In June 2017 we presented the all-new Anime Blast collection of roleplaying games inspired by Japanese anime and manga. Along with Kickstarter spectaculars like OVA and the fantastically inventive Tenra Bansho Zero, this collection brought treasures ranging from the recent Blade Bind and Kagegami High to the R. Talsorian Games classic Teenagers From Outer Space.
There were five games in our Starter Collection (retail value $47):
- Blade Bind (PowerFrame Games, retail $8): Craig Judd’s one-shot storygame of the Chosen and the super-weapons they control — or vice versa.
- The Starlit Kingdom (Peach Pants Press, retail $10): Tragic stories of the war between Earth and Moon by Anna Kreider, designer of Thou Art But a Warrior.
- Mystical: Kingdom of Monsters (for Pathfinder) (Northwinter Press, retail $12): Gotta capture ’em all in this campaign supplement that brings the Monster Trainer to Pathfinder and D&D 3.x.
- Sparks (Twisted Die Productions, retail $7): Magical girls (and even boys) fight the forces of Darkness while trying to maintain good grades.
- Teenagers From Outer Space (R. Talsorian Games, retail $10): Mike Pondsmith’s hijinks-filled tribute to the 1980s anime Urutsei Yatsura.
Those who paid more than the threshold (average) price also got our entire Bonus Collection with six more games worth an additional $63.50:
- Tenra Bansho Zero (Kotodama Heavy Industries, retail $14): Headlong hyperspeed mecha-magic-samurai-ninja-ghost-Buddhist-Shinto action like nothing else in the world, ever. An entire campaign full of everything in six intense hours.
- OVA (Wise Turtle, retail $15): The new edition of Clay Gardner’s fast-playing and versatile rules set, widely considered the go-to game for any anime style.
- The Ruined Empire (Peach Pants Press, retail $10): Anna Kreider returns with a saga of warring nations originally written for Tenra Bansho Zero.
- Kagegami High (Yaruki Zero Games, retail $10): More high-school hilarity a la Welcome to Night Vale by Ewen Cluney (Maid RPG, Golden Sky Stories).
- Classroom Deathmatch (Atarashi Games, $7): Stage your own hunger games a la Battle Royale and rack up an unbelievable body count of hapless high-schoolers.
- Fight! The Fighting Game RPG (retail $7.50): Emulate the video game genre of fighting games in adventures across the globe, the universe, and multiple sub-genres.
That’s a US$110.50 value for the price of a magical girl’s weekly allowance. Ten percent of each payment (after gateway fees) went to this offer’s designated charity, Reading is Fundamental.
