I honestly think he fits in well enough. DBD has been more than slasher horror for awhile now.

Plus, I can cope and hope for some much more out there collaborations now, like Project Moon related killers, or Siren if we wanna go obscure Ps2 horror.

How about Berserk… or Chainsaw Man… or Fullmetal Alchemist???

It's more about how it fits rather then bringing in everything

Just to offer an alternate perspective without getting too deep in the weeds of horror, In my opinion, it revolves around the "horror hall of fame" identity BHVR always throw out in streams and wherever. People have vastly different opinions in the community of what horror is with some people having a very specific, rigid, solid definition in their mind of what horror is, the look of it, what emotions or feelings the characters and atmosphere evoke, respecting the tropes and techniques that go into making horror, and that it is classified in the horror genre regardless if the quality is good or bad. Then there's others who are much more liberal with their definition of horror, who are more open and receptive to licenses that push the boundary and even might be directly non-horror even. Heck, there are some that just want a cool character and don't care if it is horror or not.

Anime is just one of those mediums that violates those expectations of the "horror hall of fame" crowd and is a sort of sore point/line in the sand when it comes to maintaining an definite identity and image of "horror hall of fame". But, It's like after AoT was added and R6 the precedent was set for just how non-horror related something can be and still be justified to be included in the game by the community (I.e. "it's just skins"). Ever since then BHVR has pushed those boundaries, as seen with the release with Lara and DnD, which have blurred the lines even more. I think that sits in the back of some player's minds as a reminder that you really never know what they will bring or just how far out of non-horror something might be.

Maybe it's not Naruto, but is it really so unreasonable we could see JoJo, or Death Note, Demon Slayer, Hellsing, Full Metal, Evangelion? Considering some, if not all those titles have been in a BHVR official survey, I'm sure there's lots people who would love to see these titles added, and BHVR has recognized that. And if one gets in, well what's one more, and one more after that sort of thing. These all share dark themes, blood, death, horror elements, action, but does that inherently make them horror? and what if the MC is just a dude/dudette with a unique super power/quirk in a world with other people with powers/quirks? Is that horror when you have an ability/super power that helps fight back against enemies in that world, and even make lesser encounters trivial? I just think it mainly comes down to differences in expectations.

I think most of it comes down to them thinking of anime as a genre, rather than a medium.
The arguments I’ve seen seem to think that Shonen (and the other one starting with an H) are the only genres of anime out there.

I didn't think Attack on Titan belonged in DBD either, but the collaboration happened anyway. So this isn't the first time anime stuff has been added to DBD…

Tokyo Ghoul is OP so now I hate anime. ;)

In my opinion DnD is less fitting in DBD than Tokyo Ghoul, specially the two survivors (maybe that's the reason why nobody play them), but nobody claimed it. People who are not into anime simply hate anime for no reason or because they consider it a hobby of weirdos (I'm one of the anime enjoyersl).

Tokyo Ghoul was released in an era of when anime was being made from popular manga series that were unfinished, so the anime's with a small amount of input from the mangaka, would have to come up with their own little plot and meander around for a while and either wait for the manga to finish or just come up with it's own ending.

TG was one of those anime's unfortunately, though that said, IIRC the anime does match up with the ending of the manga because the mangaka told them the gist of what was being planned for the ending of the overall story. So it's not a complete loss, but the manga is definitely better.

I mean, horror anime exists. It's not MY style of horror but I'm not gonna begrudge having Kaneki in it.

Wouldn't translate in a way that would satisfy me, personally.

It'd be sick if DBD was a game released in 2025 and did it, but they are handicapped by the engine and couldn't handle it, imo.

I would legitimately enjoy a Death Note chapter. You could make an interesting mechanic out of Light Yagami running around with Ryuk, gathering pieces of the survivors' names to write them in the Death Note and kill them. It would probably have to be gated by hookstates and take significant time investment so he doesn't just delete everyone effortlessly, but I think it'd be really cool if his endgame was writing a name in the Note and 40 seconds later the survivor dies from a heart attack unless they can escape the trial first. There's potential in there.

After all, Light Yagami is just a crazy serial killer, little different from any other killer in DbD.

Skull Merchant… Ugly?? Come now my friend, that could not be further from the truth lmao

Define "cringe". What doesn't work for you besides the screaming? I've never seen anything related to the IP but I do like the alternative vampire monster style that it's going for. The screaming feels no different than blight roars imo.

If you need a lazy written excuse for the character to make sense in the game, then that character didn't fit in the game to begin with. You just forced it.

Also, just what people want: To have their favorite character in the game with his personality changed by "brainwashing" so they aren't the same character anymore.

Those are all original characters that BHVR can make however they want. We're talking pre-existing characters that have fans who have expectations of who they are and how they should act.

As someone not really interested in anime as a whole i think its due to his design like with the first impressions on SM and Trickster. To me tbh, he doesn't look scary nor intimidating at all but looking into the lore a little then i can see why he fits.

Dbd has a wide variety being the Smash Bros of horror that I love to check out the various sources materials. There's something for everybody. Some things weren't my initial first choices, but checking them out sure was fun. I was really surprised they added Japanese Ringu, for example. And now I think that was a keen choice.

Checking out dbd source material is like, a quarter of the fun . Bhvr put in love and care integrating TG by making Kaneki an original sort of killer instead of using somebody from the show; these guys aren't trying to smash random junk in and call it a day.