GURPS Anime...what should be in it?

[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.