AHC: Byzantine Empire: The Anime

Soverihn has hit the nail right on its head. Of course this is escapism- kind of the whole point here- but if this goes isekai, it’ll become a joke; it doesn’t need to be isekai, and frankly speaking, it shouldn’t. While you can get a few laughs out of cultural shocks and misunderstandings, and perhaps a few gags about say, forms of address and the similarities of garum and fish/soya sauce, this would just end up making it another one of those series some people watch for the laughs, and then abandon without further thought as it degenerates into fanservice and plot hell.
I'm pretty sure you could tell as early as when harem discussions arrived that the isekai talk was a joke. (But on the other hand, the fact that this was the first thing we went to when thinking of a Byzantine anime plot speaks volumes about the current situation in the field...)

Isn't AH.com the biggest isekai forum ever after all?
ISOT and Isekai aren't necessarily the same thing, despite having a lot of similarities. The latter is a lot more narrow in its meaning, generally about a normal guy being transported to a fantasy world where they're special for some reason, while ISOT is just the term for something being transported through time in general.
 
ISOT and Isekai aren't necessarily the same thing, despite having a lot of similarities. The latter is a lot more narrow in its meaning, generally about a normal guy being transported to a fantasy world where they're special for some reason, while ISOT is just the term for something being transported through time in general.

Arguably, I think self insert fics count as isekai; I mean, the SI was technically transmigrated over to the body of someone in-universe, and they are functionally "them" when they do arrive there. Quite a few of those in Fandom AH, in my experience.

As for the topic--yeah, Generic Harem Romcom is low-hanging fruit for the hypothetical Byzant-anime. God knows how saturated the market is of them and Light Novel Adaptations; in fact, both of them even overlap at times!

Best I could think of would be a seinen featuring an imperial family, with backroom politics and dynastic affairs being the core focus. So more-or-less Game of Thrones, but animated in Japanese style and more grounded on real life history. Don't think it would sell well, though.
 
I am wondering, by the way: Japan has a certain, and more solid than one would think, historical manga history (since Tezuka no less, and this surely means a lot) albeit it usually tends towards romanticization or leniency towards certain characters (usually for making the story more amiable to be read but still). In Europe, generally in France, but also in Italy, there is a niche for historical comics, very a curated but not accessible to the great public. My question is in the US there is an interest for such kind of subject?
 
I am wondering, by the way: Japan has a certain, and more solid than one would think, historical manga history (since Tezuka no less, and this surely means a lot) albeit it usually tends towards romanticization or leniency towards certain characters (usually for making the story more amiable to be read but still). In Europe, generally in France, but also in Italy, there is a niche for historical comics, very a curated but not accessible to the great public. My question is in the US there is an interest for such kind of subject?
I would just qualify that. In France, Historical comics are from the less researched stuff (Asterix for example) to, indeed, the highly researched, niche stuff. But there's a lot in the middle with series such as Alix or Muréna for the mass market, while being decently researched.
I'll also add that France is the second or first export market for mangas (actually with a decent tradition of ManFra, mangas produced by French artists).
If anything, you could see a collaboration in the 80's with a Franco-Japanese anime. "The Mysterious Cities of Gold" comes to mind as a serie with a Meso-American theme. A bunch of kids are looking for the cities of El Dorado during the XVth century. Also, they have a giant eagle-plane made of gold. It's actually pretty good still.
 
I am wondering, by the way: Japan has a certain, and more solid than one would think, historical manga history (since Tezuka no less, and this surely means a lot) albeit it usually tends towards romanticization or leniency towards certain characters (usually for making the story more amiable to be read but still). In Europe, generally in France, but also in Italy, there is a niche for historical comics, very a curated but not accessible to the great public. My question is in the US there is an interest for such kind of subject?

The only thing I can think of is Age of Bronze, which is awesome but will probably never be finished.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Age_of_Bronze_(comics)
 
In my defense I wasn’t serious about an isekai—I hate their formulaic, stupid wish fulfullment and wouldn’t wish it on the Byzantines at all. They deserve something more like a Game of Thrones treatment—I’d set it circa the Seljuk invasion and watch everything fall apart.

I'm pretty sure you could tell as early as when harem discussions arrived that the isekai talk was a joke. (But on the other hand, the fact that this was the first thing we went to when thinking of a Byzantine anime plot speaks volumes about the current situation in the field...).

Apologies if I went overboard on my denouncement (though I see you too are persons of good taste), I sometimes get a bit caught up ahead of myself in the moment. Nevertheless, I apologize and hope no ill has been done.

The Game of Thrones treatment is wonderful- as you said, just the thing they deserve; seeing the noble families battle it out for the empire as it crumbles under the Seljuk onslaught would be amazing… ah, I wish I had thought of that too!

I mean, dragons? Pfff… Kataphraktoi though? Now we’re talking.

Back on track- if we would do a Game of Thrones-style anime set post-Manzikert, perhaps we could use the template of Westeros’ families in an anime lens. In which case, how would we characterize the noble houses, and which ones would we include? The ones that immediately stand out to my, admittedly novice mind, are the Komnenoi, the Doukai, and the Angeloi as well, but one wonders how they’d fit in. There’s not really any Targaryen equivalent, since IIRC most of the old dynastical houses are gone or have married out (though I’m probably wrong on this one, please correct me; I think there were some Scleroi still around). I guess we have the archetype anime corrupt noble family in the Angeloi (that might just be my own bias though; Lannisters?). We have the anime archetype heroic noble family in the Komnenoi (Starks? Though maybe an Armenian noble family would be better, to represent their otherness and status on the frontier), along with anime tropes of young martial heroes, and familial issues/drama.

Best I could think of would be a seinen featuring an imperial family, with backroom politics and dynastic affairs being the core focus. So more-or-less Game of Thrones, but animated in Japanese style and more grounded on real life history. Don't think it would sell well, though.

I am wondering, by the way: Japan has a certain, and more solid than one would think, historical manga history (since Tezuka no less, and this surely means a lot) albeit it usually tends towards romanticization or leniency towards certain characters (usually for making the story more amiable to be read but still). In Europe, generally in France, but also in Italy, there is a niche for historical comics, very a curated but not accessible to the great public. My question is in the US there is an interest for such kind of subject?

If the animation studio and creative team can play up some of the- real or imagined- similarities with imperial China and feudal Japan, I think they could pull off something moderately successful. If they could put in some veiled social commentary, say about corruption or over-bureaucratization, that might help, though I’d hate for the ‘Byzantine’ cliché to be used that way.

At the same time, exoticism is a pretty well-used trick in lots of anime, and if they play up the exoticism and the ham up to eleven, while still maintaining the balance, it might succeed in becoming another niche franchise market. After all, many historical, pseudo-historical and even fantasy manga and anime play up both the similarities and exoticism, which is probably why one sees more medieval knights and feudalism (ranging from ‘loosely’ based on Europe, to outright fantasy), or elaborate court culture mirroring that of Edo (Chevalier D’Eon or Rose of Versailles), or a Victorian Western European country (too many to name, ranging from steampunk to nobility), or a militarized alt-Germany/Western European country reminiscent of 1920s and 1930s Japan (again, too many to name). And as RyuDrago has very well noted there are lots of manga and anime about Japanese history- a plethora, really- mostly Sengoku Jidai (poor Oda gets demonized to no end), but also of the Tokugawa shogunate and 19th-20th century history (the affinity is there alright, though the exoticism comes from the distance in time- Edo samurai; Meiji modernization and beginnings of empire; the obsession with Showa being part of the endless wrangling with the period).

"The Mysterious Cities of Gold" comes to mind as a serie with a Meso-American theme. A bunch of kids are looking for the cities of El Dorado during the XVth century. Also, they have a giant eagle-plane made of gold. It's actually pretty good still.

Darn, I never thought someone else would bring up the Mysterious Cities of Gold; it’s a good one.

All in all, I guess what I wanted to say with all this rambling is that there’s a wide and healthy market for manga and anime with historical characters and settings; what matters is the quality and ability of the writer to make compelling and interesting characters- which, considering the Byzantines, shouldn’t be a problem in the source material- and the ability of the writer to find an affinity which allows the audience to connect to the material while still being able to live out an exoticism, whether it is one of a historical Japan, or in this case, the Byzantine empire. Again, considering there’s a glorious, long-lived empire, with powerful noble houses, a grand bureaucracy, massive armies, a sacred mission, and epic drama, this shouldn’t be too hard, and done right it might hopefully become a moderately successful niche franchise. The real problem then would be what I believe are commonly called ‘fangirls’.
*ducks*
 
This.

Soverihn has hit the nail right on its head. Of course this is escapism- kind of the whole point here- but if this goes isekai, it’ll become a joke; it doesn’t need to be isekai, and frankly speaking, it shouldn’t. While you can get a few laughs out of cultural shocks and misunderstandings, and perhaps a few gags about say, forms of address and the similarities of garum and fish/soya sauce, this would just end up making it another one of those series some people watch for the laughs, and then abandon without further thought as it degenerates into fanservice and plot hell.

No, what you need for a proper Byzantine anime is, as Soverihn has stated, people, characters, a real and living, breathing setting. Sure, it will be exotic, and there’ll be a bit of fetishization, but again, while that is the point, there’s also a difference. Great anime, in my very humble and inexperienced opinion, relies on highlighting humanity or aspects of humanity. Sure, you’ve got the harems and the slapstick, and those can be fun and all- but the really great ones are about who we are and what we want and think. In my humble opinion, something like Gundam is meant to meant to question the real-life applicability of simple ‘good vs. evil’; Neon Genesis Evangelion is a brutal deconstruction of the mecha genre, its underlying wishes and darker undercurrents; Madoka is likewise a brutal deconstruction of the ‘magical girl’ genre.

How then does this relate to the Byzantines? It relates through the fact that the Byzantines are so much more than just the woeful cloak-and-dagger stock villains they were reduced to- they were a mighty, learned, organized, and prosperous empire, to which European civilization as a whole owes a great debt. There like few other places temporal and spiritual power were intertwined, such that they were accused of caesaropapism, convinced of their divine mission; and yet it was never actually so- the throne had to bend, as saints took up not the mantle of government but of service to God, even if it meant challenging the former. It was an empire which reached a level of organization and administrative ability most other states in Europe could only dream of, and yet it too was plunged into vicious civil wars, bloody intrigue, and ruthless powerplay. It was one engaged in war after war, to defend its imperial legacy and Christendom, yet Byzantine emperors would ask absolution for those they were about to kill and had killed, and whose daughters would stare at the ‘flower’ of European knighthood in confused disapproval at such a term as ‘crusade’. They were driven, at least in theory, by an imperial and religious dream, a vision of God’s empire on Earth. The Byzantines encapsulate so much of what we think, and can recognize, yet whose take on some matters and own ideas impress and give food for thought; it makes us wonder that such men and women once walked those very same tiles of the Hagia Sophia. You have so much material for a properly great anime: dedication and fanaticism; family, friendship, and rivalry; love and hatred; ambition and power; cruelty, mercy, innocence, and blood; intrigue, ruthlessness, loyalty and virtue; military, civic and religious powerplay on an epic scale.

There are great parts of Byzantine history, which for all my usual literary/historical interest, could give anything in the Three Kingdoms or Ming-Qing transition a proper run for its money. In fact, considering how advanced and powerful the Byzantines were, I suspect a Japanese animation studio that does its homework, knows what it wants and wants something that’s good, might opt for a China-esque take on the Byzantine empire (which would be oddly fitting, considering the Chinese at first thought the same); except with the added bonus, of course, that they’re Byzantines, which as we all know makes it just that much better. And while you might have someone engage in gratuitous Greeku, in the way some characters engage in gratuitous Engrish in the style of Sengoku Basara (the infamous ‘Put ya guns on’), any really good anime, I expect and hope, would explore it much deeper than that.

I mean, wouldn’t it be awesome to see a properly done Basil II return at the head of a Viking host, and then afterwards turn north and east to battle against the great Bulgar and Fatimid armies? The Komnenoi, three generations of badassery, save the empire from the brink of disaster as they struggle with familial issues? Or even Constantine XI, knowing that the empire is probably beyond all hope, struggling to keep what remains in one piece, yet who refuses to surrender, as we see the defenders charge forward under the imperial banner, while the sun’s rays shine on the Hagia Sophia one last time?

To an extent (to flog a Crusader Kings 1 AAR that I loved, that got me into Alt-History), this is EXACTLY what the Rome AARisen After Action Report does. Its a magnificent generational story, with character dynamics, and the occasional summary that would be needed. I won't spoil the utterly inspired ending for what is effectively a massive Komnenid-Wank, but if I was to watch a Byzantine Empire anime? I'd be inclined to have it take that approach of multi-generational storytelling, rather than a few eventful years, do a couple of series for a single generation, at worst do single-episodes for what could be otherwise unimportant generations.
 

All that really does sound like something which Yoshiki Tanaka might have done if he had been inspired by Byzantium instead of pre-Islamic Persia or 18th century Europe. Even if it would've been fantasy or science fiction (not straight up historical fiction), it would obviously have been inspired by Byzantium. And like Arslan Senki or Legend of Galactic Heroes, perhaps it would've been adapted into an OVA at some point over the years (and a TV anime remake decades later).

The real problem then would be what I believe are commonly called ‘fangirls’.
*ducks*

Not having a cast full of pretty boys would be ASB for any anime based on Byzantium. Unless it was set in an all-girls high school starring genderswapped versions of famous Byzantine emperors/generals dealing with genderswapped versions of their historic enemies.
 
A good template would be Legend of the Galactic Heroes, a 110 episode OVA series with hundreds of named characters.
So yes it can be done as long as there's a market.
 

Maoistic

Banned
*Thinks*
Super Saiyan Allah Muhammad. His ultimate attack is Sword of the Prophet and he charges it like the Final Flash.

Don't tell me you wouldn't watch the Hell out of that.
 
*Thinks*
Super Saiyan Allah Muhammad. His ultimate attack is Sword of the Prophet and he charges it like the Final Flash.

Don't tell me you wouldn't watch the Hell out of that.

That might be controversial, though...

How about a Super Saiyan Khalid ibn Al-Walid? It turns out that he actually smashed the Byzantine and Persian armies all by himself—in five minutes.
 
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