WotC Wizards D&D Japan releasing cool art.

[Blue Orange]

Wait a minute, how is that guy using a halberd with a shield!?

It's a stylized kamayari!

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

Sincerely I congratulate the work by this artist. It is very manga style, but also it has got the spirit or essence of D&D franchise.

I have used the google translator and D&D Japan twitter says:

New information lifted 1/3

Popular illustrator #Hisashi Momose

designed it with an original setting[/ICODE], and its PV was released⚔

The voice of the character uses a gorgeous voice actor!
Please take a look at the video full of charm of D&D!

---

I guess they want to produce an actual-play show, the Japanese version of Critical Role.

I dare to say D&D in Japan is not only good for Hasbro/WotC but for youngest generation of Japan because the TTRPGs promote the four Cs of the education: Critical Thinking, Communication, Creativity and Colaboration.

 

[Iosue]

It's not an actual play show, they just got some rather well-known voice actors to do the character voices for the promo. They're introducing these original characters as sample characters in the Starter Set. The character designs are by Hisashi Momose, a well-known illustrator.

The characters (in order of appearance) are:
Ray - Wood elf fighter - In the promo, he says, "I'll find it -- my own destiny."
Alissa - High elf wizard - She says, "Burn away, Flaming Sphere!"
Morgano - Hill dwarf cleric - She says, "May the holy grace be with us!"
Dion Garrix - Human paladin - He says, "I'll show you my beautiful blade of justice."
Marshkarot - Lightfoot halfling rogue - He says, "Well, let's take it easy while we're alive."

The designs are very much Japanese-style western fantasy. In Japan, male dwarves are pretty much like male dwarves in the West, but female dwarves are essentially imagined as short girls.

It's very cool that they're putting up some coin to localize the game somewhat, and get relatively well-known (in otaku circles) artists involved. But I find the "D&D finally arrives in Japan!" stuff a little rich, considering that it was already in Japan, licensed by Hobby Japan, before WotC pulled the license and brought everything in-house.

There is a tabletop games event called Game Market that is starting on Oct. 29. There will be an opportunity to take place in a trial session of D&D, and participants will get free gifts: stand-up character tokens, character sheets for the original character (with artwork), a D&D totebag and a D&D file folder.

Edit: I didn't check before, but these are the races and classes of the Dragon of Stormwreck Isle pregens. I do find it interesting that they actually went ahead and gave the pregens names, designs, and personalities. That's not usually a thing here.

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

I feel a lot of curiosity about an official D&D setting created by and for Japaneses and these adding their own style. Also I wonder if that setting has got some opened door about a future "spin-off" based in their own vision of far-east Asian cultures and the rich mythology about yokais and company. Other idea is if they are going to create a "waifu" version of the antropomorphic PC lineages (harengon and tabaxi) because kemonomimi-musume (girls with animal-ears) are popular in the fantasy manganime. The fact is the "kemonomimi" are more usual in manganime fantasy (isekai = "other world", the trope of people from this world travelling to a fantasy land, some times by means of a reencarnation) than the classic D&D lineages.

I wonder if the plasmoids and the harengon were created as a wink for the otaku community.

 

[Weiley31]

Wait a minute, how is that guy using a halberd with a shield!?

Ogre Grip – 5th Edition SRD

Clearly the player took that Feat.

 

[Weiley31]

I wonder if the plasmoids and the harengon were created as a wink for the otaku community.

I mean, I can't be the ONLY ONE who plays the Plasmoids, Harengons, and Owlkin as Monster Girls when it comes to their looks.

Right?................................................right?

 

[Baron Opal II]

I knew the Record of the Lodoss War anime was based on a real D&D campaign in Japan but I'm surprised to see just how closely some of the character designs of the show match the style of these player class archetypes.

I know, right? When I saw the elf design I thought "Deedlit!"

The ad was fun. I liked the bit "You're still wearing your costume?" "It's cool, alright?"

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I wonder if the plasmoids and the harengon were created as a wink for the otaku community.

I don't think so. Otaku, by definition, don't play TTRPGs, particularly not in Japan.

If you're using otaku as a weird shorthand for "anime fans" (which it should not be used as, they're a distinct category), then I still don't think so, because D&D is still missing catgirls, which are the absolutely key race here, and no Tabaxi do not even slightly count, because they're not kemonomimi.

D&D is really weird about animal-people races, in that it has tons of them, but they're like, not what furries or certain anime fans want (scalies on the other hand that's a whole other discussion). D&D doesn't even have an official dog/wolf-person race is which just kind of wack (esp. given there are entire 3PP supplements, with their own range of expansion-supplements for precisely that).

 

[MonsterEnvy]

I don't think so. Otaku, by definition, don't play TTRPGs, particularly not in Japan.

If you're using otaku as a weird shorthand for "anime fans" (which it should not be used as, they're a distinct category), then I still don't think so, because D&D is still missing catgirls, which are the absolutely key race here, and no Tabaxi do not even slightly count, because they're not kemonomimi.

D&D is really weird about animal-people races, in that it has tons of them, but they're like, not what furries or certain anime fans want (scalies on the other hand that's a whole other discussion). D&D doesn't even have an official dog/wolf-person race is which just kind of wack (esp. given there are entire 3PP supplements, with their own range of expansion-supplements for precisely that).

Japan tends to have a Beastfolk race which covers most animal niches.

One D&D has something like that now with the Ardlings.

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

In my land "otaku" isn't a pejorative term against the manganime fans, and even it is the title of a magazine.

In the "isekai" fiction there are more "kemonomimi" than other relatively standars D&D lineages as halflings, dwarves and gnomes. Some times the female smaller humanoids are showed like legal lolitas.

If the hengeyokai is a PC lineage again in 5th Ed then you can bet to be found lots of waifu-kemonomimi as D&D hengeyokai characters.

The kemonomimi-musume ("girl with animal ears") may be cute, but if the ears are in the top of the head, then the ear canals can't be horizontal like the standar humanoid skull taxonomy. The hengeyokai can show four ears, two normal to listen and the two on the top of the head only for cosmetic, to show their lineage.

* Hasbro wants Japanese teenages get used to TTRPGs, even althought these had to use VTT.

* The lupines from Mystara was "cynocephale" (dog-headed) PC lineage.

* I hope no complains about a new version of korokoburu ( = "folk under the fuki leaves") PC lineage because this creature is from follore by Auni people. I imagine the D&D version wearing hats by fuki leaves because in their culture it is sign of good fortune.