Stories That Shaped Me!

The art that inspired me to write. 

Tintin (Comic)

The Adventures of Tintin follows a brave young reporter and his dog Snowy as they travel across the globe to solve crimes, uncover mysteries, and confront danger head-on.

Despite being aimed at younger readers, the stories often involve political intrigue, ancient secrets, and real-world references. Each volume is a window into a different culture or adventure setting, drawn with Hergé’s signature clear-line style.
Tintin, for me, is my childhood. I grew up constantly reading the comics and had a small collection of Tintin books, including some first editions. It’s one of the reasons why I still love comics to this day. Despite being aimed at children, they’re actually quite mature, which is something I always appreciated. 

My favorite is Tintin in Tibet, because it has very little action and, for the first time, reveals a deeper emotional layer. It showed me that even a comic aimed at younger readers can carry deep emotional weight. Another classic, Explorers on the Moon, is a beautiful, nostalgic comic for me. Even now, these comics still hold a special place in my heart and in my collection. They’ve aged remarkably well and remain fantastic to this day—
…well, except for Tintin in the Congo. That one is probably best avoided.

Battle Angel Alita (Manga) 

Discovered in a scrapyard with no memory of her past, Alita is a cyborg girl rebuilt by a compassionate doctor in a violent, dystopian city. As she relearns how to live—and fight—she confronts bounty hunters, cybernetic warriors, and her own mysterious origins. 

Blending explosive martial arts with emotional growth and philosophical depth, the series follows Alita’s search for identity in a world where humanity is often mechanized or lost.
People often overlook Battle Angel Alita, and I really wish more people would read this incredible manga. It’s often overshadowed by another cyberpunk masterpiece, Ghost in the Shell (which I’ll talk about later), but Alita deserves just as much recognition. 

As you can probably tell, most of my inspiration comes from the cyberpunk genre, which I hold very close to my heart—and Battle Angel Alita holds a very special place in it. It’s beautifully written, the pages are incredibly detailed, and you can see the creator’s obsession and love for the world he built on every page. The world-building is enormous—he even invented a brutal sport called Motorball, which plays a major role in the story. 

The world feels alive, chaotic, and harsh. The philosophy is woven in so naturally that it’s easy to grasp, yet leaves a strong impact. The action is excellent too—drawing from real martial arts and reimagining them in a cyberpunk setting, giving every fight weight and creativity.
At its core, the story deals with class division: the poor surviving in the scrapyard below, while the wealthy and powerful live above in the floating city of Tiphares. But more than that, it’s about Gally’s (or Alita’s) personal journey—trying to understand who she is, why she fights, and what her life truly means. 

There’s a lot of amazing action, but it’s Alita’s emotional journey, her constant search for identity and purpose, that makes this manga unforgettable. If you decide to read one manga out of this list. This one won’t disappoint you! 

Neon Genesis Evangelion (Anime & Manga)

In a post-apocalyptic world, humanity is under threat from enigmatic beings known as Angels. The story centers on Shinji Ikari, a teenager forced to pilot a biomechanical weapon called an Eva to fight them—under the shadow of his distant father and an increasingly secretive organization. 

What begins as a mecha anime becomes a psychological and existential deep dive into trauma, loneliness, and the fear of connection.
“hedgehog’s dilemma”: the closer you get, the more you risk hurting or being hurt.
If I had to pick one favorite piece of media in the entire world, it would be Neon Genesis Evangelion and The End of Evangelion.
The original anime series already stuck with me, it was amazingly original and creative, and suprisingly deep. But the film added even twice the weight to everything. I remember when I just came out watching the End of Evangelion I needed 3 days to accept that I just have watched the best thing I ever watched, and until this day nothing came even close to what it made me feel. 

Neon Genesis Evangelion influenced the way I write, and the way I like to have philosophy and emotional depth into my characters and stories. It is a masterpiece that could only be created by the artist himself, in the period of his life.
Evangelion taught me that stories don’t need to offer comfort. They can offer confrontation instead. They can wrestle with fear, with grief, with the terrifying realization that you may never be truly understood—and still choose to exist anyway.
It’s a work of philosophy disguised as a sci-fi anime. Or mayby even a confession of the artist itself. 

Ghost in the Shell (Manga and Film) 

Set in a futuristic world where human consciousness can be digitized and bodies enhanced with cybernetics, Ghost in the Shell follows Major Motoko Kusanagi, a government agent in Section 9 tasked with tracking down elite cyber-criminals. As she investigates a mysterious hacker known as the Puppet Master, Motoko begins to question the nature of identity, memory, and the soul. It’s a philosophical cyberpunk thriller that explores the boundary between machine and human. 

As someone who’s a big fan of philosophy, this story resonated with me deeply. It explores one of the oldest philosophical questions: what makes you you? If your memories are just data, your body fully replaceable, and your decisions influenced by algorithms—do you still have a self? Where does the soul live, in a world where even your brain can be hacked?
The story touches directly on the Ship of Theseus paradox:
If every part of a boat is slowly replaced over time, piece by piece—at what point is it no longer the same boat?
Or is it still the same boat, simply rebuilt?
Motoko Kusanagi’s journey mirrors that question. Her body is entirely artificial, and her thoughts can be copied or erased—so what remains? Is it memory? Is it consciousness? Or is identity just an illusion we hold onto in a world where nothing is fixed? 

With its obsession for futuristic precision and scientific realism, Ghost in the Shell became one of the most influential cyberpunk stories ever told—and later even inspired The Matrix. The manga is full of action and tech detail, while the film brings a more meditative, emotional depth. Both are absolutely worth reading or watching.
I love the cyberpunk genre, and this one is without a doubt a true cyberpunk masterpiece—not just for its aesthetics, but for its bold, lingering questions. The story influenced how I think about identity in my own writing. I often explore existential themes and write characters who struggle with trauma, memory, and a sense of self in a world that keeps shifting around them. Like Motoko, some of my characters aren’t sure where their humanity begins—or if it’s even still there. That question keeps coming back in everything I write.

If interested start with the movie! 

Poetic Edda and the Norse Sagas (Books)

Of course this can’t miss out of my list today! The main reason why I am writing what I am writing now. My biggest inspiration! 

Snorri Sturluson (1179–1241) was an Icelandic historian, poet, and politician. He wrote the Prose Edda (also called Snorri’s Edda), which is a manual for skaldic poetry and includes retellings of Norse myths as a way to preserve and explain the old poetic forms.
He didn’t write down everything—but he wrote one of the most important preservations of Norse myth in prose form. 

And thank the gods he did.
These stories inspired so many modern things: The Lord of the Rings is heavily inspired by the sagas, as is Hamlet, and so many myths have been used in movies—like Thor, and even the Kraken, which appears everywhere. Trolls and dwarves also come from Norse myths.
The stories are still amazing to read today, and if you don’t want to dive deep into the original texts, I really recommend reading Neil Gaiman’s Norse Mythology. It’s absolutely worth the time and helps you understand just how many pop culture references and ideas we’ve taken from that age! 

I hope to get the right tone and to bring these stories back, into a new modern digestable way. And make it life through a new generation.
Thank you for reading.

Every once in a while, I’ll post more books that I love—stories that inspire me or simply deserve more recognition.