Nowadays, whenever a shonen anime breaks through the mold from being a manga darling to a pop culture phenomenon it’s guaranteed to hit at least three of these crossroads: being prematurely deemed overrated/peak by viewers a year after its first season drops, a celebratory Uniqlo fashion collection, and the inevitable release of an arena fighter video game. While the weight of the first two milestones is benign in the grand scheme of an anime’s mainstream upward trajectory, the bragging rights that come with the success of an anime’s first video game are the lifeblood of its fandom. Unfortunately, arena fighters have unwittingly become anime’s sole gaming genre when they don’t have to be.Like any piece of media that’s soured on its once-doting audience, anime arena fighters suffer from the success of their predecessors. Those predecessors are the immensely popular Dragon Ball Z and Naruto arena fighter series Dragon Ball Z: Budokai Tenkaichi and Naruto: Ultimate Ninja Storm. On paper, it makes perfect sense for burgeoning anime series like My Hero Academia, Demon Slayer, and Jujutsu Kaisen to capitalize on their show’s respective popularity with a 3D brawler showcasing its super-powered ensemble cast and iconic locales. We’ve seen this well-trodden hat trick attempted time again with fighters like My Hero: One’s Justice, Demon Slayer: The Hinokami Chronicles, and Jujutsu Kaisen: Cursed Clash promising players the chance to recreate each anime’s iconic battles. While the aforementioned anime trio lends itself perfectly to arena fighters, if nothing inspired, unique, or innovative is brought to the proverbial kotatsu … what’s the point? By and large, anime arena fighters have become interchangeable with annual sports games and hackneyed licensed game adaptations of popular films. Instead of feeling like a daring new iteration of the genre, arena fighters are paint-by-numbers brawlers with shallow combat and a weak story mode. Any pleasure derived from reenacting an anime’s bombastic fights with friends via online or co-op matches is fleeting at best. Likewise, the once exciting prospect of an increased roster to make up for a previous title not encompassing a new anime arc has retrospectively become a hollow cash grab that bloats a game’s cast rather than bolstering it. Look no further than the soured reception Bandai Namco’s Naruto x Boruto Ultimate Ninja Storm Connections has had on its once die-hard fanbase. Two key components in the failings of contemporary anime arena fighters are half-baked combat mechanics and lackluster presentation. Although My Hero One’s Justice 2 expanded its cast and improved some combat mechanics from its predecessor, its combat depth was still surface-level and didn’t offer players much else to chew on once they played a couple of matches. Despite being a competent arena fighter, Demon Slayer: The Hinokami Chronicles ultimately released a tad too early in relation to the anime’s first season, resulting in a slim roster and cutscenes that were more exciting than its story mode. Jujutsu Kaisen: Cursed Clash, arguably the worst of the three, felt like no effort went into it at all. Alongside having shallow combat, the game’s cutscenes are slideshow still images of the anime’s first season that breeze through its story at a breakneck pace. Even its main menu, a landscape once brimming with personality with reactive icons and character models in the Naruto and DBZ arena fighters, is akin to a late-aughts Blu-Ray DVD menu screen. The goodwill of fans can only take an arena fighter far and attaching a renowned anime to a derivative brawler won’t curry any favors. Prepare for chills! Or to chill out 🎶 Only a week before #JujutsuKaisen Cursed Clash releases! Who wants to vibe with us on the main menu until then? pic.twitter.com/YzgJq3jnAp— JUJUTSU KAISEN CURSED CLASH (@JJK_videogame) January 26, 2024 Jerry rigging an anime into an arena fighter is a lot like putting a spikey-haired peg in a round hole. Sure, it may fit if you force it, but sometimes there’s a more appropriate slot for an anime. We’ve seen numerous examples where DBZ, Naruto, and One Piece branching out of the kiddie gate that’s become arena fighters. Chief among them being Naruto’s side scrolling beat-em-up Naruto: Ninja Council, One Piece’s RPG One Piece: Odyssey, Dragon Ball Xenoverse — which lets players run wild with their own original characters in timey-wimey what-if scenarios— and the criminally underappreciated turn-based RPG Dragon Ball Z: Attack of the Saiyans from MonolithSoft. Fortunately, anime games aren’t a doomed concept because developers like Bandai Namco appear to be slowly waking up to the fact that it can ignore the “in case of emergency, release an arena fighter” glass that seems to be looming over them. There are alternative game genres that neatly fit a show’s je ne sais quoi and we’re seeing a slow rollout of them with games like the Mario Party-esque Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba – Sweep the Board!, SPYxANYA: Operation Memories — which virtually slaps a shonen sticker on classic Sega arcade games like Pac-Man, and the upcoming Hunter x Hunter fighting game Hunter x Hunter Nen x Impact. Similar to how young directors are often told not to make their dream film their first official project, anime also shouldn’t rush to release an arena fighter because they won’t get a second opportunity to make it without reminding players how lackluster the first attempt was. While there is a very real chance of the inevitable release of Dragon Ball: Sparking! Zero will reignite a new wave of arena fighter fever, it’s imperative that new-generation anime like Chainsaw Man or, god forbid, Dandadan, don’t jump on the trend for the sake of saying its first game was an arena fighter like its predecessors and instead think outside the box like the aforementioned games. Either that or wait for their franchise to get a Fortnite collab so fans can post videos of their favorite characters hitting the griddy. Isaiah Colbert is a freelance writer for IGN.
