Like I said before. You can look at Japan versus America’s history of comic books and see where our fighting games have gotten their inspiration. Our difference in culture decides what is “cool” or “proper” in a fighting game and these are the best ways to tell.
I’ll try and name some long running series and make a comparison. I won’t put any end dates on American ones since we do a shitload of reboots and I know that they are at least ongoing in comic form.
Just looking at the covers, you might notice the variation in “aesthetic appeal” like what po pimpus is talking about. Trust me, the ones I chose for manga are the more tame compared to other ones that are just as popular, including the ones with lolis and the ones that don’t even have male characters. Meanwhile American comics do not vary as much and from what I’ve seen, mostly look like what you saw just now if not much more masculine and have no lolis.
That’s a pretty shitty descriptor of American gamers, especially since the video in question is a parody of people who don’t play games but spend their time at bars and gyms an shit.
I mean I know it’s popular to say Americans are all bro-dudes who pop their collars an shit, but it’s really not true.
this post has nothing to do with anything, you’re stupid dumb fuck post is a waste of time. Last time I was playing fighting games with some people, playing some CvS2. I did ask why none of them did like GG, or BB. And most of them said they didn’t like them or they are just completely unbalanced to a point were they are broken.
You’re right, fighters like Street Fighter, are anime. But it’s like a different style or something that is just more appealing to western gamers. Like Street Fighter’s style is not really comparable to today’s anime. Like when one thinks of Street Fighter, anime tropes such as loli and moe, don’t come to mind. Where as with modern anime styles as seen in Arcana Hearts and blazblue, it’s the opposite. It basically boils down to a cultural difference. More cutesy and fan servicey stuff is much more appealing in Japan, where as more masculine and edgy stuff is more appealing here in the west.
OK im talking strictly in terms of offline tourney perspective.
Anime games have a blessing and a curse of having very unique characters and barley any clones or similar characters. It’s what people love about them but it’s also what keeps the numbers low. Characters being very different makes learning matchups harder, so people quit not wanting to put in the time. Or if someone character gets Nerfed they might not want to take the time to learn a new one. If Ryu gets nerfed in SF4 and someone goes emo they can easily learn ken, e.ryu, akuma, sak, sagat, chun ect since all of those characters have similar bases
Lack of motivation people aren’t motivated to play anime cus less players = smaller pots and less sponsor money. So why play something thats harder to get into, harder to get good at (less players less resources) and pays less money. Plus the release schedules for console are ridiculous I know people who for example missed the last 2 blazeblue monthly’s in my area cus they are like “who cares the new version is coming so ill come back then since there will be more players”
Honestly I don’t know how much i agree with the cannibalizing itself angle considering most anime tourney players play at least 2 anime games at tourney level.
No duh, but that doesn’t stop Street Fighter from being super fucking Anime. It’s just old super fucking anime. Saying it’s not anime like today’s anime doesn’t magically make it not anime, it’s still Japanese cartoons throwin fireballs an shit. Besides those tropes are in games that don’t “qualify” for the modern anime Aesthetic title simply because of how long it’s been around. Tekken has loli’s and super cute as fuck bullshit in it to, yet it doesn’t get the “Anime Game” descriptor so I don’t really think it’s a very good reason to call games like BB and GG and AH Anime games because all these games have this stuff in it. Looks wise Sakura appeals to particular demo after all.
And even if that was an accurate descriptor for these games it still tells jack fucking shit about them outside of what they might look like.
We gonna start calling the Jojo’s fighters “Manga Fighters”?
The term “anime fighters” was not conceived from the outside, but from the inside. Just like with Japanese animation, the hardcore fanbase did want to make those game distinctive from the rest in order to acquire this peculiar identity and recognition. While it helped initially the above games to gain some popularity, in the end it backfired for those exact reasons.
Eg I dont remember the term “anime fighter” being used for Melty Blood in early 2000. Game was more niche back then, played mainly on PC and without a fan translation.
for games to last a long time you need a certain critical mass of players to show up. once you have X amount of players, people think “there’ll always be competition so this is worth learning.” but when you don’t reach that mass for a variety of reasons already mentioned in this thread, everyone thinks “what is the point in getting good at this when a year from now no one will be playing it.” consequently most people don’t play it to begin with, and it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.
it’s not unique to anime - current gen Capcom games are usually the heart of the community. anything that’s either really old or isn’t Capcom is going to struggle to maintain a long term playerbase in the west. lack of interest tends to snowball too - less people show up, stream monsters notice and declare the game dead, now people hear the game is dead and stop practicing it, now there’s pretty much no one showing up to tournaments, tournaments stop carrying that game, everyone stops playing it.
basically it’s the same as the old “why vote when my vote doesn’t matter” that people who wouldn’t vote for mainstream political parties feel. it’s obvious to anyone who thinks about it that if every disenfranchised person voted, there could be a viable third party, but since everyone individually feels their vote doesn’t matter, collectively it ends in their vote not mattering.
I guess what I’m getting at is if you love a game or sub-genre, it’s up to you to keep playing it and to keep everyone you know interested in it, even after the game is officially declared dead by the FGC.
Settle down dude. I agreed that Street fighter and other traditional fighters are anime, no where did I dispute that. I’m simply saying their style is ore appealing to westeners than the style of modern anime as seen in games like BB or AH. And in a earlier comment, I mention that even Steert fighter and what not has its fan service and anime tropes but few and far in between. Like your Sakura example. How many other characters in SF are like that? For the most part the series is comprised of masculine and tough martial artist throwing down, who also look the part ( karate Gi’s, street clothes. muscles even on female characters etc ) Now in games like blazblue, Arcana heart, hell lets add Skullgirls to the mix, like Po Pimpus said the ratio between what most westerners would deem as “legit” fighting characters to fan servicey or non traditional fighters is in favor of the latter.
Also, every major franchise is from Japan, and bears the history of Japanese comics and animation on its sleeve if you have any sense of history at all (or simply understand that ‘anime’ is not an art style)
Honestly, for me, the biggest reason I can’t get into ‘dash-fighters’ is because ARCSYS doesn’t know how to support STEAM properly. Its a question of access.
Yeah… I’m super into fighters and it’s basicly impossible to keep on on EVERYTHING. I ain’t gonna buy both an XBone and a PS4 just so I can play KI and Xrd congruently.
I have to stop pretending I’m having real life conversations on the internet. lol Everything gets taken literally with no grain of salt whatsoever.
Anyone who has to worry about muscles, what’s cool, and how many lolis something has in it stems from the American perspective. If you’re gonna sit here and tell me that no one in the west is influenced by American culture then I’ve got nothing more to say to you.
Japanimation can be very lacking in masculinity, 90% of their shit right now is about 6 girls in school who are friends (end of synopsis). And that is not “wrong” to them.
Yeah because I’m so blind I can’t see the fucking cover of what I just posted. Yur sho smhart!!!
