Animanga Influences In Video Games
Talking purely on influences, no game adaptations or licensed deals. Preferably I'd like to have sources of one or more members of the team discussing it, but anything that's very obviously a homage, callback, or just a plain ol nod to the thing in question will do. Will also include any sort of special skins if they're notable, such as the AC0 and DXM entries. As a general note, I'll halt any more inclusions of a particular animanga IP if it has reached five, since at that point it'd probably be best to make an entirely separate list detailing influences of that instead of here which is focused on the broad, general scope. Feel free to recommend more otherwise, however!
HALTED
Hayao Miyazaki. Studio Ghibli itself is still fair game however since its more than just him.
Ghost In The Shell
HALTED
Hayao Miyazaki. Studio Ghibli itself is still fair game however since its more than just him.
Ghost In The Shell
35 Games
This goes for a majority of Hidetaka Miyazaki's titles from this, up to and including Elden Ring. There's numerous videos and articles detailing references, but if you want an actual mention from the man himself, in a DS1 Design Works interview he talks about the Catarina Armor set being based on Bazuso.
Kento Kinoshita has discussed that the creature design was following closely to what was done with Mike Mignola's Hellboy and, for this list, Kentaro Miura's own Berserk.
This goes one step further, however! On the original PS3 and Xbox 360 release, there was a collaboration done to promote Berserk's arc, Golden Age, getting some new films leading to armor sets available to find throughout. This can't be done on PS4, Xbone, and Switch ports unfortunately, but it can be modded back in for PC players.
This goes one step further, however! On the original PS3 and Xbox 360 release, there was a collaboration done to promote Berserk's arc, Golden Age, getting some new films leading to armor sets available to find throughout. This can't be done on PS4, Xbone, and Switch ports unfortunately, but it can be modded back in for PC players.
Yoko Taro has mentioned not that long ago that he was deeply affected by Neon Genesis Evangelion, to the point that wrinkles of the anime are found within his games. For the purpose of keeping it short, we'll just stick with Drakengard 1 being one of the keys for not only the world and creatures in it, but one of the characters being like Rei Ayanami - along with another Berserk influence via Caim being codenamed Guts
Artist Kimihiko Fujisaka, during a Famitsu interview with him and producer Takamasa Shiba, revealed that Yoko Taro roughly told him to make the Itoners similar to the design philosophy found in Madoka Magica.
Satoru Takizawa, character designer: "When I first thought about Ganon, I had the image of a crooked and complex thief, who was basically an all around abominable human being. That's why I wanted to make Ganon to this image I had, but the Design Team and the Script Director Mr. Osawa said "that's not the case. This time, Ganon will actually have parts where he is rather good." In terms of "Fist of the North Star" he'd probably be like Raoh. He's supposed to be a more good man, with lot's of charisma and a big-shot attitude, and so we remade him."
I linked the translation for it, but I'll provide the original page as a reference too.
I linked the translation for it, but I'll provide the original page as a reference too.
There hasn't been any word on any direct influences by the LoZ team, but fans have noted strong resemblances to Ghibli's Princess Mononoke
Yu Suzuki has noted at one point that, while After Burner was certainly following the trail Top Gun established, he already settled on a jet fighter game thanks to Laputa: Castle In The Sky, even if it had to be changed around for world demographic.
One look at that cover and you just know visually it took a few cues from Nausicaa.
Another case of me being wholly unfamiliar with a game, but even then a simple overview shows CAVE just really like Hayao Miyazaki's works since this is yet another Laputa tribute.
On the note of Ghibli films, while I've yet to find a hard source on Hironobu Sakaguchi, or even other Final Fantasy alumnis like Hiromichi Tanaka, Tetsuya Nomura, Yoshitaka Amano, Hiroyuki Ito, among many, many others, I feel it's at least safe to say Nausicaa and Laputa had an imprint when it came to the iconic Chocobo and the numerous aircrafts and steampunk aesthetics found in many of the entries.
Nihon Falcom is no stranger to utilizing anime tropes throughout their long, long history, but I'm solely using this one cause Kevin Graham is literally just a big ol' Trigun homage.
Brent Pease, Lead Engineer: "It was really after I saw the movie 'Ghost in the Shell'. I thought that was just very cool from an artist standpoint and also from an action standpoint. And so from that I had the idea of having a game with hand-to-hand martial arts and gun play..."
Alex Okita, the game's Concept Artist/Modeler, doubles up on the GITS influence, and even namedrops Akira
Alex Okita, the game's Concept Artist/Modeler, doubles up on the GITS influence, and even namedrops Akira
Now, I've yet to play Signalis for myself, and I want to avoid spoilers for both me and anyone interested so no screenshots for this one, but given how heavy the game wears its horror influences on its sleeve I wouldn't be surprised if GITS, Angel's Egg, Eva, and even a dash of Monogatari were sprinkled within its art, cutscene, and general visual directions.
I haven't looked too deeply into the Metal Gear franchise in a while for anything within the games themselves, but I should mention Kojima has talked about GITS before, weighing in and discussing the 2017 live action entry and contrasting it with the 89 manga and 95 anime, as well as Akio Otsuka, the Japanese voice for Batou, providing the voice for Solid Snake for the JP dub.
It's a Kojima game, so of course it's gonna be ripe with homages, and for this list it'll be about Mobile Suit Gundam due to the Beyond Coast being super close to the station designs found in numerous entries in the franchise up at that point, and even now.
Even as someone puddle-deep within the Ace Combat line, it's hard to not look at it and think if Area 88 played some part in the outlines, especially since some planes have altered looks to fit those liveries.
This one isn't so much as an "influence" as much as it is a "bonus from ties"; in Japan, this was able to get a crossover DLC deal with Eureka Seven, very likely due to Shoji Kawamori, a prolific and notable mech designer, having worked on both.
This and LAD Ishin are gonna be pulling from the same source, an interview on Crunchyroll regarding one of the workers for the Yakuza franchise, Masayoshi Yokoyama
“I’ve never really talked about this before, so I’m not sure if I should just go for it now, but for 7 {Yakuza: Like a Dragon} I was really, really inspired by One Piece. To me, Ichiban is basically Luffy. And around him there’s Zoro and Nami and basically the rest of the party, you know? One Piece’s party composition was on my mind so much during writing that it was a massive influence,"
“If I recall correctly, even the catch copy for 7 was something like ‘Life is an adventure,’ with the keyword being ‘adventure.’ You can definitely feel the One Piece inspiration coming through there. And, you know, and this is definitely not official, but in my own heart, Yakuza 7 was basically my ideal version of what would be Yakuza: One Piece. That’s how I got the inspiration to make it!”
“I’ve never really talked about this before, so I’m not sure if I should just go for it now, but for 7 {Yakuza: Like a Dragon} I was really, really inspired by One Piece. To me, Ichiban is basically Luffy. And around him there’s Zoro and Nami and basically the rest of the party, you know? One Piece’s party composition was on my mind so much during writing that it was a massive influence,"
“If I recall correctly, even the catch copy for 7 was something like ‘Life is an adventure,’ with the keyword being ‘adventure.’ You can definitely feel the One Piece inspiration coming through there. And, you know, and this is definitely not official, but in my own heart, Yakuza 7 was basically my ideal version of what would be Yakuza: One Piece. That’s how I got the inspiration to make it!”
While no conversation about it, it was mentioned that Bleach was an influence when it came to writing the dialog.
Astro Boy. Not much else to add, really.
Straight from the website: "Experience the quiet horror of this love letter to the works of Junji Ito and H.P. Lovecraft..."
Being a game with mechs in it, you can definitely bet there's chock full of references, homages, or straight up lifted scenes from the Mecha genre, but to keep it concise, here's some highlights
- "Super Dimensional" Gear Yggdrasil IV -> the titular SDF-1 from Super Dimensional Force Macross
- Siebzehn -> Giant Robo
- G Elements, not only utilizing a combined form of different mechs typically found within the genre, has very similar iconographies to the Brave series, specifically the Great Exkizer from The Brave Fighter Exkizer
- "Super Dimensional" Gear Yggdrasil IV -> the titular SDF-1 from Super Dimensional Force Macross
- Siebzehn -> Giant Robo
- G Elements, not only utilizing a combined form of different mechs typically found within the genre, has very similar iconographies to the Brave series, specifically the Great Exkizer from The Brave Fighter Exkizer
K9999 is such an obvious throwback to Tetsuo Shima from Akira, right down to sharing the same JP VA Nozomu Sasaki, that it's said that SNK had to retrofit him entirely to avoid legal actions. This myth turned out to be bogus, but one look at his fighting style sure makes it easy to believe that could've happened!
Astral Chain has several lifts of Neon Genesis Evangelion available throughout its runtime, right down to a color set bearing resemblance to EVA Unit-01!
Castlevania games, particularly ones where Koji Igarashi had a hand in them, have several callbacks and analogs to JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, but to stick with one entry to represent the series, as well as avoiding stepping on similar territory with Igarashi's spiritual successor, I'll mention the Stone Mask being available in numerous entries, and in SOTN, it can be found in the Long Library.
Orlok Dracule, alongside being an obvious expy for Castlevania's Alucard, can also be seen as an expy for JJBA's Dio Brando. There's the cheeky reads, such as his initials being "DiO" backwards and both sharing the status as a vampire, but the way he attacks you is more blatant about it.
Ken Sugimori when it came to the starter's evolution line, specifically Snivy's: "...Then we do another division of roles for the evolved forms. This time around — because the Unova region has a racially diverse human population — we decided to make the starter Pokémon’s evolutions symbolize the cultures of Japan, the West, and China. Snivy’s final evolution, Serperior, was designed with the concept of a European knight in mind, kind of like Lady Oscar from The Rose of Versailles..."
Director Shinji Mikami about creating the design of the game in a 2010 Joystiq interview: "The very first step, I wanted to make a game ... I was inspired by Casshern, so I wanted to make a game like that. If I went ahead and made the exact game I wanted, it probably would have been like Casshern, where you punch and kick the entire way through. But obviously if it were a game with only punching and kicking, I already did that with God Hand. So, I'm done with that, something else now. So this time he wanted to make a game where you defeat robots with guns. So now, you're going at it with guns, but he wanted to make sure the feeling of speed is still there, that was really important to him, so that's why he introduced the element of the sliding boost."
Additionally, while these weren't able to make it into the final product, lead character modeller Yoshifumi Hattori revealed in an old SEGA blogpost revealed some transformation ideas, one thrown about was with a female partner that likely would've been a Luna Kozuki expy, and there was going to be a robotic dog companion that did actually make it to the modelling portion of development.
Additionally, while these weren't able to make it into the final product, lead character modeller Yoshifumi Hattori revealed in an old SEGA blogpost revealed some transformation ideas, one thrown about was with a female partner that likely would've been a Luna Kozuki expy, and there was going to be a robotic dog companion that did actually make it to the modelling portion of development.
Takashi Nishiyama when asked if the special moves, and for our case specifically the Hadouken, were born from his input: "Yeah, those were mine. I was inspired by anime and manga from the time, so for example the Hadouken was inspired by a Japanese anime called Space Battleship Yamato. In that, the battleship has a laser missile called Hadouho -- it collects energy and then blasts it into space, destroying the enemy. That that's where I got the idea for the Hadouken..."
A 2017 Dualshockers interview had producer Junzo Hosoi reveal that two of the magical girl IPs that influenced this title were CLAMP's Magic Knight Rayearth and Naoko Takeuchi's Sailor Moon.
Incidentally, two of the writers involved with the scenario process, specifically as editors, were Kino's Journey author Keiichi Sigsawa, and Haruka Nogizaka's Secret author Yuusuke Igarashi.
Incidentally, two of the writers involved with the scenario process, specifically as editors, were Kino's Journey author Keiichi Sigsawa, and Haruka Nogizaka's Secret author Yuusuke Igarashi.
In a 2017 4Gamer interview, Tetsuya Takahashi went into detail about multiple aspects regarding XC2. Notably, he expresses about the changes of the setting to be much more Boy Meets Girl like, and compares it to a childhood favorite: Galaxy Express 999, with the translation Nintendo Everything has provided detailing his comment on "recently there have been too many titles with characters living in savage worlds, so [Takahashi] wanted to go back to his innocent, childhood-like mind and base the characters around his favorite series in the past."
30 Comments
Dragons Dogma had official Berserk skins too!
@polaroidplayboy Knew I was missing some obvious ones like Policenauts and Oni, thanks! I'll add those + the others when I'm able to sniff out anything linking the ties together.
The Akira elevator is in Half-Life, but that might be too minor a shout-out for the purposes of this list
Also Drakengard is extremely Berserk, and like the Souls games I believe you can get a facsimile of Guts' sword in it
Will now play Manifold Garden as soon as possible
I remember seeing an interview a long while ago by the lead dev behind Like A Dragon saying that the main cast for the game were strongly inspired by One Piece's and I think maybe even Bleach's?
@DJSCheddar I was thinking about putting Super Sonic cause of Super Saiyan from DB, so I get the temptation lol. I know Yoko Taro was influenced by various anime like that and Eva, I'll see what I'll find there to avoid this list becoming a Berserk Appreciation Page... not that it'd be unwarranted of course!
@hilda Same, as soon as I saw the Nihei drop I was like "oh this shot up on my must haves", I love Abara a lot and I'm stoke to dive into BLAME! at some point.
@Deadpan Yep, just found the source via a Crunchyroll interview! I'll add it in soon.
@hilda Same, as soon as I saw the Nihei drop I was like "oh this shot up on my must haves", I love Abara a lot and I'm stoke to dive into BLAME! at some point.
@Deadpan Yep, just found the source via a Crunchyroll interview! I'll add it in soon.
Blame! is dope as hell, it's been a while since I've touched it or any of Nihei's new stuff but Blame! has some of the best manga and/or sci-fi art I've seen, it's so fucking cool
Super Sonic would open the floodgates of nonstop Dragon Ball references, lol. May as well make a whole other list for it.
Would you count Mega Man and Astro Boy?
Would you count Mega Man and Astro Boy?
@Vee Most definitely, that's another obvious one I somehow missed out on. It'll at least tide over the FF influence - wikipedia, articles, people on social media, and all say how "Hironobu Sakaguchi said it at one point" but the most I can find is Tim Rogers just bluntly saying it without his own line of reference! Seriously annoying.
iirc there was an interview where one of the people working on Ocarina of Time said Ganondorf's characterization in that game was specifically based on Raoh from Fist of the North Star
@BigGnome Found it, added both it and the page it was pulled from. Really should've figures they'd pull from FOTNS considering how influential that manga is...
Alright, that's it for now. Also decided to 'order' the list via tying each game with one respective source, a la GITS for MGS, Oni, and Cyberpunk 2077, or Hayao-directed Ghibli movies for BOTW, After Burner, Mushihimesama, and Final Fantasy IV. Once again, if you have any to add, feel free to share!
Progear is inspired by castle in the sky.
@zombiehunter837 I thought about adding in Progear due to Mushi being here, but I feel like at some point it'd just be an overfill of Ghibli influences lol, holdin off on that since that'd probably make for its own list idea much like DB.
came here for berserk and was not disappointed. also, BLAME! ftw. difficult to pin it on just one game (though i must now play manifold garden as well), i'm helplessly drawn to anything that evokes that feeling of wandering the guts of an endless megastructure.
i would like to recommend world of horror, based on its junji ito influence.
i would like to recommend world of horror, based on its junji ito influence.
ehhhh actually I'll add it in after thinking more on it, I'll more than likely add in a disclaimer to the description though just to, again, avoid overflow. Sorry for the double tag @zombiehunter837
@zn0 Ooooooo good call, I feel like that's an obvious inclusion for horror enthusiasts. Gonna have to find screencaps to share that both aren't too disturbing yet shows enough of the hallmarks...
@zn0 Ooooooo good call, I feel like that's an obvious inclusion for horror enthusiasts. Gonna have to find screencaps to share that both aren't too disturbing yet shows enough of the hallmarks...
neon white! the general vibe of it is "cringe 2000s dub anime" and i can't find the interview but https://www.gameinformer.com/interview/2021/07/29/ben-esposito-on-neon-white-if-this-is-for-you-its-your-favorite-game this is one of the first to state Cowboy Bebop, Trigun and Black Lagoon, and https://www.sportskeeda.com/esports/news-the-video-game-video-game-possibly-make-neon-white-developer-discusses-backstory-behind-wacky-indie-title this backs that up at least!
Signalis has a lot (maybe too many) anime references in the vein of Neon Genesis Evangelion, BLAME!, Monogatari, and Ghost In The Shell, especially apparent in its cutscene direction but also in its art direction. I remember Shin Megami Tensei II had some cues from Ashita No Joe with Okamoto's character directly referencing Tange Danpei.
Also to make the list less of an Evangelion/Berserk/Miyazaki circlejerk I'll mention Xenogears has various mecha references to things like Super Dimensional Fortress Macross with the Ygdrassil IV, the G Elements are a clear Braves reference (debatably specifically GaoGaiGar with the lion motif, but he has a blade so its safer to consider it a general Braves reference) with their combination and the cutscene that precedes the fight, the Aerods are clearly reminiscent of the Nu Gundam's funnels, and the Seibzehn has an extremely similar build to the Giant Robo
Here are two more games that I assume are heavily Blame! influenced
https://store.steampowered.com/app/265690/NaissanceE/
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1417930/Lorns_Lure/?beta=0
https://store.steampowered.com/app/265690/NaissanceE/
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1417930/Lorns_Lure/?beta=0
@coralqueenkanans I'll see those links and figure out how to word the description from there.
@Apocynadeae For Signalis and Xenogears, I'll structure it as three bullet points highlighting three distinct homages/callbacks, and for SMT2 I'll make mention of the similarities Okamoto has considering his place and vocation in the game.
@Sniggelgros I was thinking on NaissanceE but couldn't exactly remember if it was touted as an inspiration, or if things were just coincidences. I'll put it in with an asterisk, though Lorn's Lure will probably be free of it since there's a little more to pull from.
@Apocynadeae For Signalis and Xenogears, I'll structure it as three bullet points highlighting three distinct homages/callbacks, and for SMT2 I'll make mention of the similarities Okamoto has considering his place and vocation in the game.
@Sniggelgros I was thinking on NaissanceE but couldn't exactly remember if it was touted as an inspiration, or if things were just coincidences. I'll put it in with an asterisk, though Lorn's Lure will probably be free of it since there's a little more to pull from.
K9999 from KOF 2001 is heavily influenced by Tetsuo from Akira (1988) as he has a similar cape, mutated arm, and even the same japanese voice actor as the character
With Signalis being added in, I'm now halting any and all mentions of GITS to the list.
@Reddish Knew SNK would crop up at some point, thanks! I recall them also incorporating a JJBA analog somewhere in their titles, so I'll throw it in as a bonus.
@Reddish Knew SNK would crop up at some point, thanks! I recall them also incorporating a JJBA analog somewhere in their titles, so I'll throw it in as a bonus.
Astral Chain has a skin for one's Legions that looks exactly like Eva Unit 01.
Also, Igarashi made multiple Jojo's Bizarre Adventure references in his Castlevania games, and Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night has not only the stone mask from the first part of the manga, but also a vampire that's named O.D. that can stop time (A clear reference to Dio).
@DeltaWDunn All added in, I thought about using Zephyr from Dawn Of Sorrow for Castlevania's entry point, but since SOTN was when the ball really started to roll, as well as to fill in the Stone Mask slot BROTN also has, I opted for that instead.
Evil Zone?
Shigeru Miyamoto said that Mario 64's movements were in part inspired by Arale from Dr Slump (from A. Toriyama). There's a bit of that also in SMB3.
polaroidplayboy
1 year ago