

When asked about whether the Shantae series was conceived as pushing feminist values because of its strong female cast, Matt Bozon acknowledged that he liked to portray the Shantae world as having the girls "run the show" and not be defined solely by their appearances. She was altered later on in development, and the original Twitch character served as the basis for a similarly-named character and her friend in Shantae and the Pirate's Curse. Matt also elaborated a bit on the development of Sky's character, who was initially named "Twitch" and had a different appearance. animated film The Iron Giant, and the expression made its way into the script as an inside joke. The signature catchphrase from the franchise, "Ret-2-Go", was created by a friend of them who kept using it when they were working on animation clean up for the Warner Bros.

Matt Bozon has stated that his main influences for the game series are Castlevania, Aladdin, Mega Man, The Legend of Zelda and anime, mostly Ranma ½ which he claims as a heavy influence, and others like Nadia: The Secret of Blue Water, Hayao Miyazaki's films, and Pokémon, as well as 80s cartoons like DuckTales or The Transformers, while Erin Bozon's main influence was I Dream of Jeannie. Matt has provided two contradictory stories about how the idea for the hair whip came to be: in one, he said he was inspired by the nine-foot-long hair of his wife, while in the other he claims that Erin's original sketches already featured Shantae using her hair as a weapon. This would later become the basis for the transformation dances. Erin imagined that the character could summon or charm animals by belly-dancing. Matt liked the idea and fleshed out the mythology and cast of the game. Matt later asked her what she would come up with if she was to create a video game character, and she introduced him to Shantae. In 1994, during their engagement, Erin got a flash of inspiration while coming back from her camp counsellor days, and created the character, naming her "Shantae" after one of the campers, as well as developing her dancing abilities. The character of Shantae was created by Erin Bell, the wife of Matt Bozon, the game's creator.


Shantae is a series of platform games developed by WayForward.
