RADILIH KOE'/FORT GOOD HOPE - Cassia Shae is different, which is a good thing for an artist to be.

The 19-year-old Chief T'Selehye student and artist plans to turn her unique skill as an anime artist into a career.

Cassia Shae plans to pursue an art education and animation career after completing high school in Fort Good Hope next winter. Her style is influenced by the popular manga and anime. - Daron Letts/NNSL photo

Anime refers to an increasingly popular style of cartoon animation that originated in Japan.

Manga is a style of graphic novel, or comic, influenced by anime.

"Nobody does anime in Good Hope," she said. "I'm the only one. I like to be different."

Shae has collected more than 50 manga graphic novels that she uses as inspiration for her original creations.

Ani Kimi and Dramacon are favourites. She follows the anime series Death No on YTV and collects anime DVDs. She also appreciates Hentai, a genre of anime porn, as a way to study anime anatomy.

Shae practices Slavey and plans to create a short anime graphic novel based on stories shared by elders, among several other projects.

Her former school counsellor, Chief T'Selehye teacher Vince Jones, describes Shae as gifted.

"She doesn't have to work at being different," he said. "It comes naturally. She has a wonderful talent and a different perspective from anyone else. She does things her own way. There's a career out there for her."

Jones and other mentors are helping Shae scout for art schools to attend after she graduates next winter. She is looking at the Ontario College of Art and Design and Vancouver Film School, among others.

Shae uses her drawing as an emotional outlet.

"Drawing can show you how you feel," she said. "If something bad happens or I'm not feeling good it'll show in my drawings. When I look at the drawing I can see how painful it felt. But, once it's drawn I don't need it anymore. I just throw it away. It's kind of like therapy. I might not get advice from it but it takes all the pressure off my back."

She plans to introduce youth to this creative avenue of self-reflection by inviting them to explore the issue of substance abuse through drawing. She hopes to get support from the GNWT to develop that project.

"Every year kids are getting into (drugs) younger and younger," she said.

Drawing can help teenagers talk about serious issues from their own perspective, she said, opening a constructive dialogue with parents.

"Cassia can be a great contributing member of any community - and is," Jones said.

"She's comical, good natured and extremely kind. She's a pretty cool kid."

Shae started drawing from a young age, but began concentrating on building her skill about five years ago.

"I was thinking of doing a comic but I (thought I) wasn't good enough," Shae said.

"When I bumped into anime it got my mind going."

Shae's friend, Paula Paulette of Fort Smith, introduced her to anime. Paulette, a 20-year-old student at PWK school in Fort Smith, is also an avid and promising artist, drawing original anime figures in a variety of bright and eccentric costumes. She has been drawing since she was 12 years-old.

Shae and Paulette collaborated on the beginnings of graphic novel a few years ago, a project the pair plan to continue in the future.

"It's like completely random anime," Paulette said. "It doesn't really have a story."

Shae developed her own Manga character, named Oniness Yami, to interact in the novel with Paulette's many original characters.

"Oniness looks like a goth but she's outgoing," Shae said. "She's strange. Not shy. She's confident."

The graphic novel will follow the lives of several "anthro anime" characters, which are part human part animal or vampire, as they mature from junior high through adulthood.

"It's what everyday life could be for them," Shae said. "The good. The bad."

Like Shae, Paulette "definitely" plans to pursue an art career after high school.

"I want to take some classes and get a little better and then become part of a studio in Vancouver or Toronto."