Ninja BASEBALL BLAST Fuzzy Baseball 2

It all started when…

In Ninja Baseball Blast I wanted to celebrate many of the fun things that our culture has imported from Japan. The Fuzzies meet ninjas, try sushi, learn from a manga style textbook, and even encounter a giant kaiju.

I also wanted to have some fun with the idea of transformation. In Japanese influenced shows cars transform in giant robots, rangers morph into mighty warriors, and little pocket monsters evolve into larger pocket monsters. In English literature Alice goes through many transformations in Wonderland, and Dr. Jekyll transforms into Mr. Hyde. In American movies people transform into werewolves and superheroes all the time. Even Bugs Bunny transforms (when he meets Dr. Jekyll).

As a child my drawing style was influenced by cartoons created by Walt Disney and Warner Brothers. Today the drawing style of American school children is often influenced by Japanese Manga comics, which were created Japanese artists who grew up watching those same American cartoons. It’s amazing the way a culture can absorb an influence from across the globe and transform it into something unique.