Uncontroversial opinion: Elden Ring is not a JRPG.
Slightly less uncontroversial opinion: That isn’t because of the art style.
When Xenoblade Chronicles 3 dropped, Rick Hoeg amusedly told the Bitcast “I’m totally ready to save the world with the power of our humanity.” I haven’t gotten around to that game, but I can say with confidence that that’s almost definitely what happens because there’s a theme that runs through so many JRPGs, almost as consistent as the oversized eyes and vanishingly small noses characteristic of the anime art style.
It’s that humans are good. More specifically, it’s that human goodness is the key to victory. As I told my boyfriend when I first started thinking about this piece over a year ago, in JRPGs, when gods or fate try to kick humans around, they tend to stub their toe on the immovable force of the human spirit.
Be warned, in using examples from various JRPGs there are spoilers ahead
Friendship is Magic
Kingdom Hearts is the most blatant and most meme-able example of this, so let’s go ahead and get it out of the way. Yes, yes, say it with me, “My friends are my power!” It’d be laughably naive if, in the world of Kingdom Hearts, it wasn’t entirely true. It’s the epitome of this phenomenon that’s so consistent in the JRPG genre. In stories from Japan, people really do save the world with the power of their humanity, and in Kingdom Hearts they do it again, and again, and again. Sora fights back a Rogues’ Gallery of villains (all of whom are somehow either him or Xehanort, but let’s not go down the rabbit hole of identity crises in that game series) with the power of the goodness of his heart. Light is king, darkness is the devil, and Sora’s friends really are his power.
But Kingdom Hearts, while being more in-your-face than most, is far from the only example of this. JRPG characters save the world with the power of goodness and friendship on a shockingly regular basis. The entire plot of Ni no Kuni is based around the main character’s grief and love for his mother. Then there’s this little scene in Final Fantasy VI where Terra decides that she’s coming out of retirement in a way that couldn’t be more on the nose for this piece:
NieR Automata and NieR Replicant: the Saddest Happy Ending
The mobile game SINoALICE launched with the tagline “The worst story ever,” but Yoko Taro is no stranger to depressing, even horrific stories. In two of those miserable stories, though, Yoko Taro has somehow hit on the absolute saddest way to demonstrate the power of the inherent goodness of humanity, and that that goodness is the force that continues driving the world forward.
NieR Automata is a desolate world with tragedies you only unlock by playing through the game three times or more. In the end, you learn that, despite the androids dutifully reciting “Glory to mankind,” humans have been extinct since long before the game started. But none of the characters are ever allowed to know this because, even in a world without humanity, faith in humanity is what allows androids to continue moving forward.
NieR Replicant is a bit more direct about things. The way to get the true ending of the game is to delete your character. Permanently. You can do this in order to save your ally and friend, and if you do, she can remember that version of you and, by the power of remembering and caring about you, bring you back to a reality you were erased from. Even permanent erasure is no match for the power of love and connection between human hearts.
Land of the Rising Faith in Humanity
The more I looked at this, the more it seemed to me that this isn’t just a JRPG thing. This is a Japan thing. If you haven’t read the full series of Naruto or Demon Slayer, and you want to, just skip the next two paragraphs (to the *).
In Naruto, the bigger the world got, the more characters turned out to have depths of goodness that belied their previous villainous actions. It reached the point where everyone was misunderstood and redeemable. Even Sasuke, who introduced himself by saying there was someone he had sworn to kill, eventually took up the cause of that person because that person had been redeemed.
Demon Slayer took it even a step further. About halfway through the series, it became a consistent theme that demons would retrieve the pieces of their humanity as they died. Sometimes, more often than those demons would have wanted to admit, that was how they were slain. A demon that could never have been defeated by the characters simply stopped on seeing the monstrosity he had become. Not because he was wounded, not because he was morally disgusted, but because it strayed so far from his personal, human vision of himself that he could not comprehend that that was him. And as he realized that, his own humanity defeated his demonic strength.
*Alright, if you skipped ahead, it’s safe to look now.
Seriously, you’re good. That’s all the spoilers for manga. And now back to the spoilers for games. But first, a diversion into fairy tales.
If you aren’t familiar with the story of Momotaro (“The Peach Boy”), it almost reads like two different stories were spliced together. On the one hand, we have an oddly recurring theme of Japanese fairy tales: the infertile old couple who finds a miracle baby born from a piece of fruit. On the other hand, we have a hero’s tale, where Momotaro leaves home with a bag of kibi dango to slay the ogres on Ogre Island. On the way, he picks up a dog, a monkey, and another animal companion I’m forgetting at the moment. That’s hardly important. What’s important is exactly what you think happens, happens: the scrappy underdogs, through the power of their shared experience and friendship, beat the ogres against all odds.
That type of strength, the overwhelming power born of human connection and caring, human love and goodness, permeates the JRPG genre. And now we’re really going back to the game spoilers.
My boyfriend refers to Final Fantasy XV as a boy band on a road trip, and that summary isn’t wrong. The gang of young men–a prince raised as a commoner; his prodigy advisor; his bodyguard; and the first normal friend he ever had–travel the country to try to get enough power to take down the evil Empire who may or may not be run by an immortal (it is. Much like in Final Fantasy VI, the real evil is the creepy advisor to the throne). But it’s during that trip that they show that the strength of their bonds is what keeps them going.
It’s thanks to those bonds that Noctis is able to save the world in the end (my heart hurts just typing this line) as he begs the spirit of his father, “Dad, trust in me.” And in the movie tie-in Kingsglaive, in case that was too subtle, Nyx Ulric informs all the dead kings that they’re worthless if they don’t help humans. And they listen–Nyx is allowed to wear the Ring of the Lucii long enough to save the city and help Lunafreya escape, before the power of it burns him to ashes. They listen, and they help, because he’s right–and in a JRPG setting, being right and believing in that righteousness will sway even a semi-divine power to listen.
“That Weeb $#!+” is a Funny Way of Saying “Optimism”
At one point as I was working on this project, I wondered if the themes of JRPGs might have a tie to kaiju. Kaiju, I’ve been told, are an allegory for the nuclear bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. But unlike a nuclear bomb (or napalm–and if you don’t know what I’m talking about, don’t look it up), kaiju can be killed. I’d still like to know if that desire for a chance for sheer goodness to win against the big threat is how Momotaro, shonen manga, and JRPGs all ended up with the pervading theme that that’s exactly how the world works.
If you’ll indulge me in one last tangent, remember how I mentioned Final Fantasy XV up above? That game actually has an even more direct showing of human goodness and heart saving the world. It just didn’t end up getting made. There were a few more DLCs planned for the game, and, after they were canceled, they were instead released as a novel called Dawn of the Future. That novel contains what I consider to be the “true” ending of the game.
In that ending, Noctis isn’t sacrificed. Instead, he and Ardyn form an agreement, and Ardyn sacrifices his own immortal damnation to kill Bahamut, break the prophecy into pieces, and save the world in his own way. (It’s a shame that DLC never got made, because I for one would love to have had the chance to punch that particular deity in the face.)
The point is this: JRPGs are stories of hope. They are stories of goodness. They are stories where “we were the villains all along” has no place, where bleakness is a lie the world wants you to believe. They are stories where friendship is magic, the world is worth saving, and humans are fundamentally good. In a world where everything, from the news to other more popular titles, would have you believe otherwise, I will choose that message every time.
