Comment on Magic represented by 2D patterns in anime and manga
nyan@lemmy.cafe 2 weeks ago
As someone’s already said, the concept of magical circles/diagrams goes way, way back. But the earliest example I can think of in anime is The Slayers (the first season, which would have aired in the mid-1990s). The interesting bit there is that only a few spells (I think Burst Rondo was one) create patterns there, and when they do show up, they’re on the ground, not in front of the caster.
The earliest example I can think of of a magic circle in a JRPG is in the SNES version of Chrono Trigger, where one appears—on the ground again—in a scene where one character is attempting to summon the Big Bad. It’s part of the background graphic. Putting something like that in the combat system would have been taxing for the consoles of the era, so if there are any older examples, they’re probably also handled as background graphics.
(This is possibly the geekiest post I’ve made in, um, at least a week?)
Thank you for the “references”! I don’t think I even saw those.
Indeed the idea is old, and inherent in most early cultures in relation to drawing and writing, which were seen as “magical”. And this is reflected more generally in anime, for example in the very common theme of “getting increased powers upon receiving a name”.
What I was wondering was why the sudden increase, because today it seems that all fantasy anime use this device. I had not thought about the computer-graphics factor, and that makes a lot of sense!
Great geeky post 🚀