Golarion: The Anime?


Licensed Products General Discussion

1 to 50 of 74 << first < prev | 1 | 2 | next > last >>

3 people marked this as a favorite.

Lately there have been quite a bit anime adaptions of light novels with fantasy rpg elements (Grimgar, Overlod), not to mention animes about card games (Rage of Bahamut: Genesis, Wixoss) or computer games (Hyperdimension Neptunia, Tales of Zestiria).

It is quite obvious that this animated series are 24 minutes advertisements, so it boggles the mind that Paizo has not done their own. It would help to improve sales of many products.

1) It could help introduce Pathfinder in the Japanese (and other asian) market(s). Pathfinder has been translated to other languages, but not the H-U-G-E japanese market, that is akin of microsoft never selling windows in the asian market.

2) It could help advertise the Pathfinder card game.

3) It could help advertise the pathdfinder computer game Obsidian is making. If you are thinking "hey, that one will be released in one or two years"; well, if Paizo starts working in making an anime it will be released in one or two years also.

Remember that nowadays any anime is streamed almost simultaneously, so the advertisement would include as many countries as Paizo allows. If an english dub is also made it might even be shown in traditional channels like Toonami.

Yeah, I know making anime is worth a little fortune, but also doing computer games and IMO they go hand in hand quite well, if successful enough a Pathfinder themed anime might pay at least partially for itself (in disc sales and streaming rights royalties), unlike regular advertisement where you have to get your money back in sales of the advertised product.

Also, as I said before, an animated series is advertisement that could still be shown on YV years down the road (like the D&D Cartoon) so it is like the energizer bunny, it keeps going and going ...

p.s. It would also help get young new players into pathfinder.


3 people marked this as a favorite.

Oh please god no.


3 people marked this as a favorite.
Pathfinder Maps, Pathfinder Accessories Subscriber; Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Charter Superscriber; Starfinder Charter Superscriber

Please, no.

Dark Archive

I'm for it, I like the idea.


3 people marked this as a favorite.

There's a part of me that wants this to happen just to see how the people who complain about everything being "too anime for Pathfinder" react.
And then I feel bad about it.


Oh god

I would pay all the monies to fund this

If only to see what would happen

It would be unbelieveable.

Dark Archive

Anime versions of our favorite iconics, I love it!

Silver Crusade

Can we get Miyazaki to handle it?


Pathfinder Maps, Pathfinder Accessories Subscriber; Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Charter Superscriber; Starfinder Charter Superscriber

I believe he has retired, luckily.

Silver Crusade

People can come out of retirement.


Rysky wrote:
People can come out of retirement.

The thing is that Miyazaki would cost a lot more than your average director. It's like asking for Steven Spielberg to direct the next D&D movie for WotC. But there are lots of good anime directors out there judging by all the fantasy anime being done lately.

Silver Crusade

Well this was all hypothetical/wishing anyway.

Along those lines:

Mako. Tar-Baphon.

"Pathfinders, Pathfinders, why won't you DIE?!"

Dark Archive

So what studio would handle it?

Silver Crusade

Ghibli!


1 person marked this as a favorite.

Oh, god. Don't remind me, Rysky.

I thought that he really was an immortal wizard...

*sobs into cup*


NenkotaMoon wrote:
So what studio would handle it?

That would really depend on two things:

a) Budget. Some studios specialize in flashier animations (MAPPA, Ufotable http://youtu.be/R7L1QOjv1d0 ) but those obviously are more expensive and some studios can do cheaper productions (Studio DEEN who recently did Konosuba http://youtu.be/zZ-J4eWy38U ).

Budget would also limit whether it would be just one OVA or short movie (Any remember this one about the classic computer game Wizardry? http://youtu.be/kOTHNoODYmY ) or a full fledged one cour (10-13 episodes, 24 minutes each) season.

2) Connections. Paizo would need some kind of broker to get some budget estimates. Also, some studios might want more freedom (as in, yeah, give us the characters and setting material and we will do the story and everything else) while others might be ok with supervision during the whole ordeal.


Oh please god, yes!

Dark Archive

Pathfinder Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

Anime is so unspecific term that people will think of completely different thing in response to title :P What are we exactly looking for here?

Like what age group aiming for? Shonen, seinen, shoujo? And what genre even?


2 people marked this as a favorite.

TENTAKLE HENTAIIIIIIZZZ


Nerdrage Ooze wrote:
TENTAKLE HENTAIIIIIIZZZ

Is already in the game...

Silver Crusade

The Doomkitten wrote:

Oh, god. Don't remind me, Rysky.

I thought that he really was an immortal wizard...

*sobs into cup*

Sowwy :(

*hugs*


An anime of adventures in Golarion? Sounds like it would be very fun to watch if handled by a competent director and with an interesting plot and great dialogue. Like any porpoerty really, but the advantage Golarion has is the rich background and lore - variety of regions, histories, races, gods, factions etc...


Pathfinder Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

Wow.

So at first I saw the subject and I was like "YEAH! YEAH! TAKE MY MONEY!"

And then the horrific memories of the animated Hobbit and other such things came to mind and it was "NOT SO FAST, GIVE IT BACK!"

This was followed by "Well, maybe something that wasn't too flashy..."

Then "It doesn't matter, it's not going to translate and Paizo's budget is going to take a huge hit trying to even get started on this"

Followed by "Would I rather have an anime that may or may not be all that great... or do I want a splatbook on say... Awesome Linnorm Dragons of the Inner Sea"

There would have to be so many safeguards on such a project, with an understanding that it would more than likely fail rather than succeed...


CorvusMask wrote:
Like what age group aiming for? Shonen, seinen, shoujo? And what genre even?

It is a good question, which leas us to our next question, who would write the plot? IMO a good option would be to pay Gen "The Butcher" Urobochi to do it. But whoever writes it should be seasoned writer, it would be a dire mistake to think "any plot is just fine, here, I wrote one in a napkin".

Returning to the original question, it would depend on what product does paizo wants to promote, if it is the beginner box and/or the card game, you probably want it to be "shounen", but if they want to promote the core rulebook/bestiary and/or the computer game, it should be better for it to be "seinen". As long as female characters do not have DDD cups and there is no gravity defying face on crotch scenes the female public may also get interested (specially if male characters are cool like in many sports anime).

Wei Ji the Learner wrote:
There would have to be so many safeguards on such a project, with an understanding that it would more than likely fail rather than succeed...

IF Paizo can't afford an anime (which seems odd to me since WotC can afford a live-action movie), they could at least kickstart an ova, it has been done successfully before:

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/774031583/under-the-dog

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/production-ig/masaaki-yuasas-kick-heart

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1311401276/little-witch-academia-2

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/itoso-tag/santa-company

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/mightyno9/red-ash-magicicada-by-studio 4c/description

Of course Paizo might have the money but starting with a smaller project might be a good idea since they have zero experience (unlike WotC that has already been part of the production of several movies).

Silver Crusade

Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

First of all, WotC is not funding the movie. The studio is, and matter of fact until recently the relationship between the studio and Hasbro/WotC was ... hostile, to say at least.

Second, Kickstarter doesn't solve the problem of having a studio that would be willing to do it ...

... and the biggest problem that majority of PF/D&D fans are hostile to manga & anime to the point that the manga-inflenced artwork from early PF APs got booed out by folks who prefer Erol Otus and Larry Elmore. Which will hardly make anybody enthusiastic about making an anime towards a largely negative target audience.


Gorbacz wrote:
... making an anime towards a largely negative target audience.

Got any hard statistical numbers to back that? Here is an important seed for thought, there exist no such thing as a negative sale, the worst case scenario is people not buying, as simple as that. So even if you got 100 million people that hate a product, if 5 million love it and buy it, then it IS a success *cue to justin beeber*.

About what studio would be willing to do it, most anime studios are mercenaries work for hire, a production committee slaps them with a bill of money on the face http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cqOW8FssDcY and they produce the animation they are asked for. If you are thinking "american and japanese companies can't work together" please remember that for decades most american cartoons have been animated in korea, china and of course, japan. Heck, recently there was this cool collaboration with studio 4c for gumball:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ugZFLnEmKpo

Silver Crusade

Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

No, I don't have any statistics. I've just have had enough experience with the industry to know that D&D fans have their peculiar tastes and those tastes are incredibly conservative. Doubly so when it comes to M&A, which is viewed by many hardcore gamers as One of Many Bad Things That Happened And Resulted in D&D No Longer Being So Big. Others include: video games, smartphones, computers or just any technology beyond the calculator, really.

You can, of course, god damn the torpedoes and ignore the traditional D&D gamer target and go for non-gamer audience, hoping it will draw them to your primary product. But this means you're trying to catch the attention of people who never heard of your brand in the first place, so you get no points for the license itself. In that event, you're trying to beat stuff like Seven Deadly Sins, SAO or even golden oldies like Escaflowne or Lodoss at their own game. Which means you need to be pretty freaking good to have a chance at getting a decent ROI here. Companies don't measure successes in Youtube views or MyAnimeList scores, they measure them in cash and new customers. And here you're not just trying to get a profit on the anime, you want to convert the customer. That's ... a whole additional layer of difficult.

And American and Japanese companies can work together, but it is usually incredibly difficult due to fundamental cultural differences in conducting business. Stuff like how a deal is struck (American way: as quickly as possible, hopefully on the first meeting, over the lunch. Japanese way: at some point during the 253th karaoke and sake binge, a year and half down the road) or how communication is handled (Americans follow the standard "24h for a response to an email, unless the roof is on fire" while for Japanese the roof is always on fire, and it's not a normal fire, it's demonic nuclear fire, and their emails must be answered within an hour tops).


Gorbacz wrote:
... D&D fans have their peculiar tastes and those tastes are incredibly conservative.

You seem to be forgetting that half of the idea here is for Paizo to get into the asian market, so in a sense you are acknowledging that they need to appeal to their aesthetics aka make the artwork of japanese translated core rulebook and bestiary more anime like (and use those designs for the anime).

Quote:
You can, of course, g%& d*@n the torpedoes and ignore the traditional D&D gamer target and go for non-gamer audience, hoping it will draw them to your primary product. But this means you're trying to catch the attention of people who never heard of your brand in the first place, so you get no points for the license itself. In that event, you're trying to beat stuff like Seven Deadly Sins, SAO or even golden oldies like Escaflowne or Lodoss at their own game. Which means you need to be pretty freaking good to have a chance at getting a decent ROI here. Companies don't measure successes in Youtube views or MyAnimeList scores, they measure them in cash and new customers. And here you're not just trying to get a profit on the anime, you want to convert the customer. That's ... a whole additional layer of difficult.

Attracting younger customers (that have never played a tabletop RPG) is vital to Paizo, otherwise they risk having their userbase age and drop out of the scene, not trying at all is a ticket to oblivion.

You believe they have to beat big franchises like SAO or Attack on Titan to be successful, but that is nonsense in a world of free streaming (remember a pathfinder anime is but a 24 minute advertising), many series can be successful even if they do not have the biggest budget or a famous writer behind (i.e. Konosuba).

Quote:
And American and Japanese companies can work together, but it is usually incredibly difficult due to fundamental cultural differences in conducting business. Stuff like how a deal is struck (American way: as quickly as possible, hopefully on the first meeting, over the lunch. Japanese way: at some point during the 253th karaoke and sake binge, a year and half down the road) or how communication is handled (Americans follow the standard "24h for a response to an email, unless the roof is on fire" while for Japanese the roof is always on fire, and it's not a normal fire, it's demonic nuclear fire, and their emails must be answered within an hour tops).

Yet, every year most american animation is outsourced to asian countries, I do not mean to say it is easy, but it is feasible.


1 person marked this as a favorite.

*Gets flashback to animated Dragonlance movie, curls in a fetal position and weeps in the corner*

Community & Digital Content Director

4 people marked this as a favorite.

Removed a baiting post and the responses to it. It's fine if anime isn't your cup of tea, but there are plenty of folk within our community who do like it. Let's not escalate/derail this conversation to debate the genre itself.


Triphoppenskip wrote:
*Gets flashback to animated Dragonlance movie, curls in a fetal position and weeps in the corner*

That is the difference between a low-cost japanese anime studio and a cheap/novice indian animation studio. Hey, I will admit that I am a bargain hunter, but doing something really cheap could damage the opinion the public at large have of Golarion (which is Paizo's most important ip atm). So having an animation studio that has successfully animated a fantasy series is basic, imo.

Also, no matter whether it is animated or live action, trying to shove twice the material into your allotted screen time is a bad, bad idea, it is always better to leave the audience asking for more than having them thinking "that did not make sense, at all".

Grand Lodge RPG Superstar 2015 Top 32, RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32

1 person marked this as a favorite.

I think one of Paizo's biggest achievements is its well-developed setting. The anime tradition is a potent storytelling medium. Putting the two together seems like it could have a lot of potential.

Of course, there are lots of hurdles to clear: the stigma from the less than stellar past history of game-based cinema (both animated and live-action), the deep-rooted willful ignorance (and resultant bigotry) toward non-Euro-centric media among a sizable portion of the Pathfinder community, the financial and logistical burdens (which I couldn't really comment on with any specifics but are almost certainly an issue), and so forth.

But if it did happen, and if it went well, I'd watch the crap out of it. :)


You're all missing the point of the anime: to introduce Golarion. Which Adventure Path would be used? Rise of the Runelords (Anniversary Edition, please)? Iron Gods? Legacy of Fire? And six Adventure Path books would be a minimum of 24 anime episodes + 2 "ending" OVAs or an ending "movie", unless you want to go the "really short, crammed-in movie vs. 24 episodes" route.

I'm not saying it can't be done, there's plenty of "medieval + magic" anime out there. Sometimes the characters start off at Level One, sometimes they're already Level Eighteen.

There's also getting good Japanese voices in addition to the studio, good music directors, sponsors, promoting the characters as figurine models (and we're not talking 25mm here), someone on staff for referencing the magic system, etc. Pools of Radiance: Ruins of Myth Drannor was a good representation, in my own opinion.

Do you want everyone as adventurers in their mid-twenties, or do we get the "chibi" version, with Seoni the nine-year-old sorceress? These are questions the studio needs answered first.


1 person marked this as a favorite.
jhpace1 wrote:
Do you want everyone as adventurers in their mid-twenties, or do we get the "chibi" version, with Seoni the nine-year-old sorceress? These are questions the studio needs answered first.

If has been said that an anime target demographic can be seen by the perceived age of the protagonists:

Chibis: Kids https://youtu.be/AJmlzlRDIZM
Teens: 13-19 https://youtu.be/afNYXz-AHBY
Adults: 20+ https://youtu.be/jMoVmSV4yA8 <-- Those drow are 20+ years old! >_<


1 person marked this as a favorite.
Gorbacz wrote:

In that event, you're trying to beat stuff like Seven Deadly Sins, SAO or even golden oldies like Escaflowne or Lodoss at their own game. Which means you need to be pretty freaking good to have a chance at getting a decent ROI here.

Good news SAO is hot garbage and yet insanely popular. The bar is set really low you just gotta pander REALLY hard.

mangamuscle wrote:
That is the difference between a low-cost japanese anime studio and a cheap/novice indian animation studio. Hey, I will admit that I am a bargain hunter, but doing something really cheap could damage the opinion the public at large have of Golarion (which is Paizo's most important ip atm). So having an animation studio that has successfully animated a fantasy series is basic, imo.

Really if you want good animation you go to Korea. Japan simply doesn't pay its animators enough most of the time. Hence why so many anime consist mainly of panning shots and dialog between characters with at most mouth flaps for animation.

Dark Archive

mangamuscle wrote:
jhpace1 wrote:
Do you want everyone as adventurers in their mid-twenties, or do we get the "chibi" version, with Seoni the nine-year-old sorceress? These are questions the studio needs answered first.

If has been said that an anime target demographic can be seen by the perceived age of the protagonists:

Chibis: Kids https://youtu.be/AJmlzlRDIZM
Teens: 13-19 https://youtu.be/afNYXz-AHBY
Adults: 20+ https://youtu.be/jMoVmSV4yA8 <-- Those drow are 20+ years old! >_<

Overlord, I like that. Too bad it's only really the first volume animated, Gets better later on with a plot more focused on politics.

Dark Archive

mangamuscle wrote:
CorvusMask wrote:

Like what age group aiming for? Shonen, seinen, shoujo? And what genre even?

Returning to the original question, it would depend on what product does paizo wants to promote, if it is the beginner box and/or the card game, you probably want it to be "shounen", but if they want to promote the core rulebook/bestiary and/or the computer game, it should be better for it to be "seinen". As long as female characters do not have DDD cups and there is no gravity defying face on crotch scenes the female public may also get interested (specially if male characters are cool like in many sports anime).

Seoni already has about that size in bras I think. She doesn't even wear a bra either, not to mention the iconic Oracle either.

Verdant Wheel

You don't even have to do a series. Just a OP like videos introducing iconics and villains would bring a lot of attention to the IP.


Fun as it would seem, I doubt it would work. Animation is EXPENSIVE. And so is advertising. And making deals with people to air it.

For what return?

BigNorseWolf wrote:
Returning to the original question, it would depend on what product does paizo wants to promote, if it is the beginner box and/or the card game, you probably want it to be "shounen", but if they want to promote the core rulebook/bestiary and/or the computer game, it should be better for it to be "seinen". As long as female characters do not have DDD cups and there is no gravity defying face on crotch scenes the female public may also get interested (specially if male characters are cool like in many sports anime).

This is absolutely the wrong approach if you want the series to be popular, which is what the ONLY purpose of this anime would be. Advertising.

Name three popular Seinen series of the last ten years. I can only think of two.

Now look at the overflowing DELUGE of popular shounen titles. The good, the bad, and the ugly, and all of very different genres and styles to boot.

You don't need terrible comedy and titties to be a shounen, you just need to appeal to the teen and young boys demographic.

Death Note appeals to adolescent god complexes. One Piece appeals to a sense of adventure. Attack on Titan scratches that grimdark itch.

And yes, all of these are shounen series.


jhpace1 wrote:
You're all missing the point of the anime: to introduce Golarion. Which Adventure Path would be used? Rise of the Runelords (Anniversary Edition, please)? Iron Gods? Legacy of Fire? And six Adventure Path books would be ...

I think it is a well known fact that doing adaptions is non trivial. Heck, there is an Oscar for best adapted screenplay. Dragons of Autumn Twilight is an example of a poor novel adaption. IMO adaption from other media, like comic books or visual novels requires also experience and know how. The elephant in the room here is that nobody has ever done an adventure path (or module, as we called them in the good old days™) adaption into live action or animated media, it is uncharted territory and therefore a liability in a new venture. IMO it would be safer to pay someone to make an interesting story using the Core Rulebook characters and rules plus the Golarion setting as the basic requirements.

Sundakan wrote:

Fun as it would seem, I doubt it would work. Animation is EXPENSIVE. And so is advertising. And making deals with people to air it.

For what return?

You make it sound like this idea is somehow novel and new. Yet for decades already, many light novels (which are books, just like the core rulebook) have been adapted into anime. This summer season alone I can count four (light) novel adaptions http://www.livechart.me/summer-2016/tv Don't make the assumption that only the award winning and/or most popular prose is ever made into an anime. The clear example here is Konosuba (God's Blessing on This Wonderful World! which is not about religion in the same vein The World God Only Knows isn't) which was a basically unknown, with low sales; ok, it got a low budget animation with only 11 episodes (one of the which was not broadcast and was included with the next light novel volume to maximize sales) but it was better than the old D&D cartoon by any metric you choose.

If it was such a low return endeavor we would not see each and every season new light novels being made into anime (next season I can count five, so it is far from a declining trend).

The clear advantage here is that unlike novels, the core rulebook does not become an old product on the bookshelves in only a year.

I do agree that on average the most popular animes are shounen, but there have been a handful of seinen series to become popular: One-Punch Man, Ghost in the Shell, Planetes, Chobits, Tokyo Ghoul, Mushishi, Monster, xxxHOLiC, Gantz, Elfen Lied, Berserk and Akira.

Dark Archive

We could just skip Pathfinder and start with a Starfinder anime?


Perhaps the audio (Pathfinder Legends?) could be used as a springboard for adaptation? Seems te scripts are already there, and if I remember rightly were produced by the same folk who produced Doctor Who audio versions. With some good scripting, and based on the Adventure Paths, there is a good chassis.

Or just go completely mental and super-high fantasy with the gods and mythic elements all wrapped in to a fantastic story - Twelve Kingdoms style.


1 person marked this as a favorite.

Records of the Lodoss War is an actual D&D campaign put into anime IIRC, and Overlord was created from Maruyama-sensei's desire to play D&D with people, so it's not that weird to have D&D-based anime and it can go over very well.

Both of those anime were animated well enough for the medium and obtained 4 cours for Records and 2 cours for Overlord, so I don't see why it couldn't happen for RotRL, CotCT, LoF, RoW, WotR, or anything else that Paizo has published if the company really anted to do it.

Edit: Then there's Gate: Thus the JSDF Fought, which is basically D&D world attempts to invade modern Japan and gets counter-attacked for reparations.


Why not push for a western adaption? It'd be a lot easier without so many hurtles.

1 to 50 of 74 << first < prev | 1 | 2 | next > last >>
Community / Forums / Paizo / Licensed Products / General Discussion / Golarion: The Anime? All Messageboards

Want to post a reply? Sign in.