GURPS Anime...what should be in it?

[Xenarthral]

Originally Posted by rcarter

Seriously though, cowboy bebop was cool and everything but really what is the difference between that and say - gurps space?

As has been pointed out earlier and repeatedly, if in more general terms:
Nothing.
(Well, apart from Cowboy Bebop is a specific setting and GURPS Space is a generic sourcebook.)

[Mysterious Dark Lord v3.2]

It all boils down to this ...

"Anime" games are a style of playing, like power-gaming or role-playing. Rules aren't needed, just a GM with a knack for a certain type of story and a player with a small vocabulary of Japanese words to drop into his dialogue.

All the rules in the previously-published supplements can cover just about any legitimate anime or manga scenario imaginable. (I will not discuss the illegitimate scenarios - that's a matter between the GM, the players, and their gods). Special rules for anime or it's subtypes are simply not needed.

[Kelly Pedersen]

Originally Posted by Mysterious Dark Lord v3.2

Special rules for anime

I'd agree with this...

Originally Posted by Mysterious Dark Lord v3.2

or it's subtypes are simply not needed.

but I think this might go a little too far. There are some distinct styles/genres within anime that might deserve a GURPS treatment (if only a 32-page e23 PDF). I could see GURPS Magical Girls being a useful supplement. While magical girl stories do have a lot of Supers elements, there are a number of genre tropes that are treated very differently from standard Western supers (primarily female protagonists, for one!) Likewise, GURPS Mecha would be a very anime-heavy book - there are non-Japanese mecha shows, but the genre is still pretty much dominated by Japanese elements.
Of course, the larger point, that "Anime in general" can't really be done practically as a GURPS book, still stands.

[Mysterious Dark Lord v3.2]

Originally Posted by Kelly Pedersen

Likewise, GURPS Mecha would be a very anime-heavy book - there are non-Japanese mecha shows, but the genre is still pretty much dominated by Japanese elements.

It was. GURPS Mecha for 3rd edition had all of it's art done manga style, had a suggested world background thick with anime tropes (including a girl mech pilot with funky-colored hair) and even listed the classic "shoujo mallet" as an advantage!

I will concede that mecha may be an exception, but without a crunchy-detailed mecha creation system, I can't see it going for more than 16 pages. With a Spaceships-style soft design system plus examples included, though, a larger pdf supplement could be justified.

[Xenarthral]

Originally Posted by Kelly Pedersen

GURPS Mecha would be a very anime-heavy book

Is.
If memory serves it even has the Hyperdimensional Mallet.

And "a few Japanese words to drop into his dialogue" is not only not required but should be actively discouraged.
The exceptions are words that a serious translator who do not need to cater to rabid fans would leave untranslated, words that would have been used even if the dialogue was not "translated from Japanese" and possibly, if they are not counted in the first category, "flavour words" like honorifics.
Gratuitous Japanese may be used if the character is the type who would use Gratuitous English if the dialogue actually was in Japanese and if the player cannot think up some more appropriate linguistic obnoxiousness to replace it with. (I vaguely recall that things like Valley Girl Speak or Gratuitous French has been used as substitutes.)

[Mgellis]

Originally Posted by Mark Skarr

See, I don't think you could do this, and do any part of it justice. You'd be better off writing a little GURPS Anime in Space for the general sci-fi of Anime. I mean, you could do a GURPS Shojo book, but I can't imagine it selling very well. Just like, while I'd love a GURPS Magical Girls book (mmmmm, Fate Testarossa), I think that would just be a subset of Supers. I don't think it would have enough useful information to be anything other than an incredibly niche product that wouldn't be worth the cost of development.

Sniped by Kelly!

I remain unconvinced. Certainly, you couldn't do "every power and every character type from every variety of anime," but we both know that certain basic character types show up over and over, certain kinds of supernatural critters show up over and over, certain kinds of powers show up over and over, etc. That's the reason why you can have things like Best Student Council and Project A-Ko and people get the jokes.

A comprehensive treatment of every possible anime story? No. I agree. That's not feasible. A solid discussion of the major tropes, settings, powers, and character types, with associated game mechanics and templates? Why not? How would that be any different than Horror, Supers, or Mysteries?

[Mark Skarr]

Originally Posted by Mgellis

A comprehensive treatment of every possible anime story? No. I agree. That's not feasible. A solid discussion of the major tropes, settings, powers, and character types, with associated game mechanics and templates? Why not? How would that be any different than Horror, Supers, or Mysteries?

Because you would have to have large chapters dedicated to all the various genres. Anime isn't a genre. Many of the chapters would need their own, sub-chapters. Going back to Mecha, you could have a discussion of all the different type of Mecha anime. Let's look at just a few and how well they differ:

• Gasaraki = Supernatural Horror + Mecha.
• Neon Genesis Evangelion = Teen Drama + Judeo-Christian Mythology + Mecha
• Mobile Suit GUNDAM = Military Drama + Paranoia + Mecha
• Rah Zephon = Comming of Age + Music + Mecha
• GUNDAM Wing = Boy Band + Mecha
• Armored Trooper VOTOMS Season 1 = Military Drama + Mecha
• GUNDAM 00 = Supers (with Mecha)
• Armored Trooper VOTOMS Season 2 = What? Hunh!? + Mecha
• Macross = Military Drama + Romantic Musical + Mecha + In space!
• Sakura Wars = Dataing Sim + Steampunk + Mecha
• Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann = Mecha + Post Apocalypse + CMoA + Galaxys as throwing stars!

Simply comparing Macross to Mobile Suit GUNDAM there are so many differences between two "funamentally" identical shows that the discussion could fill (and probably has, in Japan) many volumes. Heck, even comparing the various incarnations of GUNDAM would be worth it's own book.

Getting a comprehensive book on Mecha in Anime would be quite diffficult. Not insurmountable, but if you wanted to safely cover all your bases you'd have dozens, or hundreds, of different scenarios to detail. GURPS Mecha really only covered the semi-military drama anime. It left a lot of ground open. I loved the book, and still have my copy. I'll probably go get the PDF version as soon as it becomes available.

All that said, I'd be perfectly happy to be proven wrong. I loves me my Mecha.

(While I may come off as a Mecha Anime buff, I know nothing compared to MonkeyFist.)

[Mailanka]

Ok, to take the opposite approach:

If GURPS has room for Action, which details action movies and their tropes, it has room for Anime Action, which details anime action and its tropes. You might be better off calling it GURPS Wuxia (because much Anime Action, like say Black Lagoon, is basically covered by GURPS Action, much like Anime fantasy is completely covered in GURPS Dungeon Fantasy), but there's still a niche there.

And I really don't see the argument that there isn't a market for these specific anime conventions (Shonen Ninja, or Magical Girl, or Mecha) when we're putting out things like Tales of the Solar Patrol and Lands Out of Time. It's called "the long tail" for a reason! And Anime isn't exactly some strange, exotic, out-of-the-mainstream wierdness. You can walk into any B&N and find an entire wall of the stuff, or flip on your TV and watch it whenever. I have an easier time finding anime in modern american culture than examples of either of the above GURPS books.

[Mailanka]

Originally Posted by Mark Skarr

Because you would have to have large chapters dedicated to all the various genres. Anime isn't a genre. Many of the chapters would need their own, sub-chapters. Going back to Mecha, you could have a discussion of all the different type of Mecha anime. Let's look at just a few and how well they differ:

Yes but one could say the same thing about Space: You have Space Horror (Alien) vs Space Comedy (Red Dwarf, Hitchhiker's Guide) to Space Military Drama (Aliens, Starship Troopers) to Space Adventure (Star Trek, Star Wars). By your argument, making GURPS Space would be "Quite difficult."

I think once you have some serious tropes you can focus on and design rules for (Mecha, piloting and designing them), you're pretty good to go. You don't need to create specific rules for Mecha in Horror vs Mecha in space. You just need core mecha rules, discussions on how to use them in various genres, touch on a few tropes with a discussion of advantages, disadvantages and skills, offer a couple of new perks (shojo mallet would be one), and you're good to go. This is basically what GURPS Mecha WAS, and it was a fine book.

I think the same could be said of Wuxia, Magical Girl, and whatever else you can think of. "Anime" is too broad, "Mecha" is certainly not.

[David L Pulver]

Even if you heavily restrict anime to the gameable sci fi/fantasy/action topics the similarities between, say, an anime like COWBOY BEBOP (anime) and a US tv show like FIREFLY (western tv) are far, far, greater than any similarities between different anime. There's little or no similarity between, say, COWBOY BEBOP (bounty hunters in the solar system), SLAYERS (D&D-inspired over-the-top fantasy), BLOOD (vampires hunting vampires in modern day Asia and Europe), and DRAGONBALL Z (alien superman-level martial artists in a created world) and YOUR UNDER ARREST (traffic cops who get into adventures).

Having a sourcebook that covers both YOUR UNDER ARREST, SLAYERS, COWBOY BEBOP, and DRAGONBALL Z is kind of like releasing a "Hollywood S/F Movies" game that presents rules and tropes for playing Star Wars, Spiderman, Police Academy, and Lord of the Rings in the same sourcebook. Try proposing "GURPS Hollywood SF and Action Movies" and the logical question asked by SJ Games editors would likely be (a) isn't that called "GURPS Basic Set" with appropriate source books and (b) Are you nuts?.

I think the best option is to simply present a *setting* that is based on those elements from particular anime that you don't find reflected in other settings. The games Exalted and CthulhuTech are examples of this. The other approach is to pick an easily defined sub-genre - military mecha, shirow-style cyberpunk, pocket monsters, supernatural martial arts, maid comedy, etc. A third approach that is also viable is to just do a sourcebook that provides useful data on whatever aspect of modern Japanese society reflected in anime you want to emphasize: street racing, high school, j-pop music and idols, whatever. For example, a " Japan Pop/Idol" sourcebook covering making it in Japanese-style showbiz as a teen could let you do NANA, DETROIT METAL CITY, SKIP BEAT, and K-ON! and with crossovers handle MACROSS FRONTIER...

Multigenre "Anime Games" such as Big Eyes, Small Mouth that try to handle every (action) anime genre are simply multi-genre GURPS/HERO generic games and some attached sourcebook material and anime style art.

This is certainly a viable approach, but GURPS already covers 90% of this; the rest is best handled by looking up the data online. After all, we don't want "GURPS Western PC Games" to come out with an attempt to cover all necessary source templates and powers and details for running Grand Theft Auto, World of Warcraft, Halo, Call of Duty, Half-Life, Eve Online, and City of Heroes in one book... On the other hand, as Kromm has proposed, taking the single most identifiable western computer game trope - the first person sci-fi inspired shooter (Doom and imitators) is quite doable. This is the equivalent of a "GURPS Mecha" approach.