Pika pika! Pika pika pika! Sorry, let me say something coherent about this supplement. GoO has now done a book about pet monster anime, the Pokemon/Digimon/Monster Rancher genre that has taklen the ratings by storm and caused media critics to reach for their paper bags en masse (I have rarely seen reviews more savage than those received by the Pokemon and Digimon movies). Why do this book? Well, why not?
Vute & Fuzzy Seizure Monsters is a supplement all about the care and feeding of campaign that centers around little kid trainers and their Pet Monsters. These are fuzzy, slimy, rocky or just about any other kind of creatures that fight at their trainers command. Each monster is designed just like a character, purchased with points obtained from an attribute the trainer collects. This is one problem with the supplement -- for each monster you take, you need to take the attrbitue again. And since the monsters do most of the fighting, the trainer is usually an otherwise near-incompetent character. In genre, but still annoying. The book covers general rules for the training and care of the monsters, how they fight and how to breed different species of monsters to create new ones.
There are some lovely examples of the genre, though none of them are all that useful as PCS. My favorite is the girl who thinks pet monsters are the cutest, most adorable things on four legs and will glomp them mericlessly. why she trains a gigantic killer potato is completely beyond me.
The tone of the book is generally satirical, as if the author knows the concept is silly and wants to let us know she's in on the joke. There is a good introductory section describing possible reasons there might be cute, fuzzy, powerful monsters running around in the world -- from genetic engineering to the idea that they might have just always been there influencing the course of history. (The image of a Russian soldier roasting a live lizard is pricelessly twisted.) The rules are typical BESM 00 cinematic, highly playable and full of potential for mischief. One nice touch is that it is possible to do a "troupe play" situation where you play yourself and someone else's monster while someone else plays your monster -- this can lead to interesting problems when trying to convinvce your monster to fight something that can see it as a snack.
The one thing missing is the lack of templates for the various source creatures you can make your monsters from. If you;re going to build an electro-cat, it would be nice to know what a cat looks like in terms of BESM stats. I guess there simply wasn't room, which is also why there are only three sample characters and no sample adventure.
The artwork, although B&W for the most part, is quite good as is usual for GoO. Aimo's chapter headers make me wish I knew these characters and critters in c campaign.
I should note that you don't need to buy a copy of this book and one of Cute & Fuzzy Cockfighting Seizure Monsters -- they're the same book. Choose the book that fits your concept of what you think you want and what would look most shocking on your bookshelf.
The only people who really NEED this book are those who want to play in or run a Pokemon-style campaign. If you want to do that, there's no better system to run it in than BESM and this supplment will be extraordinarily useful. (The question of whether you will ever find anyone to play for you is another one entirely.)
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