What's Up with Anime Characters in Fighting Games?

A brief exploration of the "anime fighter" as a gameplay and aesthetic style.
Whether they’re original properties such as Guilty Gear or Arcana Heart, or they’re based on established media franchises such as Fist of the North Star or Melty Blood, there is a certain sub-genre of fighting games known to English-speaking audiences as “anime fighters.” I find this label fascinating for a number of reasons. First, whether it refers more to gameplay, visual aesthetics, or narrative elements varies depending on who’s using it. Second, certain values are placed onto “anime fighters,” such as big beams, characters soaring through the air, flurries of fists, cute girls, eclectic personalities, and elaborate visual flourishes, that often connect them to a general perception of “anime” among gamers. Third, the idea that some fighting games become “more” or “less” anime between iterations speaks to how popular cultures and subcultures interact with each other through the lens of video games.

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