My D&D Game would suffer without Anime!!!!

[Blind Azathoth]

Oh boy, a topic about anime complete with bashing, stupid generalizations about what is a medium and not a genre, and unfounded stereotypes... it's just like the rest of the Internet! Tsk, tsk. I expected better from you, EN World.

Not all anime is the same. Not every anime is like Inuyasha, Love Hina, Neon Genesis Evangelion, or whatever other shoddy series you've seen aired on Cartoon Network. It is a very diverse medium with some well-defined genres outside of the stereotypical categories of "giant robots," "guy/girl with a harem of girls/guys," "people with spiky hair have over the top sword fights," and "animated porn." Sure, there's lots of anime like that... but there's lots of anime that isn't. Besides, in every medium--TV, movies, books, whatever--there's always a few types of really crappy story that get told again and again. Giant robot anime are the Japanese cartoon equivalents of the American procedurals and by-the-numbers cop dramas like CSI or Law & Order.

There are some very mature, well-written examples of anime that dispense with clichés and that might, if they weren't animated and from Japan, manage to be fairly popular here. Some of you folks might even like them. Monster, for instance. A fairly realistic, psychological, character-oriented drama/thriller set in Germany in the 80s and early 90s, completely lacking magic, swords, robots of any size, and people with animal body parts probably isn't what most folks expect from anime, but it is anime. (And I heartily recommend it, though if you still don't feel like checking it out because it's anime, wait a couple of years for the Hollywood movie versions.)

And while shows like Monster (and similar anime of higher quality) might be rarer than "cyborg cat-girls fight tentacle monsters in space" kind of stuff, they do still exist, and I feel it would not be fair to dismiss the medium entirely because of a few shows that even I admit suck.

 

[FireLance]

So does anybody else play D&D with an anime influence?

Seeing as how I grew up in Singapore, I think it would be practically impossible to separate out the anime influence from my D&D.

On the other hand, I think my D&D game would suffer without fairy tales. I've heard that some fairy tales like Sleeping Beauty and Red Riding Hood contain adult themes, and that other fairy tales like Snow White and the Goose Girl feature enough vengeance and cruelty to make a paladin fall, but I think fairy tales as a whole are varied and interesting enough for me to generally enjoy them and grab a few ideas from them for my games.

 

[Sejs]

No but if I ever want to imagine a game of D&D that's poorly animated with pubescent rape fantasies, I'll bear anime in mind.

Yeah, I would never let modern cinema influence my game. I mean, it'd all just be Backdoor Sluts #9 d20.

Pfft. No thank you.

 

[Stone Dog]

That's an invalid analogy by your definition of Animé. If Animé is not a genre then you can't compare it to horror and romantic comedy genres. That said, I'm also of the opinion that Animé, genre or medium or whatever, sucks. The stories might be fascinating but I can't get past the Animé-part.

Actually, I meant to compare it to kinds of movies because it is set up from a different cultural perspective. Some people don't dig on the sub culture of horror fandom or fantasy or whatever and some people have a bit of a disconnect because of the different perspective between America (or native country of choice) and Japan (or korea or wherever it came from). It happens, no big deal.

I fully understand that the aesthetics of it bother some people. Can't get past the style that things are drawn in regardless of whether they are big eyes small mouth or fairly realistic with some "traditional" influences. No problem. Tarring the whole medium with the tentacle rape brush is what is unfair.

And Tarek... I guess I see your point, but I still don't recall the "its all a dream anyway" bits. It may have been a while. Most of the anime I've seen neatly avoids all that though. I think that for every Evangelion there is something like Escaflowne or Witch Hunter Robin where not everybody goes nihilisticly nutso. You want to see depressing nihilism taken to an almost absurd degree watch X sometime. There is some neat stuff in there, but when you watch the movie... Oh god... to me it was almost the definition of unintentionally hilarious. Severed head fetish movie... Oh man I should dig that thing up again.

I'll agree though that those that you mentioned WERE some of the first exposures America had. Between that and tentacle porn being the most commonly imported in the early days it is no wonder that misconception is so popular.



Azathoth? For a gibbering idiot monstrosity you post fairly well.

 

[ruleslawyer]

Oh boy, a topic about anime complete with bashing, stupid generalizations about what is a medium and not a genre, and unfounded stereotypes... it's just like the rest of the Internet! Tsk, tsk. I expected better from you, EN World.

Not all anime is the same. Not every anime is like Inuyasha, Love Hina, Neon Genesis Evangelion, or whatever other shoddy series you've seen aired on Cartoon Network. It is a very diverse medium with some well-defined genres outside of the stereotypical categories of "giant robots," "guy/girl with a harem of girls/guys," "people with spiky hair have over the top sword fights," and "animated porn." Sure, there's lots of anime like that... but there's lots of anime that isn't. Besides, in every medium--TV, movies, books, whatever--there's always a few types of really crappy story that get told again and again. Giant robot anime are the Japanese cartoon equivalents of the American procedurals and by-the-numbers cop dramas like CSI or Law & Order.

There are some very mature, well-written examples of anime that dispense with clichés and that might, if they weren't animated and from Japan, manage to be fairly popular here. Some of you folks might even like them.

Very true. IMHO, the biggest problem with anime is genre bloat. There is a LOT of stuff out there that isn't Cowboy Bebop, or Monster, or Reign, or (to stretch the genre definiton) Miyazaki's films. Heck, the overwhelming mass of it doesn't even come up to the level of, say, Ninja Scroll, which at least has the story values and action dynamic of a vaguely decent chop-socky live-action martial-arts film.

But, this problem exists with comic books, fantasy fiction, and lots of other stuff that D&Ders certainly seem to like a lot.

 

[Kishin]

I can't imagine anybody watching Grave of the Fireflies and not getting seriously choked up.

I'm pretty sure anyone who can is a completely soulless automaton.

The problem with most people's experience with anime is the stuff that manages to make it out of Japan and garner an audience isn't exactly the crème de la crème. This, of course, has created a stigma which has gradually been expanded to encompass more than it should. Witness the insane popularity of Gundam Wing compared to the significantly more well written, cohesive and better characterized Zeta Gundam, or the obscurity of fantastic shows like Wings of Honneamise compared to say, Sailor Moon. As a result of this, most people's experiences with anime have been zany, over the top shows like Dragon Ball Z (Or its thinly veiled imposter of recent days, Naruto) than something bleak and apocalyptic like Space Runaway Ideon or a dark thriller like Monster. Add that to the fact that for awhile, the stuff coming in was heavily edited, improperly translated, or transformed into something entirely different (Macross, Genesis Climber Mospeada and Super Dimension Cavalry Southern Cross being combined to form Robotech), and cap it off with the fact that it can admittedly be hard to see animation as capable of serious storytelling, and well...things get messy. Of course, on the opposite end of the zany, absurdist spectrum you have Neon Genesis Evangelion....which also does anime no favours when presented to a wider audience given how pretentious, bizarre and grotesque it occasionally manages to be.

There's good anime and bad anime, just like everything else. You're certainly not obligated to like it, but I find dismissing something with such an diverse variety of stories amongst an equally divergent number of genres a bit hasty. Take what you like from it, leave the rest, but don't be closed off to the possibility that some of it might appeal to you.

 

[Ranger REG]

Anime is a style of film animation, not a genre in and of itself.

Anime is not one but many styles of film animation, ranging from the serious artwork (e.g., Robotech/Macross) to the kiddie "face faults" (e.g., Pokemon, One Piece).

 

[BRP2]

Pokemon and One Piece wouldn't be what I consider the same genre.

I don't know why people watch anime so much... manga is superior in just about every way. And I'm not even talking about dubbed anime.

PS. The "Death Note" manga(and anime is pretty great too) I can fairly say was better than anything I've read/watched/enjoyed in the last 10 years. It's just brilliant.

 

[Malhost Zormaeril]

Very true. IMHO, the biggest problem with anime is genre bloat. There is a LOT of stuff out there that isn't Cowboy Bebop, or Monster, or Reign, or (to stretch the genre definiton) Miyazaki's films. Heck, the overwhelming mass of it doesn't even come up to the level of, say, Ninja Scroll, which at least has the story values and action dynamic of a vaguely decent chop-socky live-action martial-arts film.

But, this problem exists with comic books, fantasy fiction, and lots of other stuff that D&Ders certainly seem to like a lot.

Exactly! I always thought that was the medium's greatest strength: There's so much stuff being made that even if Japanese studios were only half as competent as American ones, you'd still have five times as many prime-quality shows being aired... It's just a question of finding them. But that's what the Internet is for!

 

[Philotomy Jurament]

So does anybody else play D&D with an anime influence?

Even given the influence of three years living in Japan, I'd have to say no.