Awakening
Overload
Awakening Overload is a multimedia IP by Tokyo-based artist NAOWAO, spanning a PC game, handmade figures, and participatory workshops. The project follows Rhune, a blue-skinned genderless character, on a journey through strange worlds — meeting creatures, monsters, and characters that each carry their own relationship to memory, grief, and ritual.
Rhune
"wanders to remember,
finds a ritual of their own"
Rhune does not say much.
Rhune walks where the maps end —
through forests of blue light,
through deserts under wide stars,
through caves where the water glows.
​
Some days are for wandering.
Some are for grieving.
Some are for sitting still beside a creature
who knows something Rhune does not.
​
Along the way, Rhune meets creatures.
Each shows a different way to carry what has been lost.
​
And slowly, between silences and small wonders,
the journey itself becomes a ritual of their own.
Sticker Kaiju
"every sticker, a sleeping memory"
In a cave at the edge of the lagoon,
there is a shrine of coral.
Around it, five stepping stones
rest in the water.
Sticker Kaiju steps toward one.
From its mouth it draws out
a small, faded sticker,
and lays it on the water.
It dips its tongue in.
The sticker begins to glow.
Sticker Kaiju eats it, soft and slow.
The water glows. The stone glows.
Somewhere, a memory has been kept safe.
Praying Axolotls
"breath by breath, the old memories surface"
At the foot of a tall tree,
where the leaves shine soft and blue,
the Praying Axolotls sit.
They have been sitting a long time.
​
Many hands folded.
Eyes closed. Breath in. Breath out.
The tree breathes with them.
Their body is already the universe.
Sometimes a restless one comes by, weather-faced.
The Praying Axolotls do not speak.
They only keep breathing.
​
And slowly, the wandere's breath begins to match.
Tadpiller
"every step, a curious memory"
When something has just happened —
a small feeling, a small encounter,
a moment whose shape you don't yet know —
a Tadpiller is born.
Puku. Puku.
A soft bubble lifts from the ground
with the new memory inside.
Still warm, still finding its shape.
​
Hold it too tightly and it slips its shape.
​
But let it breathe, and one day
it will take you to a place you never imagined.
Froggie
"a mothering memory..."
Between the water and the land,
Froggie watches over.
Some memories are kept in light —
quick・bright・held outside you.
Others are kept in slower places,
inside the living.
They are hidden.
When someone comes by
carrying hidden memories,
Froggie sits close.
It does not speak.
It only stays near,
until something quiet rises in them again —
warm, already there.
Then, just as quietly,
Froggie returns to the water.
Tardigrade Boss
"sleeps through centuries,
remembers everything"
Where moss covers the stones
and water moves slowly between them —
Tardigrade is.
Of the moss.
Of the stones.
Of the water.
It keeps every record.
The bright and the dim, gathered the same.
For the smallest thing now
may be the brightest in years.
​
The loud may grow quiet.
The quiet may grow precious.
​
So keep the record.
​
Slowly. A small mark is enough.
​
Just archive it, to share it in the way.
Baku
"carries the dreamer through sleep,
finds the memories that waited"
Some places cannot be reached on foot,
or by water, or by waking thought.
​
When the heart is ready, Baku appears —
a creature with eyes that hold the cosmos.
​
To ride Baku is to be carried into the dream.
There, the place you have been searching for
has been waiting all along.
Baku does not lead.
Baku flies where your heart already points.
​
In the dreams, the far becomes near
and the long ago becomes now —
​
and you reach the place you have been waiting for.
Sound Tribe
"plays the heart into wind,
the wind sings it home"
They travel with the wind.
​
At dusk, when the sky is blue and purple,
the beat starts and the wind sings.
​
They sit in a circle.
​
Each plays in their own way, with their own instruments.
The flute calls, and the wind rises in spirals.
The drum beats, and the sand wakes and dances.
The fire joins in, and the air begins to pulse —
like an aurora opening across the sky.
​
The wind has been carrying their songs
for hundreds of years,
and will carry them for hundreds more.
​
Playing what the heart remembers,
as the wind flows in circles.