This is an equation that always puzzled me. now with 4e, there´s lot of talk about 4e being allegedly wuxia/manga/anime influenced. If that´s true is of no import to this thread.

What IS true, is that I played a pre-genned character yesterday, and the artwork was DEFINITELY Manga-esque, not Dungeonpunk.
Most Pre-genned characters in that module were actually ultra-kewl-ultra-sexy-big-eyed-big-titted girls. They could have been on one of those Exated covers or could have fielded cat´s ears.


So what?
I tell you what:

Maybe it´s a local thing, but Manga/Anime etc. is NOT what the kiddies dig. It´s what 30+ fatbeards/otakus dig.

There IS kiddie Manga, like Naruto or some girls shows. But NOONE besides  bsides fatbeards/otakus fetishizes and sexualizes the manga aesthetics.

Manga = Kid´s stuff is just a non-sequitur to me.

Educate me!

I hereby postulate that the wuxia/manga/anime stuff brought into RPGs thus far is catering to the creepy fat 30+ otaku, who likes to play big eyed vaguely teenage girls, instead of catering to male adolescents, who´d like to hit regular women.

I've been an anime/manga fan for about the same amount of time I've been into gaming, yet I'm totally uninterested in games like Exalted.

Anime/manga art style is one thing, but another is that the storylines and characters are usually more mature (and not in a sexy way) which also attracted me to them. As some examples for crossovers into science fiction gaming in Traveller I've used Cowboy BeBop, Planetes, Ghost in the Shell, and Patlabor. For Dungeons and Dragons, I've used Ruin Explorers, Samurai Champloo, Legend of Crystannia, and Record of Lodoss War. All of these were made for adults by adults, without resorting to the cheap titilation that you are ascribing to anime/manga that would be marketted to male adolescants.

Record of Lodoss War should be noted itself because the entire story is based around the writer/director's 0D&D campaign.

Now, I'm neither an otaku or a fatbeard, so shouldn't I be hating the above anime/manga because they do not have an overabundance of fetishistic or pervey scenes? You know, hentai?

Now, before you go to town with your otaku/fatbeard assumption of anime gaming, you should spend some time looking at R. Talsorian Games. With Mekton, Mekton 2, and Mekton Zeta they were the first to bring anime aesthetics into role-playing games. These games were definitely not marketted to otaku /fatbeards, especially since the skill system was the progenitor of most skill systems in use in games today and the lifepath system used is widely recognized as the most innovative in gaming - an otaku/fatbeard wouldn't care about those aspects of a game system.

Okay, everything fine and shiney. Of course there´s thousands of sub-genres which all have their special audience, and most are not hentai freaks.

BUT:
All you say would REINFORCE my theory, that
     "Manga = Young Audience Magnet"
is a non-sequitur argument.

And that´s all I´m really saying.

Quote from: SettembriniOkay, everything fine and shiney. Of course there´s thousands of sub-genres which all have their special audience, and most are not hentai freaks.

BUT:
All you say would REINFORCE my theory, that
     "Manga = Young Audience Magnet"
is a non-sequitur argument.

And that´s all I´m really saying.

OK, gotcha on that and I almost agree, but I think its a bit deeper than the above.

Anime/manga influence in game art will help to market the game to young audiences, because that is what is attracting them at the moment. Anime/manga influences in the game mechanics will attract the young adult audience which may or may not overlap with the young audience.

3.x has been much maligned over the "dungeonpunk" artwork, so having 4e displaying more anime/manga artwork is just marketting. All artwork in a game has very little to do with game mechanics and has everything to do with marketting that game.

Also anime/manga does not always equal kids stuff. Just like not all anime/mangas are hentai. There are several anime/manga out there whose storyline are specifically targetted for the educated adult - a good example being Neon Genesis Evangelion, which would bore a kid to tears after the first few episodes because the themes explored are beyond the experience of the adolescant audience.

Do not confuse the obsessed (people in their 30s with tons of DI and consequentially huge collections of anime/manga/comic books/RPGs/model trains/whatever) with the casual fans (usually younger, like the stuff but aren't deeply into them). The first are visible because of their dedication, but the latter tend to outnumber them.

As a relevant example, I like a few anime serials, and love the music of Revolutionary Girl Utena, but don't feel interested enough to post about them online or amass gigantic collections (and I only encountered them because my brother has about a dozen DVDs or so).

[And a slight tangent: jeff37923, while Neon Genesis Evangelion is probably my favourite of them all (but then I love surrealism and have a respect towards existentialism), it is hardly "adult". It explores themes people are interested in as late teens or young adults. For that, it is indeed an excellent work. But it is not about adult issues, rather issues of growing up... which young people associate with adulthood.

(Also, to show my cards, I prefer the original ending. )]

Quote from: Melan[And a slight tangent: jeff37923, while Neon Genesis Evangelion is probably my favourite of them all (but then I love surrealism and have a respect towards existentialism), it is hardly "adult". It explores themes people are interested in as late teens or young adults. For that, it is indeed an excellent work. But it is not about adult issues, rather issues of growing up... which young people associate with adulthood.

(Also, to show my cards, I prefer the original ending. )]

OK, I'll buy that. I should have used Perfect Blue as an example with its Alfred Hitchcock style and surrealism instead.

With Neon Genesis Evangelion, the adult themes I was thinking of were relationships, loss, isolationism, and the Christian imagery (half of which I didn't even get until a very devout friend pointed them out to me). (She informed me that the entire series was like a Japanese interpretation of the Dead Sea Scrolls and I've taken her at her word.)

Damn, threadjack!

Quote from: SettembriniMaybe it´s a local thing, but Manga/Anime etc. is NOT what the kiddies dig. It´s what 30+ fatbeards/otakus dig.

There IS kiddie Manga, like Naruto or some girls shows. But NOONE besides  bsides fatbeards/otakus fetishizes and sexualizes the manga aesthetics.

Sett, if it is a local thing than it has to be very local. I am just a few kilometers away from you and in "my" Berlin manga and anime is all over the place.
My view may be biased because I work in the anime business but your assumptions of the typical manga and anime user couldn't be further from the truth.

Of course there are 30+ fatbeard otakus in the scene, and the anime fan scene has its share of lawncrappers (just like any other hobby has its share of obsessive weirdos). But the majority of manga readers in Germany are a) girls and b) teens.
Manga has almost completely displaced the classical, European comic books that you and me grew up on. Just look around the comic book sections of large chains (Thalia, Hugendubel, Weiland, Karstadt, Kaufhof, Ludwig). With luck, you will see the occasional "Tintin", "Spirou", and "Asterix". And high quality graphic novels like Will Eisner stuff, "Jenseits der Zeit", Jason Lutes "Berlin" and "Narren".
And shelves upon shelves full of manga paperbacks.

Haven't you been there when a whole generation started collecting and trading "Pokemon" cards in the schoolyards? Followed by "Yu-Gi-Oh!"? The visuals of manga and anime are so engraved in the optic nerves of today's youth that even Disney has a hard time. (But Disney is adaptable and sells "W.I.T.C.H." and "Monster Allergy" to manga-spoiled readers. And even their flag ship, "Micky Maus Magazin", has editorial content about Nintendo games and soon our next movie, "The Girl Who Leapt Through Time". Go figure.)

And on the heels of this whole manga phenomenon is another trend that traditional comic books (franco-belgian style or super heroes) failed to accomplish: the birth of a German generation of published comic book artists!
Of course, there have been epigonous artists mimicking Moebius and Franquin, and there has been a distinctive "Fix & Foxi" style, but their numbers were negligible.
Manga, OTOH, drew hordes of (often female) readers to their drawing boards. In the past German publishing houses like Carlsen and Ehapa were quite reluctant to support German artists. Licensing the tenth école marcinelle style series was less work than nurturing home grown talent.
Manga changed all that. Not only are German artists getting published, some of them, like Christine Plaka and Anika Hage, are being translated by Tokyopop USA.

In Germany, manga grossly outsells traditional, formerly "mainstream" comic books.

Manga aesthetics aren't fetishized and sexualized by their audience. And why should they? It's a visual style that the "Pokemon"/"Sailor Moon" generation views as absolutely normal.

QuoteI hereby postulate that the wuxia/manga/anime stuff brought into RPGs thus far is catering to the creepy fat 30+ otaku, who likes to play big eyed vaguely teenage girls

From my time in the trenches of the game stores I can tell you that the manga art was the biggest hindrance to BESM's success. Lots of people told me "I like the system but I/my group can't stand that cute artwork."

If WotC wants to target 4e at the minuscule group of manga lawncrappers they should get their marketing department fired.
(If they want to target the enormous group of post-"Pokemon"/"Yu-Gi-OH!"-players ... well, that's another thing entirely...)

Thanks, that was educative!

But...if that´s correct what you are saying, Manga aesthetics WON´T attract the young ones. They just equal comics with Manga, correct?

So they are basically like the Japanese, no?

Putting Manga into a japanese game would not draw any new audience, as it´s not Manga, but actually "the way stuff is drawn".

Or would you say, that anything looking like Manga has a head start at the market?

Well, from this side of the pond:  I've seen a lot of anime and manga influence in American-produced cartoons and comics over the past few years.  That is, bluntly, not at all surprising to me ... the Japanese have a far more lively and competitive market for this type of art, and that's resulted in a lot of spectacular innovation and progress.

The revolutionary DC cartoons Batman and Superman (and the long series of spin-offs) definitely had an infusion of element-A, both in the stylized simplicity of the characters (offset with modulated pen-lines to maintain a strong sense of depth) and in the attention to composing a scene.

I'd also point to things like Ben-10 and My Life as a Teenage Robot as having strong anime influence.  I wouldn't even feel that I was going that far out on a limb to suggest that Powerpuff Girls owes something of a debt to the "chibi" art style popularized by japanese artists.

So you're getting some pretty serious second-hand influences.  Folks doing art to attract a young audience are (a) going to have been influenced by that and (b) going to feel confident that such influences will resonate with other folks who have been constantly exposed to them.

It's not merely that Americans like anime and manga.  It's that American cartoons have adopted many of the techniques and attitudes of their Japanese counterparts.

I find the aesthetics of standard 'anime' design is getting really boring.

A lot of kids cartoons (meaning kids under 5) has a different visual style for each show.  That's great!  Each show is original and creative in it's own way.

Anime on the other hand, while there are a few variations (eg. 'Chibi'), tends to be very homogenous.  

When artists are influenced by Anime but go in their own direction (eg. Samurai Jack) the results are good.  When it's generic Anime design (eg. Yugiyo) the results are very bland.

As a grumpy old curmudgeon, I fight a never-ending battle against the pernicious spread of this vile and odious art form with my scathing comments, venemous asides, and general surliness.

I did love Cowboy Bebop though!

-clash

Quote from: StuartI find the aesthetics of standard 'anime' design is getting really boring.

A lot of kids cartoons (meaning kids under 5) has a different visual style for each show.  That's great!  Each show is original and creative in it's own way.

Anime on the other hand, while there are a few variations (eg. 'Chibi'), tends to be very homogenous.  

When artists are influenced by Anime but go in their own direction (eg. Samurai Jack) the results are good.  When it's generic Anime design (eg. Yugiyo) the results are very bland.

Agreed 100%! Samurai Jack was a brilliant example.

 -clash

Well put, Tony.

Quote from: TonyLBIt's not merely that Americans like anime and manga.  It's that American cartoons have adopted many of the techniques and attitudes of their Japanese counterparts.

And now the circle is complete, since part of the manga aesthetic has its root in Osamu Tezuka's admiration of early US cartoons.

(Hence the big eyes, which are not the result of some weird Japanese fetish, but Donald Duck and Betty Boop!)

Quote from: SettembriniThanks, that was educative!

But...if that´s correct what you are saying, Manga aesthetics WON´T attract the young ones. They just equal comics with Manga, correct?

So they are basically like the Japanese, no?

Putting Manga into a japanese game would not draw any new audience, as it´s not Manga, but actually "the way stuff is drawn".

Those are difficult questions.

The "young ones" equal manga with manga. Of course they know that there's a Western tradition in comic books, and I don't believe none of them reading the occasional Disney's LustigesTaschenbuch as well as Detective Conan or Inu Yasha.

Japanese RPGs are either chock full of manga art - or they have hardly any art at all, arguably being aimed at a reading audience. In Japan p&p RPGs are not really successful. Andy K. can tell us more about that. Maybe it has to do with the dominance of CRPGs.

QuoteOr would you say, that anything looking like Manga has a head start at the market?

I'm not sure. It all comes down to distribution. It surely wouldn't work if 4e went down the anime route and still being shelved in the fantasy/SF section of Border's and Waldenbooks. In that section it's regular adventurous fantasy art that helps selling stuff.

But then, Pokemon did outsell Magic the Gathering by an order of magnitude...

perhaps any manga art-stylings are not only an attempt to draw younger crowds, but also that elusive, female shojo and yaoi reading market?  

the art style would also indicate "action!" to a younger audience, i think.

i'm an older anime / manga fan, grew up on speed racer, got into manga translations in the late 80's.  i like the style, but aside from things like lodoss wouldn't equate the style with fantasy rpg stuff.  two different interests.