Try it again... What anime would YOU write?

[Rorschach]

I'm sorry to see the last thread on this subject got locked over the bickering, but I always like tossing story ideas around. In the original thread, I tossed out the suggestion of R-rated Bible stories, and these three original ideas:

If I could have my way, here's a list of animes I'd like to see done, and which bunch would be doing them. (The titles are in English, but I imagine they would translate easily enough into Japanese.)


Possible title: Company of Four.

The anime: a romantic comedy about a nice guy who's really popular with the girls and an equally nice girl who's just as popular with the guys. By some twist of fantasy or maybe science fiction, their minds get switched into each other's bodies, and they can't get back into their own bodies for a long time. Since they both have very ordinary sexual desires, this is both very fun in the short term (for obvious reasons) and very distressing in the long term (for equally obvious reasons). They have to learn how to live each other's lives while fending off romantic pursuers. The comedy involves the couple using their experience from being the opposite sex to fend off lechers and losers, while the romantic part involves all the tangled situations they get into dealing with more genuinely kind and loving romantic interests who don't realize what has happened and why the subject of their interest is being so cold toward them. This story might also include the strange prospect of their having romantic feelings for each other, of course, since they share the same unique problem.

The people I'd pick to do this series: probably the ones who did the Ranma animes, with maybe some of the people who did Onegai Teacher.


Possible title: Metal Preacher

The anime: a horror anime--possibly even a horror hentai--featuring a series of morality tales about a kind and honest--though tragically flawed--preacher who serves as an exorcist in a city full of occult practices and demonic influences. The common thread of each of these tales is that magic and science are inherently enemies, and where the one prevails, the other must fail. Everywhere the preacher goes, he not only drives out various supernatural monsters and evil spirits, but also helps people to realize that the magic they hoped would get them ahead in life is essentially a way of trying to cheat on reality, and that cheaters will ultimately never prosper. Meanwhile, the city's scientists, who think the preacher is a fool, are always suffering from their ill-conceived attempts to combine the works of magic and science, with the preacher having to come to their rescue.

The people I'd pick to do this series: the people who did Trigun, of course, and maybe the writer from the Pet Shop of Horrors anime.


Possible title: Bad Boy

The anime: A genre mish-mash kind of anime in which a lolicon seeking prey, or "bad man" as the Japanese might put it, runs afoul of a Fairy Godmother type (an angel, perhaps) who serves as a kind of stand-in for divine justice. She disguises herself as a little girl, and when he starts "advancing" on her, she curses him, turning him into a little five-year-old version of himself and stripping him of all his worldy possessions. When he pleads for mercy, she tells him that the deed is irreversible, and he's just going to have to grow up all over again. Finding his way from the streets to an orphanage to adoption into a loving family, he starts thinking of his own unhappy first childhood and where it went wrong, and uses what he learns about his new family and himself to get his second childhood on the right track.

The people I'd pick to do this series: the writer of Detective Conan and the people who did Ayashi no Ceres (which was something of a genre mish-mash itself).

This touched off an argument about whether anime should be made from history or not. To the combatants, I say: I offered at least three ideas that were not at all from history, and anyway, this is about your ideas as much as mine. If you don't like history, offer a few ahistorical yarns of your own. Since I didn't get the chance to answer got2maskit in that thread, I'd like to answer him here:

What about original ideas made from scratch (with the exception of parodies), explained with details, etc...

By the way, I love the Bible idea, I'm actually thinking of doing a Manga (or whatever you wish to call American Manga..) of some of the matter, mybe something like all four gospels done by four different artists! That would be good... In other books, you could include some of the hebrew legends in the time between Malachi and Matthew (e.x. the great hero Judas(not from the new testament))

Yes, the books of Maccabees aren't strictly Biblical, but I should point out that they are Jewish and Catholic and at least fairly historically accurate. Among other things, these books are the reason why the name "Judas" was very popular and honorable before the events described in the New Testament, so it's good for providing some extra historical background to New Testament stories. I've even heard a rumor that Mel Gibson may be considering doing a movie about the Maccabean revolution.

In a similar vein, one of my favorite Christian novels was a piece by Paul L. Maier called "The Flames of Rome" which deals with some of what happened at the end of the New Testament and beyond, strongly based on historical writings from Suetonius, Tacitus, Josephus, and assorted others in addition to the Biblical account. As the author himself says, what's great about that novel is that a lot of what's in there did actually happen, and a lot of the rest could very well have happened. If he can do a story like that, anime makers can too.

Still, history's not all we have to write about. The so-called "fairy tales" we tell our children are based on old myths that adults used to tell other adults, and some of them are every bit as religious as any sacred writing. Ayashi no Ceres was based on one of these stories, and I imagine any number of other animes could be, too. My "Bad Boy" idea is based on the old mythical theme, commonly known to the Greeks, that when a god or angel or some such gives a gift (good or bad), that gift cannot be taken back. Take that and combine it with the Japanese themes concerning "lolicons" and the Detective Conan theme of a second childhood, and you have one of my stories. The other story ideas arise from similar sources.

Even pulp fiction and old comic books are a source for some story themes and ideas, such as the old Lone Ranger stories which give us the idea of a hero who comes seemingly out of nowhere to do deeds no one else dares to attempt, but because of his unique talents is denied integration into society. One can see how such a theme may have inspired the beloved Trigun series. It also inspired my "Metal Preacher" idea.

So now I've told a few of my story ideas and where I got them. How about yours? What animes would you create if you had the means, people?

[Malificus]

Hey, could we also give game ideas?

But here is another of my ideas.

Possible title: Black and White

This will be an adventure. It's main three characters are Ryu Hikari, a high-and-mighty preacher who only sees the wold as black and white, ready and willing to do whatever is "just", then, there is Nite Tsuki, an odd, yet deep man, who, despite his silly demeanor, realizes that the preacher could be wrong, and not everything said by the higher up preasts and even the archbiships, is true. The last is the enemy, Sora Ao a strange new being who wishes to destoy the church and the high priests.
During thier adventures, the righteous Ryu will have constant quarrels with Nite due to his readiness to kill / give mercy to anything, be it demon, man or angelic. Nite has to teach Ryu that not everything can be divided so easily. Nite would have the odd past of being born af a Demonic father, and an Angelic mother, but Ryu was merely gifted from birth and raised by bishops. Ryu was slaying all demons he could find, in efforts of being a savior to the world, whe he meets Nite. Confussed by his apearrance (his natural form with a black and a white wing), Ryu assumed him to be a demon and attacked. Defeated, he was curious why he was sparred. Nite, too lazy too answer, walked off, and was persued by Ryu. Ryu descovers Sora, and now must convince Nite to assist him; however, during the adventure, Nite would realize that Sora may not be commiting "evil" for the sake of evil...

[Rorschach]

Some people here will doubtless be glad to explain to you at length that Japanese console games are anime. Your idea is little too heavy on the whole Japanese "angels and demons" theme for me, but yeah, I could see that as an RPG. Tt sounds like it needs a little more fleshing out as a story, however. What objective do these characters try to achieve, for example? Saving the Church? Reforming the priesthood? And what exactly leads to their various ways of thinking? Ryu Hikari sounds like he might have Borderline Syndrome, which is usually the product of a physically abusive childhood, while Nite sounds like he's sort of the class clown, which usually comes from being a social outcast.

As for Sora, Nite's observation is hardly a leap of the imagination: one can always be assured that the worse the villain is, the more heroic he thinks he is. No one ever does evil because he wants to be evil. (Even those who go around proclaiming themselves really really evil these days are doing so because they think it's cool to be thought of as evil, not because they really want to be evil.) Hitler never murdered Jews because it was the terrible, evil, downright demonic thing to do, but because he saw it as the good, the patriotic, even the heroic thing to do. If you take a long look at Nazi propaganda, you can see that these real-life villains saw everything they did as heroic and good.

This Sora sounds like he might be a regular Diocletian, trying to destroy the Church because he hates it and thinks of it as the villain, as some are wont to do. Like Hitler, he might also see it as a rival to some church of his own that must be either integrated or annihilated so that he can achieve his own goals. Again, I ask what those goals are. Maybe he thinks the Church is pandering to weakness as Neitsche did, and wants to stiffen the backbones of the people, or maybe he thinks all power should be concentrated in the hands of the being most willing to use it, which is of course himself. Maybe he even buys into some theory of class struggle or race struggle as Russia and Germany did, and sees the Church as a threat to some utopian society he wants to build. History is littered with such utopian follies.

One of the things I do like about animes is that while they acknowledge the existence of good and evil, they also work from the premise that everyone is the good guy to himself, no matter how despicable he may actually be. In Scryed, for example, Kazuma and Ryohu are poles-opposite in their thinking, Kazuma favoring the virtues of freedom and Ryohu preferring the virtues of order and tranquility. They're both wrong about a number of things and right about a number of others, and when they join forces against the big-shot villain Moju Kyoji, we're shown a little of what goes through his mind too, and how he feels rather entitled to reign over the entire territory in defiance of all other authority.

I like your idea, therefore, but I probably should mention that your characters sound more like superheros and supervillains than actual angels and demons. Angel (or Archangel) of the X-men is more the prototype for these guys than, say, the supernatural beings we think of here in the West.

[AEtherryan]

if i wrote an anime it would be about a young man who in his dreams enjoys being in a universe which is a copilation of the stuff that he enjoys as entertainment ( chariters from comics he reads, enimies from games he plays
ect) plus there could be introduced a jiminy kricket sorta friend that doesnt come from any thing he ever was exposed to. then later on as we watch him live life we see that things from his dreams slowly leak into his reality, later we introduse a female to be his opposite she also wont be from any thing he has been exposed to ( we could intro her by having him save her) . also he could have a friend at school/work whom he could confide in about all this. she would help him to learn more about it and in his dream wrld be come more lucid. as the story progressed we could show the young man struggling to decide which world to live in and which female to be with.

now that would rock my face off!

oh yes and i wouldnt rule out a realy cool ending where he gets it all!
(both worlds and girls)

[Malificus]

I'll explain my idea some more.

During the process of trying to stop sora from destroying the church, Nite would see that the church is corrupt and twisted, following the golden rule (Those with the gold make the rules), but Ryu would stay blind to the fact. Really, while Nite would seem like a clown, he would be the most reasonable of the two.

Sora would be shown as a devil figure at the begining, making it likely that he could be a pure evil being, destroying churches and towns everywhere he goes, until Nite descovers this truth.

Towards the end, Nite would be forced to either choose between the seemingly hopeless task of teaching ryu that he might be wrong about life, or going with Sora and tearing the church down to it's very foundations. The only problem with the second idea though, is that Sora is devoted to killing everything connected to the church, not just the corrupt members. So Nite is left between the two extremes, Kill evryone who worships the light? or destroy the "Kingdom of darkness"?

But if Nite had his way, he would be like the moon, and un-intruding light, that gives light, but accepts darkness.

My Idea, isn't really about everyone has good, it's more of a nobody is pure good or evil, the world is more of a grey.

[AmazonMandy]

...enjoys being in a universe which is a copilation of the stuff that he enjoys as entertainment...

Best...typo...evar...

[BunofGovt]

Geez, I was just going to say I'd like to see something along the lines of the old live action shows I used to watch like Mito Komon or Abarenbo Shogun in anime. OR I'd love to write sequels to my favorite shows to bring back the dead characters and continue the story.

See Cyborg 009 - Shotaro Ishinomori re-surrected two of his lead characters (who died in a most tragic herioc way sob, after much fan outcry - I'd love to bring back Wolfwood in Trigun somehow *another sob*

[Rorschach]

I'll explain my idea some more.

During the process of trying to stop sora from destroying the church, Nite would see that the church is corrupt and twisted, following the golden rule (Those with the gold make the rules), but Ryu would stay blind to the fact. Really, while Nite would seem like a clown, he would be the most reasonable of the two.

Sora would be shown as a devil figure at the begining, making it likely that he could be a pure evil being, destroying churches and towns everywhere he goes, until Nite descovers this truth.

Towards the end, Nite would be forced to either choose between the seemingly hopeless task of teaching ryu that he might be wrong about life, or going with Sora and tearing the church down to it's very foundations. The only problem with the second idea though, is that Sora is devoted to killing everything connected to the church, not just the corrupt members. So Nite is left between the two extremes, Kill everyone who worships the light? or destroy the "Kingdom of darkness"?

But if Nite had his way, he would be like the moon, and un-intruding light, that gives light, but accepts darkness.

My Idea, isn't really about everyone has good, it's more of a nobody is pure good or evil, the world is more of a grey.

Well now your idea is beginning to sound remarkably similar to the Tales of Phantasia RPG.

Honestly, though, this genocidal Sora guy sounds purely and relentlessly evil: unless your fictional church is as hellbent on genocide as Sora (a possibility you don't even seem to be suggesting at all), there's no way Nite's "choice" could be anything but a no-brainer, while Ryu's situation is rendered entirely irrelevant to the question. Moreover, such thoroughly evil entities completely undermine your point: if no one is purely evil, how come you've just given us Satan incarnate? If the Church is just as bad as Sora, then we have two Satans and no goodness at all, which still tells us nothing but that some people are purely evil, again contradicting your point.

Besides, Nite's choice is based on a false dichotomy, since no one has ever been forced to resort to genocide to rid people of evil rulers. Given the choice between serving Stalin and serving Hitler, you don't serve; it's as simple as that. If the Church's leaders are planning the same end for the "kingdom of darkness" that Sora is planning for the "kingdom of light," the obvious action Nite should take is to usurp the thrones of both kingdoms and use his newly acquired authority to purge genocidal officials from the new united kingdom he should forge from the peoples of each kingdom.

In short, don't mistake moral equivalence for a moral dilemma; two wrongs won't make a right. Concerning what to do about Ryu, the only question Nite needs to answer is whether Ryu's loyalty is to the righteous cause itself, or to the leaders who claim to pursue the righteous cause while actually pursuing their own evil cause(s). I should also point out that Ryu as you describe him sounds like a blatant stereotype and hence a cardboard cutout of a character. If he can't be more complicated than that, he's doomed to be a bit player in this kind of story.

[Malificus]

You're right.

Sora would destroy all light while Ryo would destroy all darkness, but Nite's problem is that he is incapable of dethroning the corrupt leaders of the church or dealing with the destructive demons all by himself, let alone doing both.

Sora want's to destroy the church because he sees them extorting money so they can continue to eradicate demons, his problem is that he also sees the commoners as an equal evil, to week to fight the church, and so willing to give everything to see demons eradicated.

Ryu want's to kill all demons because he was raised by those ideals, all that he has ever been alowed to see is the evil in darkness. Ryu's loyalty is to righteousness, but he believes that everything the church does is in god's name, so to him, it is almost impossible to separate the two.

Even the corrupt church is not evil because they have gone through so many generations of leaders who think that demons are evil, and they need money to continue, that they are as messed up as Ryu. The church is a grey because they teach good, but coomit evils.

The demon's are just like humans, but they looked different, some that are persocuted thier whole life train physically for the sole purpose of getting rvenge on the people who persoccuted them. however some are morer good that others, even working to help them.

Nite has the fortune of seeing both sides, but he is a little indecisive. with the knowlege that he caan't do anything with meaning by himself, he gradually works to show Ryu and Sora that the other side might not be as bad as they think it is.

But yes, I admit there are two evils. The highest priest knows the truth about demons, that they really aren't all evil. And the King of the darkness is the one that taught Sora that the kingdom of light deserves no mecy, because they are all evil.

Nite's real problem isn't choosing sides, it's getting both to work together and see the truth.

[Rorschach]

Now your story begins to make some sense, although I say it's not really about demons or angels at all, but about two races of humanoids who happen to have the supposed physical features of these creatures. Hence, the "angels" are actually happy and well-fed Italians with wings (just as in the Leonardo and Michelangelo paintings) and the "demons" are actually gargoyles. Real angels and demons are something else entirely.

If Nite doesn't have the power to usurp thrones, he still is under no obligation to serve either side, and has the duty to throw his loyalty behind whoever does have the power to scour out the bad rulers. If the Church has good teachings, there must be some source of that good, a.k.a. God, and hence Nite should be trying to open Ryu's eyes to how his loyalty to God conflicts with his loyalty to the Church, a situation that certainly has been known to arise in real history.

Finally, two rulers who know they are wrong and forge ahead on genocidal campaigns anyway still sound like two cases of pure evil. This is rather realistic as well since there's never a situation too bad to be true, but your story's point faces alteration nonetheless.

Well, that's one story critiqued, but now how about one of these others? We've been hogging the topic. AEtherryan's story seems to be based mainly on the question of whether reality or fantasy is better. At first glance, fantasy does seem to be better, since good things happen in it that can't happen in real life, but usually such things can only be happening if something else in the fantasy that we're not seeing is contrary to reality. Hence, making a fantasy world real might tend to sweep away whatever makes the fantasy enjoyable.

This makes me think of Video Girl AI, in which a fantasy girl becomes real. Arguably, the kind young boy who loved her did get everything he wanted in the end, but at a price. Moreover, if he still loves the real girl for whom this fantasy girl was intended to be a temporary substitute, he is either going to have to take up polygamy or "pick up on one and let the other one ride" as the old song puts it. (This issue never really was resolved at the end.) A rare few stories do end with the hero getting everything he wants, but in most cases, some sacrifice will have to be made.

Keep the stories coming, people! I wouldn't mind seeing a constructive critique on some of my offerings, for that matter.