ADVENTURE IS GO!

MECHA & MANGA

Design Alejandro Melchor

Graphic Design & Art Direction Hal Mangold

Cover Art Andrew Hou

Development Steve Kenson

Editing Joanna G. Hurley

Publisher Chris Pramas

A GREEN RONIN PRODUCTION

Interior Art Attila Adorjany, Jeff Carlisle, Vince Chui and Jasper Ng

for Empty Room Studios, Jonathan Floyd, and Annie Hill

Playtesters Jason Orman, Aaron Sullivan

Green Ronin Staff Chris Pramas, Nicole Lindroos, Hal Mangold, Steve Kenson,

Jon Leitheusser, Evan Sass, Marc Schmalz, and Bill Bodden

First Edition Graphic Design & Art Direction Sean Glenn

Permission granted to print one copy of the epectronic version of this publication for personal purposes only.

Mecha & Manga is ©2009 Green Ronin Publishing, LLC. All rights reserved. Reference to other copyrighted material in no way constitutes a challenge to the

respective copyright holders of that material. Mecha & Manga, Green Ronin, Mutants & Masterminds, Freedom City, and their associated logos are trademarks of

Green Ronin Publishing, LLC. Any reference to any other company or product in this book is not intended as a challenge to any associated trademark or copyright.

The following is designated as Product Identity, in accordance with Section 1(e) of the Open Game License,

Version 1.0a: all character and place names and descriptions (with the exception of Yig and The Yellow Sign), hero points, power points.

The following text is Open Gaming Content: all stat blocks and game rules, except for material previously declared Product Identity.

Printed in Canada

Green Ronin Publishing

3815 S. Othello St, Suite 100 #304

Seattle WA 98118

custserv@greenronin.com

www.greenronin.com

www.mutantsandmasterminds.com

Mecha & Manga was typeset in ITC Quay Sans, designed by David Quay in 1990,

and HTF Gotham Condensed, designed by Tobias Frere-Jones in 2002.

4 TABLE OF CONTENTS

MECHA & MANGA TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION MECHA & MANGA

T A B L E • O F • C O N T E N T SINTRODUCTION .....................................5

CHAPTER 1: WORLDS OF MANGA .......6

Manga Genres .................................................7

The Manga Setting ........................................9

CHAPTER 2: MANGA HEROES ............13

Species Templates.........................................13

Base Templates ........................................ 14Natural ESPer .......................................... 14Elf Template .............................................. 14Dwarf ......................................................... 14Cat Person ................................................ 14Spacer ........................................................ 15Beastfolk .................................................... 15Batfolk ....................................................... 15Bearfolk ...................................................... 15Catfolk ....................................................... 15Dogfolk ...................................................... 15Animal ........................................................ 16Artificial...................................................... 16Service Bot Template .............................. 17Cyborg Template ...................................... 17Persona Template .................................... 17Golem Template ....................................... 17Otherworldly ............................................. 17Kitsune Fox-Spirit Template ..................18Energy Being Template ..........................18Novice Godling/Demon Template ....18Undead .......................................................18Young Vampire ......................................... 19Ghost .......................................................... 19Customizing a Template ....................... 19

Character Archetypes ................................. 20

Child Assassin .......................................... 21Circumstantial Idiot ...............................22Cool Sempai ..............................................23ESPer ............................................................24Exiled Deity ...............................................25Exorcist .......................................................26Future Warrior...........................................27Idol ...............................................................28Magical Girl ..............................................29Modern Sorcerer .......................................30Priest ............................................................ 31Student .......................................................32Techie/Artificer ........................................33Troubleshooter ..........................................34Warrior ........................................................35

Skills ................................................................. 36

Feats ................................................................. 39

Powers ............................................................. 44

Complications and Drawbacks ............... 51

Visuals ............................................................. 54

Quirks .............................................................. 54

CHAPTER 3: MECHA ...........................55

The Mecha Genre ........................................ 55

Mecha Types .................................................. 59

Creating Mecha ............................................ 60

Using Mecha ................................................. 72

The Role of Mecha ..................................72Pilot Traits ..................................................73Mecha Skills and Feats .......................... 74Mecha Combat ........................................75

Sample Mecha .............................................. 78

Saber Mechsuit Mark IV........................79Special Tactics

Armored Unit (STAU) ........................79MF-15 Raptor (humanoid) ...................79Panzerblade ...............................................80Kerberaltes .................................................80Titanzor-V ...................................................81Ace Mecha Pilot .......................................82Mobile Armor Trooper ............................83

CHAPTER 4: MARTIAL ARTS...............84

Followers of the Way .................................. 84

Martial Arts Themes ................................... 87

Martial Arts in Play ..................................... 89

Ninja ............................................................99Super Martial Artist ............................. 100

CHAPTER 5: PETS ..............................103

The Pet Genre .............................................103

Pets Unleashed ...........................................105

Pet Feats .................................................. 106Pet-Related Powers ................................107Pet-Related Drawbacks ....................... 108Creature Types ....................................... 108Minion Horde Template .......................110

Pet Combat .................................................. 110

Pet and Master Actions .......................110Pet Training ............................................. 111Pet Monster Trainer ............................... 113Sample Pet Monster: Dogbone ......... 113Summoner ................................................ 114Evolution .................................................. 115Hordes and Legions .............................. 115

CHAPTER 6:

GAMEMASTERING MANGA ...........116

Role-Playing and Running a Manga

Series ......................................................... 116

Hero Concepts ........................................116Visual Stunts ...........................................118A Primer on ............................................119Japanese (pop) Culture .......................119Drama and Relationships...................120The Relationships Map ........................122Attack Names .........................................123Flashbacks ...............................................124Comedic Systems ...................................125Power Tiers ...............................................126

Conflict and Challenges ..........................127

Conflict Basics ........................................128Alternative Conflict Types ...................129

Antagonists .................................................133

Antagonist Concepts........................... 134Dark Swordsman .................................. 135Exiled Demon ........................................ 136Invader Entity .........................................137Ghost in the Machine ........................ 138jealous Schoolgirl ................................. 139Kaiju ......................................................... 140Megacorp CEO .......................................141

Supporting Cast .........................................142

Agent 5 ................................................... 142Class Rep ................................................ 142Commander ........................................... 142Common Shikigami ............................. 142Cool Teacher ........................................... 142Supporting Cast Concepts ................ 143Cute Pet-like Thing ............................... 143Mission Controller ................................ 143School Kid ............................................... 143Support Techie ....................................... 143

CHAPTER 7: MANGA SERIES ............144

Soul Mirrors .................................................144

The Dark Fortress .......................................145

Destiny Guard Urageas ...........................147

Culture Festival Amazing Preparation

Squad ........................................................148

Mugen no Odyssey ...................................148

Echoes & Shadows ....................................150

Legend of Demon Fist ............................. 151

Shards: Unsung Destiny ..........................152

Background ............................................ 152Plot Frameworks .................................... 156Elements ...................................................157

INDEX .................................................158

CONTRIBUTORS .................................159

LICENSE ..............................................160

MECHA & MANGA TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION MECHA & MANGA

INTRODUCTION 5

INTRODUCTIONN

orth American superheroes blast evil with powers born from radiation, mutation, training, or magic, flying through the cityscape in their colorful costumes and protecting their secret identities. Meanwhile, on the other side of the world, their Japanese counterparts uncover

ancient martial arts, pilot giant robots, and train cute little monsters, while worrying about exams and catching the attention of the overachieving pop-ular girl or guy.

Mecha & Manga extends the possibilities of the main Mutants & Masterminds rules toward the far shores of Japan’s manga, where nobody sees anything wrong with angsty teenagers piloting humanoid machines of mass destruction, where being an exorcist is a full-time and respected job, and where school girls routinely save the world from unimaginable evils.

WHAT IS MANGA?In Japan, comics are called manga (with their Korean and Chinese versions called manwha), literally meaning “playful images.”

Evolving from Buddhist paintings through the crucible of Japanese his-tory and culture, manga expanded to target all sorts of audiences, rather than limit itself to a narrow demographic and a few thematic genres. The first step that the art and industry of Japanese comics took toward their current form was the work of Osamu Tezuka who, inspired by Disney’s visual style, created works such as Tetsuwan Atom (aka Astro Boy). capturing the hearts of the public and opening the door for a new generation of man-gaka, the artists and creators.

While equal in basic principles to Western comics, manga developed their own visual language and methods for telling stories. The difference in style goes beyond the big googly eyes (which Western artists begin to copy today), the diminutive mouths, and the almost non-existent noses. Manga artists make different uses of graphic elements such as panels, dialogue balloons, sound effects, and the omnipresent speed lines, not to mention cultural expressions such as the bleeding nose and the big sweat drop on the back of characters’ heads.

MANGA AND ANIMEThe success of manga in popular culture inevitably led to the adaptation of their stories to the realm of moving pictures, with Tetsuwan Atom once more paving the way for other animators. In its animated form, manga is called “anime,” a word borrowed from the West. Anime developed its own language based on the groundwork laid out by manga artists, but soon enough, it found its own voice. Nowadays, the Japanese industry provides all sorts of animated works, from miniseries to full-length movies that push the boundaries of animation technology.

THE GENRE THAT ISN’TManga and anime are not genres in the common sense of the word; they are better described as media or artistic styles (although debate still rages about this). Manga can be used to tell stories in virtually all genres of narrative, from serious psychological drama to light comedies, although the most widely distributed titles fall within the fantastic genres such as fantasy, science fic-tion, and horror, with spandex-wearing superheroes practically unknown, even if plenty of equivalents abound on the shelves of specialized stores.

Manga creators produce stories aimed at everyone–children, bored house-wives, company executives, everyone can find a title that will interest them. Because manga and anime cross the axes of multiple genres and have a wide demographic spectrum, the types of stories that they can tell are virtu-ally infinite. For example, the theme of space exploration can be treated as a children’s playful farce in a show like Wandaba Style or as a serious extrapolation of the social and psychological impact of the space race, as in the Planetes manga and anime series. The all-time favorite genre of sword and sorcery can be comedic, as in Slayers, classically epic, as in Record of Lodoss Wars, or even dreadfully gritty and horrific, as in Berserk.

THE DIFFERENCEBoiled down to their most basic description, manga and Western comics are essentially the same. However, manga displays a unique attitude, a bold desire to explore the boundaries of genre and style for a wider audience at the same time that it caters to the base common denominator, without such explorations relegated to obscure corners away from the mainstream. Or, perhaps, the difference is simply that manga is produced by an exotic and distant culture, and their narrators provide their inimitable contributions to all the genres they touch.

HOW TO USE THIS BOOKLike Mutants & Masterminds, Mecha & Manga is organized into chapters covering the major aspects of the game, but this time giving it the manga treatment, exploring old and new options and how to use them to play an anime-themed series. The breakdown of the book is as follows.

Chapter 1• explores the different worlds of manga and how you can assemble different elements to create your own manga setting.

Chapter 2• deals with character options such as skills, feats, powers, and drawbacks that are common in manga, from those that already exist in Mutants & Masterminds to completely new ones.

Chapter 3• describes one of the main staples of manga and anime: mecha. This includes power armor, giant robots, and the different ways in which they can appear in a Mecha & Manga series.

Chapter 4• takes a closer look at martial arts, from the mundane styles of after-school clubs to world-shattering techniques, as well as how to use feats and powers to simulate them.

Chapter 5• describes pets, creatures that manga heroes can call upon to do their fighting for them or supplement their own powers and abili-ties.

Chapter 6• has loads of advice on how to run a manga-inspired series. Themes, concepts, clichés, and alternate genre-specific systems are the ingredients that both Gamemaster and players can use to create their own manga adventures.

Chapter 7• provides several story seeds that you can use to launch a Mecha & Manga series, as well as Shards: Unsung Destiny, a complete manga setting ready for use.

6 WORLDS OF MANGA

MECHA & MANGA CHAPTER ONE: WORLDS OF MANGA CHAPTER ONE: WORLDS OF MANGA MECHA & MANGA

CHAPTER 1: WORLDS OF MANGA

Manga and anime can tell thousands of stories, but they have a few unique elements. Before you begin playing Mecha & Manga, you must decide what kind of story you want to create. Creating the sto-ry’s setting is a step that the Gamemaster can do by himself before

he gathers other players, or it can be a collective effort between everyone who will play, coming up with a setting that everyone will have fun playing in because everyone had a hand in its creation.

A setting is the world a story happens in; it has its own internal rules about what can exist in it and what cannot. It defines the boundaries, and in a way, it restricts the options available to the players. At the same time, the setting’s definitions open many possibilities, as the players must think of innovative ways to guide their characters through the story, given the limits to their options.

There are two approaches to creating a manga setting, independent of how many people gather to create it. You can start with the chicken and create the setting before anything else happens or start with the egg and develop the setting once everyone says what kind of character he or she wants to play. Neither approach is inherently better than the other, so you can use the one best suited for your group.

This chapter gives you a few guidelines and hard rules about creating and running a manga setting, whether it is the work of a single Gamemaster or one or more players, and if this step is the first or the last when setting up a game of Mecha & Manga.

Creating a manga setting can be as simple as taking your favorite manga or anime series and recognizing its setting’s elements and characteristics,

or it can be as complex as creating everything from scratch and detailing every last corner of the world for players to explore and exploit. The steps for developing a manga setting are:

Choose a Genre:• This is the most general descriptor for a setting and implies several recognizable elements that it will have.

Envision the Scope:• This is the setting’s level of complexity and how much juice you want to squeeze out of it.

Define the Setting Parameters:• Like fixing a dial, defining a Tech Level and power level gives a hard numeric value to the sort of things that the setting can include.

Decide on a Theme and Tone:• A matter of preference, the theme and tone of a setting suggests the kind of events that will happen in the story and how the world and the characters react to each other.

Include Story Elements:• Given a genre, scope, and parameters, add-ing elements is like making a salad, tossing in options available to the story’s protagonists, including powers and descriptors.

Write the Synopsis:• In a few words, this simple aid helps to visualize the setting and describe it to potential players, getting them excited about it.

See • Chapter 7: Manga Series for a step-by-step example on how the main scenario, “Shards: Unsung Destiny,” was created with these guidelines.

MECHA & MANGA CHAPTER ONE: WORLDS OF MANGA CHAPTER ONE: WORLDS OF MANGA MECHA & MANGA

WORLDS OF MANGA 7

For story purposes, the definition of genre is a category of artistic composi-tion marked by a distinctive style, form, or content. A genre is a label that encompasses similar themes or elements to make it easier for people to find titles they will like. As artistic media, manga and anime can tell stories in many different genres, and before developing the setting for a game of Mecha & Manga, you have to start there, by choosing to which genre the setting will belong.

Genres are not straitjackets to lock a setting inside a narrow definition. One of the trademarks of manga and anime is the way they mix and match genres, forging worlds in the space where genre definitions overlap. When you choose a genre for your setting, keep in mind that you are free to select more than one, and that you can break the limits of any particular genre by borrowing elements from another.

“REGULAR” GENRESThe same labels that other media use to classify their stories can also describe the stories of manga and anime, although they bring their unique interpretations to them.

FANTASYThe most important definition of the fantasy genre is the presence of magic in one form or another. Fantasy is a very broad genre that has many sub-classifications born from the way a story handles its magical elements.

Sword and sorcery deals with forgotten times (often medieval in outlook) and worlds where wizards wield magic and adventurers fight mythological monsters with spells and swords. Urban fantasy is often the territory of chil-dren’s tales, with low-key magic intruding upon an everyday world ruled by science or coexisting with normal technological advancements.

Examples: • Record of Lodoss Wars, Berserk, Claymore, Scrapped Princess, Princess Mononoke, Tales of Earthsea, Everyday Dreamers, Card Captor Sakura, Howl’s Moving Castle, Mushishi, My Neighbor Totoro, The Cat Returns, Fancy Lala.

SCIENCE FICTIONWhere fantasy deals with magic, the focus of science fiction is, as its name implies, on science. Science fiction has even more subgenres than fantasy, as science and technology continue to evolve, and creators explore new ave-nues and new ways to look at the genre. Science fiction stories often focus on the cool gadgets, but the best stories deal with how normal people act around the technology and its impact on society.

Space opera deals with high adventure, with starships sailing across gal-axies and many scientific developments that can (and sometimes do) cross over with fantasy. Cyberpunk explores a future where technology has created a hellish world dominated by the corruption of the powerful, destitution of the poor, human augmentation through cybernetics, and advanced com-puter networks, with a few rebellious operatives carrying out their exploits and alternatively hired and persecuted by governments and companies. Post-Apocalypse stories revolve around a cataclysm—natural, man-made, or as the result of an alien attack—that brought the end of civilization as we know it and the efforts of the survivors to rebuild or create a new society. The scientific romance is both the grandfather of modern science fiction at the hands of authors such as Jules Verne and H.G. Wells and a basis for the modern genres known as steampunk and dieselpunk, where alternate societies develop advanced technology based on the discoveries of the time, most commonly steam and fossil fuel technology, as well as early attempts at electricity.

Examples: • Gundam Wing, FLAG, Vandread, Robotech, Battlecruiser Yamato (aka Starblazers), Martian Successor Nadesico, Armitage III, Dominion Tank Police, Ghost in the Shell – Stand Alone Complex, Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind, Ergo Proxy, Desert Punk, The Big O, Steam Detectives, Samurai 7, Planetes, Wings of Honneamise.

HORRORIn horror, the supernatural is dark and dangerous and has it in for normal people. Monsters are not vanquished with a sword, as in fantasy, but are something that can drive people to madness or death, often to both. Horror is more open-ended than other genres and mixes a lot with them, as their focus is to depict and cause fear.

Gothic horror deals with traditional monsters such as ghosts, vampires, and werewolves, either by pitting hapless people against them or by using them as the story’s protagonists. Cosmic horror is tied to the works of writer H.P. Lovecraft and his Cthulhu mythos, dealing with forces outside human comprehension that lurk in the shadows of reality, waiting for their chance to return and eat everyone. Psychological horror is normally devoid of the supernatural element, focusing on the monstrous aspects of people such as serial killers and psychopaths. Survival horror focuses on putting a person or group of people in horrible circumstance that they must survive (hence the name) with their lives, sanity, and even their morality intact.

Examples: • Vampire Princess Miyu, Pet Shop of Horrors, 3x3 Eyes, Perfect Blue, Monster, Mermaid Forest, Mononoke, Night Walker, Silent Möbius, Chrono Crusade, Boogiepop Phantom, Vampire Hunter D, Requiem From the Darkness, Ghost Hound, Hell Girl, Death Note.

DRAMAAlthough the word “drama” means “movement” and is present in all inter-esting stories, as a genre label, it refers to stories where the protagonists’ emotions are the engine that moves everything. Drama is a very, very broad category, as the cause of the portrayed emotions varies. Suffering and emo-tional pain are very common in drama, but they need not even be part of the story; they are just the easiest way to elicit an emotional response from the readers.

Family dramas tell the stories of a family and how it braves hardships together. Social dramas use the protagonists’ misadventures to comment on social and political issues of importance. War dramas portray how people respond to the extreme situation that is being in the middle of a war, either as a combatant or any kind of civilian. Catastrophe dramas have the pro-tagonists facing a natural or man-made catastrophes and pulling through them, while psychological dramas delve deep into the minds of the peo-ple experiencing life. Romance dramas are very popular and deal with the romantic entanglements of several people and how boy meets girl, loses girl, then recovers girl (a lot of permutations exist).

Examples: • Candy Candy, Remi, Belle & Sebastian, Fruits Basket, The Virgin Mary is Watching, Video Girl Ai (with a heavy dose of fantasy), Gravion, Gundam Seed (with a lot of science fiction), Grave of the Fireflies.

MYSTERYThis genre can have supernatural elements but does not in most cases. The focus of mystery is to present an enigma and to have the characters try to solve it armed only with their wits and resourcefulness. In the West, the detective story is the most famous example of the mystery genre.

Crime stories portray troubled investigators figuring out the clues to solve a crime of varying seriousness; the protagonists can be actual members

MANGA GENRES

8 WORLDS OF MANGA

MECHA & MANGA CHAPTER ONE: WORLDS OF MANGA CHAPTER ONE: WORLDS OF MANGA MECHA & MANGA

of law enforcement agencies, amateur investigators, or private detectives. Thrillers raise the stakes in a normal mystery by putting the lives of the protagonists at extreme risks as they delve deeper and deeper into darkness. Technothrillers are borderline science fiction, as the protagonists make use of cutting-edge technology and resources to solve the enigma, with the dif-ference being that such technology currently exists. Conspiracy stories often have normal people stumbling upon dark and terrible secrets regarding obscure organizations or corrupt branches of government, fostering para-noia as the characters do not know whom they can trust.

Examples: • Detective Academy Q, Great Detectives Poirot & Marple, Spiral, .hack//SIGN (with a lot of fantasy and cyberpunk), Paranoia Agent, Patlabor: the Movie, Serial Experiments Lain (also with lots of cyberpunk and transhumanism), Detective Conan, Steam Detectives, The Silent Service.

ACTION/ADVENTUREThe genre’s name pretty much describes it. Protagonists are immersed in situations of extreme danger, which they usually confront by violence or through daring feats of physical prowess. Lots of explosions are the norm in an action/adventure story, with characters escaping from certain death by the skin of their teeth.

Pulp is an often-whimsical action genre, where two-fisted scientists battle menaces ranging from Nazis to invaders from the planet Mongo to giant apes, mixing freely with fantasy and science fiction. War action depicts the exploits of the hero who, an assault rifle blazing in each hand, can wipe out hundreds of the enemy without delving too much into the emotional impact. Martial arts and gun fu stories are typical of the Asian action genre, portraying heroes who excel at the arts of unarmed and firearm combat, whether in ancient or futuristic times. Heroes jump, twist, kick, stab, vol-ley, and perforate their enemies with wild and remorseless abandon. Hunt stories are all about the heroes running away from overwhelming odds or alternatively chasing after someone or something, such as a lost treasure.

Examples: • Riding Bean, Gunsmith Cats, Noir, Gunslinger Girl, Madlax, Initial D, Dragonball Z, The Legend of Condor Hero, Cowboy Bebop (against a sci-fi backdrop).

COMEDYComedy stories often belong to other genres but have a light-hearted approach, making them stand on their own, with the main objective of mak-ing people laugh. Exaggeration and suspension of the normal rules of reality are the norm for comedies. The romantic comedy is a popular version of the genre that takes the usual romance story and twists it around to make it funny. A comedy of errors takes the basic premise that all the protagonists are morons that misunderstand a simple situation so that hilarity ensues. The parody is all about making fun of another genre or even another spe-cific work, taking its elements to ridiculous extremes.

Examples: • Excel Saga, Love Hina, Azumanga Daioh, Slayers, Fooly Cooly, Abenobashi Magical Shopping District, NieA Under 7, Those Who Hunt Elves, Project A-ko, Full Metal Panic? Fumoffu (spin-off of a slightly more serious anime).

HISTORICALA cross-genre that can take the form of another of the previous genres, its main characteristic is that it is set in some historical period, and such set-ting exerts a primary influence on the story’s premise or development. Being Japanese products, historical manga and anime deal primarily with Japan’s history, mainly the Heian, Sengoku, Edo, and Meiji eras. Sometimes the story takes place in China, with the rest few in other parts of the world and peri-ods of history.

Samurai stories are set primarily in the Edo and Meiji eras, when the warrior caste prospered, but they focus on the role of such persons rather

than the historical period themselves. Ninja stories are just the same, except that they are more peppered with fantasy due to the mythic status of ninja. Alternate history stories take the question of “what if this happened in that way?” and run with it, creating a setting of alternative history or even an alternative present that would have resulted had events in the past been different.

Examples: • Samurai Champloo, Rurouni Kenshin (aka Samurai X), Wings of Honneamise, Jin-Roh, Otogizoushi, Lone Wolf and Cub, The Hakkenden, Bakumatsu Kikansetsu Irohanihoheto, Samurai Deeper Kyo, Peacemaker Kurogane.

“UNIQUE” GENRESBesides the regular classifications of Western media, manga and anime have developed their own unique genres. These unique manga genres are often the result of the hybridization of other categories, but they repeated a formula so much that they became genres in and of themselves.

SHOUNENLiterally “young boys,” shounen manga is all about the action, showing the adventures of tough characters fighting for their ideals. Character develop-ment and intricate plot twists are kept to a minimum, exalting manly virtues like courage, comradeship, honor, and persistence.

Examples: • Bleach, Saint Seiya, Naruto, Hunter x Hunter, Scr.y.ed.

SHOUJOLiterally “girls,” shoujo manga is the counterpart of shounen, concentrating on girls as a target audience. Shoujo stories can be as action-packed as any other, but their focus is really on the characters’ feelings and relationships with each other, inevitably including romance.

Examples: • Fruits Basket, His and Her Circumstances, Revolutionary Girl Utena, Tokyo Babylon, Paradise Kiss.

MARTIAL ARTSAn off-shoot of shounen manga, martial arts stories belong to the action genre but differ from it in their focus on the characters’ training in the mar-tial arts, be they the real traditions of both China and Japan or invented. There will be at least one tournament depicted in a martial arts manga, where the protagonists face off against each other to show who is the bet-ter martial artist.

Examples: • The Legend of Condor Hero, Dragon Ball, Fist of the North Star, Ranma ½.

MECHAThere is little as characteristic of manga and anime as giant robots. Mecha have crossed the genre barrier and appear in everything from quack comedy to military drama, having started in science fiction and fantasy. Some robots are intelligent, others are simple piloted vehicles, a few can transform into other types of machines, and others combine to form even bigger robots or vehicles.

Examples: • Neon Genesis Evangelion, Gasaraki, Vision of Escaflowne, Macross Plus, Giant Robo, Soukyuu no Fafner, RahXephon.

PET COMBATA relatively new genre, this story has the protagonists fighting vicariously through some sort of pet or entity whose sole reason for existing is to fight under the orders of its master. The pet can be a creature born of magic or technology, a mirage, a computer program, or anything else that acts as an

MECHA & MANGA CHAPTER ONE: WORLDS OF MANGA CHAPTER ONE: WORLDS OF MANGA MECHA & MANGA

WORLDS OF MANGA 9

agent for the master’s will. Most of the series from this genre are tied to commercial products.

Examples: • Pokemon, Monster Ranchers, Digimon, Yu-Gi-Oh.

MAGICAL GIRLA venerable genre that is often the off-shoot of shoujo, magical girl manga has a very distinctive formula: a young girl is granted powers by a special (magical or technological) advisor so that she can defend her loved ones, people in general, or the entire world. The girl’s adversaries tend to follow a theme, as do her powers. She may or may not have allies in the form of other young people with similar powers.

Examples: • Pretty Soldier Sailor Moon, Card Captor Sakura, Earth Maiden Arjuna, Corrector Yui, My HiME.

HAREMThis unappealing name is actually quite appropriate for the genre. A lonely guy, frequently with one or more character flaws but a nice person nonethe-less, suddenly finds himself surrounded by girls, some of them pining or lusting after him. Most harem manga belong to comedy, although the popu-

larity of dating games and their adaptation to anime form has increased the number of dramas, and there is at least one horror title worthy of merit.

A very close genre is the exotic girlfriend, where the aforementioned guy gains a girlfriend that’s not quite normal—she’s a goddess, an alien, or the daughter of the local Yakuza gang—and having gained such an unusual partner, the guy is immediately beset by other girls who just noticed he’s kind of cute.

Examples: • Love Hina, Tenchi Muyo!, Oh My Goddess!, Lunar Legend Tsukihime, Seto no Hanayome (for a girlfriend who’s a daughter of the mermaid Yakuza).

DIMENSIONAL TRAVELERSWhile certainly not unique to manga and anime, stories where ordinary peo-ple suddenly find themselves stranded in another world are very popular. In some cases, the travelers gain special powers by their crossing, or it is later revealed that they always possessed those powers and their trip triggered them. The world they travel to can be just about anything, from an epic fantasy setting to a dystopian post-apocalyptic world.

Examples: • El-Hazard The Magnificent World, Dual! Parallel Trouble Adventure, The Mysterious Play, Magic Knight Rayearth, Now and Then Here and There, Kyo Kara Maoh!, Zero no Tsukaima.

THE MANGA SETTINGA setting is as simple or as complex as you want to make it, and at this point, you want to make sure it is not so plain that you have to make things up during extended play nor so convoluted as to have a graphic novel’s worth of notes go to waste from a game that only lasted a few sessions.

Some settings are so open and detailed that they can accommodate hun-dreds, if not thousands, of stories in them, sometimes not even with the same protagonists. Other settings are created for the purpose of telling a single story, changing or ending after it is done so that no more stories can be told with the same elements. Both types of settings are equally valid, and often the line blurs between these two types.

To help you envision the scope of your setting, use the formats that manga and anime adopt to tell their stories as a reference. Think about your game as a manga or anime series. Do you want it to be an ongoing series like Dragonball or Naruto, where there are stories after stories with no end in sight as the characters explore their world? Alternatively, maybe it is a one or two-season series where the story has a definite end and is told over 13, 26, or 52 episodes? It could also be like a graphic novel series or OVA (original video animation), telling a self-contained story over a few gaming sessions, or it could even be like a graphic novel or movie, with an even tighter story that will definitely end when the characters meet their objectives.

And, of course, there is the holiday special, a single session celebrating some sort of holiday that may or may not be part of the main story.

The shorter you expect a setting’s gaming life to be, the less details you need to flesh out beforehand, focusing on those aspects that are important to the story. It is quite possible, however, that you like a short-lived setting so much that you wish to continue playing with it, spawning its own longer series and giving you the chance to increase the depth of detail of your initial creation.

SETTING PARAMETERSA Mecha & Manga setting has two numeric values to describe it: the Tech Level (TL) and the power level. This is the only step of setting design that you cannot gloss over, since these values will affect how the characters’ abilities will work.

TECH LEVELThe Mastermind’s Manual introduced the Tech Level (TL) option to help establish the availability of equipment and devices depending on the game’s setting. In Mecha & Manga, it also determines its looks and style; the Tech Level describes the kind of technology and science that its societ-ies have achieved. Although corresponding to rough historical periods, Tech Levels are not markers that reflect the Earth’s history but simply a set of tiers to describe equivalent states of technological advancement. A setting’s TL usually pervades all aspects of its society but, especially in manga, it is entirely possible that it has elements of lower or higher levels, such as a pre-industrial civilization whose warriors have swordfights riding on mecha.

Many manga authors treat technological progression more like a salad bar than as a list that obeys the laws of cause and effect, mixing impos-sibly advanced technologies with obsolete items. For this reason, Mecha & Manga classifies technology in five broad and vague levels, rather than the ten more specific and conjectural ones in the Mastermind’s Manual. For manga heroes, the laws of physics behave more like sensible suggestions, and their technology follows suit.

ALTERNATE PROGRESS

While TL usually refers to normal science and technology as we know them, a manga setting can base its progress on entirely different factors, such as a

society that has achieved all the comforts we are familiar with but did it with industrialized magic, biotechnology, or psychic potential. Alternate worlds

somehow developed technology ahead of their time due to one or another event. A Victorian setting, for example, can have commercial air travel available

thanks to the discovery of water that, when hit by moonlight, levitates anything that contains it. Consider these curious combinations to create unique

settings where technology is not dependant on science or natural resources with which we are familiar.