Crossover writer's manual - a suggested guideline.

[Cheb]

Oops... Note to moderator: please move to "Fic research". I just got crook-handed with my mouse.
The poorly merged cross-overs mixed from uncompatible universes with different rules are a sore spot for my eyes. So I decided to write this manual.
The general idea is to judge the anime universes involved by these factors (approximately, in the 0..10 scale) and then calculate the general difference between them (I suggest trean it like a vector in the n-dimensional space, i.e. a square root from the sum of squares of parameter differences).
The higher is the distance, the more you need to adapt -- unless, of course you want to use a "mixed" universe deliberately like in the "Who Framed Roger Rabbit" movie. Yes, the differences between the various anime universes could be as big as this.
So, there's the list of factors I come with so far (alpha version, subject to further discussion and correction):
1. Supernaturality
The overall strength of the supernatural factors like ki/Force or magic. Note that the anime culture assumes [*add a link to animepedia] that these two are distinctly different.
0: purely mundane world.
10: Star Wars, Ranma (ki/Force), One Piece, Sailor Moon (magic).
Dragonball is, probably higher off-scale (the ki influence is extremely strong).
Note: you can easily merge the worlds one of which knows only ki/Force and the other one knows only magic. Since these two are distinct, they shouldn’t conflict. Moreover, the ki/magic contact can bring some interesting plot twists.
The super-strong characters beating dinosaurs with their bare hands or sporting an videogame-style leveling up do also belong here – because the common mechanism for explaining such things is our good old ki, even if that not stated direcly.
2. Idealism
The often forgotten but very important characteristic of an anime universe. Of course, the mass media is always unreal to some degree, but that is measured by the next scale, Hollywood Luck. The Idealism scale measures other things. If the love and friendship can conquer anything, when the evil is always punished and villains often repent and see the error of their ways… then the universe has a high idealism rate.
The classic example of 10 is Sailor Moon. The zero includes NGE, Lost Universe, most of the police and necromancy stories…
There are (as always) the off-scale examples, of which Cowboy Bebop slides into the negative numbers.
The most Hollywood movies are pathetic in this respect, floating somewhere between 5 and 7 (one of the reasons people like the anime so much).
Strange as it may seem, Ranma is not very high on the idealism scale either – I’d rate it around 2..3.
3. Hollywood Luck
The factor of un-realism not specific to anime but common in *any* media.
If the protagonist runs under the volley of enemy fire unscathed, while himself takes his enemies down with one shot, in no one of the main characters is ever killed or crippled – the universe is high on this rating.
To be honest, I can’t even remember a series where this factor would be zero. Maybe Cowboy Bebop, but I doubt.
Berserk and NGE are low on this scale, around 2..4. Most of the other anime/manga lie between 5..10 (lower values if favor the ones where characters are, or can be, severely wounded). The Hollywood movies are 10 to off-scale, and somewhere in the infinity the Disney cartoons lie.
4. Comedism
A very simple scale but causing a lot of problems when ignored. The problem is that the slapstick comedy characters are often designed a special exaggerated way. If you try to judge them from the position of realism, you just turn the whole deal into a complete shit. So, a well-though adaptation is needed if you plan to "get serious" with the characters of these worlds.
The series like Ranma, Slayers or Sailor Moon-anime are high on this scale.
5. Symbolism
How much the standard anime conventionalities are used (e.g. facefaults, sweatdrops, symbolic poses) and what a role they do play. On the higher end, the 10, is Ranma where the mallets-out-of-nowhere and sub-orbital punts do even play a part in the plot. Slayers are also high on this scale (remember Lina beating up Gourry with a big sweatdrop she took from her head?)
There are rarely any anime-series that have a zero on this scale (with the notable exception of Miyazaki’s films, but it is disputable if these are an anime at all or just a standalone form of art).
6. Coloured Hair
The hair color in most of the anime is a pure symbol (used to better convey character personalities).
I’d recommend to avoid this topic completely in the dialogs in your fic. The hair color is a thing only you and your reader can notice. The characters behind the screen *cannot* see it. For the proof of this fact refer to Ranma, 1st season where characters play color-blind around girl-Ranma [*add a link].
There are no shades of gray, the anime like Ranma or Sailor Moon gets 10.
Of course, there are those that get zero, too. For example, the Miyazaki’s films. Or Iny-Yasha, where all the Japanese do have a black hair (the supernatural characters like Inu-Yasha himself *do* have a colored hair there, but they are… well, supernatural, so they don’t count). So these universes (along with the Ranma manga) get 0.
Note, though, that this refers only to anime taking place in Japan. If the story happens somewhere else (like Slayers or Hellsing) the value is undefined and you can drop this scale from your analysis.

[Climhazard]

Moreover, the ki/magic contact can bring some interesting plot twists.

What about world where ki and magik one and the same?

[claymade]

1. Supernaturality

This can be tricky, because it's not just a matter of taking a raw measurement of how supernatural a world is, but rather how it's broken out, and according to what rules.
Reaching partly outside of anime for a moment, consider a Ranma/Justice League of America crossover. Both the DC-verse and the Ranma-verse would seem to rate extremely high on the supernatural meter. Just look at Superman, Wonder Woman, the Flash, and all their crazy powers.
But then you introduce Ranma to Batman, and then the snag starts to become more apparent. The whole point of Batman's character is that he's pushed himself to the utmost limits of human training, going to all kinds of masters all over the world and learning from them, etc. And yet he very clearly can't jump even a single story, whereas a sixteen-year-old, mostly self-taught Ryouga can roof-hop with ease. So how do we reconcile this? Did Batman accidentally just go to a bunch of totally clueless masters?
By contrast, consider crossing Ranma with... the Cosby Show. What two shows could be further apart on the Supernaturality scale? And yet this could fit seamlessly. As supernatural as the Ranmaverse is, it's established that most of the people in it are "normals" who are awestruck by the martial arts feats of the trained. Thus, totally compatible--there are niches that the two canons can interlock along perfectly.
The devil is really in the details on this one--not a measurement of the Supernaturality quotient per se, but an analysis of the rules behind said Supernaturality--where it comes from and how it's applied.

If the protagonist runs under the volley of enemy fire unscathed, while himself takes his enemies down with one shot, in no one of the main characters is ever killed or crippled – the universe is high on this rating.

The higher something is on the supernaturalism scale, the less it usually needs the Hollywood luck scale. Alucard, for instance, doesn't typically need opponents that continually miss--he just shrugs off most forms of damage and keeps on coming.

To be honest, I can’t even remember a series where this factor would be zero. Maybe Cowboy Bebop, but I doubt.

Not a series, but there's an anime movie that I'd say scores a 0 in... well, pretty much every single one of these categories. Jin-Roh: the Wolf Brigade. Really awesome flick, if you're into political intrigue/drama/action.

6. Coloured Hair

I've never really had a problem with this. I just pretty much roll with whatever the fic throws at me, since you never really know for certain that the hair color isn't in fact real. I recall hearing that some SM characters actually did comment on Chibi Moon's pink hair at one point--so sometimes it is intended to be exactly how it appears. Given the ambiguity, I don't worry about it much either way, whether a fic author wants to regard them as being real colors or not. For my part, I typically just try to dodge the issue whenever I can...

[Cheb]

The devil is really in the details on this one--not a measurement of the Supernaturality quotient per se, but an analysis of the rules behind said Supernaturality--where it comes from and how it's applied.

That too, but it's an extreme case, because DC is not anime-verse and plays by different rules.
Note that *scientifically* explained power-ups (like liquid metal power armour) don't count as a supernaturality.
To increase detail, you can beat this scale to three independed ones:
1a, ki influence
1b, magic influence
1c, divine influence

6. Coloured Hair
I've never really had a problem with this. I just pretty much roll with whatever the fic throws at me,

Well, I too. But the writer could merge two universes one of which has colour-coded hair while other is strictly realistic in this sense, thus creating conflicts. Prefefably, there should be done something: de-colorize A | colorize B | totally avoid mentioning hair color...

But then you introduce Ranma to Batman,

AFAIK (and I know not much) Batman is also low on the comedic scale, so the gap should be carefully mended.
sample solutions:
A). Power Batman up
B). Power Ranma down
C). Both, partially
D). Assume ki disciplines to be rare/endemic to Japan and China and Batman just didn't get to the right masters.
In short, the point is that when two universes diffes significantly, you just *cannot* write a good crossover without altering one or both of them.

[lwf58]

I'm not sure that Batman is a good example of non-supernaturalism anyway. He supposedly went to all those martial arts masters to learn to fight, yet he is usually shown brawling like a dockworker with no sign of any martial arts technique. When it comes to performing feats that are out of the ordinary, he uses gadgets rather than martial arts techniques. While I admit that I'm not a big fan of US comic book characters, I have read a few in my time, and I just can't remember anything in a Batman story I'd call "martial arts", other than straightforward boxing.
So yes, I'd say that either he didn't train with the right masters, or he doesn't use what he learned for whatever reason. There is nothing preventing a convincing crossover between Batman and Ranma 1/2, and several good ones have been written.

[Tovath]

I would like to point out that none of the really good martial arts masters would probabaly teach Batman because he is American

[Drawde]

I’d recommend to avoid this topic completely in the dialogs in your fic. The hair color is a thing only you and your reader can notice. The characters behind the screen *cannot* see it. For the proof of this fact refer to Ranma, 1st season where characters play color-blind around girl-Ranma [*add a link].

Minor quibble, and I could be wrong, but I remember one of the students asking if Ranma's hair changed color, in the anime only, when Ranma jumped into the pool with Kuno near the beginning. Only time I remember hair color being mentioned though.

[lwf58]

If you are talking about the scene where he falls into the pool after jumping out the window, it wasn't his hair color they commented on. It was:

"What... What..."
"Ranma's body..."
"...didn't it look a little... smaller all around?"

[claymade]

That too, but it's an extreme case, because DC is not anime-verse and plays by different rules.

Well, yeah. That's why I picked it as an example; it's one of the more extreme, obvious cases. The point I'm trying to make is that two worlds' compatibility or incompatibility on the supernaturality axis has next to nothing to do with the magnitude of the supernatural in either, and everything to do with how well the rules of the two systems interact. The fact that DC plays by different rules is exactly what I was trying to highlight.
But it's a general principle that applies even inter-anime; there's no one, standardized rule system that applies even there. And remember, that was only half of my example. Not only can two 10s be highly incompatible, but there are also countless 0s and 10s that could be meshed with hardly any problem or effort.
In fact, in some sense, the closer two shows are, the more possibility there is for rules interference, not less. A 10 vampire show like Hellsing could cross with practically any 0 normal-life series with no problem whatsoever--vampires keep their existance secret, after all. But try crossing it with another 10 series with a vampire in it, like the League of Extrordinary Gentlemen movie, and you have to start explaining why Mina Harker can blithely walk around in the sunlight while Alucard--the "ultimate undead"--can't. That's where you start to get your meshing challenges.

I'm not sure that Batman is a good example of non-supernaturalism anyway. He supposedly went to all those martial arts masters to learn to fight, yet he is usually shown brawling like a dockworker with no sign of any martial arts technique. When it comes to performing feats that are out of the ordinary, he uses gadgets rather than martial arts techniques. While I admit that I'm not a big fan of US comic book characters, I have read a few in my time, and I just can't remember anything in a Batman story I'd call "martial arts", other than straightforward boxing.

It's definitely canon. His martial style does tend toward the direct at times--but then, Bruce Lee thought that boxing was one of the superior forms of martial arts, IIRC. But he definitely has travelled the globe, studied under oriental masters, including a ninjutsu master named Kirigi.

[ToastedPine]

Your scale sorta works as a rough guideline, Cheb. My problem is mostly that you have to make very qualitative judgments to arrive at those numbers, and they don't cover some elements that are essential to making crossovers good so it makes it difficult to see what separates this from just making those judgments without numbers.
There are what I call pseudo-crossovers, which artificially smash two series together and add new elements that totally destroy essential characteristics of the anime they work with.
For example, Ranma as Rock Lee (Naruto) in whatever permutation of the concept. Rock lee has his own essential characteristics, just because Ranma and Rock Lee are both martial artists, doesn't mean they're clones of one another. I have yet to see a cross that handles the both of them as true individuals, it's always one taking the other's place.
The closest thing I could think of is the concept used where Rock Lee more or less treats Ranma as a cooler version of Gai sensei, which separates them, but has it's own set of maddening, if not worse, problems. One, Gai's character is destroyed, and two, it usually leads to Rock Lee realizing some stupid thing about justice/perseverance in an unbelievable fashion, while Ranma goes off and becomes god. The same goes with an ki overpowered Ranma in Bleach, Ranma has plenty of other traits that make him who he is, making him a person with uber ki reserves just shoves Ichigo into the background as some worthless character. The same could be said for Ichigo, he's not just some reiatsu battery...he also angsts, and--okay so I don't like Ichigo much. I think he sucks, but there should be effort put into figuring out how to set him apart from Ranma in a way that doesn't completely warp Ichigo's character.
Crossovers are not fusions when it comes to characters.
Then there's the themes of the series to take into account. Granted, these can vary with reading, but authors have to at least try to preserve and justify that their reading of what the central theme of each anime they cross. This is part of the reason I'm not fond of mega crosses, it's easy to forget the themes since there's too many to keep track of and properly weave into a coherent story. If there's international politics in intrigue in Full Metal Panic, there better damn well be the same in any story it is crossed with.

Crossovers must keep central themes of each crossed series in mind, following the rules of good story telling. In other words, the story has to have a point, and it must resound with the point of the series used.
There are a ton of other factors I could rant about, but one golden rule covers them:
Love and respect the medium you use.
This is why it annoys me when a Ranma fic author says that the Ranma 1/2 is garbage. Their stories usually end up nonstop fapfests because it was written simply to boost ego, not for the sake of telling a story and making others feel good about themselves. Sure, we all have to write the stories that WE like, but we may as well keep our stories to ourselves if it adds nothing to the lives of our readers.

[bissek]

Compatibility between series isn't really about the relative weirdness levels between them. It's about the basic premises about how that weirdness works. If the premises behind the supernatural rating of one series directly contradict the premises behind the other, then you can't make a crossover series without throwing away some of those premises. Since the basic premises behind how the world a story happens in are often a critical plot point, that means distorting one or both stories to a severe extent.
For example, you could have the demons of Chrono Crusade and the demons of Yu Yu Hakusho co-exist. All you have to do with is call them totally different races that were both indiscrimately labeled as 'demons' by humans who didn't know they were different races. However, the concept of the Astral Line and the concept of Reikai, both of which are major parts of how their stories work, are so totally different that I can't see a plausible way of combining them. As such, a CC/YYH crossover has more against it than the fact that they take place on different ends of the century.

[Cheb]

Thanks for your feedback
Of course, the initial version was meant as a rough draft. "The main part of any weapon is the head of its owner" (I don't remember who said that), so of course the crossover authors should hunt the devils-in-details by themselves, there's no other way around.
But I think we all saw how ofthen these authors forget or miss some important side and how bad their fic comes out...
The most sore examples are:
-- putting SM into a non-idealistic universe without ironing the details out first results in Crystal Tokyo being totalitarian hell.
-- dissecting Akane with a psychology textbook in hand reveals that she is a... not a good person, so to speak.
And while both are true from some POV, it's mostly the wrong choice of POV, often done without a conscious thought. (I do not mean here the fics where this is done deliberately).
Remember that the real writer should be able to abstract himself from his characters? If one cannot view from a POV that differs from his personal one it means he has still much to learn as an author. Because without this skill all characters will be self-inserts to some degree.

[Draconis Stelanaris]

Not wanting to interupt, but I've found several referances to the fact that Alucard can Daywalk. Also Seras, his Fledgling, can and does in the anime. So one can assume that big Red can, he just does not.

[Cheb]

Not wanting to interupt, but I've found several referances to the fact that Alucard can Daywalk. Also Seras,

Exactly. As far as I saw they just need a pair of sunglasses to withstand sunlight. Crossing the large bodies of water, on the other hand, is a problem for them.

[claymade]

Not wanting to interupt, but I've found several referances to the fact that Alucard can Daywalk. Also Seras, his Fledgling, can and does in the anime. So one can assume that big Red can, he just does not.

Ah, okay. I'm not actually that familiar with the Hellsing universe; I was mostly just going on a vague recollection that they waited 'till sunset to send him out in the first episode--and comments I'd thought he'd made about having to rely on the Wild Geese to guard his coffin during the day (or something like that). Wouldn't be surprised if I'd misinterpreted/misremembered it.
In any case, the overall point is still the same--the problem comes not when one universe has elements that aren't in another, but when the elements of one universe conflict with elements of the other. Which can often times be more likely the closer they are on the supernaturalism scale.