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HAAH!! Are you kidding?! I HATE THIS STUPID JOB!!!
— Ena, ENA Day 2023

An Ena (also spelled as ƎNA) is a titular protagonist in Dream BBQ. This Ena, who has a pale yellow and red body, is the protagonist of the second season of the series.

Appearance

An Ena is a feminine humanoid character. She possesses a dual colored body, her left side being pale yellow and geometric with shading, and her right side being red and smooth (although, her torso is completely red and geometric). Her black hair is slightly similar to the other Ena, though equal in length. Her eyes are triangles, with her left side having an inverted triangle with a smaller black triangle under it (resembling an eyelash), and her right side having a normal triangle. Unlike the first Ena, her right hand has sharp, claw-like fingertips with more joint muscle, and her left hand is mitten-shaped. She also has the same triangular ahoges.

Her outfit consists of a light-pink collared T-shirt and red/pink striped suspenders, along with dark cyan shorts and similarly colored socks (one thigh high on her right and one ankle sock on her left). She also wears a student cap in the same shade as her shorts and socks, with a navy blue ribbon and silver emblem.

Alternate forms

An Ena appears has two alternate forms, revealed in various teasers and trailers for Dream BBQ.

Green form

DBBQTrailer RainingBullets

The green Ena form in the second Dream BBQ trailer.

In this form, her face is green and cracked, leaking blood. Her mouth is jagged and appears on both sides of her face. She has dark, sunken eyes that are rectangular and has circular pupils. The color of her blood and pupils is purple on the left and blue on the right. Her body, outfit and other features are unchanged. Notably, her cap was updated to have different colors from her base form, the ribbon now being the same shade of green as the panels, the emblem being medium-dark gold, and the brim being very dark gray; this change is also reflected in a piece of promotional artwork.

She was first teased in the Dream BBQ trailer, where she appeared in a red spotlight and spinned around upside-down. She appeared again in a music preview showcasing an upcoming song for Dream BBQ, titled "The Purge Event"[3] by METAROOM. Her face is partially obscured and only a small amount of her head can be seen, which is visibly green but uncracked. Strangely, her right arm is missing from her body.

In the second Dream BBQ trailer, she's seen standing in a deserted landscape with large, rotating megaphones emerging from the sky. She has no arms or pupils, and her face gradually begins to crack. Later in the trailer, her torso spins around and her legs jump and dance as black rocks (presumably coal) rain from the megaphones. Her pupils appear and blood begins to leak from the cracks in her face. Near the end of the trailer, she sits lifelessly on the ground as bullets rain from the megaphones.

Additionally, she appeared as an unlockable costume during the Halloween 2022 event on Joelgc.com under the name "Ena Chupacabras", in which she is dressed as a chupacabra (sporting white fangs, a red horn, a spiked collar, a green cloak, red claws and black feet).

Humanesque form

DBBQCrawlingCharacter

The humanesque Ena form crawling to the Spatulady.

Her second form is much more humanesque than her normal appearance. Her entire appearence is that of a realistic (yet stylized) human girl, with a non-polygonal body, accurate shading and realistic clothing. Her face and left arm is pale blue and her right arm is red. She has dark gray irises and mascara on her lower eyelids. Interestingly, her cap is colored differently than in her normal form, as it has a tan base, a green/yellow ribbon and a gold emblem. In the second Dream BBQ trailer, she has a large, orange hole in the middle of her body, and in a brief scene, there's orange blood dripping from her mouth, and she has blue eyes instead of gray.

Their first public appearance was on January 6th, 2023, from a Tweet by Joel Guerra notifying that a new Dream BBQ trailer would be released.[4] With the announcement was a GIF in which this form of Ena was seen crawling towards something, later revealed to be Spatulady.

In the second Dream BBQ trailer, she is seen huddled on the ground, in a barren landscape with many mannequin-like poles and various winding structures. She looks up to see the Spatulady, who's dancing under a spotlight, and she begins to desperately crawl towards her. Later in the trailer, she shakily holds one of the mannequins under a spotlight.

Personality

While an Ena's overall personality is currently unknown, some assumptions can be made by observing the Dream BBQ trailer and released concept art.

MegaphoneEna

Ena's pale side smiling while the red side appears angry.

An Ena's red "salesperson" side appears to have a more joyful expression, much like that of Season 1 Ena's yellow side. She is often seen smiling when her face is switched to this side. She also appears to talk much more often with this side, as shown in her various art appearances, which may mean this is her "primary" side much like how Season 1 Ena primarily talks through her yellow side. This side of Ena acts energetic and calm, offering deals to potential customers. In a piece of merchandise, she is seen with a root-like object growing from her chest, causing the red side to take on a more neutral look, similar to her paler side's expression.

The paler of the two is her "meanie" side, which appears to be more serious, as she is often depicted with a slight frown or neutral expression, contrasting with her smiling red side. In a piece of merchandise, she is seen shouting into her megaphone with a serious expression. The only instance this side is seen smiling is in the Dream BBQ game trailer when she begins talking into the megaphone, which curiously also causes the red side to gain a small eyebrow, giving it an angry appearance.

Just like the other Ena, an Ena has both a feminine and a masculine voice,[5] with Aleks Le voicing her masculine voice and Nola Klop voicing her feminine voice. In the same voice preview, her masculine voice appears to be associated with an Ena's salesperson side while her feminine voice appears to be associated with her meanie side.[2] It is currently unknown if they are interchangeable regardless of which side is talking, like how Season 1 Ena's voice acts in Temptation Stairway.[6]

Development

An Ena's first appearance was in the first teaser for Dream BBQ, though only her back was shown. Despite this, the colors of her arms and legs revealed she was red, pale blue, and pale yellow in color. Alongside the new clothing, this confirmed that a new Ena would replace the one from Season 1 after Temptation Stairway.

Her full appearance was revealed to the public on May 26th, 2021, on Joel Guerra's Twitter, showing her face and clothing from the front. Concept sketches of an Ena were also shown on July 20th on the same platform.[7]

Trivia

  • Before the announcement of Dream BBQ, multiple Enas were hinted at in Temptation Stairway through The Shepherd's dialogue stating "Arghh...another ENA troublemaker".
  • An Ena is one of the unlockable avatars on Joelgc.com and can be customized with various unlockable colors.
  • Unlike the Ena from animated series, dream BBQ's Ena appears to have three different colors associated with her (pale blue for her upper right side, pale yellow for her lower right side and ear, and red for the entirety of her left side). It may be that the blue color is simply shading, but this is unconfirmed.
  • An Ena's early concept art shows her with her left side being yellow, which is similar in design to the other Ena.
    • Coincidentally, animated series Ena's early concept art shows her with a white right side, making her slightly resemble dream BBQ Ena.
  • An Ena's pose in her concept art slightly resembles the pose made by Demon Ena in Extinction Party; Both bend their right arm behind their head, their left arm near their waist, and point their knees inward.
  • It is possible that all three versions of an Ena represent the three parts of Sigmund Freud's psychoanalytic theory about the psyche, where the humanesque Ena is the id (the desire and want of a person, represented by her desperation and drooling), the split Ena is the ego (the compromise between the id and super-ego, as represented by her split appearance and double voices), and the green Ena is the super-ego (the denial and disagreement of the id, as represented by her inability to move, causing her to crack and break down due to a lack of will).

Cultural references and inspirations

PF&DBBQ Compare

Poses made by SALARYMAN 55 (top) and Ena (bottom).

Dekirukana

Gonta (left) and Noppo (right) from Dekirukana.

  • A small portion of the Dream BBQ trailer briefly showcases grayscale variants of Ena posing. These poses are nearly identical to ones quickly made by SALARYMAN 55/Otou-san in the animation Polygon Family - Morning Commute.[8]
  • Ena's face was influenced by Pablo Picasso's painting, Girl before a Mirror, as is the case for Season 1 Ena.
    • It is also possible she was inspired by another painting by Pablo Picasso known as Tête (Head), as it uses the same pale blue, pale yellow, and red coloration for the subject's face.[9] However, this may be a coincidence, as concept art revealed in a 2022 stream shows that Ena originally had red and yellow colored sides.
  • An Ena's outfit was stated on an ENA Day 2022 Twitch stream to be based on the outfit of Noppo, a character from the Japanese educational children's show Dekirukana. It was stated by Joel Guerra that he watched the show as a child, as it also aired in Latin American countries.
    • Froggy also appears to be based on the show's other main character, Gonta. This is likely why both Ena and Froggy are paired together.
    • It was also stated in the same stream that Ena's hat was originally the same as Noppo's, though the hat was changed to a cap instead.
  • Some of an Ena's movements appear to reference the dance moves in the music video for Taiso, a song by the band Yellow Magic Orchestra. These references include a GIF of Ena talking while dancing[10], the pose that her green alternate form takes in her concept art, and her usage of a yellow megaphone in both concept art and the Dream BBQ game announcement trailer.
  • An Ena's green alternate form's head resembles structures in the game Space Funeral that appear as bloodied green heads.
  • The hole in the chest of one of an Ena's alternate forms may or may not be a reference/inspired by the character Kaiba from Masaaki Yuasa's Kaiba.

Gallery

The Ena (Season 2) gallery can be found here.

References