Burnish Brawl

Touchstones

Where the vibe comes from. Click a picture to see it large; pick one or two and say what you took.

BAPBAP (Maison Bap, early access March 2025, 1.0 August 2025)

the top-down roguelike party brawler this style starts from. Take the high arena camera over chunky, low-detail night-city blocks, angular streetwear-anime characters (white hair, tracksuits, masks, a goldfish in a mech, ramen with legs) that read from far above, neon VFX trails, and near-black menus with punk sticker badges and tarot-like augment cards.

More: Steam ↗

Promare (Studio Trigger, 2019; dir. Hiroyuki Imaishi, designs Shigeto Koyama, CG by Sanzigen)

flat colour in both the drawn and the 3D parts, blended so each matched the other. Koyama didn't want "cloudy" colour; the Burnish fire is pink, green and purple so it is obviously not ordinary flame, simplified and alive, riffed from a flame gradient in concept work by Pixar's Grant Alexander. The art director's geometric habit gave it triangle flames, square lens flares and cubic ice. Take the colour, the geometry and the shadows tinted lilac and teal.

More: Trigger on the film (Anime Herald) ↗

Panty & Stocking with Garterbelt (Gainax, 2010; dir. Hiroyuki Imaishi)

the cartoon taste Imaishi wanted Promare to share: flat fills, thick graphic shapes and Western-cartoon proportions pushed to the limit. Take the confidence to simplify a character to a few bold shapes and colours.

More: the 2025 series (Otaku USA) ↗

Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (Sony Pictures Animation, 2018)

Imaishi's example of a film that kept the look of its image boards all the way to the screen. Take 3D that is graded and drawn over until it reads as an illustration, and colour that swings whole frames to pink or violet when the moment calls for it.

More: production design (Cartoon Brew) ↗

Tawaraya Sōtatsu, Wind God and Thunder God screens (early 17th century)

the painting Koyama showed for Mad Burnish's Gueira and Meis. Two gods tumbling through empty gold, drawn with total economy. Take the mythic register, the flat ground and the way two figures can fill a whole field.

More: Wikimedia Commons ↗

Edo firefighters (machi-bikeshi): matoi standards and hanten coats (18th–19th century)

the brigades whose crest standards and quilted, dyed coats Galo's matoi and gear nod to. Take heroic rescue iconography, bold crests that identify a crew at a glance, and dragons and waves hidden inside the coat.

More: the print (Library of Congress) ↗

Persona 5 (Atlus, 2016; Royal 2019)

black, white and one hot red, with every menu and speech bubble cut out at an angle like a ransom note. Bapbap's sticker lobby reads as kin to it (our reading; Maison Bap hasn't named its influences). Take UI with attitude: tilted cards, cut-out panels and type that shouts.

More: Steam ↗

Jet Set Radio (Smilebit/Sega, 2000)

the cel-shaded city as a playground for street kids, with graffiti, bold outlines and hand-drawn number fonts. Like Persona, our reading of Bapbap rather than a stated influence. Take street culture as the hero's world, and a city that is fun to look down on.

More: Steam ↗

The core

Keep these. Everything else is open.

1. 1
   Flat colour, even in 3D No cloudy gradients or grey murk: a light colour, a shadow colour and maybe a highlight, with shadows tinted (violet, teal, lilac) rather than darkened.
2. 2
   Fire is geometry Powers and effects are triangles, squares, cubes and shards in colours real fire never is (pink, mint, magenta). They appear, crack and vanish; they don't smoke.
3. 3
   Poster silhouettes Angular streetwear-anime characters who read from a high camera by shape and one or two signature colours alone.
4. 4
   Dark stage, loud play The world and the UI sit low and dark so the characters and their powers do the shouting.
5. 5
   Everything at maximum Hits, finishers and pick-ups land like title cards: freeze frames, giant type, whole-screen colour swings.

Dials

Pick a position on each on purpose, and try a different one next time. Set them in the brief builder.

Directions to try

• Rooftop Burnish BAPBAP's arena camera at night with Promare's pink triangle fire as the only real light; the city stays dark indigo until someone uses a power.
• Freeze vs Flare two teams, cubic cyan ice against triangular pink flame, so the geometry tells you whose side an effect is on before its colour does.
• Matoi brigade a rescue crew in crested hanten coats, each player's crest on a standard; putting fires out is the party game.
• Wind and thunder bosses Sōtatsu's gods as flat bosses on an empty gold arena, drawn in a few strokes.
• Sticker HQ the meta-game as tilted, sticker-cut cards over a black hideout, in the manner of Persona 5 and BAPBAP's lobby.
• Promepolis by day the same fights in Promare's pastel city, lilac and mint, with the pink fire turned up against it.

Traps

• Realistic fire, smoke and soft particle glow; it stops being Burnish and becomes generic fantasy VFX.
• Grey or black shading and physically-based materials that turn the flat colour muddy ("cloudy colour").
• Detail that doesn't read from the gameplay camera: characters must work as silhouettes first.
• Neon everywhere; if the world is as loud as the powers, nothing stands out.
• Tracing Promare or BAPBAP's characters; take the rules, not the designs.

Palette

Click a swatch to copy its hex. Variants list only the roles they change; the rest keep the starting colour.

Type

The samples are editable: type your own words to try the faces.

Seen in

Nothing yet.