ramen tribe link / facebook / general / mixed reviewed by: sachi First Impression It's funny, I had stumbled upon a few Ramen Tribe advertisements on Tumblr before and they were kind of cute so it almost made me join a couple of times before. In fact, I think I applied once before but forgot to make an account which I apologize for. I don't know what exactly it was but I really wanted to "Become a Noodle". The roleplay did give me an old type of roleplay feel like circa 2012-2013 that brought me a bit of nostalgia. Upon finally applying and ready to make a commitment I noticed that they had quite a number of people and couples. This worried me as usually bigger roleplays or those with more couples in them tend to be a bit more biased and make you feel left out. Upon joining I was slapped in the face by those thoughts because oh man, I was welcomed hard. It made me start out this roleplay journey of mine here with a favorable opinion. I felt included by the amount of greetings I got and it was definitely one of my favorites at the time. I'll get to this little portion again in the community section however. 
  Theme/plot/setting There is no specific theme it's your basic general non-au roleplay. The only thing I would regard as their theme is the ramen aspect to their name and roleplay. When you're there you're called a noodle and they use terms like "X has been added to the broth!" or "Come become a noodle!" to keep that little detail to the roleplay going. Personally, I find things like that adorable but that's also a personal preference because I do love myself some ramen and to share it with friends? Yum! 
  Community To start off, I'm going to list the things that this roleplay does right and keep it positive.

This is definitely one of the most welcoming places I have joined in a long time. I think it was above 10 people? I woudn't go as far as to say 20 but it was a good number. Now, I guess I was in an unpopular timezone or maybe I was on a little bit too much, at least more than the average roleplayer but it did seem that on my mornings there was only a few people on. Once it hit night though, the party really began because I saw so many people on that it really was a thing of night vs day. The members also seem to post a lot as I did find myself getting notifications from groups and saw some wallposts and statuses here and there. 

Now let's dive into the negative alright? I'll try to give a little bit of input in how these things can be fixed but for the most part I'll just be talking about what I noticed and then go a little further into my notes in the extra commentary. 

This roleplay while welcoming is not as friendly once you've stayed there a while. If I had to compare it to something it would be like when kids open their Christmas presents thinking it's an Xbox or Playstation but it's actually just socks or underwear. That's how I felt in Ramen Tribe. I was so happy to feel included in a roleplay and welcomed but once I got into it, it wasn't what I initially thought. Yes, some people are welcoming but we also have to owe that to the good noodle chart the admins have made a thing. While it does increase people welcoming you it doesn't mean that they'll keep talking to you or make the effort to talk to you in a conversation. Some people stopped talking to me after one or two replies, other times conversations kind of seemed one sided. I wouldn't say it was was as horrible as having people only reply to me with one word or emojis. It was more like if I asked "How are you?" they would reply "I'm good." and they wouldn't really give much for me to work with. If you're talkative and can make a conversation out of anything it's not a problem but if people don't try to put more effort into talking it can make conversations get really awkward very fast. Or worse, it just makes you want to give because you don't feel like they want you there. This happened to me not only when people welcomed me but when I also introduced myself to others. 

If I had to describe the community it would be more of a personal interest type of thing. People will talk to you but only to get on the good noodle chart or because they're interesting in pursuing something with you. Maybe it's because you're labelmates or biases. Now, hold on, maybe I'm overreacting because timezones are a thing but it's a little hard to pin it on that when I saw people replying to their lovers, friends or groupmates in a span of seconds maybe minutes when it took me a while to even receive something back. 

Also, I did mention people posting in groups but the majority of my group notifications came from the group. Don'