Anima, so good yet so painful

[TomBaker]

So I've just splurged a bit and picked up a few new systems recently in a big haul, and the one that showed the most promise was Anima, settings different than the norm and absolutely brilliant. The artwork is astonishing, and the number campaigns you could just run with is brilliant.

But the problem is the scale of the rules, the different interlocking systems that are skills, combat, magic, summoning and psychic abilities. I want to like the rules, but actually getting into them hurts my brain. They show real promise, but it's actually grasping them that I'm having trouble with.

So, the actual question is does anyone have any tips on understanding this behemoth of an rpg? Has anyone run a session, and what was it like? Thoughts, opinions and any help is always welcome.

TL;DR
How does one conquer these mother loving rules.

[Jerthanis]

You would be surprised how intuitive the basic system gets when using it. It seems like an absurd cludge, since it has a table the size of an entire page full of numbers and percentages, but in practice you get used to how it works and it's just as fast as d20's basic system.

One key to understanding the special systems is that while they're different, each singular one isn't crazy-absurdly complicated.

If you want a basic understanding of what each one is capable of doing and how they work, convince your friends to all borrow the book and make a character who does one of the special types of system and come back and explain it to you. Most aren't all that complicated, but to try and learn them all yourself will be too much for the brain to absorb all at once.

I actually went into an Anima game with exceptionally low expectations and was pleasantly surprised.

[Ishikar]

It's nice to find this thread here because I find myself in a similar position of figuring out the system myself. I'd recommend looking for the Anima Character Portfolio (or something like that, I'm posting from work and can't check) but it's a collection of level 1 characters from every class built off of a 60 point buy (from the storyteller's kit, which also includes a really neat adventure) and gives backstories for all of them. It's a fan-made free to download package and gives a REALLY good example of how to build a wizard-mentalist in the first section.

Summoners are perhaps the most confusing because of how you can build them to do different things in their character. The most common builds are the generalist (all 4 skills near even, relies on research and rituals prior to calling), the binder (control/bind, gotta catch them all), or the exorcist (bind/banish). I'm a big fan of the generalist but a hybrid exorcist can be really neat, one idea I read was a tol rauko paladin who would seal interesting or dangerous spirits in paintings and send them back to the main vaults to be held.

Magic seems pretty easy to work with, the big odd ducks for me are Ki powers and psychic abilities. Dominus Exxet gives some neat tricks to make the former easier (unified Ki pool is amazing and saves headaches of primary/secondary costs) but the whole psychic potential and discipline thing just confuses me.

[RdMarquis]

Besides the characters in the GM kit, this thread also might help.

http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?414104-Anima-Character-creation-example

They go through character creation step by step, and have multiple examples.