Anime fans and video games

Anyone who’s been around the fandom long enough knows that there’s a connection between anime and video games. Just about all of the anime fans I’ve met over the years have at least one video game series they’re into. In this post, I’ll examine the nature of this connection, as well as how I take part in it…

The obvious reason for why many anime fans are also gaming fans simply has to do with the fiction/fantasy/escapism elements of the two mediums. Anime allows you to watch creative fictional stories that present characters and worlds with such detail that it’s easy for one to become engrossed in them. Likewise, video games present the same kind of fantastical stories and detailed worlds, but instead of just watching, you can actually take part and control what happens in them. So whether you’re observing or playing, both mediums offer a form of escapism and enriched fictional elements.

With this similarity between anime and games, it’s no wonder that most anime fans prefer games from Japan, from regular video games like Final Fantasy and Blaze Blue, to niche PC games like visual novels and gal games. The similarities in the designs of the characters, the way the stories are presented, the music, etc., between these games and anime bring a comforting connection between the two fandoms.

It’s also no wonder that most anime fans who like games have a preference for the RPG genre, from MMORPGs to regular single-player ones like Zelda. RPGs share a lot of elements with anime – large casts of characters who often develop, a lot of fantasy, magic, and sci-fi, unique terminology, subplots, and detailed stories that unfold in a chronological narrative. The majority of RPGs are almost like watching an adventure/fantasy anime series, except for all the leveling up of course, and the fact that you’re playing rather than watching.

After RPGs, I would say that fighting games are also quite popular among anime fans. The reason being that they offer two of the rawest appealing traits for fans which are also staples of shonen anime – cool characters with cool powers, and satiating our innate fascination with violence.

When it comes to this anime fan’s thoughts about video games, I used to be much more into games than I am now. In the 90s, I had a ton of Sega Genesis and Game Gear games, with the Sonic the Hedgehog series being my favorite. However, once I got into Pokemon and anime in the late 90s/early 2000s, I started to become more of a video game connoisseur. Anime took over video games as my favorite pastime, and I realized that I no longer had enough time for both, especially since video games were starting to become more advanced and time consuming.

After the Sega Genesis era and starting with the N64 and Game Boy Color, I began buying consoles based solely on whether there would be Pokemon games for them. Hence, the Game Cube, Game Boy Advance, DS, and Wii followed afterward. Of course, not wanting to be a strictly Pokemon-only gamer, I did buy or rent other games for these systems when I felt like it. But for the past ten years, I’ve only dedicated myself to Pokemon and a few other game series, with anime having priority over games in general.

And as much as friends have tried to push me, I just haven’t had the motivation to play some of the most popular RPGs like Final Fantasy and Zelda. Despite the fact that Pokemon is my favorite game series, in general I don’t enjoy playing RPGs. I’ve given them a chance; I’ve played a little Final Fantasy VII and Tales of Symphonia, but I just couldn’t keep them up. Although I enjoy all the anime elements of these games such as pretty animation, fantasy rich stories, and creative worlds, I don’t enjoy all the leveling up and having to memorize all the huge amounts of items, attacks, etc., do. For some reason, the grinding elements of Pokemon aren’t as hectic to me. There are a couple of other RPGs I love such as Okami and Lost Kingdoms (a Game Cube game) because they have the great attributes of RPGs without all the hassle of leveling up and endless inventories. But for RPGs in general, I would rather watch them as an anime series (or watch others play them, minus too much grinding) rather than play them myself.

Don’t get me wrong…after anime, I would say that video games are my next favorite hobby. Besides Pokemon and other games I’ve mentioned already, I enjoy Harvest Moon, Super Smash Bros., Wario Ware, Nintendogs, and some games based on shows or movies I like, as well as the occasional doujin or anime PC game. I just don’t actively play all the new and popular video games because anime is my main hobby and uses up most of my spare time and money. But I’m the type of person who can play the same games over and over again without getting tired of them. I just finished playing through Okami a second time, I’ve played the same battles in Pokemon Battle Revolution and Smash Bros. Brawl many times over, and I still enjoy playing many of my old Game Cube games, even my old Sega Genesis games on the emulator.

So, how do you feel about the relationship between anime and video games, and how does your game interest compare to your anime interest?

No Comments… read them or add your own.

  1. Landon says:

    My main problem with modern gaming is that there’s too much story presented in most games.

    I really enjoy the way old school games told stories: It was mostly impressionistic in that you got little glimpses of motivation and plotline through a few lines of text here and there. Even RPGs, while more text-intensive than other games, really came down to a few choice lines before boss battles and a few lines tossed around by NPCs that helped direct you towards where you needed to go. There were no cutscenes or movies or anything like that which stalled the gameplay and delved further into the plot.

    All of this allowed for the player to insert their own imagination into the world. Compare Contra to some of the more recent action games. Conta had no dialogue. All of its storytelling came through with the visuals and whatever text you got on the back of the box or in the instruction manual. All you knew was that you were some tough guys in the jungle fighting bad guys, like the typical action movie from that era. You figured you were there to take down some corrupt South American junta or something like that. But as the game progressed you realized that there was some really messed up stuff going on here, since you started to see Alien-like creatures, and by the time the game ended you were inside of some alien structure. All of this is told through the imagery of the game, while a modern game would pause the gameplay to have all of this explained to us through dialogue and elaborate cutscenes. The catch is that you pretty much get the same idea, except one allows the viewer to toss in their own ideas, while the other leaves no room for the imagination since it does its best to explain every detail.

    It reminds me of some of my favorite anime series, like Cowboy Bebop or Baccano. Both of those series just give you glimpses of the characters’ pasts, but those glimpses say just as much as the extensive flashbacks and exposition that so many other series prefer to use.

    So yeah, my tastes in video games and anime reflect one another. They just skew in the other direction

    Also: the best game series out right now is Katamari Damacy. Awesome music, awesome gameplay, and about as close to meditation as a game has ever come. I can zone out to that game in a way I’ve never been able to before.

  2. Yumeka says:

    @ Landon

    I agree that a lot of modern games, especially RPGs, have, as you say, too much story. This is one of the reasons I prefer to watch games such as Kingdom Hearts like I would a movie rather than play through them. But mostly my gripe with RPGs is the grinding. I love an RPG like Okami even though it has tons of cut scenes and text because there’s no leveling up to do and no myriads of items to collect or tricky attacks to learn.

    I remember how you used to have to use your imagination to fill in the story with those old games. I did a lot of that with the old Sonic games I was into – with no dialogue, all I had to go by was what was written on the box and instruction booklet. But in spite of that, there was indeed a story and the simplicity of it all had a certain charm to it.

    For anime, I could go either way as far as having lots of explanations/flashbacks or not. Too little or too much however, wouldn’t be good.

  3. chikorita157 says:

    Anime doesn’t really influence my gaming choices, except for Pokemon. I was playing video games way before I watch my first Anime show. It mainly consisted of Mario games (e.g: Super Mario World) on the SNES. Later, I got the Gameboy along with more games. It’s not until the Gameboy Color that I started to play my first Pokemon game (Pokemon Blue).

    I do play some visual novels, mainly ones from Key/Visual Arts such as Clannad and Kanon. Haven’t really play the others since there are no English translation and I don’t know Japanese and Kanji to start playing. Maybe something I should do during winter break.

  4. Yumeka says:

    @ chikorita157

    Strangely, I’ve never owned a Mario game (not counting Smash Bros. or Wario Ware) and have only played them a little here and there at friends’ houses. I only had Sega consoles back in the day (not sure why actually) and, as I said in the post, since getting into Pokemon, I’ve mostly stuck to Pokemon-related games and a few random others.

    I’ve never tried one of the Key visual novels. Maybe I should some day just to test my Japanese =P

  5. f0calizer says:

    Another aspect of video gaming is the MMORPGs like Ragnarok Online and World of Warcraft. Oddly enough, I know some anime fans who play RO regularly, but I don’t know a single WoW gamer who’s an anime fan. Granted my network in both areas is pretty small, but I think RO draws the fans because the art style is much closer to anime. I played RO for a bit on a private (i.e. free) server but got bored, though it was interesting to explore the world. Random trivia: Yoko Kanno is composing the game soundtrack for the next version of Ragnarok Online. Almost makes me want to pay to play. Almost.

    I don’t play a lot of video games because I have to make the choice between gaming or watching anime — and I often choose anime =D. I think in RPGs video gamers get a sense of accomplishment in two ways — 1) completing story quests and 2) strengthening their characters. It sounds like the games you enjoy involve a lot more type #1 accomplishments, while type #2 accomplishments involve tinkering with your character or your party’s stats and skills in diverse ways to achieve your goals. And sometimes, achieving the right set of characters or skills is what’s necessary to advance the story! I like that aspect of RPGs, and sometimes the mindless activity of level grinding is fun when I need to shut my brain down after a long day, but I can still accomplish something by leveling up the party without triggering a lengthy boss fight. I do miss some old-fashioned PC adventure games like King’s Quest, which involved less fighting and more exploration and interaction with people in the world. I’m seeing fewer of these types of games nowadays, although Okami sounds like fun in this style. =)

  6. Yumeka says:

    @ f0calizer

    Some of my friends from anime club were into Ragnarok and/or Warcraft at some point. I personally have never had any desire to play MMORPGs. The closest I got to something like that was when I was briefly into Neopets when I was high school. Must have been their Pokemon resemblance =)

    I also tend to choose anime over games, and I agree with your points about RPGs. Like you said, for most RPGs, I prefer seeing the story unfold rather than interacting with it, but for Pokemon games, I also enjoy strengthening and tinkering with the characters. Raising a team of strong pokemon throughout the main story is my favorite part of the games, but leveling up new pokemon post-game can be more of a hassle (but I still do it =P)

  7. Odin Force says:

    Gaming is an important part of my means of relaxing. I’ve been into the series Romance of 3 Kingdoms since I was a kid. And now as a college student, I still consider it the best way to fantasize myself as an Asian feudal war strategist.

    Not until recently though, with the release of Romance of 3 Kingdoms XI, have I been able to put faces of Anime character (using a hacking program) into the game and enjoy twisting history with my own storyline. The one where 5 people of Haruhi’s SOS brigade coming to the past and involved in the 100-year civil war of China is one my favorite plots.

    To me, that is also one way to show my affection for the Anime characters I like.

  8. Yumeka says:

    @ Odin Force

    I play many games to relax, too. Some, like Harvest Moon, just because the atmosphere and gameplay is made to be relaxing, and random battles on Smash Bros. also help me unwind.

    Romance of Three Kingdoms sounds like an interesting game. Maybe I’ll check it out one day.

  9. Bonehimer says:

    RPGs were definitely my favorite genre growing up and it was purely for escapism as I liked silent protagonists. This games, like you said, had an anime like appearance, story and characters. So that was certainly a factor. I also share your experience of never caring about FF or Zelda.
    At this point I don’t really even consider myself a “gamer” as I don’t actually like video games. Sure, I love the metal gear games and recently played No More Heroes but I equate this to someone who very causally watches anime once a year like a Ghibli film, Akira or The Animatrix. But I guess some would consider them anime fans but not otaku, which is another term I don’t refer my self as but thats another issue entirely.

  10. Yumeka says:

    @ Bonehimer

    I also wouldn’t call myself a gamer. While I’m an overall anime fan, I wouldn’t call myself a game fan because I’m very selective about my games, I don’t follow all the latest ones, and I’m only into a few at a time. There are only a few games I would call myself a fan of, like Pokemon and Okami. “Casual” is a good term to use for how I relate to video games in general, like someone who’s a casual anime fan with only a few series they’re into.

  11. Ygg says:

    Zelda and Okami aren’t RPGs. Many people believe that but I don’t know where came the idea, they are Action-Adventure games with very few RPG elements. You can’t compare FF, Tales of or MMO with these games.

    And I find curious that you are a fan of Okami but didn’t have the motivation to play Zelda because Okami is practically a Zelda game in a Japanese folklore bundle. Try to play Wind Waker, Ocarina of Time or Major’as Mask because the core gameplay is the same that resides in Okami.

    Probably I started to saw anime thanks to videogames. Until a couple of years I devoted the majority of my free time to videogames but after playing so much JRPGs (specially the Tales of and Persona games) I started to be curious about anime and through the internet I slowly got into it. I still spent more time into videogames that into anime, though.

    I agree with the escapism stuff, if I play a game or watch anime is for relax and to disconnect a bit. And with respect to the increase of story elements in games I don’t like the trend of the industry about making games more and more cinematographic with a ton of cutscenes and gameplay thrown in between. Games need to mature as a medium and start to use their exclusive narrative tools, in other words, more interaction and enviromental narrative and less cutscenes.

  12. Yumeka says:

    @ Ygg

    I always thought RPGs were games where you take on the role of a character and travel around a setting that’s one large map, meaning you have to return to places you’ve been to before and complete many side quests in addition to the main plot (as opposed to other games where each level is stand-alone). Along the way you gather new powers and items, talk to many people, etc,. Zelda and Okami have these elements, they just don’t have the leveling up and controlling teams of characters that other RPGs have. So are these two missing aspects what define RPGs then?

  13. Ygg says:

    The core component of video game RPGs is character building trough levels and/or some kind of customization (equipment, magics, items, etc), because the genre derive directly from Dungeon & Dragons games.

    In Zelda games there is some kind of building (you increase your health finding hearts) but it’s not relevant to the gameplay (except in Zelda II), a similar example that comes to my mind is Metroid were you adquire energy tanks by exploration but, again, is not really important. Then you can argue that the adquiring of new items is some kind of customization but in the end it is a kind of ability key system (Metroid comes again, and many action-adventure games).

    The aspects that you exposed (one large map, backtracking, sidequests, talking to people) are elements that usually accompany RPGs but not define them. There are exemples of action/platforming-adventure games where many of those elements are present but they aren’t RPGs: Beyond Good & Evil, Banjo Kazooie, Banjo Tooie, Donkey Kong 64, Assassin’s Creed, Darksiders, etc. And RPGs that lack those elements: many dungeon crawling RPGs, for example.

    In any case, defining a game in a single genre isn’t always easy because too many games share elements from distinct genres. In the end, you could said that Zelda and Okami are action-adventure games with RPG elements.

    Maybe the common misconception about Zelda being an RPG originated from the era when came Ocarina of Time and the RPG genre was in effervescence thanks to the popularity of Final Fantasies, but it’s just a guess. Also, the term Role Playing Game is ambiguous because people tend to think that an RPG is simply a game where you assume the role of a character and, well, by that definition the majority of videogames would be RPGs.

    I hope that clarified something…

    P.D.: English isn’t my primary language, so please forgive my mistakes.

  14. Yumeka says:

    @ Ygg

    Yes, that did help clarify things a lot. Thanks.

    And your English is great by the way. You write better than many native speakers I’ve seen XD

  15. Joe says:

    I’ve lapsed into a casual gamer at best over the past decade, but I was obsessed with them when I was very young. I think the time I spent with NES/SNES/N64 games(probably measured in months or possibly years of my life) probably helped mold my imagination into something that would later turn out to be very receptive to anime. Obviously, not everyone who played Mario or Sonic games would go on to love anime (if only), but I don’t think that I’d love anime if I hadn’t first been trained by games to accept and value the unique, the strange, and the often off-the-wall concepts that so many of them were built around.
    I suspect that games from these generations were able to smuggle lots of Japanese tropes into our minds without us knowing it (long before anyone recognized certain games as “being Japanese” in the way that Pokemon was, or made a distinction between rpgs and “jrpgs”). The simple but (when you really think about it) ridiculous premise of Super Mario Brothers probably knocked down cultural barriers of what a story could or couldn’t be about. Mario, Sonic, Samus Aran, and scores of other iconic characters redefined who we could consider as heroes in a story. I mean, I’m aware of how archetypal and derivative lots of these games were, but I think they reshaped our impressionable minds into what we are now and what we’re willing to accept in the fiction we read and watch.
    Games are too complicated and time-consuming for me these days, which is probably just another way of me admitting that I’m old. But I still do appreciate good ones that come along now and then (the aformentioned Katamari Damacy, for example). The last games I bought were anthologies of classic arcade games. And I’d love to get my hands on a good Street Fighter collection (whatever’s out there for PS2, which is what I’ve played on for nearly a decade now). Right now, games are pretty far down on my list of personal entertainments, but I can’t see myself ever quitting them altogether.

  16. Yumeka says:

    @ Joe

    Very interesting thoughts about how those old games used to be. I was a huge fan of the old school Sonic games, though I don’t think they influenced my eventual anime obsession as much as Pokemon did in later years. But I started to lose interest in Sonic games when the Game Cube came out. I realized that I preferred the simple adventures of the old games while the new ones were adding too many new elements and making them feel less unique (plus you couldn’t play as my favorite, Tails, anymore XP) So I guess I don’t mind complex stories in anime, but I prefer my games simple (Pokemon, Harvest Moon, and a few others are exceptions though).

  17. CoolCARTGuy says:

    Anime influences my like of JRPGs, but nothing more within my taste in games. My tastes tend to dabble near-exclusively in the sports and racing genres.

    In racing games, I have recently taken to weaving my own plots into them – I often feature JRPG and anime characters in said plots.

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