The crossover. An event where characters from one IP join up with ones from another IP in order to create a situation where both exist together. When done right, it can be enormously hype. Regardless of how it ended up in the long run, Blazblue Cross Tag generated immense hype back in the day because it combined characters from Persona 4, Under Night, Blazblue, RWBY, and later Arcana Heart and Senran Kagura. Hell, a much more famous example could be Smash Ultimate which is one of if not the biggest video game crossover in history. Having a ton of characters from a variety of IPs simply has a magic that gets fans excited. However… sometimes a collaboration can feel… empty. Soulless even. But why?
Lately there have been collabs that make me go “but why tho fellas”. A huge one for me was the Attack on Titan and Call of Duty crossover that Yung covered back in January. That one got a lot of heat from the Internet in general as it was a bit hard for developers to make the AoT characters look decent in the CoD universe, and uh many would say the mission failed, we’ll get em’ next time. If you want more details you can read up here on that whole event. Regardless, the next month in February PUBG Mobile thought that was a banging idea and did a crossover with Jujutsu Kaisen. This time it was personal. I’m not sure what the public opinion was for this event as it slipped under my radar, however I’ve always thought PUBG was a pretty ugly game and the JJK crew’s addition doesn’t exactly help. In Fortnite I thought the Naruto gang looked decent since Fortnite already has a cartoonish art style and thus they sort of blended in to some extent, but in these military shooters I can’t help but think anime characters look horribly out of place.
This ain't it for me guys.
Continuing with my suffering of one wack collab per month, now in March we have Code Geass crossing over with the Love Live! School Idol Festival mobile game. At this point I should be used to executives milking the everloving fuck out of the Code Geass IP, and yet this still beat up my already pummeled soul. Now this is an anime mixing with an anime so it doesn’t have that “out of place” feel… or does it? What the fuck do these two have in common besides characters in both shows attending school? To my understanding the Love Live game is a rhythm game combined with gacha elements. What are we doing here guys? If it was a strategy game I’d understand somewhat, but at this point I can’t see any reason for this other than “Hey… gentlemen you know what would make us some money?”. I have nothing against Love Live (please don’t hurt me), I just hate that sleazy cash grab feeling that comes with logic-devoid crossovers like this.
Oof put those clothes right back where you found them young ladies!
Okay Snooze, wrap it up and quit complaining you little bitch. My point is, crossovers are awesome when done properly. Smash treated every franchise it got its hand on with care. They didn’t do shit like add Sora and say “ay listen guys, music rights are hard so we’re not adding in Kingdom Hearts bangers. Sorry”. Sure the crossovers earned money but the devs clearly put the time and effort in to respect the IPs. Furthermore, when a collab is done that makes no fucking sense, it makes me feel like I’m being exploited. “Hey kids, you love JJK right? How about JJK in a military battle royale? Fits like a glove, am I right?” Meanwhile if that new Ghostwire game (that revolves around expelling ghosts from Tokyo) collabed with JJK, I would probably think it’s cool as hell because that makes sense as JJK also revolves around expelling ghosts/curses. I digress. What do you guys think about anime crossovers? Is it better when the crossover makes sense, or is it usually hype no matter what? Are you hoping for more crossovers in the future? Get one series, find another, and combine those bad boys in the comments below!
