Dark Fantasy Aesthetics Reframe Alengka Kingdom Animation Narratives

DOI

10.2991/978-2-38476-589-8_6How to use a DOI?

Keywords

Dark fantasy; Alengka Kingdom; animation

Abstract

General Background: Contemporary animation increasingly reinterprets traditional mythology through genre integration to sustain cultural transmission and audience engagement. Specific Background: The Alengka Kingdom, central to Javanese and Southeast Asian mythology, presents complex narratives suitable for reinterpretation using dark fantasy aesthetics within modern animation practices. Knowledge Gap: Despite extensive studies on genre hybridity and mythological adaptation, the convergence of dark fantasy, contemporary animation, and Southeast Asian mythology remains underexplored, particularly regarding systematic integration strategies and visual frameworks. Aims: This study aims to analyze genre integration strategies, define aesthetic principles of dark fantasy adaptation, and evaluate implications for cultural preservation and global audience engagement. Results: Findings demonstrate that integrating dark fantasy conventions—such as moral ambiguity, psychological complexity, desaturated color palettes, and chiaroscuro lighting—reframes traditional narratives by transforming characters like Ravana into tragic figures and emphasizing internal conflict and power dynamics. The Tripartite Adaptational-Aesthetic Framework (TAAF) ensures conceptual fidelity, structural coherence, and visual consistency, while mediating cultural specificity with global accessibility. Novelty: The study introduces a structured analytical framework for synthesizing Javanese mythology with dark fantasy animation, addressing a critical gap in Southeast Asian media studies. Implications: This approach revitalizes mythological storytelling, supports cultural conservation, and expands international engagement by aligning local narratives with globally recognizable genre motifs, fostering dialogue between heritage and contemporary visual expression.

Copyright

© 2026 The Author(s)

Open Access

Open Access This chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits any noncommercial use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and indicate if changes were made.

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TY  - CONF
AU  - Akhmad Syaiful Anwar
AU  - Samuel Gandang Gunanto
AU  - Ginanjar Setyo Nugroho
AU  - Nurhadi Nurhadi
PY  - 2026
DA  - 2026/06/18
TI  - Dark Fantasy Aesthetics Reframe Alengka Kingdom Animation Narratives
BT  - Proceedings of the 1st International Conference on Communication and Digital Multimedia 2025 (ICCDM 2025)
PB  - Atlantis Press
SP  - 65
EP  - 75
SN  - 2352-5398
UR  - https://doi.org/10.2991/978-2-38476-589-8_6
DO  - 10.2991/978-2-38476-589-8_6
ID  - Anwar2026
ER  -