A Quick Look At Anime-Ish RPG (Some Actually Japanese!)

Just a quick post to look at a few games which are 'anime'-like because, let's face it, in spite of having mostly posted content for games compatible with old school, D&D-derived stuff it has been no secret that to some degree I am a filthy fucking weeabo. Not a particularly loud one, mind you: I never ran around with anime t-shirt saying 'kawaii desu' or other cancerous shit. I'm already pathetic enough as is.

Doublecross

Status: Legally available and translated. Can be bought on DrivethruRPG.

Closest Equivalent: Anime X-Men meet A Certain Scientific Railgun meet NEEDLESS, I suppose?

Let's start with one I actually ran a full campaign with, Doublecross! This is an even rarer beast, which is to say a Tabletop RPG where I own a physical copy of the damn thing and not just a PDF. These are indeed few and far between but Doublecross, for some reason, is a game I own the core rule book in physical form. In DX you play as an Overed, which is the mandatory fancy word they use for 'person with bullshit anime mutant powers'. What can make or break DX is that, for one thing, it's mechanics and settings are quite tied together as your character's powers also act as a corruption meter of sorts where the more you use them the stronger you get but also risk permanently losing said character. The fact this ties into an XP penalty can be quite annoying. The game also suffers from that very Japanese TTRPG 'thing' of being overly structured toward extremely railroad-heavy play with extremely rigid scene structure and combat/non combat dissonance. You can make a vampire loli or a catgirl if you're a degenerate.

Kamigakari

Status: Fully fan-translated but also has a completed Kickstarter. There's a bit of an issue over which version is 'better'.

Closest Equivalent: The Nasuverse (Tsukihime, Fate/Stay Night, Kara No Kyoukai)

In many ways, I'm told this is the 'rival' to Doublecross. Both games are fairly similar in their 'modern day anime fighting stuff' focus. The key difference is that Kamigakari is a lot more focused on urban fantasy. I haven't played KgK yet but I can definitely see both games as trying to a appeal to a similar market and demographic. There is a lot in there that can make it even come off as an 'off brand' Nasuverse, especially once you piece together all the options from the various supplements. I'd say one key thing with KgK that's superior to DX is that the various race/classes options are a lot more evocative in terms of fluff that a syndrome with some connected and disconnected powers. You can make a vampire loli or a catgirl if you're a degenerate.

Valor: The Heroic Roleplaying System

Status: Can be bought on DrivethruRPG.

Closest Equivalent: Any mainstream Shonen Jump title about people hitting each others.

This one, unlike the previous two wasn't made in Japan so right away you can expect the art to look a lot more amateur-ish like those terrible 'how to draw anime' books. That said, given its not a Japanese system its not as much of a nightmare to work with and homebrew so that's a plus. Whereas the previous two were setting-specific, Valor is genre-specific meaning it focus a lot more on the 'shonen fighting manga' genre. That's your Dragon Ball, Hunter x Hunter, Naruto Boruto's Dad, Bleach or, if you're a little kiddie, Black Clover and Demon Slayer. Anything which focus on fighting and getting stronger to fight even stronger stuff is 'shonenshit'. Wait. Does....that mean D&D is actually shonenshit? In any case, there is a system to create your power (what it does, usually a mega punch or a laser or something) and you can add things which make it stronger and reduce the cost with flaws, not unlike other games like M&M or even GURPS. Much like the others you can make a loli vampire or catgirl if you are a degenerate, provided that's what fit in the campaign.

Battle Century G

Status: Can be bought on DrivethruRPG.

Closest Equivalent: Any mecha anime. Or, more accurately, Super Robot Wars.

Okay now we're talking. Giant. Fucking. Robots. Do I need to explain this genre? It covers anything from saturday morning cartoon toy commercials in both the east and west (Transformers anyone?) to war drama (that sell toys) to weird pseudo intellectual existential nonsense (that also sell toys). There have been many mecha RPG but one thing I've tend to notice is that most games tend to focus more on the harder scifi take rather than having any mechanically feasible option to play the oversized action figure with rocket fists and combining. BCG can be a bit clunky but it has these options right from the get go, in the core book and that's all you need to know. This one is the least likely to have the vampire loli or the catgirl but you never know.

Big Eyes, Small Mouth

Status: Can be bought on DrivethruRPG.

Closest Equivalent: Deviantart?

The grand daddy of 'anime' RPG probably doesn't really need any introductions. Its a non-genre specific RPG system with point buy powers and isn't technically limited to doing 'anime'-styled games. Not much else to add because I'm going to assume people already know about it by now.