More than 50% of Smash Ultimate's DLC characters were "anime swordsmen"

[Empyrean Cocytus]

With Sora's announcement today, what has become one of the biggest criticisms of Smash Bros' roster has been proven true yet again. While I'm happy with Sora as a character, Smash's DLC offerings have not been far outside the status quo for the series. Apart from a huge lack of diversity in skintones, the fact that a majority of fighters follow a single archetype is a shame, especially when the series has such potential for different fighting styles. Characters like Steve really showcase a unique style of play, and yet Sora, like most of the DLC roster, feels extremely safe.

Yeah, rant over, it's just, why has the trope of the anime swordsman become so ubiquitous in video games? I get that the rise of Otaku culture and JRPGS have made many of these characters huge stars, but I feel like Smash has gone so hard with the safe picks it loses some of the things that made it special to begin with.

 

[TornadoDDT]

It was the most requested character for the Smash series. Pretty much end of story.

 

[Poltergust]

Not entirely true, a third of those are anime swords.

😛

 

[MouldyK]

Does it have more weapon wielders than Soul Calibur lulz?

 

[Dest]

People like their anime swordsmen. I'm sitting here complaining about Sora while being upset it wasn't Travis Touchdown so like... I'm no better.
There's just a lot of cool dudes with swords, I guess.

 

[Xtortion]

Anime is life

 

[Thorn]

Yet no Dante!

Turns out gaming is full of anime swordsmen.

 

[RochHoch]

JRPGs are popular and lend themselves well to generating cool characters

That's all there is to it

 

[Protome]

They also all play differently from each other so who gives a fuck?
It has always been such a boring, lazy complaint.

 

[nsilvias]

sora is a keyholder what are you talking about

 

[Stowaway Silfer]

Vocal minority

 

[Hero.of.Lgnd]

This is ridiculous, none of them are anime swordsman because they all started in games. Some of them have an anime "style", (not sure why that even matters), but Sora isn't one of them.

But I'm gonna guess that you are the kind of person to find something to complain about regardless of who the character was.

 

[meataem]

It's more obnoxious that like 2/3rds of the Smash roster has a counter for Down B.

 

[Phendrift]

This was seriously never as big of a deal to me as y'all make it out to be. Sora looks to play uniquely, I really don't see the issue and don't care if character has a sword, the literal most common weapon in games alongside guns. Such a weird complaint

 

[Faiyaz]

Hero, Byleth, Sora (somewhat), Pyra/Mythra, and Sephiroth. Does that make more than 50% (I'm not sure, just asking) ?

 

[diakyu]

Uh that's a key dude ;)

 

[Dyle]

I wish Min Min could use Sephiroth's sword, she'd be able to reach all the way from one blast zone to the other

 

[Horohorohoro]

It's a Japanese game and swords are like the most common weapon in fiction.

 

[ReasonableAdult]

okay

 

[TheMoon]

change.org let's fucking go

 

[Thorn]

It's more obnoxious that like 2/3rds of the Smash roster has a counter for Down B.

Click to shrink...

This is the real annoyance.

Surely we could have gotten SOMETHING more interesting than that!

I'll blame Disney.

 

[--R]

Literally the most requested character by the Smash community.

 

[OrochiJR]

Paging SNK - give me Last Blade 3 for a game full of anime swordsmen!

 

[Noppie]

I'll ask again, so what? How many of these play identical? Just because they use similar weaponry, doesn't mean they're similar. A complaint I have never understood.

 

[Crazyorloco]

I think people would complain no matter who the final character was going to be.

I probably won't even play as Sora, but I'm super happy he's in. So many people I know are happy about this. This has been a dream for a lot of people.

 

[Abuguet]

It's literally what the majority wanted.

…that and Waluigi. 🤣

The guy gave his audience exactly what they were asking for, which happened to be the same thing they were complaining about. 🤷‍♂

 

[BassForever]

Smash has like 60 characters who fight with their first, yet nobody complains about them.

 

[Empyrean Cocytus]

This is ridiculous, none of them are anime swordsman because they all started in games. Some of them have an anime "style", (not sure why that even matters), but Sora isn't one of them.

But I'm gonna guess that you are the kind of person to find something to complain about regardless of who the character was.

Click to shrink...

Not at all. I'm very excited for Sora, as I said in the post. I'm just saying that it really shows how popular the anime swordsman trope is in gaming.

 

[LostSkullKid]

Kingdom Hearts fans constantly brought up the keyblade transformations from KH3 as a counter to the whole "Sora is an anime swordsman". But (to no surprise to me) he doesn't actually have them in Smash.

 

[WrenchNinja]

I remember a time people would make fun of the keyblade and said it wasn't a sword

 

[PBalfredo]

This joke got stale long ago

 

[udivision]

Smash is pretty reflective of common gaming tropes, yeah.
Look at how many cartoon animals there are too.

 

[Imperial Bishop]

Waiting for the "Is a Keyblade a sword?" arguments

 

[Bunty Hoven]

Haven't got a problem with most of them but by God the whole concept of Smash as a video game all-stars roster is brought down by all those Fire Emblem reps.

 

[ShinobiBk]

And I wouldn't have it any other way
Thanks Sakurai

 

[Abuguet]

Well, Sora is neither Anime nor swordsman. So… yeah.

 

[Trrzs]

Ask developers to don't put anime sword fighters as protagonists of their most successful games, Smash is just representing those series.

 

[Yoshimitsu126]

At least we get to KO them all with Ridley

 

[AImalexia]

And 0% were black/brown :/

 

[diakyu]

I remember a time people would make fun of the keyblade and said it wasn't a sword

Click to shrink...

I mean lets be honest it is more a bludgeon than a sword lmao

 

[HardRojo]

Don't blame it on Sora, blame it on the addition of so many FE characters. That series should've had 3-4 reps at most.

 

[Deleted member 34949]

wow it's almost as if smash is a reflection of popular gaming tropes

 

[GhostTrick]

Americans should stop to call anything remotely japanese "anime".

 

[Quasi]

You've got 89 characters to choose from, and still you complain...

 

[Sander VF]

Is Link an anime swordsman?

 

[Stairmaster_]

Wow even I wasn't malding this hard lol

 

[Judge]

Please do not create reaction threads. This can be discussed in the existing threads. Thank you