‘Jentry Chau vs. the Underworld’ Creator Echo Wu Discusses the Origins of Her Demon-Fighting Teen

This article was written for the January ’25 issue of Animation Magazine (No. 346).

High school is an awkward time for most, as you navigate friendship dynamics, get to know your own unusual qualities and face the indignities of wearing a P.E. uniform five days a week. In the new Netflix series Jentry Chau vs. the Underworld, a girl named (you guessed it) Jentry Chau must face all the drama of being a high schooler while also repressing her supernatural powers and avoiding the creepy demon king who hunts her for those very abilities.

This Chinese-American teen, who lives in Texas and battles creatures from the great beyond, is the brainchild of Echo Wu, creator and executive producer of the show. Comedy badass Ali Wong and graphic novel author Aron Eli Coleite also serve as executive producers.

Jentry’s in the Details

Wu, who won the silver medal Student Academy Award for her short The Wishgranter in 2016, says she was inspired by her own teen years when creating the characters and show. She says she had to balance her experiences growing up in Texas with her culture.

“In the show, Jentry is trying to find out where she belongs,” she tells Animation Magazine. “I grew up in in the suburbs near Dallas, which was primarily very Republican, and they had very specific standards of how things should be. It goes beyond when other kids would peer into my lunch and ask what I was eating for lunch. It was more on a psychological standpoint. It’s all these elements that include the clothes you’re wearing, the music you listen to and what’s considered cool or not … I think the show is detailed about what specifically Jentry is listening to and what Jentry is expressing.”

‘I wanted to make a show that interested me and would be what I would love as a 12-year-old girl. I wanted it to have this element of romance and horror and fighting with supernatural things.’

— Show creator Echo Wu

In many ways, the series is a love letter to Wu’s childhood and hometown. “I wanted to make a show that interested me and would be what I would love as a 12-year-old girl. I wanted it to have this element of romance and horror and fighting with supernatural things. I think that’s a common thread in animation. Jentry thinks she’s going to kick butt with her powers, but then she realizes it might be social suicide if the other kids find out she has the powers. I thought that was an interesting dynamic to play with and have those elements kind of shine through in a very grounded type of storytelling.”

Wu worked with character supervisor Kal Athannassov (Carol & the End of the World, Baba Yaga, Crow: The Legend) to bring the look the show needed to life. The process began around 2018. Titmouse was the animation studio on the project and also handled mixing the music and post duties such as compositing.

“This is first project I’ve been on where I’ve been able to go all out with character design,” says Athannassov. “[The look of the characters] has evolved over the years. I think when we first pitched it, it looked much more focused on being for younger children, and I think it evolved into a young-adult show. I’m glad for that because I think that’s where my natural artistic tendencies tend to be. It was really fun to come up with something that I think feels familiar in terms of the characters but is also unique to us.”

Athannassov believes the special look of the show is the result of the interesting choices they made. “We decided very early on in the project to make it more cinematic,” he says. “In the very early days of pitching, I would always draw these very wide panels that had this really wide aspect ratio, and we would do the chromatic aberration to just make it feel a little bit more cinematic, a little bit more expensive, and it really goes a long way. I think the final product definitely reflects what we wanted it to do, and especially in TV animation where sometimes you’re butting up against budgets.”

Since the development process ran over many years, Wu and Athannassov had time to refine what they wanted from the look of characters and the show overall. They were even able to take inspiration from other shows that ventured into the horror genre.

“It was a multiyear, multipronged approach that started years ago, so it changed a lot over time,” says Athannassov. “I think one of our initial inspirations was the [Cartoon Network] show Over the Garden Wall, which we saw when we were first pitching the show. That project came at the right time for us, and I think it showed us it’s okay to do horror in animation. Over the Garden Wall isn’t the scariest thing ever, but it made us feel we could go into that direction. So, with the colors we use in the show we went against what you might expect from horror. Horror tends to be very muted at times and desaturated. But we wanted to have these bright neon, these really vivid rim lights that are always silhouetting the characters. We wanted to do it in a way that felt true to our interests.”

The voice cast features some of the most talented performers any director could hope to have participate in a project. Ali Wong (Tuca & Bertie) voices main character Jentry Chau, Lori Tan Chinn (Lovely Ladies, Kind Gentlemen) plays Jentry’s aunt Gugu, Bowen Yang (Saturday Night Live) is Jentry’s pal Ed. The show will also feature Lucy Liu (Kill Bill), Jimmy O. Yang (Silicon Valley), Sheng Wang (Fresh Off the Boat), A.J. Beckles (Bungo Stray Dogs) and Woosung Kim (Immortal Songs) in upcoming episodes.

Familiar Voices

Wong got involved when Wu began sending out her show to jump-start the packaging process. She soon heard from Wong, who was excited about the personal story Wu wanted to tell.

“Ali called us and said she liked this weird thing that her agents sent to them,” recalls Wu. “The pandemic had just started, so she was about to go on tour and decided not to go on tour anymore. So, we had a lovely phone call where we just told her what the show is about. She was involved from the very beginning, from the pitch process through to interviewing line producers and head writers. Everyone got very starstruck by Ali Wong. She was very involved with the writing process, and she really pushed script readings and table reads. She really wanted to make sure she got the character right.”

Wu was also bowled over by Yang’s comedic chops. His drive to experiment with this character and try out new ideas and lines shaped his performance. “Bowen in particular is so good with even his first pass at something. But he would stop during a recording session when he felt like he didn’t do a good take and wanted to try again and try out something we hadn’t expected. You really get to see how working on something like SNL makes him just able to come up with ideas right away and start working on them.”

Looking back over the process of bringing her deeply personal ideas to the show, Wu believes her collaborators were instrumental in helping carry her show forward.

“With Bowen [Yang] and Ali [Wong] and Kal [Athannassov] and so many others, I had great people working with me, and I hope viewers feel seen when they watch it,” says Wu.

Jentry vs. the Underworld premieres on Netflix on December 5.