Still on character creation. We move on to Professionals vs Rookies. I'm keen to see how this would hold up in an actual campaign. Rookies are absolutely gonna be better off in long campaigns, but Professionals are better off the bat. Rookies earn twice the IP (XP) that Pros get.
Professionals For every 2 years after age 16 (Up to 30 years, whether this is age 30 or age 46 is a mystery) you pick a profession; choose 5 of the 7 skills it offers, get 2d10 yen, and roll on some additional Lifepath tables. These extra tables can give you some extra benefits or possibly lose a limb. Professions marked (D) for dangerous change up the odds on those tables.
It's pretty straight forward. Some of the professions seem like odd choices (Game Designers a decent joke) when you're all playing mech pilots, but you can pick multiple professions. The other benefit is that you can use these extra skill points to get skills over level 5 (Including hard skills) for fewer points.
Rookies These are stupid simple. Pick a template, apply it, you're done. You get 7 skills, bonus equipment, and starting yen. How they determined bonus equipment and yen is questionable. The rookies definitely aren't starting on an equal footing. Professionals are going to have better skills, but worse equipment. A pro that goes all in on age will get 14d10 yen, so a max of 140 if they roll all 10s. The two lowest rookies get 100 yen, and one of those gets a sword, gun, and motorcycle on top (The other gets a pet and some mementos).
A recurring theme in this book is flavor over mechanics, despite the fact that they go real heavy on the mechanics.
Anime Hero: Our basic protagonist with the obvious pick of skills. Gets a good starting kit and the second highest amount of starting yen. I really wanna know A. What anime the writer saw where the protag wore "hip-hop clothing" and B. What the writer thinks hip-hop clothing is.
The Girlfriend/Boyfriends: Props for making it unisex, but what a weird ass way to make this template. Immediately questioning their loyalty, relegating them to emotional support for the "hero", prone to fits of jealousy and suspicion; and setting them up as a target to be rescued. AND what are these skills? Seduction, Interrogation, and Shadowing? Is this a partner or a stalker? They get some flavor equipment, including a "racy set of clothes that they're too shy to wear"? They get the highest starting yen for choosing to put up with this shit.
Anime Babe: Gender equality goes right out the window for this femme fatale. Skills are what you'd expect. Second lowest starting yen, but at least she gets a gun.
Anime Stud: The Sasuke to the Anime Hero's Naruto. Skills are meant for person to person instead of mech. Similar kit to the Hero, but the Stud gets both a sword and a gun instead of a choice between the two. Lowest starting yen.
The Big Lug: They're big, they're kind. That makes them good at mechanics, I guess. Other than Intimidate and Hand to Hand, the Lug's skills don't match up to its description. Starts with a heavy vehicle (Like a truck), a boombox, and a toolkit. Average starting yen.
The Kid: I know Pokemon came out two years after this book, but that's fucking Ash Ketchum. This is the generic plucky anime child. You sneak, you cause problems, you carry a machine gun because it gave you a choice of any weapon skill. Start with a couple flavor items and a pet. Lowest starting yen.
Celebrity: Generic 80s/90s popstar with a MiniDisc player of all things. Highest starting yen.
They do propose the option of playing a non-human characters, but stuck those rules in the back of the book, where I haven't gotten to yet.
They also include a list of character references from a mix of properties. There are a lot of titles here that I would not have expected an American in the early 90s to have heard of. Like fucking Lensman of all things.
Equipment Just a quick wrap up here. All items have a tech level so that the GM can tune equipment to whatever setting they're running. It's simple and does a decent job.
If you've played a ttrpg before you can probably guess what they're like here. Conceability is a stat, because that's just how crunchy games are.
The only other thing of note here is armor. It's all piecemeal. You choose different armor pieces for each part of your body. And baby, you know what that means, don'tcha? HIT LOCATIONS!