The inherent issue with making a shonen slop generic game is that the things that set shonen slop apart from each other, power systems, setting, weird esoteric bullshit, etc, are hard to throw into a generic system. So you either need an absurd amount of variant rules or a defined setting to make the game interesting on its own merits instead of, well, generic.
What I like about the way defenses work is that the drawbacks for each defend type only apply if you _don't_ pick the one linked to the same stat as the attack. Though in a way this further encourages generalists, since dumping all of your point in one stat might leave you with having to rely on a defense type that's not always convenient.
As someone who is indifferent on the "anime" aspect of the system, I like it as a tactically satisfying alternate to Mutants and Masterminds. Is it as flexible as the other anime and superhero systems when it comes to mechanically conceptualizing a massively wide variety of characters? No, but it's still very flexible, and the way the game is structured makes homebrew a breeze. After running quite a bit Mutants and Masterminds and Prowlers and Paragons, I've realized I actually like having a grid which makes things like Movement/Positioning matter rather than just slamming dice results. There's also no cancerous levels of CC which can straight up lock characters out of multiple turns (I'm looking at my recent experience PnP's MISERABLE SFX effects), even the strongest CC in that game still allows you to make some sort of interaction with the game under them. For a game that allows as wide of a creation system as it does, it's surprisingly fairly balanced. As for the questionable criticisms, such as the "overt focus on damage", I think you're really underselling the benefits of being able to knock someone into a wall a bunch of spaces away, knocking someone on their ass or just...ya know, have an attack with any amount of range? Another point about "generalist vs extremist builds", I have a player that went max Strength, near max Mind, and max Guts that is probably the hardest hitter and the hardest tank while having their Mind provide them an alternate damage type and plenty more range, no piercing special mods needed. The only way you can make a below par character stat wise is actively choosing not to focus on any stat whatsoever. As for what I'd consider outright baffling gripes, like the whole Muscle Defense thing: If you really looked at that and thought "Take a Damage Increment" meant you reduced that damage to 1 with your defense or resistance (essentially making the drawback COMPLETELY meaningless)...I'm gonna question your judgement. Two, the game definitely knows what direction it's going: a tactical shounen game that involves using special techniques and maneuvers to push your character over the top. It has never advertised itself as a "catch all" anime system. And three, uh, I'm pretty sure Session 0 is heavily recommended regardless of the game.
@@indan _Fight!_ might be the mid crunch answer. Sure it's mostly for emulating fighting games, but the way super moves work is close enough to shounen finishing moves, there's an optional combat system to make it more cinematic (think Street Fighter II: The Animated Movie, aka anime; even special moves become less spammable), and there's even if a shounen supplement
@@mattcollins5974 BESM game peaked with the Revised Second Edition (called 2R), and it is tactical combat system away from being the best setting agnostic toolbox anime RPG out there. For my credentials. I used to the third largest BESM wikispace (Behind the Official and the Unofficial), and was given a name on /tg/ that I can't repeat off the board over a decade ago when talking about the 3E playtest debacle. Mark still owes some artist friends of mine money for art they made for the 3E book, so it doesn't matter if 4E is what people asked for during the 3E playtests, don't give him a red cent.
@@mattcollins5974 Guardians of Order went bankrupt during development, with White Wolf having to step in to get it out. It is scummy that several artists were never compensated, but I don't quite think Mark did that for the evulz. Might just've been overall incompetence.
It never actually claims to be an anime system, as much as the artwork might convince you otherwise. In fact the words "anime", "manga" or even "Japan" are never used in the entire book.
O shit, here We go again 😆! I wonder how many of these generic "anime" systems are still out there? 🤔 Still, thank You Notepad-san for another quick review 🍻
Only one that keeps popping up is BESM, which is the grand daddy of them all. OVA is a weird one I own, but the ending material is great for understanding Japanese culture to make accurate anime. The same artist worked on BESM. Though none can beat the japanese Deluxe Tunnels and Trolls magazine that came out a few years ago, but that's my opinion.
Never understood these anime slop games. I've played BESM with one of my friend in late 2000s, he is good GM and really likes shonens so he decided to play it with our group, going for Bleach setting. It wasn't great I'd say that, no one knew what we were playing and how we should play. Also, another nail in the coffin is that they always try to emulate the "ultimate over the top anime like experience" but usually focus only on shitty combat and nothing else. It'll be way much better to play different games in some anime settings then that and I had played Savage worlds in Gundam setting, GURPS for Dragon ball and cyberpunk 2020 for Blame! it was weird but still fun.
You can't really make a system for _all_ of anime. You basically _have_ to pick some kind of main genre. Which is usually shounen action stuff because that's the most combat centric one. Unfortunately these systems rarely tell you that they won't work nearly as well for Azumanga Daioh.
Black Clover isn't that bad, though it is basically the love child of Bleach and Fairy Tail and is probably some of the purest shonen out there. If you don't like dipsh^t characters using the "power of friends" to win fight don't watch it. If you like that kind of stuff check it out.
Bleach _and_ Fairy Tail? I don't think I'd last 3 episodes without punching my monitor. (Srsly Bleach _broke_ me back in the day, and FT was aggressively formulaic)
I find Black Clover endearing but I don't participate in a lot of shonen these days, so it's probably more refreshing and mildly nostalgic to me than someone who hardlined the genre for the last decade or more. It's like the polished perfect example of a by the numbers shonen battle slop. Nothing groundbreaking or innovative, but all the tropes and characters are executed well. It understands what it is and doesn't aspire to anything higher, while not letting itself under deliver on what it sells you.
@@EvilDoresh I don't blame you honestly, the filler in bleach is real bad, like I have watched the first 2 arcs of it like 5 times but I've only recently gotten through the series, the bount arc is so demoralizing. Unironically though the current season of Bleach is real good, I am not joking when I say it is some of the best shonen ever and is easily the best shonen jump war arc (though that's not really an achievement).
Fairy Tail I’d argue it’s ontologically the equivalent of popcorn. Like it being so formulaic and lacking substance is itself kind of the appeal. Trying to critically analyze Fairy Tail is kinda counterproductive as it’s a show that is best enjoyed with your brain turned off. Like I get not liking it, it is fundamentally one of the most low IQ shonens out there, I disable most of my higher brain function when watching it, but like that’s, well, the point. It’s just a string of stuff people like from shonen content in the most stream lined way possible. “Anime guy having a cool action scene”, “Hot Anime Girls”, “Power of Friendship” and “Occasional Emotional Moment”, like a carousel of anime tropes it's that and nothing more. Basically, it’s just Fast and Furious for weebs. Black Clover is similar to this in the fact that it will just do some of the most cliché shonen stuff to an honestly brave degree. It has all the basic tropes, MC who is no one who works hard to achieve his goals, cooler rival characters who he trains to surpass and anime girls casually falling for him. Like seriously the catch phrases of the main character group is literally them just going “I have to push past my limits” and then just doing it. It is brave how blatantly they are with this kind of stuff and it's endearing in it's own way. “Muh rival” is also like a theme, like a universal constant almost in the series. What I'm sayin is it's pure in a literal sense. It is very shonen and is so aggressive. The dosage of shonen slop isn’t for everyone but man it is certainly something.
@@Confussed-Oddish It's not even the filler. I was mainly a manga guy. But ever since the series stopped being a monster of the week deal, things just got _weird_ . The cast got bloated as all hell, and unlike say One Piece with its many islands there were only ever two places for the good guys to be (Karakura and the Shinigami HQ), so all they just kept hanging around. The huge cast must've become a problem for Kubo, though, cause characters would just _disappear_ for literal years all the time. Even if they just got a spotlight chapter. Then there's the shounen action nonsense. The power level arms race was out of control, and Kubo was visibly struggling to keep Ichigo's human buddies relevant for longer than a chapter after every power spike. Many characters would refuse to use their final forms for no reason, even if we knew they had them. Then you had bullshit like the Espada having a rigid power structure, but doing their best at obfuscating the exact hierarchy of the upper half (so fans would keep guessing who the _actual_ strongest was, not that it actually mattered in the end). Fights quickly turned into a asspull arms race, where the first one to run out of asspulls would lose. Every single fight with a "mad scientist" character was _especially_ bad, cause they tended to have the most bullshit asspulls. And sometimes a character would just lose so _another_ , more fan favorite character could take over the fight instead, with the Nnoitra / Nelliel / Kenpachi fight being the one that pissed me off the most. And then there's Aizen. Just Aizen. Why even _have_ characters with unique gimmick powers (like "You die if I hit you twice in the same spot") if you can just go "My power level is too high, so I can just ignore it"? And it's not just Aizen. Kubo had a weird obsession with introducing main villains that were basically _gods_ , and then of course he never found a good way to actually _defeat_ them in a satisfying way. Though I'm glad to hear that the anime version of the Hundred Year Blood War seems to be an improvement. The _manga_ version was one hell of a miserable experience, with Kubo stalling for time so hard that the overlords at Jumped eventually _forced_ him to end it ASAP.
The inherent issue with making a shonen slop generic game is that the things that set shonen slop apart from each other, power systems, setting, weird esoteric bullshit, etc, are hard to throw into a generic system. So you either need an absurd amount of variant rules or a defined setting to make the game interesting on its own merits instead of, well, generic.
I mean there is Black Clover arf arf
Finally, a system who's power system can accurately represent the protagonist of what is totally 100% my favourite anime, Cid from Eminence in Shadow.
What I like about the way defenses work is that the drawbacks for each defend type only apply if you _don't_ pick the one linked to the same stat as the attack.
Though in a way this further encourages generalists, since dumping all of your point in one stat might leave you with having to rely on a defense type that's not always convenient.
As someone who is indifferent on the "anime" aspect of the system, I like it as a tactically satisfying alternate to Mutants and Masterminds. Is it as flexible as the other anime and superhero systems when it comes to mechanically conceptualizing a massively wide variety of characters? No, but it's still very flexible, and the way the game is structured makes homebrew a breeze. After running quite a bit Mutants and Masterminds and Prowlers and Paragons, I've realized I actually like having a grid which makes things like Movement/Positioning matter rather than just slamming dice results. There's also no cancerous levels of CC which can straight up lock characters out of multiple turns (I'm looking at my recent experience PnP's MISERABLE SFX effects), even the strongest CC in that game still allows you to make some sort of interaction with the game under them. For a game that allows as wide of a creation system as it does, it's surprisingly fairly balanced.
As for the questionable criticisms, such as the "overt focus on damage", I think you're really underselling the benefits of being able to knock someone into a wall a bunch of spaces away, knocking someone on their ass or just...ya know, have an attack with any amount of range? Another point about "generalist vs extremist builds", I have a player that went max Strength, near max Mind, and max Guts that is probably the hardest hitter and the hardest tank while having their Mind provide them an alternate damage type and plenty more range, no piercing special mods needed. The only way you can make a below par character stat wise is actively choosing not to focus on any stat whatsoever.
As for what I'd consider outright baffling gripes, like the whole Muscle Defense thing: If you really looked at that and thought "Take a Damage Increment" meant you reduced that damage to 1 with your defense or resistance (essentially making the drawback COMPLETELY meaningless)...I'm gonna question your judgement. Two, the game definitely knows what direction it's going: a tactical shounen game that involves using special techniques and maneuvers to push your character over the top. It has never advertised itself as a "catch all" anime system. And three, uh, I'm pretty sure Session 0 is heavily recommended regardless of the game.
I am still waiting for the real anime TTRPG that has something besides generic D&D-ish system to fight enemies.
Anima Beyond Fantasy is the high crunch answer to your very specific interest.
Boy do I have the Fortissimo for you!
@@indan _Fight!_ might be the mid crunch answer.
Sure it's mostly for emulating fighting games, but the way super moves work is close enough to shounen finishing moves, there's an optional combat system to make it more cinematic (think Street Fighter II: The Animated Movie, aka anime; even special moves become less spammable), and there's even if a shounen supplement
That's a weird ass jutsu there in the end card
BESM, OVA, Valor, even Fuzion. How many setting agnostic toolbox anime RPGs do we really need?
Your thoughts on BESM
@@mattcollins5974 BESM game peaked with the Revised Second Edition (called 2R), and it is tactical combat system away from being the best setting agnostic toolbox anime RPG out there. For my credentials. I used to the third largest BESM wikispace (Behind the Official and the Unofficial), and was given a name on /tg/ that I can't repeat off the board over a decade ago when talking about the 3E playtest debacle. Mark still owes some artist friends of mine money for art they made for the 3E book, so it doesn't matter if 4E is what people asked for during the 3E playtests, don't give him a red cent.
@@stevemanartsounds scummy with what they did with 3e
@@mattcollins5974 Guardians of Order went bankrupt during development, with White Wolf having to step in to get it out.
It is scummy that several artists were never compensated, but I don't quite think Mark did that for the evulz.
Might just've been overall incompetence.
You shouldn't be allowed to call it an "anime" system, if there's no concise rules for card games on bikes.
It never actually claims to be an anime system, as much as the artwork might convince you otherwise.
In fact the words "anime", "manga" or even "Japan" are never used in the entire book.
@@EvilDoresh But you just know.
@@youcantbeatk7006 One _could_ argue that the omission appears more than deliberate.
Bump for the bump gods and dice for the players!
O shit, here We go again 😆! I wonder how many of these generic "anime" systems are still out there? 🤔 Still, thank You Notepad-san for another quick review 🍻
Only one that keeps popping up is BESM, which is the grand daddy of them all.
OVA is a weird one I own, but the ending material is great for understanding Japanese culture to make accurate anime. The same artist worked on BESM.
Though none can beat the japanese Deluxe Tunnels and Trolls magazine that came out a few years ago, but that's my opinion.
Never understood these anime slop games. I've played BESM with one of my friend in late 2000s, he is good GM and really likes shonens so he decided to play it with our group, going for Bleach setting. It wasn't great I'd say that, no one knew what we were playing and how we should play. Also, another nail in the coffin is that they always try to emulate the "ultimate over the top anime like experience" but usually focus only on shitty combat and nothing else. It'll be way much better to play different games in some anime settings then that and I had played Savage worlds in Gundam setting, GURPS for Dragon ball and cyberpunk 2020 for Blame! it was weird but still fun.
You can't really make a system for _all_ of anime. You basically _have_ to pick some kind of main genre. Which is usually shounen action stuff because that's the most combat centric one.
Unfortunately these systems rarely tell you that they won't work nearly as well for Azumanga Daioh.
@@EvilDoresh Azumanga is peak slice of life comedy, tho.
@@Iridium-77-g Azumanga is peak in general, but not exactly a good setting for Valor
@EvilDoresh How would you translate wacky slice of life comedy to an RPG? I think it's just a hard concept for any game.
@@Iridium-77-g Maid RPG, the answer to everything
BESM is still the best of these 'anime' games
Black Clover isn't that bad, though it is basically the love child of Bleach and Fairy Tail and is probably some of the purest shonen out there.
If you don't like dipsh^t characters using the "power of friends" to win fight don't watch it. If you like that kind of stuff check it out.
Bleach _and_ Fairy Tail? I don't think I'd last 3 episodes without punching my monitor.
(Srsly Bleach _broke_ me back in the day, and FT was aggressively formulaic)
I find Black Clover endearing but I don't participate in a lot of shonen these days, so it's probably more refreshing and mildly nostalgic to me than someone who hardlined the genre for the last decade or more. It's like the polished perfect example of a by the numbers shonen battle slop. Nothing groundbreaking or innovative, but all the tropes and characters are executed well. It understands what it is and doesn't aspire to anything higher, while not letting itself under deliver on what it sells you.
@@EvilDoresh I don't blame you honestly, the filler in bleach is real bad, like I have watched the first 2 arcs of it like 5 times but I've only recently gotten through the series, the bount arc is so demoralizing. Unironically though the current season of Bleach is real good, I am not joking when I say it is some of the best shonen ever and is easily the best shonen jump war arc (though that's not really an achievement).
Fairy Tail I’d argue it’s ontologically the equivalent of popcorn. Like it being so formulaic and lacking substance is itself kind of the appeal. Trying to critically analyze Fairy Tail is kinda counterproductive as it’s a show that is best enjoyed with your brain turned off. Like I get not liking it, it is fundamentally one of the most low IQ shonens out there, I disable most of my higher brain function when watching it, but like that’s, well, the point. It’s just a string of stuff people like from shonen content in the most stream lined way possible. “Anime guy having a cool action scene”, “Hot Anime Girls”, “Power of Friendship” and “Occasional Emotional Moment”, like a carousel of anime tropes it's that and nothing more. Basically, it’s just Fast and Furious for weebs.
Black Clover is similar to this in the fact that it will just do some of the most cliché shonen stuff to an honestly brave degree. It has all the basic tropes, MC who is no one who works hard to achieve his goals, cooler rival characters who he trains to surpass and anime girls casually falling for him. Like seriously the catch phrases of the main character group is literally them just going “I have to push past my limits” and then just doing it. It is brave how blatantly they are with this kind of stuff and it's endearing in it's own way. “Muh rival” is also like a theme, like a universal constant almost in the series. What I'm sayin is it's pure in a literal sense. It is very shonen and is so aggressive. The dosage of shonen slop isn’t for everyone but man it is certainly something.
@@Confussed-Oddish It's not even the filler. I was mainly a manga guy.
But ever since the series stopped being a monster of the week deal, things just got _weird_ . The cast got bloated as all hell, and unlike say One Piece with its many islands there were only ever two places for the good guys to be (Karakura and the Shinigami HQ), so all they just kept hanging around.
The huge cast must've become a problem for Kubo, though, cause characters would just _disappear_ for literal years all the time. Even if they just got a spotlight chapter.
Then there's the shounen action nonsense. The power level arms race was out of control, and Kubo was visibly struggling to keep Ichigo's human buddies relevant for longer than a chapter after every power spike.
Many characters would refuse to use their final forms for no reason, even if we knew they had them.
Then you had bullshit like the Espada having a rigid power structure, but doing their best at obfuscating the exact hierarchy of the upper half (so fans would keep guessing who the _actual_ strongest was, not that it actually mattered in the end).
Fights quickly turned into a asspull arms race, where the first one to run out of asspulls would lose. Every single fight with a "mad scientist" character was _especially_ bad, cause they tended to have the most bullshit asspulls.
And sometimes a character would just lose so _another_ , more fan favorite character could take over the fight instead, with the Nnoitra / Nelliel / Kenpachi fight being the one that pissed me off the most.
And then there's Aizen. Just Aizen. Why even _have_ characters with unique gimmick powers (like "You die if I hit you twice in the same spot") if you can just go "My power level is too high, so I can just ignore it"?
And it's not just Aizen. Kubo had a weird obsession with introducing main villains that were basically _gods_ , and then of course he never found a good way to actually _defeat_ them in a satisfying way.
Though I'm glad to hear that the anime version of the Hundred Year Blood War seems to be an improvement. The _manga_ version was one hell of a miserable experience, with Kubo stalling for time so hard that the overlords at Jumped eventually _forced_ him to end it ASAP.
@@EvilDoresh wonder if there's a shonen that actually holds on to the monster of the week structure until the end.