UNSOED Conferences, International Conference on Language, Linguistics, and Literature (COLALITE) 2020

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Growing a superhero: a worldbuilding analysis on Malaysian Animation Franchise, BoBoiBoy
Umar Hakim bin Mohd Hasri, Md Azalanshah Bin Md Syed

Last modified: 2020-10-04

Abstract


This study will conduct an examination towards the concept of worldbuilding employed by Animonsta Studio in developing BoBoiBoy’s superhero narrative and seek its connection with the government aspiration towards the preservation of local culture in a commercially developed animated product. BoBoiBoy is an animation franchise that possesses exposure in multiple media outlets in the Malaysian entertainment industry including print, TV, cinema, as well as online media. Hinges on the theme of superhero and fantasy, its storyworld is built to sustain multiple intertextually related stories built for several instalments. By the standard of Henry Jenkins’s transmedia storytelling, these exposures added with intertwining stories will eventually sustain audience attention and consumption to the franchise. Recent success of BoBoiBoy’s second blockbuster film, BoBoiBoy: The Movie 2 may provide an indication that this franchise has already obtained significant followings from both local and international audience. While touching upon the capacity of BoBoiBoy as a fantastical story in promoting local culture which is based on real world, this paper will examine the narrative growth of the franchise through analyzing the producer’s methodological way of building a superhero-themed storyworld. The initial argument will visit the ability of the stories to consistently portray Malaysian culture while maintaining its superhero and fantasy theme. Grounded by the concept of worldbuilding as proposed by scholars like Jenkins (2006), Long (2007) and Richter (2016), the study will proceed to investigate the growth of the main characters as a superhero and how it has shaped the franchise.


Keywords


Literature; Transmedia; Malaysia; BoBoiBoy