There were two things Tasha Huo (“The Witcher: Blood Origin”) wanted to accomplish as showrunner of the 2D animated series “Tomb Raider: The Legend of Lara Croft” (currently streaming on Netflix). She wanted to make the tough archaeologist/adventurer more vulnerable and explore Chinese mythology.

“She’s always been such a superhero in the video games,” Huo told IndieWire, “but in a TV show we find out more about her emotional place where you want to see her grow out of something difficult. So that was always a starting point for me, a low point for her. And how does Lara Croft get out of rock bottom? It becomes even more epic because of the nature of who she is and the adventure we put her on.”

Legendary Television’s eight-episode animated series bridges the timeline between the rebooted ‘Survivor’ video game trilogy and the original ’90s games. It finds Lara (voiced by Hayley Atwell) abandoning her friends, only to be drawn back home, where a mysterious Chinese jade stone is stolen from Croft Manor by a thief. Thus, her journey across the world and search for graves ultimately forces her to face the grief of losing both her father and mentor.

“I didn’t want to ignore that,” Huo continued. “I wanted to address it, but I wanted her to move past it. Who is she now? How can she become that independent, confident, self-possessed person we remember her as growing up in the 1990s?

But the theft of the jade stone turns out to be part of a larger mystery tied to Chinese mythology. The adventure takes Lara and her friend Jonah (Earl Baylon from the video game) to China, where they learn about a complementary ruby ​​stone. Together the stones offer enormous supernatural power.

“I have wanted to tell a story within Chinese mythology for a long time,” Huo added, “because that is my background, and it is something that I have not been able to explore (before). And it felt like a natural fit for something Laura would dive deep into.

Huo drew from ‘The Four Perils’, beasts that represent gluttony, chaos, cruelty and violence. “It’s more of a bigger concept, and in this version they’re actually in something tangible,” Huo said.

Meanwhile, the colorful 2D animation from Powerhouse Animation Studios in Austin, Texas, has a graphic, illustrative style that’s also very cinematic, with loud lighting, a handheld camera, and a heavy atmosphere.

“The 2D animation is unique and super cool,” Huo added. “We do a lot of things they say you shouldn’t do in animation. You go underwater. There is a lot of wind, rain, sleet, hail, storm, dust. They travel everywhere, change outfits. So we really push the boundaries when it comes to what I find important.”

The first set piece is a thrilling chase into an underground tomb in episode 2 (“A Set of Lies Agreed Upon”), in which Lara and Jonah search for missing children and encounter a monstrous, undulating fox spirit, flowing lava, and a passage to a ancient temple surrounded by ethereal, glowing butterflies.

“It’s not just a big set piece,” Huo said. ‘The fox spirit has a purpose. It actually leads her in a way, and she has to look beyond the monster to truly understand it. That’s going to be a big part of Episode 2. The original image was always that you see a fox and the way it moves makes it feel like a fox. But eventually it turns into a larger form and you realize it’s a creature made up of different parts, which was very interesting. And it flows like smoke. It is important that it retains that shape, but also feels dangerous. So it’s great to create these monsters that she faces. It’s been in the IP since day one. So it’s cool to add some things to the canon.”