it's very early incarnation it was all about Gregory, the washing machine repairman, he was the main protagonist and he was going to be the "ichi" fan and the two worlds were maybe going to collide in some way. Nao was to be his love interest, but once I decided that Nao would suffer with OCD, she became the more interesting character to me and things took off in a much different direction. Gregory Pope, hard-drinking, all-action washing machine repair man What's with the people with plants for heads? Pictor, the conker-headed boy (the slang in the U.S., I believe is "buckeye") was originally an idea I had for a visual depiction of the Jungian theory of the collective unconsciousness. Each tip of the point representing an "individual" ... but when you follow the barb down from that sharp point, it's all part of the same thing, a whole, a barbed nut. It was an image I was playing with a long time before I thought of doing Nao. Then the "Nothing" having been "shot down" was another idea that'd been lingering for a long time. And that Acer, the Japanese Acer is my favorite tree, I have a friend who has the biggest one you've ever seen in her garden (apparently they're often quite small), it's beautiful. Pictor, the conker/buckeye headed-boy You've three lead characters, all going through personality crises, major or minor; all achieve a level of catharsis through extreme physical acts, four if you include Pictor's in