Anime Flavah.

The cranky old critics of 4e generally use "its Anime" to deride 4e... but I am personally thinking the ability to use and flavor 4e in exactly that way if you want to is a real advantage. I embrace it.

Some of my favorites, Full Metal Alchemist, Avatar The Last Airbender, Samurai Champloo (awesome fighting scenes seriously), Bleach (Avengers/Sword mages/Monks ftw) and Moribito. As well as others like Inuyasha and Naruto.

I have probably forgotten some (... feel free to remind me)

I am not thinking it would be hugely necessary but at the same time wondering if house rules - perhaps things like a feat called tree top runner which allows one to move through forested areas and on walls as though flying.

or perhaps more expansively a setting expansion like http://zeitgeistadventurepath.com/ but for anime flavored play could be used to help induce more genre elements in to the 4e context.

Possible house rule.
Due to the number of unarmored or very lightly armored characters in anime a house rule allowing one to trade your class derived proficiency with leather or heavier armor to "unarmored agility"

You missed a very good anime series for this... Mobile Suit Gundam! I've made several Custom Golems that are, more or less, Gundams. The Themes from the series are also very compelling. "Which Side in the War do you fight for when Both are wrong?" Gundam has some very deep questions that can be incredable Role Playing fodder.

Also, getting into Anime Style Video Games, there is Mega Man/Rock Man. I played a Warforged PC that was a combination of Protoman and Zero. and the Shin Megami Tensei series is a good place to look for more mature themes, if your Players can handle them. I'm doing a series of articles on my blog about using the Concept of the "Shadow" to create a custom monster based on one of your PCs. Here is a link to it...

http://genericfighter.blogspot.com/

GF

Generic Fighter wrote:

You missed a very good anime series for this... Mobile Suit Gundam! I've made several Custom Golems that are, more or less, Gundams.

Thanks not familar with Gundam series the idea of transforming into a battle form is a fairly common meme amongst anime.

Generic Fighter wrote:

The Themes from the series are also very compelling. "Which Side in the War do you fight for when Both are wrong?" Gundam has some very deep questions that can be incredable Role Playing fodder.

Its a very serious theme... generally its about whether you walk the easy path.

More anime inspiration. Sacred Blacksmith and Soul Eater
Both feature sentient weapons able to assume human forms for everyday interaction. I can see reflavoring a Pixie Warlord as such. I might consider mixing capabilities of a pixie and a warforged for even more authenticity ie creating a new race.

I wouldn't mind playing in a Full Metal Alchemist game. Which with 4e's usage of rituals and such is entirely plausible. I know Pokemon already has an RPG which has quite a bit of 4e inspiration.

FMA could rock couldnt it.

Are there any enablers you can think of that would make it more explicitly supported.

Normal alchemists are ritual bound but the heroic types ... all seem to have active talents allowing high speed casting.

An FMA setting would need some form of gun support.

And an uber missile deflection to go with it

.... plus for martial awesome purposes is tank stabbing a power?   

Garthanos wrote:

The cranky old critics of 4e generally use "its Anime" to deride 4e... but I am personally thinking the ability to use and flavor 4e in exactly that way if you want to is a real advantage. I embrace it.

Some of my favorites, Full Metal Alchemist, Avatar The Last Airbender, Samurai Champloo (awesome fighting scenes seriously), Bleach (Avengers/Sword mages/Monks ftw) and Moribito.  As well as others like Inuyasha and Naruto.

I have probably forgotten some (... feel free to remind me)

I am not thinking it would be hugely necessary but at the same time wondering if house rules - perhaps things like a feat called tree top runner which allows one to move through forested areas and on walls as though flying.

or perhaps more expansively a setting expansion like http://zeitgeistadventurepath.com/  but for anime flavored play could be used to help induce more genre elements in to the 4e context.

I definitely agree. Editions like 3.x where casters have such a monopoly on cool powers and spells are difficult to reflavor to animes like Avatar.