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Lupe wrote:

Orkestra wrote:Clearly Orks are the most anime race.

Let's take a look at the similarities.
- Huge, out of proportion mouths.
- Chibi versions of themselves (grots)
- Tend to do lots of yelling for no good reason
- React with overly dramatized violence to unusual situations
- Have a thing for having the 'biggest gun'(/highest Power Level/Best rock band/most giant lazer/scantily clad woman with the biggest breasts)
- Fight at the least excuse (ZZWAAAAAA! YOU STEPPED ON MY TOOOOEEEEEEE!)
- Collect small monsters and use them in battle (squigs)
- Get up unfazed after taking a beating that would have killed several normal men (even the girly little orks can take a giant hammer to the face and get back up)
- Tend to have fairly extreme hairstyles (Bald is still a hairstyle)
- All act like an ethnicity they're not (Green orks acting British / a bunch of white people who are inexplicably japanese)
- Have an innate ability with complex technology (*GASP* I've never seen an amateur [pilot/drive/wield/fix] a [insert made up word] like that before!)

I do believe my case is airtight. Orkz iz Anime.

What this dude said.

Now grab your Emperor damned anime talk and get the feth out of my GRIMDARK 41st Millenium.

Really.

WHO...
...CARES...
...WHERE...
...GW...
...GETS...
...THEIR...
IDEAS?

My robot skeletons trying to kill John Conn-er everyone agree with you

Lets just leave it at ALL 40K armies can be construed as being anime in some form.

T'au happen to have the most consistant look across their army. Note: not entire army, but much of it

Slanneshi Daemon armies look like a bad body horror hentai manga. We've got the atrocious looking women, the obligatory fused animals, the mutating of everyone who comes near, etc. Nurgle also has some nice traits.

My reasons for thinking this are Tomie, Gyo and Uzumami.

With some stretch of the imagination any army might be characterised as the 'anime' army, however it is Tau who are usually designated 'anime' and the reasons are pretty obvious.

All armies have aspects of anime. However the Tau have a similar backstory to Japan, and they share the most commonly recognised elements of anime, namely boxy mecha and sleek designs.

One major inspiration for Tau is Japan in general:
1.) Isolated (naivity) then learning fast from others, copying their technology
2.) God-like worshipped ruler class (Japanese Emperor)
3.) original painting scheme (ochre with white, see WW2 Japanese military)
4.) Caste system including warrior caste (samurai)
5.) Culture that praises the common welfare and restricts individualism
6.) Pragmatic approach to technology, knack for high tech
7.) Phases of Imperial expansion
8.) As a small racist joke in the first Codex: bad eye sight

Anime:
9.) enthusiasm for Mechs as featured in Gundam, Appleseed, Macross

On the other hand, you have these :

Kroothawk wrote:One major inspiration for Tau is Japan in general:
1.) Isolated (naivity) then learning fast from others, copying their technology
2.) God-like worshipped ruler class (Japanese Emperor)
3.) original painting scheme (ochre with white, see WW2 Japanese military)
4.) Caste system including warrior caste (samurai)
5.) Culture that praises the common welfare and restricts individualism
6.) Pragmatic approach to technology, knack for high tech
7.) Phases of Imperial expansion
8.) As a small racist joke in the first Codex: bad eye sight

Anime:
9.) enthusiasm for Mechs as featured in Gundam, Appleseed, Macross

On the other hand, you have these :

Wait a sec, when did the Tau ever "learn" tech from any other races? <- unless your referring to Ethereals....

2 applies to the Imperium more than the tau....
and why is enthusiasm for Mechs have to be anime inspired...


On a side note...CAN'T we all just GET ALONG!

xGhost4000x wrote:Wait a sec, when did the Tau ever "learn" tech from any other races? <- unless your referring to Ethereals....
2 applies to the Imperium more than the tau....
and why is enthusiasm for Mechs have to be anime inspired...

1.) Demiurg provided rail canon technology. And IIRC Tau found a crashed space ship nearby, providing them with better space travel technology. And trade and technological exchange are fundamental for their Empire.
2.) SciFi anime is dominated by mechs (man piloted big bipedals) that look very much like Tau crisis suits. Got perhaps obscured by the fact that Battletech, the inspiration for 40k Titans, was originally inspired by Japanese Mechs.

Tau mechs aren't as similar to most Japanese ones in scale as Imperial, Eldar and Ork ones.

Things like Appleseed are the exception. The norm is larger robots 15m+ in height.

And so the great circle of life continues.

The thread has given all the reasons why players often regard Tau as the Anime army, and you don't agree with them.

Other people think differently to you.

Daba wrote:Tau mechs aren't as similar to most Japanese ones in scale as Imperial, Eldar and Ork ones.

Things like Appleseed are the exception. The norm is larger robots 15m+ in height.

True, but it's more the style than the scale.

I find Tau suits more similar to western designs like I saw in Rifts and so on (though these were based on Japanese designs). I think the thing is this: Tau tech looks very 'generically' technological while Imperial, Eldar and Orks all have a very unique spin on their tech so they don't look like anything else now (largely).

Because of this, the Tau share more similarities with other companies designs which were inspired by the Japanese designs.

So your argument is:
Tau battlesuits have nothing in common with mechas because they are similar to Appleseed mechas, but 2 meters smaller than many Gundam suits (BTW there is one Gundam series with small suits)?
And you are aware that Rifts was created after 20+ years of Mecha-hype in Japan, right? And that Battletech was forced to abandon several popular Mech designs, because they were too blatant copies of Macross Mechas?

I play Tau and I use a 1/60 Gundam Mecha counting as Eldar Titan in Apocalypse games. And I use many other Gundam toys for adding flavour to my army, fitting perfectly in design.

FYI, the smallest Gundam would probably be from Gundam Victory or F91, which is around 15m tall; this would still tower over a Battlesuit considering it's 7 times taller than a Space Marine, for instance. I don't know if there's a later series that has a smaller one.

Another series (not Gundam) that does have small Mecha and are more like the Tau designs is probably Dougram at just under 10m or Votoms, at 4m who are probably battlesuit size though the latter looks less like a Tau suit than Dougram (and might be better classed as powered armour though the Battlesuit is powered armour after a fashion). It's these which I think were lifted wholesale (along with Macross designs) into Battletech and RIFTS.

As for argument, I am not arguing anything; just to me, the Tau designs look much more similar to these later, derived designs than they look like they were taken straight from the source.

Battletech didn't abandon the designs because they were blatent copies of Macross mecha, they abandoned the designs because they were the Macross mecha, and Harmony Gold (who had the Macross licence at the time) threatened lawsuit, and not the original studio AFAIK.

Meanwhile, elements from Rogue Trader was made during the time of large cross-pollination with all Sci-Fi and Fantasy over the world.

My second point is the reason probably many associate Tau more immediately with Japanese Mecha is due to the Tau looking more generic than the Imperium, Eldar and Orks. This genericness has elements of real world design, which is why it crops up a lot in the designs they're similar to.

However, I do see similarities between a particular school of Gundam design. Tau Battlesuits share proportions with SD Gundam, except without the massive head.

Another thing worth mentioning is that the release of Codex: T'au coincided with the first GW opening up in Japan.

Interesting. Source?

it was on Dakka somewhere

I'm sure you could find out by looking up Japanese business records and looking in the WD archives for the release of the T'au

dpredator666 wrote: and if people field it with a long of XV-8 or XV-88 we call them gundam-line~~

This. Mech obviously= anime.

IIRC, when GW was getting ready to release a new army in 2000-2001 there was a lot of internal debate on what to use. The Kroot had been planned for a while but they weren't sure how well Kroot were going to do in the market. Several designers wanted to ride the Anime popularity wave when it was peaking in the US/UK. See, some of us can remember when Anime was still an underground thing and you had to go to some lengths to find in on VHS. Now, it is everywhere. Anyhow, back on topic; at some point in time the decision was made to merge both armies and we got the whole Tau with Kroot mercenaries thing. The Tau and Anime connection is intentional. Maybe that's why they're second Codex still hasn't hit the mark

jw7007 may have a point. I'll admit I chose Tau because I was a huge gundam fan & went "OOOHHHH MECHS!" forgive me but I was around 12 IIRC.
Also it's not the first time this has been done. Wizards of the coast has been pushing Vampires for black decks & that has NO relation to the popularity of twilight. . . (I'd say the same for GW but I forget when the VC book came out)

1) Mechas.
2) Bright, simple, stylized color schemes.

Owain wrote:1) Mechas.
2) Bright, simple, stylized color schemes.

Like Space Marines and Eldar?

Especially on the colour schemes. Tau colours are meant to be more 'camo' like, with schemes for Deserts (the main one) and also ice fighting. We don't see many green ones though. Space Marine colours are bright, simple and stylised; Eldar use bright colours as well.

I call them heraldic.

Plenty of SMs have dark schemes like Dark Templars and so on. They do tend to stick to primary colours though.

Except the Reasonable Marines, of course.

When Tau first came out I and those in and around my gaming club where all under the impression they where Anime themed.

GW seemed to making some pushes into Japan at the time with store info in the mags, so we assumed it was a natural fishing lure trick to try and gather interest from the new gamers they wanted to introduce into 40k over there.

The fact I'd been into Anime since the early nineties probably meant such an association came to mind much quicker than to those who didn't partake of Japanese animation.

Oh and yeah, the mechs is the only reason probably in my mind, mobile individual suits (not entombed within dreads) seems very Anime compared to the rest of Grimdark 40K.

If anyone ever watched merchants of cool. It would make since when tau first came out they would cash in on the fad.

Morathi's Darkest Sin wrote:
Oh and yeah, the mechs is the only reason probably in my mind, mobile individual suits (not entombed within dreads) seems very Anime compared to the rest of Grimdark 40K.

This. It's the mobility idea that gets it associated with anime. No other army really has mobile mecha. Sure, there are Dreads, but they're walking blocks of concrete. Of course they don't count. Killa Kans and Deff Dreads are the same. Sentinels look like chickens, as do Warwalkers. Wraithlord could be argued I suppose, but they aren't known for being particularly mobile, and they aren't sporting a common mecha look. The Tau suits are mobile, jump about and fire massive guns while doing so. Farsight even has an energy sword attached to his.

The name Tau reminds me of Taoism, and Taoist

Neither of which are pronounced with a 'T' (it is a sound made with the tip of the tongue starting further back along the roof of the mouth and is more of a 'd' sound.)

So it sounds more like 'D'-how, anyway.

It's the suits mainly and the higher tech emphasis. That and Japan was a market they were trying really hard to reach into (and failing miserably.).

I just registered to bless you with my opinion

Ahem...

I think that the Tau are Japanese in space since i first saw them but i didnt think of their Mechs as Anime because in my opinion
Mechs are neither Japanese nor Anime, they are just realy Cool (i think thats why they are in animes so often too) and i thought
that that was why Tau had those Mechs because they were Techy and cool

I see how one can get to the conclusion that Krisis suits are Anime if he thinks of all mechs as Anime but an Anime Mech usualy looks Stupid
(in the sense of not Functional which is Stupid to me, no offense to you Anime fans[I like Anime too but if it has stupid looking mechs the storys got to be real good])

The only reason to think of tau as anime other that them haveing Mechs that i can think of is associating Japan with Anime and i can't talk anyone out of a Cliche like that.

PS: sorry for Diging this Thread up but my opinion just wont listen to reason

So what if Tau have a little anime touch?
"Anime" are awesome.