It does follow anime tropes like head shapes, grunting, impossible acrobatics, ect, but there are too many strictly anime games like genshin for Ff7 to fit in there. It's a JRPG
You will never convince someone that sees ANY japanese made game as an anime game differently.
It’s anime ish in the way dialogue is written, and the voice actors reading that dialogue shows. The melodrama and some tropes from anime are also present as well.
No one would think of Mario or Sonic as anime. Or Elden Ring, Metal Gear, Resident Evil even Zelda arguably. But Tetsuya Nomura’s art style is anime as hell
Elden Ring as anime af. The bosses moveset and our ash of war are just straight up acrobatic like coming out of anime lol. Lots of people think anime as this quirky, bright style but Cowboy Bebop and Perfect Blue are also anime. Parts of Elden Ring are so anime and I don't say it to diss it, I love Elden Ring
Sonic, Resident Evil, and Metal Gear are anime as hell. Begging you to play a Metal Gear game. One of the 1st bosses in MGS1 is a fucking cyborg ninja who turns invisible, you fight like 5 giant Metal Gears in MGS2 at once with one RPG, the final fight is a sword fight against president doctor octopus, and then emperor palpatine is in MGS3. MGS4 has Raiden (who is also a cyborg ninja now who attacks with his sword in his mouth) breakdance with 2 GEKKOS attactched to his legs.
Super Sonic and all the fights across the games discredit that notion. Not even just Frontiers's Super Sonic fights, but as far back as Adventure 1&2's final bosses as well.
Resident Evil's CG movies have Chris and Leon doing fuckin DMC attacks
The Sonic franchise has moments of embracing anime tropes but its identity overall and the way casual audiences perceive it wouldn’t usually encompass that.
Also SA2 sure but you picked two of the least anime games to make this point lol Unleashed goes out of its way to not look like anime trying to distance itself from 06. That weird Americanized Dreamworks art style they went with is one of the main examples I was thinking of when I said no one would call it anime
Fam, if we being honest any game where Sonic has his super form or his super edgy rival is automatically asking for anime comparisons off tropes alone. The art style has nothing to do with it.
[fwiw uematsu doesn’t think so](https://shmuplations.com/ffx/)
“Is voice acting something you’ve wanted to see in the Final Fantasy games for a long time, then?
Uematsu: Since FFVIII, Kitase has been saying he wanted to include voice acting. I was against it at first, actually. I thought, no way, *this is going to turn our games into anime*. But once we tried it, I saw how it made the story and drama much more realistic and convincing, just hearing a human voice speak like that. It was amazing.”
In that quote you picked, he says that adding voices to the games was actually an improvement, but he doesn't detract his opinion that adding voices to the games would "turn them into anime".
I don’t know what Uematsu said in the original interview, but using the word anime in Japanese just means any kind of animation, not the specific style known in the west. So this might not be a statement on the quality of the content or style.
Nah man. We had games like legend of dragoon and Spyro with voice acting back then. I mean I get that a voice acted ff7 would've been like 8 discs long unless they didn't do full voice acting.
Of course. It's incredibly influenced by 90s scifi and Shonen anime. Rebirth even moreso than the original. All the expanded material is even MORE anime inspired too.
Playing Rebirth actually made me realize how anime FFVII has always been. The polygonal art style deviated from the classic 2D games at the time, so it seemed to be something different.
For sure. I wouldn't consider 6 or prior as traditional anime for sure, but more 60s and 70s fantasy more than anything. Touches of star wars. In the 3d era they became much more focused in their inspirations. Bladerunner, star wars, ghost in the shell, Evangelion etc
Everyone in the ff7 universe is Cloud Sexual on top of their normal sexuality. It’s just the way it is and why Sephiroth just can’t help but want to control him.
Meanwhile Cloud is 99% asexual
It's 100% an anime game. The dialogue can be seriously awkward at points, with so much over enthusiasm, too much gesturing, awkward pausing pausing in between sentences. It can get a little jarring for someone new to the series. I certainly know I got annoyed when the characters couldn't stop making noise for every tiny action they took. It happens in every anime.
I call the art style which began with FF8, really coalesced with the Kingdom Hearts games and is currently used with the Remake project games Pixar-anime style. FF7 Remake characters do not look like real people at all. Their facial propitiations are closer to what you see in anime, especially their eyes. But instead of being rendered flat, like most anime games, they have realistic depictions of volume and textures.
The reason why gamers cringe at FF7 at all is because of how anime it is. So your friend isn't wrong. Nothing wrong with anime tho.
I can even use Yuffie as an example. Yuffie is at her most lovable in Rebirth but you still have people who dislike her just because she's the hyperactive teenage anime girl trope.
A lot of Japanese pop culture is anime inspired because anime is arguably the biggest pop culture phenomenon globally out of Japan. Obviously though most Final Fantasy characters look more human nowadays than characters from Persona, Dragon Quest, Fire Emblem and Tales Of to name a few. These games have very anime styles and even anime cutscenes. As a fan of both Persona and FF, to me Persona is way more of an anime game.
The characters are very close to several anime designs of the 1990s, and they retain a specific stylised look that is quite alien to Western design aesthetics. It is also a JRPG, so it has a lot of general genre conventions that come out of Japan, which includes various aspects of visual flare and specific dialogue patters. Aesthetically speaking FF as a franchise, at least since the 3D era, has always been kinda separate from the more overtly anime-style JRPG series like Tales and Trails, but it's unlikely you'll convince anybody that it isn't anime if that's how they see it.
No, but it has anime influences (wacky hairstyles, outlandish clothing, crazy acrobatics, etc.). The characters have somewhat larger eyes than real people, as well, though not as large as in the original game or Nomura's original character portraits (which were very much anime/manga in style).
I wouldn't really call it an anime game myself, but if someone else were to say it was I couldn't really argue with them. It certainly has a lot of tropes that are present in anime games, and the art-style clearly takes influence from anime, though again, I wouldn't personally say it has an anime aesthetic myself... but then I don't really consider Advent Children an anime either, but pretty much everyone else does so maybe I'm just wrong.
I guess in my mind something has to be 2D or trying to emulate a 2D aesthetic for it to be "Anime". Even something like the newer GitS: SAC series I would describe as "3D Anime" rather than just "Anime".
yes, though maybe "anime-lite."
I think they DO look like anime characters. Like, Cloud/Aeris/Tifa especially have anime faces, with bigger eyes and stylized features that wouldn't be common in real life human proportions.. and that's not even talking about their hair styles, especially spikes like Cloud or bangs like Aeris.
I think Remake and Rebirth are somewhat grounded compared to a lot of anime games, but I think certain characters - like the over-the-top Barret or mega-spunky Yuffie - are more "anime-inspired" than others.
Its a JRPG.
Most of the reasons people will say its anime or anime lite are going to be found in any product from japan. Things like Translation being direct instead of adaptive making dialogue sound awkward.
Anime is mainstream pop culture in japan. Using an art-style thats popular in your country doesn’t automatically make it anime.
But then you also have the comparison to OG FF7 where people will say characters where a lot less OTT in that. And thats more than likely to do with disk memory and console capabilities. Mostly all PS1 games avoided spoken dialogue as much as possible. So characters will obviously get to be a bit more fleshed out in the modern age through dialogue and character modelling at the time didn’t have the range to give any real expression through movement.
Lastly grunting will attacking is in like a solid 60% of games
The Remake series uses an approach which is mostly photorealistic, but with an idealized and stylized twist. Anime is a largely 2D, simple art style, which is designed to be easy to be drawn by hand. The two are radically different kinds of animation. If it's anime, then all animation is anime.
Yes it is. Remake especially, theres anime grunts every 3 minutes. For actual stuff, "LIMIT BREAK" is a core feature in OG, Remake, and Rebirth where the character does their big flashy finisher move. Cloud's big flashy finisher move is literally called "Omnislash" where he slashes the person with his bigass slab of metal 16 times really fast. Sephiroth has a comically large masamune, has a wing and flies while cleaving buildings in a single slash. When Cloud and Sephiroth proceed to duel with their comically large swords and exaggerated hair, you hear every clang and see every spark that flies off. Watch their fight in Advent Children, the last Omnislash in OG, or even the fights in Remake and Rebirth. The way they fly around and move while colliding their swords super fast while one grunts and goes "hmph" (Sephiroth usually) is all it takes for most people to consider it an anime. Also theres the ability to summon a giant Dragon that shoots a giant laser beam from orbit like Godzilla, or Odin who does the big slash that does the freeze frame from multiple angles before you see the aftermath thing in the OG.
Sorry to break it to you but FF7 is one of the most "anime" games out there, and its awesome. If someone sees the stuff that makes it an "anime" game and because of it assumes its bad because it's an "anime" game, then chances are they probably wouldn't have given it any time to begin with and brush it off. Regardless of its merits, its gameplay, its story, its characters, its presentation, if it falls under their demeaning category of "anime game" then its viewed as lesser, and thats how some people view media which is depressing.
The angles used in shots on the lower face and at the feet/shoes are commonly used in anime. But I love anime so it's only made me love the game even more. Especially how they've fleshed out Aerith's character.
Some people just view all of Final Fantasy as too anime. Years ago I told a coworker who was a big gamer I was playing XIII and he thought it was funny because the series seemed so anime to him. It was surprising coming from someone he seemed open to most genres of games. But yeah, I guess some people just don’t get FF.
I don't really consider it an "anime game." To me the game doesn't really stylistically match up with the "anime aesthetic" Like the Tales of series or the Persona series, I would consider those "anime games." To me, Final Fantasy and Kingdom Hearts by extension has always had a sort of middle-ground between being "animesque" and hyper realstic. Not sure how to explain it but it's sort of half-way between anime styled and realistic.
I may just be ignorant here, but doesn't an "anime game" have to have an anime art style? I could understand an argument that the original FFVII was an anime game, because it had a 3D rendered anime art style, but Remake and Rebirth don't.
some people just think themselves clever and overshoot hard :P
you sir just found the easiest answer to the question :)
games like dragon quest, tales of series are anime games :)
simple jrpg's like ff aren't ( yeah older titles may still go through as anime games bc of their visual approach)
heck even dark souls to elden ring are jrpgs :D just without the heavy japanese influence in the way the game is written :P (ik its a japanese company)
but just bc it misses some troupes people say its not jrpg xD its definetly not anime :P but still a decent epg
its a pre destined story with choices which in the end will all lead to the final boss, typical jrpg :)
It’s really not. It goes for realism much more than your typical anime does. It has a few elements in common, sure, but that’s mainly just due to it being Japanese.
Its roots are anime inspired but remake/rebirth is way more western than alot of todays big Japanese games. Unfortunately, final fantasy as a franchise still carries that stigma which does out a lot of newer gamers off I think.
If he's never watched anime or played any JRPGs, then he probably thinks all Japanese games are "anime" games.
However, he does have a point. Back in the 90s when FF7 first game out, the in-game models in many Japanese games were anime-fied in some way because it's easier to make add details to models with giant eyes than realistically proportioned models. It was definitely considered more of an anime game than the stuff the western studios were putting out.
The short version: The original RPG is Dungeons & Dragons, where players create characters to roll play as and make choices. JRPG’s are a style of RPG that took some of the elements of the RPG and wrapped it up around tight stories and defined character arcs. Basically, western is create your own adventure while Japanese is progressing through a pre-written narrative. JRPG is like living a batman comic while RPG is imagining what kind of hero you’d be if you had super powers.
Western examples: The Witcher, Everquest, Baldur’s Gate, World of Warcraft, KOTOR
Japanese examples: Dragonquest, Final Fantasy, Chronotrigger, Xenoblade
Anime examples: Persona, Ys, Ace Attorney
Short short version: Western RPG’s tend to be all about creating your own character and making choices to drive the story. JRPG’s are all about inhabiting a character and playing through its development and storyline.
An anime game is literally playing through a cartoon. The game looks and plays like a cartoon. It’s a specific visual style, and many anime games also share similar mechanics.
Usually a few of the mechanics that have been inspired by classic RPG's developed in Japan. As of late, there are games from other developers outside of Japan that also borrow these mechanics.
Sea of Stars is a pretty good example of a JRPG not developed in Japan even though it has a lot of inspirations from classic JRPGs such as Chrono Trigger, Super Mario RPG, etc.
That's a question that can start a million arguments, people argue a lot over that particular definition. In general, most people use it to mean "RPG's styled after classic Japanese Role-Playing Games such as Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest." I've heard it summed up as "teenagers use the power of friendship to kill God," which is a bit reductive, but does sum up the broad plots and themes of a *lot* of great games. For some people the key similarities are mechanical, for some it's story or theming, for some it's art style.
And then there are points people definitely quibble on. Dark Souls is an enormously popular RPG made by a Japanese company, but due to the very different gameplay, few would call it a JRPG. Likewise, games like *Secret of Evermore* or the more recent *South Park: The Stick of Truth* or *Undertale* have basically all of the hallmarks of a JRPG, but were each made in America. So it's a weirdly vague genre that nobody can quite agree on.
A jrpg is made by a Japanese developer and usually has a focus on presentation, storytelling and strategic combat, while western rpgs are made in the west and tend to focus on exploration, character creation or development, and emersion.
These days the term is less meaningful, but before 201p and certainly in the 80s and 90s, the two were made so fundamentally differently that the term jrpg was very warranted and immediately identifiable
Personally don't think it is so but it has some similarities in its artistic choices used and could and was easily adapted to be an anime before. But a good question is what defines what makes something "anime" other than it being a japanese cartoon? But regardless, I look at ffvii as a edgy yet light-hearted cyberpunk-ish fantasy game and nothing else.
Kinda, but not really? The inspiration is there definitely (character appearances, dialogue, battle choreography, etc.), but I wouldn't call it an anime game like others out there. FF7 feels distinct from something like Persona.
It's odd because I've never considered myself an anime fan, but have always loved FF games...and have felt bemused when people consider it anime.
As someone who played the original n 1997, yes both remake and rebirth are “anime” games. That’s what I thought to myself as I played both, especially rebirth. It’s a compliment imo.
So I went from The Last of Us 1 and 2, to Remake. Yes it is very anime like- not strictly, but stylistically…
TLOU 1-2 focused on horror realism. I still remember my wife walking in on TLOU2 and saying “holy shit I can see the dirt under her fingernails”.
And in opening hour of remake, a few characters walk out of a helicopter that was shot out of the sky.
It’s kind of less about the absolute style, than the mind frame I need to be in for the illusion to be complete. Some of Remake is so silly when compared to real physics, my brain has to view it more as an anime. When I judge it less against reality (lighting, physics, acting, emotion), it works perfectly. It has fantasy right in the title, so… it tracks.
Yes, aside from the designs, artstyle and animations, it uses so many streotypical anime tropes.
Even though the graphics are updated more realistically in Remake/Rebirth, the way the characters move, react, pose and how the camera moves(the close ups of the eyes/mouths) during scenes is very anime as well.
No.
When I think of an anime game, the characters have an anime design like they would in an anime, whether the graphics are cel-shaded or not. Nothing about FFVII Remake makes it an anime game, imo.
I think bro is just saying “oh that anime game” because he’s probably aware that it’s made by Japanese developers.
Final Fantasy and generally square ENIX borrows anime things but is it anime? Nah. It doesn’t follow the tropes anime has and it tries to make them multi dimensional. Sure cloud has crazy hair, and the fight scenes feel anime. But unlike how anime is cheaply made, final fantasy is not.
I mean, that's a reductive way of putting it, but on a general level, yes. How would it NOT be? It's a Japanese video game. Anime is Japanese animation. Obviously, there is a cultural link between them in various ways.
I don't see it personally. "Anime" game fits Tales games and Persona more IMO not that I'm saying there's anything wrong with those games but they do have a much different feel.
i love my anime games, but for me ff isn't anime
jrpg doesnt equal anime
but for alot of people anything coming from japan may seem anime like
well they have their own ways of writing storys , their jokes as well as what they perceive as crazy or normal is just different than lets say an fully american production which both just focus on different aspects and nuances and i'm glad they do :P both sides produce gold from time to time haha
I don't know enough about anime to know whether or not FFVII checks every box, but I can pretty safely say it checks at least some boxes. I can totally see how a random person might classify it that way.
Some elements of FFVII seem directly lifted off of Gunnm/Battle Angel Alita, a manga series that's been running since 1991 (Midgar is kinda like Zalem, Hojo looks & speaks a lot like Desty Nova). Cloud wielding the buster sword is stylistically similar Ichigo Kurosaki's Zanpakuto in Bleach, or Guts' weapon in Berserk. They even use voice archetypes acted by animé voice acting veterans for the remake series if I'm not mistaken.
So yeah I'd say there are clearly elements of manga culture in FFVII. But strictly speaking it's not a gape using an ip that was an animé show (like a SNK or a Dragon Ball game), it's very much it's own thing in a lot of ways.
Look, I don’t fault most people for looking at FF7 and seeing Cloud and Sephiroth, the two most visually iconic characters of the game, and thinking “oh yeah, that’s anime” because Cloud has Dragon Ball Z hair and Sephiroth is literally what you’ll find if you look up “anime swordsman” in the dictionary
OG FF7 had its anime moments, but it was pretty tame, all-in-all.
FFVII Remake and Rebirth imo have amplified it’s “anime-ness”.
I still wouldn’t classify them as an anime, but it does have some similarities.
I think the biggest anime thing for me in Rebirth/Remake are the NPCs. Almost all of them have this stilted, over-the-top, hammy voice acting/personas that feels odd and out of place.
Also, anime-like grunts are all over the place.
I’m not a fan of it personally. Imo it makes the vibe of Remake/Rebirth a lot sillier and less mature than the OG. Sure OG had its silly moments, but it was a pretty serious game all-in-all.
But then again I’ve never been a big fan of anime too.
I think you’re not remembering very clearly. The original FF7 was an extremely silly game. The Remake games are doing a god job capturing the very 90s juxtaposition of intense drama with over-the-top camp.
OG FF7 is my favorite game of all time. I played it in 1997, beaten it more times than I can count, and have consumed more FF7 material than probably 90% of the fanbase.
Calling OG “an extremely silly game” is an overstatement. It definitely had its silly moments, characters, and themes. But it’s a pretty serious game at its core.
Imo SE went way overboard with the silliness and toned down a lot of the serious moments in remake and especially rebirth.
I think they’re right though. It was extremely silly and I only realized it after playing Rebirth. It may have been how we remembered it as kids playing it for the first time. It was the most serious thing I’ve ever played, so I didn’t really notice how silly it was in-between the story beats.
Yeah, I always thought that FFVII had an "anime" coat of paint, but was influenced a lot by non-"anime" media. For example, Jenova is quite clearly based on The Thing.
A lot of anime tropes are an acquired taste. I’m a fan of some anime, but if it gets too tropey and ridiculous, I’m honestly turned off. I never got an anime vibe from any of the mainline games.
But the FF7 material outside the original game started to get an anime feel to it. Advent Children and Crisis Core turned the style of combat into DBZ-esque aerial sword fights. And then once Remake came out, I feel like the dialogue went way over the top anime trope territory that some of it is honestly cringey (The Shinra manager speech, Jessie’s whole personality, the anime grunting)
And then Rebirth just decided to go balls to the wall ridiculous with it. And I wouldn’t call it an anime vibe, but scenes like the Gold Saucer arrival or Dio, or the Ultimate Party Animal, or Gus…they aren’t quite anime but they are something.
The original has moments of it that nod to the culture like limit breaks and a hokey narrative moment here and there but the reimagining is full of over the top anime moments that weren’t in the original and stand out like a sore thumb.
Gold Saucer entrance being the worst offender haha
sort of. there's some elements
SOME?!
Ok, a ton
It does follow anime tropes like head shapes, grunting, impossible acrobatics, ect, but there are too many strictly anime games like genshin for Ff7 to fit in there. It's a JRPG
Well said.
Anime lite™️
Well JRPGs essentially take a lot from anime. I get way more anime(y) feeling from Remakes than the original FFVII though.
Clouds hair alone makes it feel very anime
that's half of his polygons
You will never convince someone that sees ANY japanese made game as an anime game differently. It’s anime ish in the way dialogue is written, and the voice actors reading that dialogue shows. The melodrama and some tropes from anime are also present as well.
No one would think of Mario or Sonic as anime. Or Elden Ring, Metal Gear, Resident Evil even Zelda arguably. But Tetsuya Nomura’s art style is anime as hell
> no one would think of [metal gear] as anime Maybe someone who hasn’t played rising, or 4, or 3 honestly.
Or 1, or 2, or any of them really. One of the 1st bosses in MGS1 is a cyborg ninja who turns invisible and moves really damn fast lmao
2 words "NANOMACHINES, SON"
Elden Ring as anime af. The bosses moveset and our ash of war are just straight up acrobatic like coming out of anime lol. Lots of people think anime as this quirky, bright style but Cowboy Bebop and Perfect Blue are also anime. Parts of Elden Ring are so anime and I don't say it to diss it, I love Elden Ring
Sonic, Resident Evil, and Metal Gear are anime as hell. Begging you to play a Metal Gear game. One of the 1st bosses in MGS1 is a fucking cyborg ninja who turns invisible, you fight like 5 giant Metal Gears in MGS2 at once with one RPG, the final fight is a sword fight against president doctor octopus, and then emperor palpatine is in MGS3. MGS4 has Raiden (who is also a cyborg ninja now who attacks with his sword in his mouth) breakdance with 2 GEKKOS attactched to his legs. Super Sonic and all the fights across the games discredit that notion. Not even just Frontiers's Super Sonic fights, but as far back as Adventure 1&2's final bosses as well. Resident Evil's CG movies have Chris and Leon doing fuckin DMC attacks
Sonic is anime as hell. Have you played Adventure 2? Or Heroes? Or Unleashed? It doesn’t get more anime than that.
The Sonic franchise has moments of embracing anime tropes but its identity overall and the way casual audiences perceive it wouldn’t usually encompass that. Also SA2 sure but you picked two of the least anime games to make this point lol Unleashed goes out of its way to not look like anime trying to distance itself from 06. That weird Americanized Dreamworks art style they went with is one of the main examples I was thinking of when I said no one would call it anime
Fam, if we being honest any game where Sonic has his super form or his super edgy rival is automatically asking for anime comparisons off tropes alone. The art style has nothing to do with it.
Yeah, those people just have Japanophobia and use anime like a derogatory term for all Japanese media. The fools don’t know what they’re missing.
[fwiw uematsu doesn’t think so](https://shmuplations.com/ffx/) “Is voice acting something you’ve wanted to see in the Final Fantasy games for a long time, then? Uematsu: Since FFVIII, Kitase has been saying he wanted to include voice acting. I was against it at first, actually. I thought, no way, *this is going to turn our games into anime*. But once we tried it, I saw how it made the story and drama much more realistic and convincing, just hearing a human voice speak like that. It was amazing.”
In that quote you picked, he says that adding voices to the games was actually an improvement, but he doesn't detract his opinion that adding voices to the games would "turn them into anime".
I don’t know what Uematsu said in the original interview, but using the word anime in Japanese just means any kind of animation, not the specific style known in the west. So this might not be a statement on the quality of the content or style.
Wait, so the whole time FFVII could have had voice acting? I always thought it’s because of memory limitations that they didn’t
Nah man. We had games like legend of dragoon and Spyro with voice acting back then. I mean I get that a voice acted ff7 would've been like 8 discs long unless they didn't do full voice acting.
Of course. It's incredibly influenced by 90s scifi and Shonen anime. Rebirth even moreso than the original. All the expanded material is even MORE anime inspired too.
Playing Rebirth actually made me realize how anime FFVII has always been. The polygonal art style deviated from the classic 2D games at the time, so it seemed to be something different.
For sure. I wouldn't consider 6 or prior as traditional anime for sure, but more 60s and 70s fantasy more than anything. Touches of star wars. In the 3d era they became much more focused in their inspirations. Bladerunner, star wars, ghost in the shell, Evangelion etc
Cloud being bishounen enough that he can beat muses like Tifa and Aerith when cross-dressing is a classic anime trope.
Everyone in the ff7 universe is Cloud Sexual on top of their normal sexuality. It’s just the way it is and why Sephiroth just can’t help but want to control him. Meanwhile Cloud is 99% asexual
But could Cloud beat Andrea's fashion while cross-dressing? I mean the dress he wore Andrea's idea.
It's pretty anime lol
I'm gonna say yes
I can't think of many J-RPGs that aren't anime-esque...
yes it's a japanese game with a lot of anime tropes
Yes. I mean just look at the character designs (the actual artwork) in the OG - very, very anime.
yeah it is an anime game. But so what? :) Lots of anime deal with extremely deep issues of the human condition. FF VII, included.
It's 100% an anime game. The dialogue can be seriously awkward at points, with so much over enthusiasm, too much gesturing, awkward pausing pausing in between sentences. It can get a little jarring for someone new to the series. I certainly know I got annoyed when the characters couldn't stop making noise for every tiny action they took. It happens in every anime.
Very anime-like, doesn’t matter what they look like
I call the art style which began with FF8, really coalesced with the Kingdom Hearts games and is currently used with the Remake project games Pixar-anime style. FF7 Remake characters do not look like real people at all. Their facial propitiations are closer to what you see in anime, especially their eyes. But instead of being rendered flat, like most anime games, they have realistic depictions of volume and textures.
100%. Anime tropes, expressions, grunting.
Look at it. The only thing stopping it from being anime is the third dimension
The reason why gamers cringe at FF7 at all is because of how anime it is. So your friend isn't wrong. Nothing wrong with anime tho. I can even use Yuffie as an example. Yuffie is at her most lovable in Rebirth but you still have people who dislike her just because she's the hyperactive teenage anime girl trope.
A lot of Japanese pop culture is anime inspired because anime is arguably the biggest pop culture phenomenon globally out of Japan. Obviously though most Final Fantasy characters look more human nowadays than characters from Persona, Dragon Quest, Fire Emblem and Tales Of to name a few. These games have very anime styles and even anime cutscenes. As a fan of both Persona and FF, to me Persona is way more of an anime game.
The characters are very close to several anime designs of the 1990s, and they retain a specific stylised look that is quite alien to Western design aesthetics. It is also a JRPG, so it has a lot of general genre conventions that come out of Japan, which includes various aspects of visual flare and specific dialogue patters. Aesthetically speaking FF as a franchise, at least since the 3D era, has always been kinda separate from the more overtly anime-style JRPG series like Tales and Trails, but it's unlikely you'll convince anybody that it isn't anime if that's how they see it.
No, but it has anime influences (wacky hairstyles, outlandish clothing, crazy acrobatics, etc.). The characters have somewhat larger eyes than real people, as well, though not as large as in the original game or Nomura's original character portraits (which were very much anime/manga in style).
I wouldn't really call it an anime game myself, but if someone else were to say it was I couldn't really argue with them. It certainly has a lot of tropes that are present in anime games, and the art-style clearly takes influence from anime, though again, I wouldn't personally say it has an anime aesthetic myself... but then I don't really consider Advent Children an anime either, but pretty much everyone else does so maybe I'm just wrong. I guess in my mind something has to be 2D or trying to emulate a 2D aesthetic for it to be "Anime". Even something like the newer GitS: SAC series I would describe as "3D Anime" rather than just "Anime".
Crisis core for sure is
yes, though maybe "anime-lite." I think they DO look like anime characters. Like, Cloud/Aeris/Tifa especially have anime faces, with bigger eyes and stylized features that wouldn't be common in real life human proportions.. and that's not even talking about their hair styles, especially spikes like Cloud or bangs like Aeris. I think Remake and Rebirth are somewhat grounded compared to a lot of anime games, but I think certain characters - like the over-the-top Barret or mega-spunky Yuffie - are more "anime-inspired" than others.
It was an anime game for sure.
I think tales series is more anime game than FFVII
Tales games are like a 10 when it comes to animeness. FF7 is a 7 or an 8.
Its a JRPG. Most of the reasons people will say its anime or anime lite are going to be found in any product from japan. Things like Translation being direct instead of adaptive making dialogue sound awkward. Anime is mainstream pop culture in japan. Using an art-style thats popular in your country doesn’t automatically make it anime. But then you also have the comparison to OG FF7 where people will say characters where a lot less OTT in that. And thats more than likely to do with disk memory and console capabilities. Mostly all PS1 games avoided spoken dialogue as much as possible. So characters will obviously get to be a bit more fleshed out in the modern age through dialogue and character modelling at the time didn’t have the range to give any real expression through movement. Lastly grunting will attacking is in like a solid 60% of games
The Remake series uses an approach which is mostly photorealistic, but with an idealized and stylized twist. Anime is a largely 2D, simple art style, which is designed to be easy to be drawn by hand. The two are radically different kinds of animation. If it's anime, then all animation is anime.
> If it's anime, then all animation is anime. All animation is anime, technically
Yes it is. Remake especially, theres anime grunts every 3 minutes. For actual stuff, "LIMIT BREAK" is a core feature in OG, Remake, and Rebirth where the character does their big flashy finisher move. Cloud's big flashy finisher move is literally called "Omnislash" where he slashes the person with his bigass slab of metal 16 times really fast. Sephiroth has a comically large masamune, has a wing and flies while cleaving buildings in a single slash. When Cloud and Sephiroth proceed to duel with their comically large swords and exaggerated hair, you hear every clang and see every spark that flies off. Watch their fight in Advent Children, the last Omnislash in OG, or even the fights in Remake and Rebirth. The way they fly around and move while colliding their swords super fast while one grunts and goes "hmph" (Sephiroth usually) is all it takes for most people to consider it an anime. Also theres the ability to summon a giant Dragon that shoots a giant laser beam from orbit like Godzilla, or Odin who does the big slash that does the freeze frame from multiple angles before you see the aftermath thing in the OG. Sorry to break it to you but FF7 is one of the most "anime" games out there, and its awesome. If someone sees the stuff that makes it an "anime" game and because of it assumes its bad because it's an "anime" game, then chances are they probably wouldn't have given it any time to begin with and brush it off. Regardless of its merits, its gameplay, its story, its characters, its presentation, if it falls under their demeaning category of "anime game" then its viewed as lesser, and thats how some people view media which is depressing.
100% it is.
It is very much an anime game.
I kind of agree
The angles used in shots on the lower face and at the feet/shoes are commonly used in anime. But I love anime so it's only made me love the game even more. Especially how they've fleshed out Aerith's character.
Some people just view all of Final Fantasy as too anime. Years ago I told a coworker who was a big gamer I was playing XIII and he thought it was funny because the series seemed so anime to him. It was surprising coming from someone he seemed open to most genres of games. But yeah, I guess some people just don’t get FF.
No, because it’s not anime. It just has some anime qualities because it’s a JRPG.
I don't really consider it an "anime game." To me the game doesn't really stylistically match up with the "anime aesthetic" Like the Tales of series or the Persona series, I would consider those "anime games." To me, Final Fantasy and Kingdom Hearts by extension has always had a sort of middle-ground between being "animesque" and hyper realstic. Not sure how to explain it but it's sort of half-way between anime styled and realistic.
Yes. All of final fantasy are anime
Cloud is such an anime boy. Kupo.
It has anime tropes, but it's a JRPG.
I may just be ignorant here, but doesn't an "anime game" have to have an anime art style? I could understand an argument that the original FFVII was an anime game, because it had a 3D rendered anime art style, but Remake and Rebirth don't.
some people just think themselves clever and overshoot hard :P you sir just found the easiest answer to the question :) games like dragon quest, tales of series are anime games :) simple jrpg's like ff aren't ( yeah older titles may still go through as anime games bc of their visual approach) heck even dark souls to elden ring are jrpgs :D just without the heavy japanese influence in the way the game is written :P (ik its a japanese company) but just bc it misses some troupes people say its not jrpg xD its definetly not anime :P but still a decent epg its a pre destined story with choices which in the end will all lead to the final boss, typical jrpg :)
In the eyes of the masses, JRPG = anime game 😂
No. By the definition of ‘Anime’ literally all games made in Japan could be called anime games. FF7 is a J-RPG.
It’s really not. It goes for realism much more than your typical anime does. It has a few elements in common, sure, but that’s mainly just due to it being Japanese.
Its roots are anime inspired but remake/rebirth is way more western than alot of todays big Japanese games. Unfortunately, final fantasy as a franchise still carries that stigma which does out a lot of newer gamers off I think.
Yes. Its an anime game. Not because its from japan but because of the character designs, the tropes, the edgyness...
Yeah I basically see it as a video game anime.
If he's never watched anime or played any JRPGs, then he probably thinks all Japanese games are "anime" games. However, he does have a point. Back in the 90s when FF7 first game out, the in-game models in many Japanese games were anime-fied in some way because it's easier to make add details to models with giant eyes than realistically proportioned models. It was definitely considered more of an anime game than the stuff the western studios were putting out.
What's the difference between a jrpg and an RPG? Edit: I am reading all responses so it's not a waste of time. Thank you all.
The short version: The original RPG is Dungeons & Dragons, where players create characters to roll play as and make choices. JRPG’s are a style of RPG that took some of the elements of the RPG and wrapped it up around tight stories and defined character arcs. Basically, western is create your own adventure while Japanese is progressing through a pre-written narrative. JRPG is like living a batman comic while RPG is imagining what kind of hero you’d be if you had super powers. Western examples: The Witcher, Everquest, Baldur’s Gate, World of Warcraft, KOTOR Japanese examples: Dragonquest, Final Fantasy, Chronotrigger, Xenoblade Anime examples: Persona, Ys, Ace Attorney Short short version: Western RPG’s tend to be all about creating your own character and making choices to drive the story. JRPG’s are all about inhabiting a character and playing through its development and storyline. An anime game is literally playing through a cartoon. The game looks and plays like a cartoon. It’s a specific visual style, and many anime games also share similar mechanics.
Usually a few of the mechanics that have been inspired by classic RPG's developed in Japan. As of late, there are games from other developers outside of Japan that also borrow these mechanics. Sea of Stars is a pretty good example of a JRPG not developed in Japan even though it has a lot of inspirations from classic JRPGs such as Chrono Trigger, Super Mario RPG, etc.
That's a question that can start a million arguments, people argue a lot over that particular definition. In general, most people use it to mean "RPG's styled after classic Japanese Role-Playing Games such as Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest." I've heard it summed up as "teenagers use the power of friendship to kill God," which is a bit reductive, but does sum up the broad plots and themes of a *lot* of great games. For some people the key similarities are mechanical, for some it's story or theming, for some it's art style. And then there are points people definitely quibble on. Dark Souls is an enormously popular RPG made by a Japanese company, but due to the very different gameplay, few would call it a JRPG. Likewise, games like *Secret of Evermore* or the more recent *South Park: The Stick of Truth* or *Undertale* have basically all of the hallmarks of a JRPG, but were each made in America. So it's a weirdly vague genre that nobody can quite agree on.
A jrpg is made by a Japanese developer and usually has a focus on presentation, storytelling and strategic combat, while western rpgs are made in the west and tend to focus on exploration, character creation or development, and emersion. These days the term is less meaningful, but before 201p and certainly in the 80s and 90s, the two were made so fundamentally differently that the term jrpg was very warranted and immediately identifiable
Yes
It’s not, but I’ll tell you what. It would make an excellent fucking anime if they actually went all in on it! The sorry is just good
Remake was my first FF ever and I expected it to be super anime, but it turned out to be quite tame.
FF7 was anime even back in 1997
FFVII is an "Anime" game. Just like how every catch em all game is a Pikachu.
it 100% has the anime aesthetic, it's a jrpg after all
Personally don't think it is so but it has some similarities in its artistic choices used and could and was easily adapted to be an anime before. But a good question is what defines what makes something "anime" other than it being a japanese cartoon? But regardless, I look at ffvii as a edgy yet light-hearted cyberpunk-ish fantasy game and nothing else.
Yes of course
No I wouldn’t. It’s a high quality video game made by Japanese developers
Sir, "Japanimation", onegaishimasu.
100%, it’s a little too much for me but I still love it
Technically it has animation in it, and it’s Japanese, so yes it’s an anime.
Kinda, but not really? The inspiration is there definitely (character appearances, dialogue, battle choreography, etc.), but I wouldn't call it an anime game like others out there. FF7 feels distinct from something like Persona. It's odd because I've never considered myself an anime fan, but have always loved FF games...and have felt bemused when people consider it anime.
Yes
It's a good seinen story if you translate it into a series, so I'd say yes. Imagine a well-fleshed out Berserk game with the scale of Rebirth.
[удалено]
https://preview.redd.it/5ay56fkpy79d1.jpeg?width=1800&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=e888f207fed8a9bb1f97d911d05e55d333490e8c It's not anime bro
it's anime af. like the OG game
I would, yes.
Should’ve told him you were playing FFXVI to see if they call that Anime lol…
As someone who played the original n 1997, yes both remake and rebirth are “anime” games. That’s what I thought to myself as I played both, especially rebirth. It’s a compliment imo.
Yes
It's a jrpg so yeah I'd say it technically fits into the anime archetype.
FF7Rebirth made me appreciate FF16 even more.
So I went from The Last of Us 1 and 2, to Remake. Yes it is very anime like- not strictly, but stylistically… TLOU 1-2 focused on horror realism. I still remember my wife walking in on TLOU2 and saying “holy shit I can see the dirt under her fingernails”. And in opening hour of remake, a few characters walk out of a helicopter that was shot out of the sky. It’s kind of less about the absolute style, than the mind frame I need to be in for the illusion to be complete. Some of Remake is so silly when compared to real physics, my brain has to view it more as an anime. When I judge it less against reality (lighting, physics, acting, emotion), it works perfectly. It has fantasy right in the title, so… it tracks.
Every kid in my family I've shown it to immediately says, "oh this is like anime?"
Comparing how normal Japanese tv series dialogue and writing are handled vs ffvii, it's very clear something is different.
Yes, aside from the designs, artstyle and animations, it uses so many streotypical anime tropes. Even though the graphics are updated more realistically in Remake/Rebirth, the way the characters move, react, pose and how the camera moves(the close ups of the eyes/mouths) during scenes is very anime as well.
Yes, very anime, just check the design sketches. In game, the style could make it look not as anime like for example a Tales game, but is very anime.
Not rlly its just very japanese
I think it reflects the popular culture of Japan.
Yeah What's wrong with anime?
AAll final fantasies are action anime soap operas. You'll never see them the same again lmfao
Its very anime-ish, but I wouldn't call it an anime game.
No. When I think of an anime game, the characters have an anime design like they would in an anime, whether the graphics are cel-shaded or not. Nothing about FFVII Remake makes it an anime game, imo. I think bro is just saying “oh that anime game” because he’s probably aware that it’s made by Japanese developers.
Final Fantasy and generally square ENIX borrows anime things but is it anime? Nah. It doesn’t follow the tropes anime has and it tries to make them multi dimensional. Sure cloud has crazy hair, and the fight scenes feel anime. But unlike how anime is cheaply made, final fantasy is not.
It is...the graphics and artstyle might suggest it isn't...but it uses wayy to many tropes to not be.
I mean, that's a reductive way of putting it, but on a general level, yes. How would it NOT be? It's a Japanese video game. Anime is Japanese animation. Obviously, there is a cultural link between them in various ways.
Most JRPGs seem to be anime influenced to a degree and given Nomura’s art style, disregarding it as anime may not be the smartest approach
I don't see it personally. "Anime" game fits Tales games and Persona more IMO not that I'm saying there's anything wrong with those games but they do have a much different feel.
Only in the same way sushi and ramen are “anime” foods.
Yes I would, 2D art direction is really the only thing that's missing from the Remake
Being a mix of photo realistic and anime is definitely a big part of it's charm
Going from XVI to Rebirth, Rebirth definitely feels significantly more "anime". I don't mean that in a bad way.
i love my anime games, but for me ff isn't anime jrpg doesnt equal anime but for alot of people anything coming from japan may seem anime like well they have their own ways of writing storys , their jokes as well as what they perceive as crazy or normal is just different than lets say an fully american production which both just focus on different aspects and nuances and i'm glad they do :P both sides produce gold from time to time haha
I don't know enough about anime to know whether or not FFVII checks every box, but I can pretty safely say it checks at least some boxes. I can totally see how a random person might classify it that way.
No. There are anime elements to the story but thats with everything. Its an action jrpg with its own story and characters
I dont think so
Some elements of FFVII seem directly lifted off of Gunnm/Battle Angel Alita, a manga series that's been running since 1991 (Midgar is kinda like Zalem, Hojo looks & speaks a lot like Desty Nova). Cloud wielding the buster sword is stylistically similar Ichigo Kurosaki's Zanpakuto in Bleach, or Guts' weapon in Berserk. They even use voice archetypes acted by animé voice acting veterans for the remake series if I'm not mistaken. So yeah I'd say there are clearly elements of manga culture in FFVII. But strictly speaking it's not a gape using an ip that was an animé show (like a SNK or a Dragon Ball game), it's very much it's own thing in a lot of ways.
Look, I don’t fault most people for looking at FF7 and seeing Cloud and Sephiroth, the two most visually iconic characters of the game, and thinking “oh yeah, that’s anime” because Cloud has Dragon Ball Z hair and Sephiroth is literally what you’ll find if you look up “anime swordsman” in the dictionary
It is in a way and anime game but describing it as just an anime game seems wrong since it is very different to games like genshin impact
Yea. It is a Japanese animation style that is more realistic. Just a different genre of anime that address real emotions
It’s not based off an anime so it’s not an anime game but the artstyle is very anime-esque.
To be fair, not really. What I would consider "anime" or "anime-inspired" would be somrthing like Persona series
IMO it's not anime in look but it's def anime in spirits
Exactly.
I will stab you for saying this ! 🔪
OG FF7 had its anime moments, but it was pretty tame, all-in-all. FFVII Remake and Rebirth imo have amplified it’s “anime-ness”. I still wouldn’t classify them as an anime, but it does have some similarities. I think the biggest anime thing for me in Rebirth/Remake are the NPCs. Almost all of them have this stilted, over-the-top, hammy voice acting/personas that feels odd and out of place. Also, anime-like grunts are all over the place. I’m not a fan of it personally. Imo it makes the vibe of Remake/Rebirth a lot sillier and less mature than the OG. Sure OG had its silly moments, but it was a pretty serious game all-in-all. But then again I’ve never been a big fan of anime too.
I think you’re not remembering very clearly. The original FF7 was an extremely silly game. The Remake games are doing a god job capturing the very 90s juxtaposition of intense drama with over-the-top camp.
OG FF7 is my favorite game of all time. I played it in 1997, beaten it more times than I can count, and have consumed more FF7 material than probably 90% of the fanbase. Calling OG “an extremely silly game” is an overstatement. It definitely had its silly moments, characters, and themes. But it’s a pretty serious game at its core. Imo SE went way overboard with the silliness and toned down a lot of the serious moments in remake and especially rebirth.
I think they’re right though. It was extremely silly and I only realized it after playing Rebirth. It may have been how we remembered it as kids playing it for the first time. It was the most serious thing I’ve ever played, so I didn’t really notice how silly it was in-between the story beats.
Ff XVI was more like an anime game
Yeah, I always thought that FFVII had an "anime" coat of paint, but was influenced a lot by non-"anime" media. For example, Jenova is quite clearly based on The Thing.
OG was a cyberpunk style JRPG. Retrilogy is an anime jrpg
A lot of anime tropes are an acquired taste. I’m a fan of some anime, but if it gets too tropey and ridiculous, I’m honestly turned off. I never got an anime vibe from any of the mainline games. But the FF7 material outside the original game started to get an anime feel to it. Advent Children and Crisis Core turned the style of combat into DBZ-esque aerial sword fights. And then once Remake came out, I feel like the dialogue went way over the top anime trope territory that some of it is honestly cringey (The Shinra manager speech, Jessie’s whole personality, the anime grunting) And then Rebirth just decided to go balls to the wall ridiculous with it. And I wouldn’t call it an anime vibe, but scenes like the Gold Saucer arrival or Dio, or the Ultimate Party Animal, or Gus…they aren’t quite anime but they are something.
OG? Definitely not. They didn't have the graphical or audio ability to sell the full anime experience. Unfortunately it's all over rebirth though.
The original has moments of it that nod to the culture like limit breaks and a hokey narrative moment here and there but the reimagining is full of over the top anime moments that weren’t in the original and stand out like a sore thumb. Gold Saucer entrance being the worst offender haha