Amphibia: Opus & Impact — Matt Braly Interview
“Lots of folks grew up not feeling “Asian enough” for their families and not “American enough” for their classrooms. This wasn’t limited to biracial folks either, it was everywhere. So it was sorta nice…I think I was able to go easier on myself after having those interactions.”
While often undervalued as a storytelling medium by the mainstream, cartoons have an immense and uniquely artistic power to converse with our emphatically visceral emotions — giving rise to metamorphic audience connections that transcend time, culture, and space.
Amphibia as a series captures this essence of personal and profound storytelling in its tacit bond with its audience. Woven with Matt Braly’s Asian-American experiences and idiosyncratic, meticulous writing, this animated bildungsroman plunges audiences into its topics of escapism, tumultuous friendships, and self-actualization.
While making bold storytelling choices that revealed constraints from the network in acting on its implementation, it’s no surprise that Braly and his team had to fight to credit the individual Korean overseas animators to be credited, even though pre-00s television animation had already been practicing overseas accreditation.
After “True Colors”, there was a strain in the relationship between the crew’s creative visions and the network, as one can see in Braly’s response —
“Olivia & Yunan was an episode that was a hard sell and required a lot of persistence on our part. There was initial resistance to the tone and content of the episode. It’s worth mentioning that the “True Colors” debacle really changed our relationship with the network and made everyone worry constantly that something like that would happen again if we weren’t careful. For example — the wounds sustained by Andrias in All In used to be WAY more harsh (missing the bottom half of his body completely) but after the TC stuff we all got incredibly nervous about what we could show. The network was also always asking for more comedy and levity. Always. I think for an 11 minute show, the expectations were stronger for light hearted and silly fun.”
While adhering to a creative vision proved to be difficult in strenuous situations and external conflicts, internally there was also quite a bit of hesitation to follow through with an ending that would challenge the notions of escapism at an ironic equilibrium and extended metaphor of the series itself being a fictional creation. Despite the general reception of the conclusion being positive, many fans felt mixed and distressed pertaining to the decision to separate the worlds of Amphibia and our main human cast.
Amphibia is a series with many uniquely bold writing choices. Another point of contention among fans was the deliberate decision to omit the presence of Sasha and Marcy’s parents regarding their respective topics of divorce and relocation, leading me to inquire Braly on a tougher question—
“There were a few reasons:
- We were already approaching max capacity when it came to characters and story elements to pay off. We didn’t think we could include Sasha & Marcy’s parents with the time we had AND pay them off in a satisfying way. They would have been given short shrift.
- I’m a “less is more” kind of person and thought they were better left to the viewers’ imaginations.
- Marcy and Sasha didn’t really need them for their respective stories/arcs to be satisfying. It would have been nice to see them…but they weren’t as important to them in the way that the Boonchuys were for Anne’s progression.”
Many discussions of Amphibia are entertaining to engage with because the majority of it is born from an appreciation of these characters that were lovingly and realistically crafted and so deeply connect with an audience. This connection is extremely important to many fans who come from migrant families in the show’s astute dedication to extending a metaphor of alienation and diasporic otherworldliness throughout its entire opus. Amphibia performs a thorough yet implicit discussion of alienation via Braly’s imbuement of his experiences as an Asian-American, which was the main topic of our previous interview.
While few cartoons explore uniquely migrant experiences, such as Steven Universe and Sym-Bionic Titan in their subtextual depiction of Jewish diasporic acclimation, even fewer have dared to confront a harmful cultural phenomenon — the “Model Minority Myth” in the context of Asian-Americans’ paradoxical existence within the American hegemony.
“I think something that I only realized about midway through Amphibia is that it was really important for me that Anne be a mediocre student because of the strict expectation imposed on Asian Americans to excel academically. I thought it was just because it made her a more interesting character but I think it was me rebelling subconsciously at this unfair stereotype that haunts so many of us. I think Anne being such an incredibly heroic character at the end of the series was my plea for our community to recognize that empathy and love are JUST as valid as excellence or financial success.”
While the “Model Minority Myth” stains a dark, self-fulfilling prophecy among Asian-Americans, APIDA student youth report higher levels of suicidal attempts, as well as significantly lower levels of counseling following said attempts. This disparity reflects an inescapable consequence & correlation that many Asian-Americans are held to a standard to prove their value as human beings solely through their financial and academic accomplishments. Amphibia’s two Asian-American leads — with Braly’s stroke of genius — dare to challenge the often poisonous and preconceived notions that have a dangerous chokehold on the American collective consciousness: Marcy Wu as a straight-A student becomes an artistic creative as a webcomic artist, and Anne Boonchuy as a chronic “C-Student” culminates her empathy and passion for all things amphibious as a Herpetologist.
“It was important to me that Marcy would ultimately do what she wanted, not what others expected of her. Same thing with Anne, who defied all expectations by embracing a career path no one would have thought her capable of 10 years prior. It’s a fun role reversal for Anne and Marcy that demonstrates how the preconceived notions we hold for one another can be COMPLETELY overturned with time. Also, it was always my intention to show that Asian characters are not monolithic, they deserve complexity and nuance just like their white counterparts. Having two Asian characters helps to emphasize this idea.”
White characters are all-too-often afforded complexities in their personalities and aspirations, while their non-white counterparts are pigeonholed into specific niches that reinforce racial/ethnic stereotypes over decades of animation history. Amphibia, to me, reflects the ushering of a new era where nonwhite characters are able to represent and influence an alternative reality where minorities are allowed to just exist as themselves — and that alone is enough.
In the complexities of development, however, Braly being mixed White and Asian gave rise to a lingering impostor syndrome of the sort, which to no surprise is generally ubiquitous among Asian creatives under the pressure to create authenticity in their stories.
“I did experience some imposter syndrome when it finally came time to promote the show, being mixed race. Especially since Disney wanted to lean so heavily on that aspect of the show. However, the more interviews/panels I did and the more people I talked to, the more I began to understand that this insecurity was pretty common in the Asian American community. Lots of folks grew up not feeling ‘Asian enough’ for their families and not “American enough” for their classrooms. This wasn’t limited to biracial folks either, it was everywhere. So it was sorta nice…I think I was able to go easier on myself after having those interactions.
When it comes to being ‘qualified’ enough to represent a culture, no one is perfect, and I had to allow for the possibility that I would get things wrong as well. It was worth way more to me though, to do my best and get things mostly right…than not try at all. Thankfully I don’t think we got anything egregiously wrong, mostly because I did ultimately draw from my own life experience. Anne did have her shoes on indoors for a couple scenes in S3 though which is a bit cringe.”
An episode in season 2 of Amphibia actually subtextually deals with this topic, where our main character, Anne Boonchuy, deals with overcompensation in blending in like an authentic “local” while visiting Newtopia as a result of her insecure estrangement from her time visiting Thailand, which to no one’s surprise is actually parallel to Braly’s experience in said country!
“I remember DISTINCTLY my mom prohibiting me from eating street food in Thailand, telling me my stomach couldn’t handle it. I bottled up the frustration I felt about that experience and put it into the motivation for that episode…but also tried to acknowledge the reality that I probably wouldn’t do well alone on the streets of Bangkok by myself either. It all comes from that innate desire to be part of something, and to feel included in a community/culture. Unfortunately you could also work your whole life at it and ultimately never feel 100% accepted by a place…it’s tricky & something I still struggle with.”
On the topic of representation, fans were thrilled to see the finale in which Sasha Waybright was confirmed to be bisexual via a sticker on her rear-view mirror in the time skip ending. What a few fans wondered, though, was when did Sasha herself come to this realization, and when was this agreed upon during development?
“Sasha realized not long after the events of Amphibia. The writing decision was made fairly early but the decision to confirm it in Hardest Thing was made quite late.”
The inclusion of LGBTQ+ characters in Amphibia’s narrative (Olivia and Yunan, Jess and Ally, etc.) which already features trailblazing representation for minorities rings true to the essence of the show in its inclusivity and wonder.
In further reflecting the breadth of stories in our reality, many fans have connected to the portrayal of Anne and Sprig as a representational relationship of siblings, Matt divulges the inspiration for the pragmatic portrayal of their dynamic —
“I have an older brother but really, I think Anne and Sprig’s relationship is closer to one I shared with my cousins — who very much felt like older sisters. My brother and I really looked up to our older cousins. I always remember thinking they were the coolest people alive.”
It is no exaggeration that besides being a transformative proponent of my own life, Amphibia has resonated with others on an almost ubiquitous scale, and the majority of the community’s discussion surrounding it being derived from an intense passion and love for the world and characters proves a transformative experience that can only be described as one of a kind.
And lastly, for those dying to hear the scoop on the hypothetical playing styles in Minecraft of the main three characters, Matt gives us some insight on the specifics —
“I burst out laughing at this question. I regret to say that I have played about 15 minutes of Minecraft in my life…That being said, Marcy definitely has built a working clock that is also somehow a replica of Westminster Abbey. Anne probably made some kind of cozy, freeform village that is packed to the gills with animals and pets. Sasha probably keeps everything orderly, organized, and under control. When they got back to Earth after their adventure, they probably got together and recreated Amphibia in its entirety.”
Thank you so, so much for reading, and I urge anyone interested in seeing more serialized animation to go show your support for and preorder the “Marcy’s Journal — a Guide to Amphibia” book set to debut in November 2022!
