Jitsu Squad Creators Discuss Anime and Arcade Influences

gamerant.com:

After seven years of development and two Kickstarter campaigns, Tanuki Creative Studios' multiplayer beat 'em up Jitsu Squad is available now on PC, with console launches planned later this year. From the indie game's title to its aesthetic, it is clear that classic anime and arcade titles are a major influence on sidescrolling brawler. In many ways, Jitsu Squad is a love letter to the early 1990s, when beat 'em ups and 2D fighting games dominated the arcade scene as Japanese animation was beginning to make its presence known in the west, courtesy of imported VHS tapes and dubbed Saturday morning cartoons.

Game Rant spoke with Sebastien Romero and Dave Baljon, the creators of Jitsu Squad, about the game's inspirations and unique appeal. While beat 'em ups are based around a relatively simple mechanical premise, Jitsu Squad is designed to dodge the fight fatigue that often plagues the genre with four playable characters boasting unique moves and weapons. Despite these modernizations, Jitsu Squad's humor, style, and structure are sure to appeal to nostalgia with its early '90s energy.

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As anime tapes began to hit Blockbuster, Family Video, and other video rental chains, Japanese beat 'em ups and fighting games dominated the arcades, sharing many of the same character design conventions and motifs. Baljon, who began Jitsu Squad with a series of static illustrations, was heavily influenced by the style of those early Japanese imports.

The aesthetic of '90s games is very 'anime' in general. The games that we played, you know, Capcom, Konami, and SNK games from the '90s were all pretty anime looking.

The fact that Jitsu Squad's playable characters are all anthropomorphic animals (or humans