I am fine with it for the right game. Where it feels odd to me is if someone suddenly introduces these elements into Forgotten Realms or Ravenloft where it just doesn't fit my sense of what the settings are. The anime aesthetic comes with its own physics as well, and I think that is a big reason for some of the frustration when you get a lot of anime in D&D or something similar. That said, Record of Lodoss War is essentially a D&D campaign and there are plenty of shows that fit the a traditional fantasy RPG just fine.

Like others have pointed out, anime are all very different. Not all anime is cowboy bebop. There is a huge difference between Ranma 1/2, Princess Mononoke, Ghost in the Shell and Slayers.

Quote from: Simlasa;741824A big part of the appeal, for me, is that anime and manga don't seem as locked into the hyper-steroidal WWF macho-ness of Western fantasy/action films. The macho stuff is certainly there, but it seems to share the foreground with more spiritual and intellectual values as well. Also, some of my favorite anime/manga have strong female protagonists. Moreso than a lot of Western genre stuff I'm aware of.

It's a peculiar trait of anime/manga that so many of them are both distastefully reliant on "cheesecake" and yet feature solid female characters and/or nuanced approaches to gender issues that put western analogues to shame... and this is material being produced by a country that is, by many metrics, wallowing in sexism. It's kind of puzzling really.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;741824The anime aesthetic comes with its own physics as well, and I think that is a big reason for some of the frustration when you get a lot of anime in D&D or something similar.

Yes, I remember this coming up a lot when people were debating the D&D-authenticity of Book of Nine Swords and then subsequently 4th ed. Video games were always the first comparison made, but anime/manga were a close second.

I like it. You have to keep in mind that anime comes in tons of different flavors, though. A game based on Black Lagoon is going to FAR different from a game based on Clannad or Mobile Suit Gundam.

Quote from: One Horse Town;741808I'm quite comfortable in saying that i really don't get it.

I can't understand it. I don't understand the appeal of it. I don't get the culture it comes from.

Same. And it's utterly alien to my players as well. Anime/manga style artwork on an RPG does nothing to increase its appeal among any of my players, and puts off most of us. I'd honestly rather have clip-art fantasy landscapes as the only artwork in an RPG book.

To be honest, the only people I game with who would find that style of artwork appealing are my kids (to be fair, I don't know any gamers between 9 and 39).

You guys must be thinking only of anime made in the 80s. I highly recommend you try something like Black Lagoon (http://www.hulu.com/black-lagoon) if you like action (mercenaries in Thailand set during the 1980s) or Steins;Gate (http://www.hulu.com/steinsgate) if you like Doctor Who.

The storytelling in anime has improved dramatically in the last 10 years or so.

Depends on the inspirations - I certainly hope the way too overly lengthy dialogue lines infested with bizarre shouting don't enter my table (again) .

Other than that, I like it, even if I'm more likely to use a graphic from MtG than anime show. I'd personally not mind playing a Gantz inspired game of Kult .

As a GM my worlds are heavily influenced by manga/anime tropes, though usually the less silly ones and not quite so overtly that other influences are overshadowed.  Though I don't attribute magical powers to non-magical katanas, they are just a sword, no better and no worse than any other in the game of roughly similar size, shape, and weight.

As a player I've directly based characters on anime/manga, where it wasn't inappropriate and the GM was cool with it.

That said, as others have noted as well in this thread, there is a LOT of ground covered by anime/manga, much of it contradicting other anime/manga.

No//enough

Quote from: Shipyard Locked;741833It's a peculiar trait of anime/manga that so many of them are both distastefully reliant on "cheesecake" and yet feature solid female characters and/or nuanced approaches to gender issues that put western analogues to shame... and this is material being produced by a country that is, by many metrics, wallowing in sexism. It's kind of puzzling really.

Yeah, i was thinking the same when I wrote that... it's not as if the culture isn't macho or sexist... it's just a different variation that seems counter to some of the Western tropes. That, and I don't read the cute little 'Magic Girls' as sexy... even though I suspect they're meant to be.
Either way, the swords still tend to be awfully big.

I'm going to be a troublemaker and ask a question:

Just what ARE "anime/manga/JRPG influences"? Like, specifically?

Because I, for one, find it hard to come up with anything that's A, specifically Japanese, i.e., you can't find the exact same thing in Western games, stories, films, mythology or whatnot; and B, specifically anime/manga, i.e., you can't find the same thing in Japanese mythology, history or other Japanese non-manga material.

Well, other than the distinctive visual style, but that's not exactly relevant to a p&p RPG.

Quote from: Premier;741858I'm going to be a troublemaker and ask a question:

Just what ARE "anime/manga/JRPG influences"? Like, specifically?

For me it just means that a lot of the stuff I drop into games are Ideas that spawned while looking at anime/manga. The only specifically Japanese element I can think of is that I have a lot of 'spirit' stuff going on... lots of Shinto-derived elements.

QuoteWell, other than the distinctive visual style, but that's not exactly relevant to a p&p RPG.

The visual style can matter if, for example, I find myself drawn to some anime visualzation of elves and decide to put them in my game... where up till that point I had had no interest in them because I'd only seen the Larry Elmore versions... or something along those lines. I like anime/manga aesthetics a lot and they often stir up my imagination in ways that some less-stylized fantasy art doesnt.
That might tie into my preferring some of the 'less professional' RPG art vs. the fancy full color painterly stuff.

Quote from: Premier;741858Because I, for one, find it hard to come up with anything that's A, specifically Japanese, i.e., you can't find the exact same thing in Western games, stories, films, mythology or whatnot; and B, specifically anime/manga, i.e., you can't find the same thing in Japanese mythology, history or other Japanese non-manga material.

I would say that mecha are incredibly anime inspired. Especially when you get away from "tanks with legs" and more towards the ones that move like a human being would.

I wouldn't recognize an "anime influence" at my table if it unzipped my pants and started giving me a blow job.

Quote from: Emperor Norton;741870I would say that mecha are incredibly anime inspired. Especially when you get away from "tanks with legs" and more towards the ones that move like a human being would.

...which is odd when you stop and consider that "power armor" was invented by EE Doc Smith and REH.

'course, the "big eye" chibi style animation is a copy of Disney's early work (esp. the Mouse himself...)

Round and round it goes!

Quote from: Shipyard Locked;741780How do you feel about it, especially as the classics of western fantasy that birthed the hobby fade from prominence in geek discourse?

Bemusingly alot of fantasy anime has a very heavy western feel to it and allmost zero asian feel.

Record of Lodoss War is the most famous example. I have some of the later manga in the series and it is done in a more European style even.

How does the anime effect RPGs?
Sometimes you see games that try to ape the style, and usually end up looking pretty awfull. Sometimes you get the anime style where it just has no place. Battletech of all places was one where I found the anime retools of various mechs to just not work vs the more realistic battletech designs. But that is a failure of art direction often and isnt limited to any given genre.

Very few RPGs really try to emulate JRPC games though. Those tend to be VERY story driven to the point you are more often playing through the equivalent of an interactive novel with little to zero branching points and oft zero personal characters. And this is usually the same for most PC and console games. They arent RPGs, they are interactive novels/movies. Even Mass Effect and Knights of the Old Republic are still essentially interactive movies with some branching paths.

That tends to be the diametric opposite of what most want from tabletop RPG.