earth's last love story
In the years after two young Mecha pilots accidentally spark the end of life on earth, the 200 foot robot suits protecting them from an irradiated planet complicate a blossoming, uneasy romance.
Illusion of life
Gorgeous full page illustrations act as physical windows into a strange, post-apocalyptic science fiction world. Each scene is fully animated in AR, giving the appearance of a lush animated film springing to life in 3D.
CHEKHOV'S MECHA
A gripping narrative propels the images through accompanying text.
A tight three-act structure drives our characters through a world fraught with unforeseen consequences, surprising twists and a heart wrenching conclusion.
Noise Machine
A bespoke soundtrack moves between quiet, contemplative beauty and crushing heartache, reflecting the emotions of our characters as they grapple with the result of a world they’ve destroyed.
Full voice acting accompanies the soundtrack, bringing the tragic romance of our characters into focus.
The Story
After a team of specialised Mecha pilots defend Earth from an invading force, a last-ditch effort to repel them causes a subatomic reaction that swallows the planet.
Hot-headed Seren wakes to find a ruined world devoid of life, until she finds her team leader Flint on the verge of ending his own. Unable to leave the safety of their suits, they grow ever-closer as they grapple with the decision that stranded them on a lonely and rewilding planet.
One day, another survivor strides out of the sea, unbalancing their precarious dynamic and putting the last days of mankind into question.
reference points
Neon Genesis Evangelion first shook up the mecha anime genre in 1995, proving that esoteric symbology and themes of existential dread are forces to be reckoned with in mainstream culture.
Characters with unresolved, deep-rooted issues against the backdrop of a world-ending calamity are a clear reference point for the sobering world of Only Ghosts (and giant robots!).
Simon Stalenhag’s Tales from the Loop (2015) and The Electric State (2018) popularised the ‘Narrative Art Book’ - gorgeous full page illustrations with accompanying text somewhere between a comic book and a novel. They have been adapted for television and a feature film starring Chris Pratt and Millie Bobby Brown (of Stranger Things).
This format is the inspiration for Only Ghost’s layout and design.
The Before Trilogy, directed by Richard Linklater, is a trio of American Romance Films released and set nine years apart (1995, 2004, and 2013).
The literal passage of time allows the two characters to mature, change and diverge in ways that allow for a strikingly genuine ‘will they/won’t they’ dynamic.
This dynamic is reflected in the relationship between Only Ghost’s Seren and Flint, whose burgeoning attraction is complicated by their extreme situation and messy histories over a span of decades.
Why this story? Why now?
“Only Ghosts was born from two distinct struggles in my own life over the last decade.
The first is more personal in scope - the twin spectres of Anxiety and Depression, and specifically how they inform, affect and upend romantic relationships.
The second is macro - a gnawing sense of unease and helplessness at the pace of humanity’s technological progress and its exponential potential for harm.
With anxiety in young adults on a sharp upward trend, due in part to the effects of global warming and other seemingly impossible-to-solve, world shaping problems, these themes resonate now more than ever.
Can we de-program the weight of expectations foisted on us since birth? What are we responsible for when we’re born into a broken world? And can we find happiness and romantic fulfilment despite the collapse of everything around us?
These are questions I hope to prod and probe, if not answer, through the creation of Only Ghosts.”
- Jeremy Nixon