Thread: Best/Worst Cliches/Tropes in Anime

Worst
Abusive, crazy, double standard inducing, bipolar wackjobs that are disguised as Tsunderes who even scare masochists away.
Idiot heroes who bumble and deus ex machina their way through almost anything and being so dumb and oblivious you wonder how they even put on their pants in the morning. Actually loser protagonists in general who never improve piss me off to no end.
Obliviousness from men in general. When a guy has like 3+ girls practically throwing themselves at him and he can't see that they want a ride on the trouser rocket then it just becomes preposterous how lame things can become from there.
Chicks digging jerks despite being very clear this guy cares less for them then the gum under his shoe and isn't too stable. Unfortunately happens in the fandom as well.

Best
Tsunderes and Kuuderes done right
Badasses who aren't dumbasses or jerkasses
Complete Monsters: If there is one thing the japanese are good at writing these are it.
Awesome music for awesome occasions

Okay guys, I've got more:

-The "sexy womanizing bad boy all the women want because he secretly has a heart of gold" thing. With the rare exception when it's done well (like, say, Roy Mustang's characterization in the first FMA anime).
-I'm also sick to death of the childhood friend trope too. I mean, it can be great when done well, but it's getting overused. And maybe it's the teenage-outcast-who-fled-her-hometown-first-chance-she-got in me, but the idea that your soulmate is someone you've known since you were little as opposed to someone you meet later after you've gotten to know yourself better and lived other places, just doesn't appeal to me all that much.
-The idea that what every girl wants most, no matter how badass and independent and capable of taking care of herself she is, is to get married and have kids and become a housewife ASAP.
-In fact, how about all female characters who are "badass" in superficial ways like "she's a strong fighter!" but who are ultimately there primarily as support for a male character. (Like, I brought up FMA already, but Riza Hawkeye's characterization and backstory in FMA: Brotherhood is a perfect example of this. Ugh. What a massive missed opportunity.)
-Same-sex relationships that still manage to reinforce traditional gender roles (like, where one is the "masculine/dominant" one and one is the "feminine/submissive" one). Everyone knows about this in yaoi with seme/uke, but there's plenty of it in yuri too. Either way it's annoying. I know lots of people in real-life same-sex relationships who have that dynamic, but way, way more who don't.
-The fact that there's so little yuri involving characters who are older than high school.

Except for the last one, these can be found in other media as well. ESPECIALLY the first one. And they're just as annoying when they pop up outside of anime. (Like for example, the main character's boyfriend in Girls has that "treats her like shit but is nice deep down" thing going on, and I'm so over it. Then again, every character on that show has awful taste in men.)

The only one I can think of off the top of my head is the "boy/guy meets a mysterious girl who grants him an even more mysterious power" one.

Originally Posted by Goodbye Blue Monday

Originally Posted by matt0044

Producers: Screw realism, we have horny teenagers and otakus to cater to.

See, I'm a girl who likes other girls, and I fail to see what is remotely titillating about a pair of "breasts" that look more like a peanut than actual breasts. It makes the girl look like she isn't human.

Well, I've seen weirder fetishes...

Originally Posted by porkchopsandwiches

The only one I can think of off the top of my head is the "boy/guy meets a mysterious girl who grants him an even more mysterious power" one.

Kind of like a supernatural version of Manic Pixie Dream Girl?

Originally Posted by Goodbye Blue Monday

Kind of like a supernatural version of Manic Pixie Dream Girl?

Yeah, kind of, although I was thinking of Guilty Crown when making that post, so I'm not really sure.

Originally Posted by porkchopsandwiches

Originally Posted by Goodbye Blue Monday

Kind of like a supernatural version of Manic Pixie Dream Girl?

Yeah, kind of, although I was thinking of Guilty Crown when making that post, so I'm not really sure.

MPDG is a trope, not an anime: Manic Pixie Dream Girl - Television Tropes & Idioms

well uh Goodbye Blue Monday, the main character in Girls gets a new boyfriend this season IIRC

I think the super angsty philosophical types bug me kinda. To explain better, characters who always pontificate on the meaning of life with long ass monologues and existentialism. I mean it's cool in Rahxephon and Evangelion because "MECHANGST" but it bugs me now kinda

Originally Posted by Typhlosionisafirebadger

well uh Goodbye Blue Monday, the main character in Girls gets a new boyfriend this season IIRC

She does, but only for the first two episodes of the season. And the old boyfriend is still in the show, like, a shit-ton. So something tells me the break-up isn't going to stick.

Originally Posted by Steel_Justice

Complete Monsters: If there is one thing the japanese are good at writing these are it.

Actually, I prefer more complicated villains who have reasons to be evil, rather than just "for the sake of being evil." Like, give them a Freudian Excuse, at the very least.

The first Digimon Adventure is a good example of this; pretty much all the Digimon who are villains are just because....they're villains. There's not really much explanation for why they want to be evil, they just are. That being said, it is a kids' show, and a lot of kids' shows on both sides of the Pacific tend to do that - and likewise, I think anime for older audiences tends to avert that, just like in Western television.

But it still annoys me when it shows up. The occasional "I just like to fuck shit up" villain can be fun, but I think it overall insults the kids' intelligence when writers think they can't understand that someone can become evil because bad things happen to them. (And to Digimon's credit, they had more complex villains in future seasons.)

Originally Posted by Goodbye Blue Monday

Originally Posted by Typhlosionisafirebadger

well uh Goodbye Blue Monday, the main character in Girls gets a new boyfriend this season IIRC

She does, but only for the first two episodes of the season. And the old boyfriend is still in the show, like, a shit-ton.

Oh, well I didn't know all that now >_>

I've only watched it a few times with my girl so I haven't seen much


Uh I guess one thing I don't like either is how many characters get left behind in fighting series. I use to read Baki and I remember Retsu Kaioh was HARDCORE when he was first introduced, only to be mollywhopped by every successive foe in the series

basically it got to the point where only Baki, Yujiro and Pickle mattered. Retsu got reduced to a grown man with a temper tantrum against Pickle as the artist said "yeah, all those years of Chinese martial arts you learned Retsu? They weren't worth SHIIIIIIYUUUUUT against the RAW MIGHT OF PICKLE"

then he gets his leg bitten off and ends up boxing Usain Bolt, what an end.

Originally Posted by Steel_Justice

Best
Tsunderes and Kuuderes done right

How would you do them right? Just curious.

I love well-written tsundere characters too! Victorique de Blois from GOSICK is pretty great. She's overbearing at the start, but gets better as the show goes on, without ever changing her core personality to anything weak or submissive. She's still sarcastic and snippy, but she also learns how important others are to her and expresses it and it's lovely.

Now for something new: I'm a sucker for the motivational speeches you hear/read every so often in so many shounen anime/manga. I just love them. Call it sappy, but I find them great confidence boosters!

... poorly written tsundere characters bother me though, especially when there's so little reason for the other character to put up with them. Even worse is when the other character just. Puts up with it all without complaint. I'm just like is the other character supposed to be some kind of SAINT? This isn't good, this isn't healthy! Oi, oi...

Poorly written characters in general, really: especially those who are supposed to be focal characters but are nothing more than unfleshed-out archetypes with nothing at all to make them unique aside from their design. Flat, one-dimensional, predictable in a really unappealing way (no growth or change in behaviour whatsoever from start to finish).

I love heroes that are complete asses but they somehow end up being the main protagonist of the series. (Not like a rival character or anything, but as the actual main hero.) Especially when it comes with a character arc of them improving themselves and learning the hard way just how much of a jerk they really are. (Ruby from Pokespe is a very good example of this because a big part of the RS arc is him coming to terms with him realizing he's an ass that's cowardly. It's the reason why he's my favorite Pokemon character from any continuity by far.)

As cheesy as it is, I'm also a sucker for having the main character learn about the ~*~magic of friendship~*~.

I dislike many Moe School Romantic Anime produced by Kadokawa Shoten, where the characterization had a noticeable trend, or I should said noticeable "set", which had been used over and over and over for the same sort of anime. Some I ALWAYS saw in those anime will be: (sorry I don't know the exact title for these tropes)

1. Childhood female friend that hidden a secret crush on the male protagonist before the actual plot.
2. A Tsuderes female that always charge towards the male protagonist.
3. The idol of the whole school confess by many males build interest in the protagonist, making the protagonist being antagonize by all the males in the school.
4. An energetic girl (sometimes OVER-energetic) that is noisy and spoffish that is always there for comedic purpose.
5. A silent girl out-of-the-group that is always somewhere nearby watching the male protagonist from aside. She join the group only when the protagonist approaches her.
6. A feeble-looking female (usually short in size and small breast like a primary school kid) that makes the protagonist wanted to protect her for no reason.
7. Hentai male friend(s) of the protagonist always talks about hentai/ecchi topics.

I do not understand what makes such Romantic anime interesting to watch about. The only thing I'm impress is only the illustration quality of those works, but that's all. Though, my older brother love to watch such Moe animes, he even collects all sorts of merchandise related to it. Hence, I always called him "Hentai" whenever I saw his goods.


Other than romantic stuffs, I also dislike flat villains that is there merely "to be the Bad because we the the Bads". Hence, the villains that are there only to give the protagonist (or one should called the heroes in many Actions and Adventure animes) hindrance and challenges, their purpose of existence is to disturb/give trouble/beat the protagonist, and thus they serves no purpose if the protagonist didn't exist. The TRio of Pokemon Anime; Devimon, Etemon, Vademon in the Digimon Adventure; Even Dr.Eggman Robotnik from the Sonic series all counted as such poor-developed villains.


I personally do not have a trope I like, but I do have tropes I preferred for certain genres of animes which I personally think it will make the animes to be better. Such as, for Adventures, I like the protagonist to be a wise and hardworking person which grows as the story grows. For an overly stupid Idiot Hero like Ash Ketchum? No thankyou. For Sci-Fi, I prefer the protagonist to be wisely strategic.
Well, I don't know does this even called trope, but I personally preferred protagonist with Heroic traits.

I always thought it was funny how the main character is almost always never as interesting as the secondary character(s) in most anime. There are exceptions of course, and I use Cowboy Bebop for a lot of examples but I think it works in this one again.
^_^