Post originally by chaospiral at 2004-12-02 13:38:12
Converted from Phorums BB System

Hi. I'm Matt, the "Secret Sempai" mentioned in the credits of the book. Also copyeditor and the one who came up with the name "RandomAnime."

Thalles corrects himself well in a post a bit down the page. Also, to address Stephen Henderson-Grady a bit, you're totally right-- but the term is abstracted to work with the "feel" of the game. Since it's NOT a celluloid object, and it's not manga, it's something else abstracting these two media.

The use of "Sentai" as a power level (along with "Shojo" and "Shonen") is more a way of infusing the game with both the disparate power levels AND the inherent genre-based concerns in "girls" comics vs. "boys" comics vs. "superhero" comics. It's not an absolute, but it's part of the whole mix.

The other component for setting is the "Anime Level," where something like Grave of the Fireflies or Wings of Honneamise gets a 1, Ranma gets somewhere from 3-5 depending on which season, I would guess that FLCL would get about a 6 (depends on which part of which episode), and Fairy Princess Ren would be a 7.

It gets problematic in things like FLCL, because all the "normals" would be in a "Shojo" realm for game mechanics, but Kanti's a mecha, so he's got higher stats, and Haru is an alien, with lots of extra gimmicks or something like that. So you get this low-level game, but with a high (6) Anime Level to reflect the (potential) wonkyness of the world.

You could probably play the same game with various Anime Levels, depending on what's happening in your "episode," but that might take a lot of GM work.

Enjoy.

--Racer X
aka Matt Duncan