Do many SOTA players watch MMORPG anime?

Discussion in 'Fire Lotus Tavern' started by Spartus, Jun 9, 2017.

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  1. Spartus

    Spartus Avatar

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    I would assume so but haven't seen anyone post about it.

    I like to study RPGs more than play them, and as I kid in the '70s-'80s I loved to read paper RPG rulebooks but never wanted to play the games until the arrival of microcomputer RPGs (Eamon, Ultima, Tunnels of Doom). So I find modern Japanese RPG anime very fun, as I get to watch the mechanics and characters of various fictional game worlds unfold, which are sometimes surprisingly creative/inventive. It's also weirdly meta--you watch a fictional world of animated characters enter a second, nested fictional game world, which can become more immersive after the characters enter the game (as the story is openly admitting the entire thing is an illusion). Anyway, here are the ones that I've seen so far:
    • Overlord (a player character is trapped in the game, it shows difficulty of being a high-level caster and managing a powerful guild of NPCs that suddenly find themselves out of their element in a foreign land)
    • Sword Art Online I & II (very popular series, characters die in real life when they die in the game)
    • KonoSuba (main character dies in real life and enters a medieval fantasy world which seems to be a game world, harem-style anime where the male protagonist surrounded by females.)
    • The Silver Guardian - (characters are trapped in new game called Grave Buster, episodes are very short)
    And I've seen these RPG-inspired anime:
    • Re: Zero (like KonoSuba, the main character dies and enters a medieval fantasy world, but it's not as clear if he is actually in a "game")
    • GATE (a portal opens up in modern day Japan that leads to a world of fire dragons, elves, demi-goddesses, magic, etc. Shows what would happen if modern day society and the military suddenly clashed with such a world.)
    • Magi series (a mix of Western, Middle Eastern, and Far East mythologies, where adventures conquer tower-like "dungeons")
    • Is It Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon? (it has a concept of deities that oversee dungeon adventurers)

    Overlord, Re: Zero, and GATE are my favorite so far, Is It Wrong and KonoSuba are a bit too pervy for me (but in KonoSuba, arch wizard Megumin's singular obsession with explosion magic is great fun), and the rest were entertaining and had their moments.
     
  2. Autumn Willow

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    I've just started watching "The King's Avatar" after being introduced to it on the Ashes of Creation forums.

    I don't normally watch anime, It's a chinese umm cartoon (is the term anime specifically for Japanese animation?). I've found it rather interesting so far.

    I didn't know that there were others. Which would be your top recommended MMO Anime?
     
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  3. Julian Baskerville

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    I grew up in France and Germany...France bombarded its kids with japanese anime in the 80th in simple TV about 6 days a week. Germany had a clear "rating" for everything that was shown to kids at that time...what resulted in me seeing "First of the northstar" in FrenchTV once a week, uncut, when I was 7 (yeah...exploding heads all over your TV)...but not being allowed to go see ET (the movie) at the cinema in Germany since it was 8up (or something).

    Anyway....France is way more connected to japan then germany...anime and manga art are way more common there then in germany where I live now.

    I read about all pen&paper RPG at that time that where available. Really...there were hundreds....yet my buddys allways played "Das schwarze Auge" or "ShadowRun" that were very popular in germany.

    The thing is, as a dreamer...back in the 80th and 90th...you simply had to take up a RPG and read it, and you were "in it" for a few days...that ability somewhat got lost with the arrival of the PC..or maybe by simply getting older.


    Anyway, back to topic...I dont watch those these days, many anime shows build on easy characters that scream "archetype"...what is NOT a minus in my book. But then again, I happen to watch a little show here and there.

    What I dont like about it, really dont like...is the new generation of roleplayers that came after us, that think a "3m long sword" in the hands of a tiny girl is "Ok". But then....we were no better, or?
     
  4. Autumn Willow

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    Heh, well I still actively play pen and paper RPGs when possible. Though finding free time for this is a little more difficult nowadays.

    @Pikegirl was the game master for a number of our Shadowrun campaigns as well.
     
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  5. Spartus

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    I really don't know, I am by no means an expert in this area. Overlord has intrigued me lately, but I don't know what the creators have in mind for the second season, and I don't read manga to keep up with the stories.

    Yeah, the archetype thing doesn't get boring for me since there are so many different combinations of those archetypes, but I always look for shared root patterns and tend to oversimplify things.
     
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  6. Kabalyero Kidd

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    My kids and I love Log Horizon... a local cable channel keeps re-running both seasons so we keep watching... I think they've re-run it three times already... LOL...
     
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  7. Elwyn

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    Nope, never. I don't have any time for anime because I'm too busy living in the database.

    This season is literally the least anime I've watched in years, only Little Witch Academia 2nd cour. Looking forward to the upcoming reboot of Mahoujin Guruguru, though.
     
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  8. Tsumo2

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    I think GATE is the best of those listed. Also No Game No Life could be included
     
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  9. Numa

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    Log Horizon is pretty good - at least the season 1. More like Overlord in that it contains more MMORPG play dynamics. What makes it different is that the series shows the gradual merging of real-world mechanics with MMORPG rules. NPCs become more human and players become able to craft stuff and create new spells that were never in the original game.

    SAO - Sword Art Online - concentrates much more on the romance & related storylines than game dynamics.
     
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  10. mercster

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    No I hate anime.
     
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  11. Spartus

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    Shiroe! Ok, so I just watched the first episode of Log Horizon season 1 and am now also trapped in the "Database Database Just Living in the Database Wow Wow"... (opening song)

    First impressions: The players are trapped inside an MMORPG called Elder Tale. Shiroe, the strategist/leader with glasses, reminds me of Osamu in World Trigger (not an RPG anime) who was also a strategist/leader with glasses (its those archetypes again). I like strategy characters, so I'll try watching a few more episodes to see if it holds my interest, and I at least want to see the mechanics Numa mentioned. Naotsugu is pretty obnoxious and I hope there is some later explanation for it and/or growth to his character.
     
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  12. Cordelayne

    Cordelayne Bug Hunter

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    I was always jealous as a child that France got the Dragon Quest manga and anime. We only had a few over here in the states, even now, which stinks! France has a wonderful history with comics in general, like Asterix, for example. I still have every book from when I was kid! :)
     
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  13. Tahru

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    I love those anime and I watched them with my daughter. If games could be so real it would be amazing and extremely terrifying.
     
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  14. Kabalyero Kidd

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    Shiroe is awesome... he's just in the background buffing and issuing commands like a general... in Season 2, you'll see his view filled with stats screens from all the players in the Raid group and he is monitoring them all like a champ... hope the series continues but it's been a few years now since Season 2...
     
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  15. Azzamean

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    I relate to this somewhat... There are a few anime I like. Cowboy Beebop, Samurai Champloo, uhhm.... Furi Kuri? IDK but I quit watching it a long time ago. The weird noises they make and constant screaming drove me away.
     
  16. gtesser

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    I don't like anime either, even though I live in Japan now and it is always on some channel.

    I've never heard of RPG/MMORPG inspired anime.
     
  17. Spartus

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    I did some research and found a page listing the chronological evolution of the genre:

    https://myanimelist.net/featured/1541/Top_15_Best_RPG_Anime_That_Prove_The_Genre_is_Real

    A lot of the stories those artists have written and illustrated are what SOTA players are doing right now: some parts are about the business behind the game, some about game interfaces and rules, bugs and beta testers, some parts are about the social party/guild relationships and leadership, and of course there is the adventure--the questing, grinding, leveling, etc. Even though Eastern RPGs are often stylistically different than Western ones like SOTA, that doesn't mean that RPG anime is always that way. Some recreate Western styles, especially those set in medieval Europe.

    Curiously, the first RPG that Kayaba Akihiko (the fictional game master and development director in Sword Art Online) supposedly played was the real-world Wizardry, an old Apple II dungeon crawl and Ultima competitor in 1981. Similarly, Dragon Quest is said to be created by two Japanese Wizardry fans that won a programming contest and trip to Applefest in 1983 and met each other there. Like many Americans, I never knew about it or played it, but it is said to be a combination of Ultima and Wizardry and a progenitor of most Japanese RPGs, which also keeps the western medieval style.

    The creator of SAO, Reki Kawahara, started playing Ultima Online in 1998, and later WoW, and was a casual/solo player. In my opinion, the "world tree" in SAO was most-certainly inspired by Teldrassil in Darnassus (WoW), but the character Kayaba Akihiko and his in-game avatar, Heathcliff, is similar in some ways to Richard Garriott with his in-game avatar Lord British. I don't remember any game before Ultima/Akalabeth where the game designer was represented as an avatar in his own game, and of course in UO it was Garriott in real-time. I've never played Wizardry, as I went the Ultima route, but have read that it had an evil arch wizard named Werdna (Andrew spelled backwards, the name of one of the original creators).

    Garriott and Ultima seem to have had a large impact on this genre.
     
  18. Tsumo2

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    Really interesting, arigato.
     
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  19. Brent S

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    Both of these were good. :)

    Is It Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon?
    KonoSuba

    Claymore
    was good, although it is fantasy rather than MMORPG.
     
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  20. Numa

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    Danmachi (Is It Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon?) is funny and though the elements of comedy/romance are strongest - the fantasy/MMORPG elements are strong too. Pretty unusual for anime in the romance/harem genre.
     
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