D&D General D&D vs. Anime

[Alzrius]

Not sure if this is a false-construct or if anything to it, but I seem to notice that I have my anime friends and I have my D&D friends. The guys/gals who are into anime seem to have a different preferred aesthetic than the ones who gravitate toward D&D.

I'll make a fairly large generalization, since both D&D and anime have wider ranges than their stereotypical depictions, but in my experience this comes down to D&D being thought of as comparatively low-power fantasy whereas anime is often noted as being high-power fantasy.

Exceptions to those characterizations are numerous, of course, but I think a lot of people still look at D&D as "Conan and Gandalf team up to fight Dracula," whereas anime is often viewed as "lots of loud screams as energy blasts are fired, dozens of punches are exchanged in seconds, and massive explosions change the landscape."

 

[SkidAce]

My experience is that there are three types; D&D fans, anime fans, and D&D and anime fans.

My current friends are of the 3rd category, as am I.

All Hail Record of Lodoss War!

 

[SkidAce]

I could play D&D in a Genshin Impact setting.

 

[Scribe]

I like both anime and D&D, as do most of my D&D-playing friends. I think your assessment is completely off-base. Also, worth noting that since the majority of the Critical Role cast does a lot of voice acting work in anime dubs, there is a tremendous amount of crossover between the two hobbies in their fandom.

And if I was a betting man, I would say this is where the potential for growth is.

 

[Alzrius]

All Hail Record of Lodoss War!

Did Pirotess do more to make dark elves popular than Drizzt?

The answer, of course, is no...but it's easy to see how someone could think otherwise:

 

[ShinHakkaider]

I found D&D in 1983. I found anime (and I mean unsubbed, untranslated anime as well as Robotech) in 1985. I'm STILL into anime as I've never stopped loving a good shonen. I'm still into TTRPG's but no longer playing or running D&D.

I've loved BOTH for 35+ years.

 

[Minigiant]

Number of PC kills I've done via Saibamen as a DM: 2

Many D&D fans are anime fans. Best place to steal minor villains from.

 

[Benjamin Olson]

D&D is full of anime fans. It's the principle subject of table talk for which I tune out completely.

 

[Blue Orange]

Ironically I never got into anime because I was just old enough to not really be exposed to it as a kid and now there's way too much of it to call myself a real fan. I assume some of it is very good.

There's a huge amount of crossover--anime, D&D, superheroes, comics, sci-fi, fantasy, and the like seem to attract a lot of the same people. So you could probably find small differences between, say, superhero fans and sci-fi fans, but there are a lot of superhero and sci-fi fans and I suspect any differences would be local and not very consistent between different samples.

I suspect you'd find bigger differences between, say, D&D and football fans, though of course there are people who like both...

(There was a study a while ago where they had word clouds for each of the ends of the five variables in the five-factor model, and introverts seemed to like a lot of 'geek' stuff, though D&D doesn't come up.)

 

[NaturalZero]

The youngest player in my groups is around 35 and oldest is probably 60+. IDK about who likes anime but I have yet to see an actual "gritty, realistic" aesthetic in DnD.