Soon I will be giving a few prospective players an Anima character creation demo. After rereading most of the book, I remembered just how confusing it can be for new people to start playing, since the character creation is rather daunting. Any tips/tricks/suggestions for making it easier for new players to create characters?

Their really isn't a easy way to create characters, its gonna take time especially for new people. The only way I've seen to be effective when teaching new players is to go by the list, and go step by step with one person at a time (if you only have one book). If they are going to be playing a magic or Psychic character that will take a little more work but is do able to fret. My only suggestion on classes though, would not to let them choose summoner if this is their first characters, in my opinion Summoners seems to be an advanced class that more experienced players can play, but thats just my opinion.

Good Luck

Thanks for the advice! Although, I've never thought of summoners as an advanced class, since my first character was one. But then again, my DM was insanely good at explaining the different parts of Anima.

in this Fan-Made Guidebook, there's a step-by-step character creation for those who might need it, also with a few character example made by the public. This is mostly just core-book characters though, as it was made when Dominus exxet wasnt out in english.

http://tortureentertainment.blogsport.de/images/AnimaCharacterGuidebook.pdf

Thanks Raybras! I actually don't plan on using anything other than the corebook, seeing as I am trying to get them to transition from DnD 4.0 (groan) to Anima.

I'd get them to focus on concept first and go from there. One of the "dangers" in CC is that there are so many options and cool things you can do and cool ways you can do it that people get sucked into analysis paralysis, particularly if they are players that enjoy the crunch of game systems.

So instead work with them on what they want to do (I always ask "describe what kind of hero would you have fun playing?"), and then which class would do that best - *then* let them at the actual character creation.