun, lesbian romance full of motorcycles and feelings that characters aren't readily willing to admit to. Created by Mira Ong Chua , the story hit on my love for anime-inspired narratives and hijinks where, as Chua says in our interview, "The motorcycles always mean something." RELATED: How the Award-Winning Magical Boy Is a Love Letter to Anime and the Magical Girl Genre Chua is a creator who puts queer characters front and center of their work, often including them in a myriad of genres and set pieces familiar to anime fans. From magical girl narratives like 24/7 Magical Maiden Mimi to their current project, The Prince in the Basement , looking like a beloved 90s anime OVA, you can tell they're someone who grew up with those classic VHS tapes with trailers you'd watch on repeat just to hear the music. Outside of working on their own comics, they've done storyboards for the likes of Adventure Time: Distant Lands and OK KO: Let’s Be Heroes , just to name a few. I had the chance to talk with Chua about The Prince in the Basement , how it's inspired by titles like Magic Knight Rayearth and BL (boys' love), and how anime truly can be about anything and anyone. What is The Prince in the Basement About? On the day of her coronation, the Princess awakens a forbidden secret that could ruin everything: an imprisoned Prince in the castle basement, bearing a face identical to hers. Claiming to be the true heir to the throne, he exiles the Princess and sentences her dearest husband-to-be to death. As the mysterious Prince lays claim to her kingdom, the exiled Princess sets out to take back her crown and rescue her beloved who, while awaiting his fate, begins falling for the Prince, believing him and the Princess to be one and the same. Upon their reunion, both royal children find that their destinies are more deeply intertwined than they ever expected. Can the two find sanctuary in a world where only one of them was meant to exist? Meet Mira Ong Chua First thing’s first, what got you into anime? What was your gateway into the medium? Mira Ong Chua: Since I was a kid, I’ve exchanged anime recommendations with my dad. He’s a Rumiko Takahashi fan and we used to watch Inuyasha together. We’d go to the library and I’d check out as many manga volumes as I could, and he’d ask me how I felt about the stories and copy the drawings with me. I learned early that comics and animation were things you could pore over and study from every angle, endlessly, and that it was something I loved doing. There’s quite a bit of anime influence in your work, ranging from titles like 24/7 Magical Maiden Mimi to your latest work The Prince in the Basement . What is it about anime that inspires you to create these stories? Chua: Anime can be about anything and anyone, and it can look like anything. Obviously, this is true of all mediums. But as an American whose only exposure to animation had been family-oriented movies and kids’ cartoons, it was mind-blowing. The variety and scope of anime was like nothing I’d seen before. It blew the lid open on a potential creative future that I’d perceived as being really limited. When people said my drawings sucked, or that my characters were too this or that, or that people like me wouldn’t find work, I held fast to the belief that someone out there would someday see value in my art, and in me, and would care. RELATED: Writer and Podcaster Victoria L. Johnson on the Influence of Magical Girls Since you are so inspired by anime, does that affect how you watch anime? How do you continue to enjoy anime when it’s also something that influences your work? Chua: I can’t lose myself in a series the way I could as a kid anymore, but can better appreciate what a miracle it is to finish anything and get it onscreen. Even though I'm about 10 years behind on everything, I always try to watch a little bit of the new releases every season, just to see where things are headed and what people are excited about right now Anime and manga is known for telling ongoing stories that can last for quite some time, but you yourself create standalone stories that can be finished in one sitting. Do you ever see yourself creating an ongoing series? Or are you more of a fan of those single stories that have a beginning, middle and end in one book? Chua: No plans for a series, but who knows what the future holds! RELATED: Comic Artist Opal Lines on How Anime’s Take On the Superhero Genre Inspires Fresh, New Narratives The first story I read of yours was ROADQUEEN: Eternal Roadtrip to Love and while it is a love story, there’s a bit of a twist. Having to beat the main character, Leo, in a race in order to date her feels similar to something like Ranma 1/2 (only with motorcycles instead of martial arts). What inspires you to add these spins on romance and tell stories that have romance and something else? Chua: The “something else” is an inseparable part of the romance, I think. In ROADQUEEN , Leo conducts these races that she knows she’ll never lose because she has fun being wanted, but she’s scared of being loved. It’s a framework that lets her literally be chased, literally flee from her heart. Saying it’s a story about girls on motorcycles sounds fun and sexy and cool, but (and I know this will sound silly) the motorcycles always mean something. RELATED: RESENTER Creator Gigi Murakami Takes Us on a Beautifully Haunting Journey Through Her Horror Manga The description of The Prince in the Basement is said to be inspired by Disney's Sleeping Beauty , 90s BL and fantasy anime OVAs. Are there any anime (or manga) titles in particular that you had in mind while creating this book? Chua: In one of the first scenes in The Prince in the Basement , the Princess makes an intense request to her fiancé, the Beloved, but runs away in shame before he can answer her. When I first discovered BL, I was obsessed, of course, with some of the dark and sexual themes, but also the depictions of guilt and self-hatred. There were scenes where characters would be moved by passion, then berate their hearts and bodies for betraying their minds — “What have I done? I’m disgusting” — then fall helplessly back to their lovers. It was an intoxicating fantasy for me as a queer, closeted teenager: to never have to demand the things I wanted, and to never have to take responsibility even if I got them. With The Prince in the Basement , I wanted to explore those fantasies in an equally fantastical setting. That led to the Princess Knight -like fairy-tale framework and the Magic Knight Rayearth -inspired character designs. You named the 90s specifically when describing The Prince in the Basement . Why that era of anime, in particular? Chua: Whenever something I like gets rebooted, I always watch one episode and end up wishing I was just watching the original series. 90s anime is nostalgic for me and others in my generation, and nostalgia can come with some heavy expectations. That friction between old and new is fun to play with. RELATED: How Roller Skating, Magical Girls and Sports Anime Inspired WHEELS & ROSES Creator Pearl Low Something I find interesting about The Prince in the Basement is that the characters don’t have names, they have titles: the Princess, the Beloved, the Prince, the Wanderer and the Witch. I’m wondering if there’s a deeper reason behind having characters named after their titles, especially since, in your past works, your characters had names. Chua: Here’s a secret spoiler: some of The Prince in the Basement characters do have names. I also notice that both the Prince and the Princess are called the “hero of the story” even if we’re told that the Prince exiles the Princess. Can you give us any insight on how these two are both labeled as “heroes”? Chua: There’s not supposed to be two of them. Your work covers a wide variety of genres that queer characters are front and center in. You’ve done fairy tale settings, the magical girl genre, vampires, mermaids, and even the classic “school that’s more than what it appears to be.” Is there a genre you’d like to tackle next? What inspires you to have queer characters being a part of so many different genres of fiction? Chua: The predictable answer to why I center queer characters is “representation,” though I have complicated feelings about leaving it at that. I once saw a ROADQUEEN review that stuck with me, it said something like, “The characters are all lesbians and brown-skinned, and the author is Asian, so it’s great for diversifying your reading list.” There was no “I liked it,” “I hated it,” nothing — all this person took away from the comic, seemingly, was a checklist. I thought that was wild. But after years of working, I’ve realized that’s actually the bottom line for some folks consuming or producing “diverse” media: paying the barest minimum of lip service to marginalized groups so no one accuses them of bigotry. That, to me, is a problem. And as proud as I am to continue putting queer and multiracial characters in comics and cartoons, I know it’s not the solution. We have to turn up for the real, living humans who inspire them, too. What Anime Would The Prince in the Basement Characters Watch? Anime: NANA Anime: Whisper of the Heart Anime: Baki the Grappler Anime: YuruYuri Anime: Ringing Bell Where to Find Ming Ong Chua Online Ming Ong Chua's website Instagram Bluesky X (formerly Twitter)

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