Anime series as a campaign

[BNakagawa]

Re: Anime series as a campaign

 

That sounds like Mahoraba.

 

The main character is an art student who is working towards being a writer/illustrator of children's books.

 

The female lead is a distant relative of his who has as described above, multiple personalities which emerge when triggered by some trauma. (note that trauma can be interpeted as simply tripping and falling)

 

Kozue-chan, the main personality, has four alternate identities, which are distinguishable by their behavior, hairstyles, and eye color.

 

One of them is a cheerful 10 year old, one is a very aggressive (and surprisingly masculine) wild woman, one is a cosplay maniac who insists on dressing and redressing everyone she encounters (except Tama, her partner in crime) and the last is a very introverted girl who is good at magic tricks.

 

it's a really cute show. The supporting cast all have their own moments and the art is just insufferably appealing. Not just another harem anime show.

[BNakagawa]

Re: Anime series as a campaign

 

Strike Witches is a new show which features a cast of (mostly) teenaged girls that appear to have some combination of both animal characteristics and anthropomorphized WWII fighters.

 

The storyline is that the world got attacked by aliens and somehow the technology to graft mecha bits on these girls (on their legs) and add some animal characteristics (they have animal ears and tails when powered up) is developed. Also, they appear to have super-strength, as they wield weapons that take several unpowered soldiers to lift.

 

Charlotte E. Yeager is the name of the american representative. She's got the biggest hooters. (go figure)

[Michael Hopcroft]

Re: Anime series as a campaign

 

I dare someone to make an RPG adventure out of Paranoia Agent. Now that's what I call a mind-bleep par excellence.

[NuSoardGraphite]

Re: Anime series as a campaign

 

I might be biased, but I can't let a thread like this go by without mentioning The Five Star Stories

 

Check it out if you aren't familiar with it:

 

http://www.gearsonline.net/fss/

 

Take a gander at the character listing (don't forget to also look at the Fatima lists) and keep in mind that the list of characters is only about 1/3 complete.

 

This is a story about the life and times of a major diety as he achieves enlightenment and learns about the lifeforms and the universe he created. As complicated as that might seem, the actual tale is far more complex. It bends and twists through time and dimensions, beginning with the end of an era and jumping through various points in time..sometimes into the past, othertimes into the future and sometimes into other universes entirely, but ultimately with one goal in mind; the main character must learn what it is that makes homo-sapiens tick, and why they do the things that they do so that he may one day evolve into the benevolent superme deity who creates their universe.

 

The mind boggles.

 

Of course, as philisophical as that might seem (and the story is quite cerebral at times) it is absolutely filled with tons of action and humor. At its heart, it is a Science Fantasy tale of Mythical proportions. With Sorcerors and superknights, Dragons and demons, superpowerful mecha and subserviant bioroids set against a backdrop of petty kingdoms, dominating empires, scheming tyrants and manipulative otherworldly forces.

 

Complicated doesn't even begin to describe it.

 

Thus, it is perfect RPG fodder.

[CountZero]

Re: Anime series as a campaign

 

More campaigns from the anime-inspiration wish list:

 

Gunsmith Cats -- Dark Champions -- This was a very fun anime miniseries based on a long-running manga about a highly unlikely pair of female gunsmiths / bounty hunters in (a Japanese impression of) Chicago as they do battle with a gang of weapon smugglers and a female Russian assassin from hell. The opening credits sequence's homage to The Streets of San Francisco was worth the price of admission for me, but the rest of this woefully short series was fun, too -- I would offer this one up to Hollywood for a live-action makeover.

 

Interesting fact: When the anime was being made, the animators went to Chicago, took very detailed photographs of many of the major areas where action was taking place, reference photographs of every single gun that was being used, test fired every single gun being used (and filmed it). And, apparently, Gunsmith Cats is responsible for so many guns in Anime anymore being recognizable as real-life guns.

 

Anyway, the Fatal Fury OVAs and the Street Fighter series could work very well for a ninja hero campaign. (Or even, for that matter, taking the interesting metaplot of the King of Fighters games and adapting that.)

[Susano]

Re: Anime series as a campaign

 

Interesting fact: When the anime was being made, the animators went to Chicago, took very detailed photographs of many of the major areas where action was taking place, reference photographs of every single gun that was being used, test fired every single gun being used (and filmed it). And, apparently, Gunsmith Cats is responsible for so many guns in Anime anymore being recognizable as real-life guns.

 

Anyway, the Fatal Fury OVAs and the Street Fighter series could work very well for a ninja hero campaign. (Or even, for that matter, taking the interesting metaplot of the King of Fighters games and adapting that.)

 

See Ninja Hero for more on that idea.

[Samuraiko]

Re: Anime series as a campaign

 

So is Satella from Chrono Crusade.

 

I love that character. Her interplay with Rosette is some of the absolute best in the show, and she is just a bad-a** on her own. Would love to have seen a few more of her stones in action, though.

 

Michelle

aka

Samuraiko

[Samuraiko]

Re: Anime series as a campaign

 

Two others that would make really good campaign worlds...

 

SAMURAI 7 (L5R meets Cyberpunk)

 

MADLAX (the war in Gothz-Sonika, the notion of the Essence, all that good stuff)

 

Correction, three series.

 

KIDDY GRADE (the ES members are Champions-level easily, and my upcoming tech character Morrigan is based a lot on Lumiere and Tweedledee)

 

Michelle

aka

Samuraiko

[Susano]

Re: Anime series as a campaign

 

Two others that would make really good campaign worlds...

 

SAMURAI 7 (L5R meets Cyberpunk)

 

I am really digging this show. I saw roughly 10-13 episodes via downloading, and have bought DVDs 1 & 2 and plan to get the rest at the rate of one every paycheck.

 

My only beef is the unskippable Funmation ads at the start of every DVD....

[Samuraiko]

Re: Anime series as a campaign

 

You can skip the ads at the start - hit MENU or TITLE on your remote, and voila, you're past. Trust me, I have the entire series. It kicks major a** all the way through, the story stays strong, the characters stay cool, it is easily one of my top three favorite animes of all time.

 

I've also done four videos for this series, which are all up on YouTube. Watch ONLY "For Glory, For Honor, For Love, For Bushido" if you haven't seen the entire series (you can find it on YouTube by entering in "Samuraiko Productions" as the keywords, all of my videos are tagged with them).

 

The rest have uber-spoilers, so watch at your own risk!

 

FG,FH,FL,FB is one of my favorites.

 

Michelle

aka

Samuraiko

[Susano]

Re: Anime series as a campaign

 

You can skip the ads at the start - hit MENU or TITLE on your remote' date=' and voila, you're past. Trust me, I have the entire series. It kicks major a** all the way through, the story stays strong, the characters stay cool, it is easily one of my top three favorite animes of all time.[/quote']

 

Must be my remote, because Menu goes nowhere and I'm not sure if Ihave a Title button.

 

I've also done four videos for this series, which are all up on YouTube. Watch ONLY "For Glory, For Honor, For Love, For Bushido" if you haven't seen the entire series (you can find it on YouTube by entering in "Samuraiko Productions" as the keywords, all of my videos are tagged with them).

 

The rest have uber-spoilers, so watch at your own risk!

 

Having seen Seven Samurai I already know who lives and who dies, so there can't be much to spoil for me.

[Samuraiko]

Re: Anime series as a campaign

 

It's not just about who lives and who dies (although yes, the body count is the same as the film), it's how all the original material that does NOT appear in the Kurosawa film gets resolved that's spoiler-ish.

 

I do have to give full kudos to FUNimation's dub though (and their scripting) on this one - this is probably one of their best jobs ever. I love just listening to the show (I have the last eight or nine episodes saved as WAV files - because not all video files play properly at work - and can just sit and listen.)

 

Yeah, I'm a geek.

 

Michelle

aka

Samuraiko

[Susano]

Re: Anime series as a campaign

 

It's not just about who lives and who dies (although yes, the body count is the same as the film), it's how all the original material that does NOT appear in the Kurosawa film gets resolved that's spoiler-ish.

 

I presume you are talking about good old Ukiyo and his obsession with the priestess of water?

 

I do have to give full kudos to FUNimation's dub though (and their scripting) on this one - this is probably one of their best jobs ever. I love just listening to the show (I have the last eight or nine episodes saved as WAV files - because not all video files play properly at work - and can just sit and listen.)

 

Can't stand dubs myself. They all sound so danged flat. Except for the FLCL dub, which is fantastic.

[Samuraiko]

Re: Anime series as a campaign

 

The whole thing with Ukyo and Ayamoro, the story of the Capital, the story of Kirara and Katsushiro, the story of Rikichi and Sanae, the story of Honoka and her sister, the relationship of Shichiroji and Yukino, etc.

 

And regarding the dub-vs-sub debate, to each his own.

 

Michelle

aka

Samuraiko

[Talon65]

Re: Anime series as a campaign

 

Gunsmith Cats- Muscle car and gun-bunny goodness.

 

Cowboy Beebop- Guns, spaceships and jazz music.

 

Tank Police- PCs running rampant with TANKS in the name of the law!

 

Bubblegum Crisis- Chicks in power suits with stilettos are just cool...

 

Read or Die- Superpowered book hunters!? Mmmm, Ms. Deep...

[Michael Hopcroft]

Re: Anime series as a campaign

 

Hyper Police - demon hunting private cops, most of whom are animal-human hybrids, have adventures that are sometimes wacky and sometimes scary.

 

I always referred to Buibblegum Crisis as "Rock & Roll Babes in Power Armor", even though only one of the Knight Sabers is a musician.

[StGrimblefig]

Re: Anime series as a campaign

 

BPS - Battle Programmer Shirase -- Freelance programmer (who can program a mainframe from a borrowed cellphone) fighting against evil hacker the King of America.

 

O.K., so this one hasn't officially made it over here yet. And it is probably not active enough to make a roleplaying campaign. I just want to be in a session and yell "Hissatsu! Double Compile!"

[Michael Hopcroft]

Re: Anime series as a campaign

 

BPS - Battle Programmer Shirase -- Freelance programmer (who can program a mainframe from a borrowed cellphone) fighting against evil hacker the King of America.

 

O.K., so this one hasn't officially made it over here yet. And it is probably not active enough to make a roleplaying campaign. I just want to be in a session and yell "Hissatsu! Double Compile!"

 

My friends viewed this series largely as a vehicle for Misao Amano, the little girl who "takes care of" the hero (and has a tendency to be caught with him in innocent yet highly compromising positions -- quite literally in at least one case). Misao is a character who was borrowed from the Pretty Sammy TV series (known here as Magical Project S), where she was Sasami's best friend and also the unknowing alter-ego of Pretty Sammy's bat-**** crazy rival, Pixie Misa (she transformed when an alien bird hypnotized her, a shapeshifting boy whom we quickly dubbed "the Budgie from Hell").

 

Misao appears in the newest Tenchiverse side series, Sasami: Mahou Shoujo Club, but as a mage rather than a magical girl (she has the power to dampen others' magic, and her depression is so powerful it is a visible and palpable force).

[Shigeru]

Re: Anime series as a campaign

 

Back in the day, a friend and I decided to run an Aeon Flux game. Mind you, this was during the Liquid TV days and before it was picked up for its own series and waaaay before it was a bad film.

 

There was a high body count, many killing attacks and absolutely no resistant defenses allowed. A brutal, fun, fast and furious game. Impossible to take too seriously.

[StGrimblefig]

Re: Anime series as a campaign

 

My friends viewed this series largely as a vehicle for Misao Amano' date=' the little girl who "takes care of" the hero (and has a tendency to be caught with him in innocent yet highly compromising positions -- quite literally in at least one case).[/quote']

I saw it quite the opposite, she is primarily a cameo to try to draw in viewers who would not normally be interested in an anime about a computer hacker. She really doesn't have that much to do with most of the stories, iirc.

 

And of course, she is necessary for the running gag of the series -- having BPS get caught in an apparently compromising situation with her by the prospective employer.

[Michael Hopcroft]

Re: Anime series as a campaign

 

Magical Project S presents an interesting campaign premise in itself; rival extradimensional princesses competing for a throne choose Earthly champions; the winner gets to be Queen, the loser gets to bitch about it for the next few eons, and the girls get all kinds of hassles dealing with powers, fame, rivalry and astonishingly poor wardrobe choices.

 

Of course, at the end of that series the board was upset when a truly evil woman (as opposed to one in a state of extreme jealousy) decides "This is all to silly, so I'll just take this Universe for myself. Oh, and I'll have the other one too. Die, Pretty Sammy! DIE!DIE!DIE! HOHOHOHOHOHO!"

 

Since Magical Project S was based on one of the innumerable Tenchi spinoffs, several Tenchi characters showed up in the series in different roles. The villainess in question was, weirdly enough, drawn as Ayeka (Sasami's older sister) and player by her voice actress. Part of the story behind that was that the seiyuu's major area of work prior to Tenchi-Muyo was in hentai voice-acting, and that she contributed the notorious "Oojosama to Oyobi!" to the Soundfile laserdisc and album (a song in which the normally demure Ayeka, in a desperate effort to drive a wedge between Tenchi and Ryoko, turns to S&M and actually gets Sasami's help in securing her, er, "victim" for his "educational session"). This became one of the fandom's longest-lived and most versatile running jokes and helped build the reputation of Juraian royal women of being sweet and placid on the outside but extremely dominant in private (which would seemingly contradict a polygamist social order, but it seems pretty clear who's in charge in Jurai, and it ain't the men).

[Edsel]

Re: Anime series as a campaign

 

Bubblegum Crisis- Chicks in power suits with stilettos are just cool...

This is another one I have experimented with in the past. Perhaps once I am finished with The Slayers I'll tackle this one.

[Takaholic]

Re: Anime series as a campaign

 

Urusei Yatsura's Lum insanely jealous? Methinks not... Jealous, yes.. and rightfully so.. Ataru (her boyfriend/fiance/husband) hits on anything cute and female that crosses his path... Rightfully jealous.. yes.

 

Now about the insane part... Yep, she's insane.. for sticking with him, after all he's put her (and their mutual friends) thru. But that's Takahashi for you.

 

Lum is a contradiction in terms.. a charismatic, caring Demon... whose main ability isn't flying or tossing lightning bolts, but in making anyone or anything that runs into her care about her unreservedly. Not Lust after her (in most cases), but actually CARE about her happiness.

 

The closest I've come to RPGing UY is creating some of the key UY girls in City of Heroes... Pity the poor villains.. they don't stand a chance.

 

But I would love to see a Hero Games writeup of Tomobiki and it's inhabitants, or it's unofficial mirror image follow up series, Tenchi Muyou.

 

Time to start plotting the "Crisis of Infinite Tenchis" storyline... Guest-starring the Anti-Tenchi... Ataru Moroboshi.

 

And "Anime" isn't a type of story... it's a medium of expression/exposition.

[Michael Hopcroft]

Re: Anime series as a campaign

 

Urusei Yatsura's Lum insanely jealous? Methinks not... Jealous' date=' yes.. and rightfully so.. Ataru (her boyfriend/fiance/husband) hits on anything cute and female that crosses his path... Rightfully jealous.. yes.[/quote']

 

Well, she did sort of impose herself upon him while he was proposing to someone else when the whole thing started.

 

Now about the insane part... Yep, she's insane.. for sticking with him, after all he's put her (and their mutual friends) thru. But that's Takahashi for you.

 

Ataru does have his good points. Not many, but he does have them and is rather perversely not proud of them. The most important of these is that he is a lot more caring than he lets on. He is also resourceful to surprising (and frequently alarming) degrees.

 

Lum is a contradiction in terms.. a charismatic, caring Demon... whose main ability isn't flying or tossing lightning bolts, but in making anyone or anything that runs into her care about her unreservedly. Not Lust after her (in most cases), but actually CARE about her happiness.

 

Actually, males do tend to lust after her rather than be interested in her interests -- Mendou in particular is extraordinarily selfish where Lum is concerned (especially when his monomaniacal hatred of Ataru also comes into play.) Women are another story, however -- Lum makes friends with them remarkably easily, and her ability to turn enemies into friends is amazing (by the end of the series Shinobu, who had started out as a mortal enemy, is practically a "sister beneath the skin").

 

The closest I've come to RPGing UY is creating some of the key UY girls in City of Heroes... Pity the poor villains.. they don't stand a chance.

 

Benten in particular would be a nasty opponent for a supervillain.

 

But I would love to see a Hero Games writeup of Tomobiki and it's inhabitants, or it's unofficial mirror image follow up series, Tenchi Muyou.

 

Time to start plotting the "Crisis of Infinite Tenchis" storyline... Guest-starring the Anti-Tenchi... Ataru Moroboshi.

 

And "Anime" isn't a type of story... it's a medium of expression/exposition.

 

You're preaching to the choir, buddy, we need to go out and explain it to the masses.

 

I'd be really happy to see (and contribute) UY writeups.

[BNakagawa]

Re: Anime series as a campaign

 

The most dangerous chick in Lum's gang is clearly Oyuki. All of them fear Oyuki.

 

 

Lum's insane jealousy has been attributed to a curse. Movie 3 - Remember my love.

 

That being said, it was fun to watch the relationship develop over the over 200 episodes (and several movies). Sometims the growth was unilateral, sometimes it was mutual. Sometimes there were setbacks, always there were complications. But on rare occasions, you would get to see some real emotion between them. Those moments made the series magical for me.

 

The recent anime which resembles UY the most (to me) is Inukami.