WotC Wizards D&D Japan releasing cool art.

[GMforPowergamers]

Going from the automatic translation on Twitter, it looks like they're doing an animated commercial (PV is short for "Promotional Video" for the starter set with each of the pre-gens that are included in the box. The thread has the character designs for each of the characters and their voice actors - subsequent posts have messages from the actors (basically along the lines of "I'm glad to be a part of this project!")

Cast members are:
Sho FUJISAWA (No major credits) as Marshcarrot (Halfling Rogue)
Ichitarō KaI (Vtuber) as Dion Galax (Human Paladin)
Rina KAWAGUCHI (Record of Ragnarok) as Morgano (Dwarven Cleric)
Nobunaga SHIMAZAKI (Fruits Basket, Fate/Grand Order, Grimgar Ashes and Illusions, et. al.) as Ray (Elven Fighter)
Yoko Hikasa (K-On, New Game, Berserk 2016, Violet Evergarden, et. al.) as Alyssa (Elven Wizard)

please
someone link the video when it comes out

 

[Ruin Explorer]

If you want to sell a product to different audiences, having slight variations on the art to actually target that audience makes a lot of sense. It will be interesting to see if they do more changes to things other than just art in the future, having some of the fluff get away from the psuedo-European could be a good thing.

I mean, with Japan and South Korea you don't need to get away from the pseudo-European thing, because they absolutely love it. South Korea in fact maybe does the pseudo-European fantasy aesthetic better than America does! Or Europe even!

Hell, look at something like Elden Ring, one of the best-selling videogames of recent years, entirely Japanese made, with a very "pseudo-European" aesthetic (there are some samurai swords and o-yoroi-type armour and the like, but the focus is absolutely on pseudo-European). Or look back to Dragon's Dogma, which absolutely nailed a sort of "1980s AD&D" visual style vibe, much harder than literally any game produced in the West since the actual '80s.

Another benefit of this kind of marketing diversity is that often see it boomerang and help with the audience in countries it wasn't intended for. I'm sure a lot of Western fans would enjoy this manga/anime approach/art for example.

 

[Sacrosanct]

There's always rewatching this Japanese commercial. Although, I can't help notice how the ranger shoots an arrow after the wizard already took out the zombies, so apparently even the producers aren't happy with the ranger class

 

[John R Davis]

Not a bad advert; last ten seconds or so a tad cringey

 

[Blue Orange]

I mean, with Japan and South Korea you don't need to get away from the pseudo-European thing, because they absolutely love it. South Korea in fact maybe does the pseudo-European fantasy aesthetic better than America does! Or Europe even!

Hell, look at something like Elden Ring, one of the best-selling videogames of recent years, entirely Japanese made, with a very "pseudo-European" aesthetic (there are some samurai swords and o-yoroi-type armour and the like, but the focus is absolutely on pseudo-European). Or look back to Dragon's Dogma, which absolutely nailed a sort of "1980s AD&D" visual style vibe, much harder than literally any game produced in the West since the actual '80s.

Right. What's exotic to us is native to them, and vice versa. Knights fully encased in platemail, 'temples' with intricate stained-glass windows, and dragons that look like winged lizards instead of snakes with legs and beards are the imagination of an exotic, faraway land.

Another benefit of this kind of marketing diversity is that often see it boomerang and help with the audience in countries it wasn't intended for. I'm sure a lot of Western fans would enjoy this manga/anime approach/art for example.

Like the ones on this site

I'm like the opposite: I dislike most anime and manga, but to me D&D is exactly this: the tabletop version of Final Fantasy/Dragonquest/Shin Megami Tensei!

Have you tried Ultima Fabula? It was promoted here, and does a pretty job of turning Final Fantasy and its imitators into a playable tabletop game. I actually like some of their narrative inventions.

 

[darjr]

 

[darjr]

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Right. What's exotic to us is native to them, and vice versa. Knights fully encased in platemail, 'temples' with intricate stained-glass windows, and dragons that look like winged lizards instead of snakes with legs and beards are the imagination of an exotic, faraway land.

I mean, I think exotic is a bit outdated and I don't mean that in a "problematic word" way, I mean, the Western and Japan are like so familiar with each other's fantasy cultures at this point (certainly people below 50 anyway) that neither finds the other "exotic", especially as anyone under 30 literally grew up with this stuff (as did many older people - I mean jeez half the cartoons I watched as a kid were anime and I'm 44 - albeit some was hybrid Japanese/French anime, like Ulysses 31). South Korea is also really familiar with Western stuff, and whilst the West is less familiar with South Korea, that's kind of changing. It is different to say, the '80s, where a samurai, for example, was definitely regarded with a sort of awe and seen as alien, and now they're more just a kind of warrior with certain gear and training - there's a lot less Orientalist talk of "bushido" and "codes of honor" and so on - and a big reason for that is that we're often viewing Japanese takes on samurai and the like, which are more cynical and less wide-eyed than Western ones. Just like Western takes on knights tend to be cynical re: chivalry (something Japanese culture seems to have absorbed), because we know that historically, they weren't great.

 

[Sacrosanct]

Right. What's exotic to us is native to them, and vice versa. Knights fully encased in platemail, 'temples' with intricate stained-glass windows, and dragons that look like winged lizards instead of snakes with legs and beards are the imagination of an exotic, faraway land.

I recall reading an article* in the late 80s about Japan's infatuation with medieval Europe while we were infatuated with ninjas and samurai. It was basically this, people like what's exotic to them.

* The article was based on NES games like Dragon Warrior, but still stood for general context.

 

[Blue Orange]

I mean, I think exotic is a bit outdated and I don't mean that in a "problematic word" way, I mean, the Western and Japan are like so familiar with each other's fantasy cultures at this point (certainly people below 50 anyway) that neither finds the other "exotic", especially as anyone under 30 literally grew up with this stuff (as did many older people - I mean jeez half the cartoons I watched as a kid were anime and I'm 44 - albeit some was hybrid Japanese/French anime, like Ulysses 31). South Korea is also really familiar with Western stuff, and whilst the West is less familiar with South Korea, that's kind of changing. It is different to say, the '80s, where a samurai, for example, was definitely regarded with a sort of awe and seen as alien, and now they're more just a kind of warrior with certain gear and training - there's a lot less Orientalist talk of "bushido" and "codes of honor" and so on - and a big reason for that is that we're often viewing Japanese takes on samurai and the like, which are more cynical and less wide-eyed than Western ones. Just like Western takes on knights tend to be cynical re: chivalry (something Japanese culture seems to have absorbed), because we know that historically, they weren't great.

Those are very good points. I somehow missed the anime boat (OK, my reaction was 'there is just too much of this stuff for me to ever see even a small fraction of it so I am just going to ignore it'), am finally discovering it now late in life (I'm roughly your age) and am constantly amazed at the craftsmanship of the art and complexity and emotional depth of the stories. I'm imagining if Starscream hated Megatron and wanted to overthrow him not just because he was power hungry but also because they had been friends back on Cybertron and Megatron moved up ahead in the Decepticon ranks faster and Starscream also had unrequited love for Soundwave but Soundwave didn't notice him because he was too obsessed with Megatron...and all the backgrounds were done out with the detail of a Renaissance painting.