Fantasy Archetypes (anime, movie, fiction, etc)

JonSetanta · Post by **JonSetanta** » Mon Jan 19, 2009 3:20 am

I've been ruminating lately that the most popular international-selling manga/animu/"Jap comics" correspond to archetypes as follows:
• Ninjas = Naruto (and to a lesser extent includes Wizard/Mage by POV)
• Pirates = One Piece
• Duelists (Samurai/Knight/Swashbuckler/Martial Arts/Monster Transformations) = Bleach. Yes, there really are a fuckton of different warriors represented in it. DBZ and Soul Eater are partially in this category but not entirely.

I exclude the 'School/student' archetype because it's ever-present in Japanese productions as well as a bit of crossover (Bleach and Naruto for instance, but not One Piece). Not universal, but really, really, obnoxiously common; a cheap victory in ease of pulling heartstrings of bored students everywhere, as well as that grounding sense of 'normalcy' in otherwise bizarre setting.

Infrequently popular archetypes usually don't catch on with younger or non-Japanese fans over a broad spectrum (fandom remains niche'd), by culture mistranslation (Maids? seriously), or pervasive religious bias (kneejerk superstition.. ahem):
• Wizard/Mage/Witch = WHRobin, Soul Eater, plenty others. DBZ to a lesser extent even though they call it 'chi'.
• Zombies = Gungrave, a few others crossover in both scifi and fantasy
• Vampires = Vampire Hunter D, Blood+, Trinity Blood, plenty other 'sleeper hits' etc
• Ghosts = Soul Eater, perhaps Demon and Witch as well but that's a matter of interpretation
• Robots = well, duh. Evident when it happens. Some crossover with Wizard concerning Gurren Lagann and Diebuster (not Gunbuster) IMO.
• Maids = ... maybe for the neckbeard wankers or little girls but not really a big sell in Western culture

If a writer is determined to "make it" in a modern, some archetypes must be observed.
Failure to do so leads to flops such as the "666Satan" aka "" series, IMO doomed to alienation for its inherent message of possession and demonic influence (bad luck with America's 52% Protestant nation, for instance; census was in 2002)
Likewise, I've noticed that Soul Eater hasn't made a splash on these shores very well possibly for those very same reasons.
Bleach is an exception because the villain side is cleverly labeled 'Hollows' rather than, well, anything traditionally western, even while the symbolism is clearly rubbing elbows with some very Abrahamic concepts. In its defense the frequent acts of soul-swapping, soul-eating, damnation, hideous transformation, judgement, Shinto, Buddhist, and vaguely South American pagan connotations in Bleach are indeed non-Abrahamic, the observed lack of direct similarity with anything commonly Western-style helps to ease in with otherwise hesitant audiences.

Oh, and I'm not even touching "Let's Bible". That's just asking for it... although I would love to see more.

In sum you MUST cater to an audience or the marketability of your work is DOOMED from the start.

More progress on this observation on a later day...

MfA · Post by **MfA** » Mon Jan 19, 2009 4:04 am

Gungrave about zombies?

I doubt trying not to offend religious nuts really helps much, they are perpetually offended. I don't really buy your explanation for why Bleach does well, both it and DBZ pretty much clash with Christian cosmology at every step. They do well because the kids just don't care and the parents don't care about their kids, religious or not.

Bigode · Post by **Bigode** » Mon Jan 19, 2009 5:07 am

Duelists aren't ever-present in Japanese productions? Suuuure ...

"You need to cater to idiots to make a lot of money as an artist." Don't you tell me.

KauTZ · Post by **KauTZ** » Tue Jan 20, 2009 2:14 am

You don't classify Soul Eater as "Duelist"? Half of the entire plot is focused on fighting something.

I agree with it being "Ghost" though. Though "Ghost" is kind of misleading. "Supernatural" maybe?

JonSetanta · Post by **JonSetanta** » Thu Jan 22, 2009 2:39 am

Bigode wrote: "You need to cater to idiots to make a lot of money as an artist." Don't you tell me.

Well DUHHH

I use the term "duelist" in a sense that the battles become a showdown of martial prowess.
Even in DBZ (especially in the upper cosmic echelons) fights are resolved with a massive gutpunch or otherwise overpowering blow, after a series of push-pull minibattles and flashy maneuvers. The energy powers... they do nothing!

Soul Eater might be Duelist but a good portion of those battles are martial vs. spellcaster. More of a hybrid, really.
Namely the whole witch hunt aspect is most of the magic-user portion, but they really have more diversity than Naruto, even though the latter yet still trends towards "a duel of wizards" setup in the more recent manga chapters (giant summons, teleporting, weird dimension powers, explosions, whatnot) and far less physical dueling.

And indeed, Gungrave about zombies. Technological zombies but the thematics are there nonetheless.

MfA · Post by **MfA** » Thu Jan 22, 2009 6:07 am

That's all of what, 2, 3 episodes?

Gungrave is about wiseguys.

Heath Robinson · Post by **Heath Robinson** » Thu Jan 22, 2009 4:30 pm

I tend towards a far smaller segment of the anime/manga market (in the West at least, I'm pretty sure that Seinen is a bigger market in Japan) but I feel that there are a number of fantasy archetypes that you've missed out on.

The Scholar - they may be wandering, they may be static, and they share some of their tricks with the wizard but the Scholar works for the benefit of humanity in a hostile supernatural world without the benefit of being able to enforce their will on the world directly. To this end they learn a hell of a lot about how things work and advise people. Mushishi and Mononoke are good examples of the Scholar as the main character.

The scholar is most frequently the protagonist, since they lack much in the way of physical threat. The scholar is going to eventually encounter insulationist sentiment as an antagonist, which they will overcome by knowing something of use to the group in question.
The Priest - whilst most times priests multiclass into other archetypes it's a widespread enough subcategory that it deserves some note. Fantasy religions vary even more widely than real religions in their pronouncements, harkening back to a time when cults were more common and what the local pastor said went. Berserk features these on occasion, certain people in Soul Eater take on the trappings of a priest. Clerics and Paladins in D&D have the Priest nature. Priest is apparently about one of these. They form an entire antagonist group in Hellsing.
The Force of (Super)Nature - a potentially sentient (super)natural force that has objectives that it intends to fulfil, generally at the expense of local populations, the heroes, etc. Berserk features more than a few as antagonists. Druids work for one of these in D&D. Practically every fantasy series inevitably involves one of these somewhere.

Not all Forces of (Super)Nature are big. Mushishi is set in a world with a multitude of small forces of (super)nature that the scholar protagonist advises small villages on.

JonSetanta · Post by **JonSetanta** » Fri Jan 23, 2009 4:03 am

Nice observations, Heath.

I'm trying not to use TVtropes per se but it is what got me started.
In general I'm considering the broadest categories rather than all of Carl Jung's archetypes (and then some since I'm damned sure "Maids" aren't in his work)

Mfa, I still stick by the Gungrave = zombies thing. The main character became a zombie after death, he shot zombies, they were zombies... that uh... explode in to dust when destroyed.
They may not have been about 'undeath' or 'cannibals' in theme, but the archetype of "there's hordes of once-human mindless drones overwhelming conventional human forces and only the hero can save us" is the archetype.