Why do anime creators keep doing this?
The Power of Friendship
It’s just so damn corny, the type of thing you’d see on an after school special. This is one of the more common and irritating ones, especially in shounen. Don’t get me wrong, there are a bucnh of shounen cliches which are annoying (more of which will probably appear on this list), but this one seems more patronizing than most. Granted, the audience of 5-10 year olds that shounen is aimed at probably get some sort of “valuable life lesson”, but everyone who’s old/cynical enough knows that having a friend by your side in a fatal situation doesn’t mean you’ll triumph against all odds. It’ll just double the death toll.
“I’ll Always Be By Your Side”
This is one of those devices that’s just overused to the point it doesn’t matter anymore. A character in an anime dies – don’t worry, they’ll always be by your side. A character becomes incapacitated – don’t worry, they’ll be with you in spirit. A character goes on a long journey – don’t worry, they’ll always be supporting you. You might as well just not kill them off if they’re gonig to be there anyway.
“TO PROTECT THAT WHICH IS IMPORTANT TO ME”
Why in the hell do half the protagonists who fight in anime constantly say “to protect that which is important to me”? It’s not so annoying as a dramatic device, it’s just that in every damn climax of any story arc, they’ll end up talking about how they’re frighting to protect something. You’d think that after the first 10 times, the creator could skip that whole speech and get on with it, but it;s always the same formula. Big Evil Villain beats crap out of character, laughs maniacally (while disparaging said character), character stands…oh…so…slowly…up while rattling on about who/what they fight for – rinse and repeat until fight ends with hero deftying all odds. It makes Black Star’s main reason for fighting (I WILL SURPASS GOD) seem creative and new.
With Our Powers Combined…
2+2 = 5. EVERY FREAKING TIME.
“GASP”
Every time something mildly surprising happens, a character gasps – though saying “gasps” is kind of generous as half the time it sounds like they’re just unable to swallow something. If it’s surprising your loyal viewers will know that it’s surprising, so there’s no reason to use the samn technique every single time. Combined with something more subtle, like a shift in the eyes or a change in facial expression, and used sparingly, it can be tolerable. But not when someone gasps during every other sentence in a conversation.
First Girl Wins
I haven’t seen many harem shows, but in the few that I have seen, it’s always the first girl that wins. Whether it be a punch in the face or a meeting at the bottom of the hill, there’s that defining moment which means that every other girl in the show has no chance. It’s not so much that the first girl wins than the fact the other girls don’t win. For once I want the underdog to come out on top, surprise the audience a little, defy expectations. But alas, it seems that this shall only happen in the rarest of cases.
Reset Endings
A quote from Shirukii:
Reset endings are terrible excuses for series finales, it didn’t work for Mai HiME, it didn’t work for Wolf’s Rain and it didn’t work for Clannad, tainting otherwise excellent series in each case. Reset endings are stupid primarily because they invalidate all the emotions felt during the deaths of the characters that return to life.
‘Nuff said.
“I Want To Be Normal Again!”
This is especially annoying when some average kid is granted tremendous power but can’t take the pressure and just whines about how they want to go back to their normal lives. YOU HAVE POWER TO HELP PEOPLE/CHANGE THINGS FOR THE BETTER, JUST SHUT THE HELL UP, ACCEPT IT AND GET TO WORK.
Loneliness
It’s an awful way to try and get sympathy for any sort of character. I won’t empathise with someone just because they’re ostracised by a retarded community. Maybe, just maybe, creators should try giving me reasons to like that person’s character rather than having the equivalent of “THEY ARE LONELY, PITY THEM, LOVE THEM” emblazoned on the screen.
Childhood Promises
I’m not even sure why this one annoys me. It’s cliched, perhaps, but there’s nothing particularly wrong with it. It’s just that I hate when a story’s interrupted to go into the past via flashback just to explain the current situation. It could be done just as easily with a few lines of dialogue. Most of the time it’s not even that important anyway (because of the tiny fact that THEY’RE CHILDREN).
Repeating A Phrase In The Form Of A Question.
Example:
“IThat time was known as the Ten Days of Terror”.
“The Ten Days of Terror?”
What’s the freaking point of restating somethig that the audience has just heard? Most of the time it happens with new pieces of information, which will probably end up being explained within seconds anyway. It’s not dramatic or interesting in any way, just a waste of a couple of seconds. A better use of that time would be a boob shot. You heard me.
These are just at the top of the list. I could probably rant on and on, but what’s the point? It’s not like any of this stuff is going to disappear any time soon. Are there any anime tropes that stand out to you as particularly annoying?
ALMOST ALL OF THESE ARE IN FUCKING GURREN LAGANN WHICH YOUR FUCKING AVATAR IS WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU?!
lol, this. 😀
Last time I checked TTGL didn’t have:
“TO PROTECT THAT WHICH IS IMPORTANT TO ME”
First Girl Wins
Reset Ending
“I Want To Be Normal Again!”
Loneliness
Childhood Promises
That’s more than half of what’s listed!
“TO PROTECT THAT WHICH IS IMPORTANT TO ME”: Not explicitly declared, but the second half of the series applies.
“I Want To Be Normal Again!”: Simon: LET’S GO BACK UNDERGROUND. D: D: D: D:
Childhood Promises: Kamina, to himself. To go back to the surface.
lol Gurren Lagann is practically a parody of every over used idea in anime. It takes those subjects and accentuates them to ridiculous proportions but in a very intelligent way.
I was so sick of the Something to Protect theme that I ripped it in one of my first 10 posts.
(shameless self-promotion since you didn’t link to me)
@digitalboy
There’s nothing wrong with me. Did I say that these elements completely ruin a series? That they weren’t included in some series that I like?
Calm the fuck down and pay attention.
Gurren Lagann is a show that’s FULL of cliches. Yes, half of these probably exist in the show, but Gurren Lagann has so many other great elements going for it that eclipse most of these flaws. At times, it even develops upon these cliches to great effect (i.e the episode focused around Yoko and Simon’s relationship with Kamina towards the end of the series.)
These are just some tropes that I DISLIKE. Don’t assume that if it’s in a show I’ll automatically hate it.
RAGERAGERAGERAGERAGERAGERAGERAGE
hahaha
LOL. I fail to see any other elements in gurren lagann besides the power of friendship and with our powers combined. well, i guess it’s also got them drills in it.
Well, firstly, I suppose creators keep using them because it works — that’s the reason anyone reuses anything, yeah? Cliches are cliches for a reason, though as anyone will say, a well-done cliche will trump any predetermined dislike. Many of those really do draw on the ability of the audience to sympathize with the character, and even though we’ve seen a situation a dozen times or more, if we can imagine ourselves in the same situation — loneliness, amongst friends, whatever — it will be a powerful tool.
That said, when the overdone cliche is repeated poorly, rage and annoyance commence. 😀 And a few of those really can’t argue for their repetitiveness since they never really worked that well in the first place, like GASP, repeating a phrase, and reset endings (haaaet).
Also! The first girl in Code Geass’s harem does not win. T_____T Shirleeeeeeeeeeyyyyyyyyyyy.
Ones that stand out? I find ‘with our powers combined’ quite irritating sometimes, though it definitely depends on the execution. That’s one reason I have a soft spot for Tomino-style ‘with your powers combined you’re still all going to die’ endings.
I… I hate you. 😦
The ones that get under my skin are Missing/Dead Parents and the related Lack Of Responsible Adults, the first one must be the cause of japans falling birthrate because if your job doesn’t entail extensive overseas travel then having kids is apparently 99% fatal which is something of a disincentive for procreation. The second one bugs me most when kids start turning up dead and it never occurs to teachers, parents, police, whoever to check and see what little Sakura and Jun are up to? Oh, yeah, must the fate of the world rest on the under 18 set so often? I know quite a few Real Life teenagers and for the most part I wouldn’t want the fate of my lunch dependant on them let alone the world.
Well, you don’t leave much to comment. First: the picture is a win. Second: I agree. The last point actually bugs me the most. I can’t forget Steamboy, where Ray repeats practically every damn phrase!
Goddamnit no one should ever “win” in a harem show.
Also I always assumed your gravatar was from some Kino no Tabi art.
Kouta wins in Kanokon. 😛
10 anime tropes that you dislike, Omisyth?
Looking at your reasoning, a big part of why you dislike the tropes is due to the poor execution of their presentation. A lot of the time the trope is poorly presented if it’s delivered verbatim from how we remember the trope to be (or how it’s phrased in the TV Tropes Wiki).
In the recent Wolverine movie, I was particularly annoyed with:
“I’m the only one allowed to defeat you!”
I died a little.
You took most of the topics I had for my “My Gripe with Anime” category…
The main ones that I don’t like are Something to Protect and Friend by Your Side. Also, the one about Harem. I like the unexpected, which in most cases, is not in harem. I mean, there are a few exceptions to that too.
WTH! if you’re talkinaout clannad I’ll punch you
remember I can read between lines
Yet it’s true in history at least that when people are figthing to protect their homes, etc., they tend to fight better while those invading tend to have lower morale and take fewer risks
Anyway, one of the tropes that really piss me off is the osananajimi thing, especially when they’ve forgotten about it and then they remember that they met some time when they were kids. Seriously, what’s the need for that? I understand the onsanajimi concept to some extent when they are aware of it so it affects their current relationship -and still it’s too ubiquitous-, but discovering they were childhood friends so that it magically changes their relationship?
RahXephon made awesome use of the Reset Ending.
I agree with you on most of the tropes with the exception of 1 & 3, I retired from the army and have seen a bit of close combat, and when the fighting gets really nasty you don’t keep fighting because of loyalty to your flag or country, you keep fighting for your buddies and fellow soldiers, you don’t want to leave them hanging or let them down.
Using the same logic we always were of the mind that if you’re going to place yourself in a situation where death was a high possibility, it better be for something important.
I, like Carbon, find the missing/dead parents trope annoying, but having that situation occur in so many anime is necessary for those anime to function in their intended manner. Minami-ke, and many other anime could never function if parents were living in those households, the enjoyable social disorder/teen paradise wouldn’t be occurring in those houses.
Killing off, or making the mother absent is especially effective in this regard, in most Japanese households, the mother is the one that enforces the doing of homework, the be home for dinner, the get to bed early, the get your ass up for school, and remember the term “education mama”? That term didn’t arise out of some-one’s imagination.
Did somebody just say 07-Ghost?
[…] Yuuri’s childhood? I know that this is an overused premise in anime, and some bloggers like omisyth dislike the childhood promise trope, but I’m a sucker for it. Some of my favorite […]
“Repeating A Phrase In The Form Of A Question.”
Yeah this trope should be burned with fire.
@Baka-Raptor
You whore.
@Kiri
Fair enough, if it ain’t broke don’t fix it. But at least put it out of it’s misery rather than keeping it barely alive on live support. Oh, and SHIRLLEEYYY was one of my first posts, funnily enough.
@The Animanachronism
Ah, realistic futility. It pleases me. *evil laugh*.
@carbon
Eh, that seems to be more based on the subject matter of different series than anything else. Removing authority figures makes for a looser and more relaxed environment/reality most of the time.
@Gargron
Thanks on both counts.
@xephfyre
Digiboy was referencing the long passed days of OH!. Kamina was my avatar.
@Owen S
I don’t get it.
@ghostlightning
True, the unoriginal done well can still be very enjoyable. Too bad that’s not the case.
@53RG10
I ain’s not thief.
@glothelegend
I’d like to see them, actually. Any suggestions?
@lollipop
Yes?
@Sergio
It’s just a cheap fabricated basis for a relationship, anyway. It’s just laziness on the writer’s part – if they were childhood friiends then they don’t actually have to like each other’s characters to get on with each other.
@schneider
Already on the watch list.
@Chris K
Fair enough, I haven’t gone through any such experiences but I can appreciate that the trope isn’t just based on childish fantasy.
@fangzhao
No?
@Avisch
And frozen with ice.
Single example of reset ending working: Higurashi.
*thumb up*
“Gasp”? Not “Gulp”?
Reset ending? Will Haruhi count? D:
I agree RahXephon did the reset ending well, which is rare because for the most part it is total fail. MaiHime being a great example of that.
Gasp made me laugh, because it just made me think of how we all take a sip of a cold drink and go “ahhhh” XD
I really really really really hate Childhood Promises. WTF?! They were about 6 years old when they did that and it’s just annoying how they cling onto this.
@omisyth you’re right about that:
““TO PROTECT THAT WHICH IS IMPORTANT TO ME””
The only reason to watch this, is that:
“Big Evil Villain beats crap out of character, laughs maniacally”
There’re some awesome laughter, but can’t name in particulary.
Btw, this afternoon I drop-kicked a butterfly in the face.
I.. kinda dissagree on the last one.
sure, it can be annoying when they repeat the silly title as a question, but(maybe it’s just me) but I find it natural to do so. I would’ve done it because I simply feel more aware of what I’m dealing with by hearing the words fom my own mouth.
and if the reaction was made any diffirent, as in not saying anything or just go “go on.” or “ok?” would just turn out down right akward or humorus(wich is good if that is what you are aiming for but I presume most anime makers are going for dramatic) XD
“Repeating a statement in the form of a question” is something that Japanese speakers do in real life. I took Japanese at the university and our teacher, who was from Japan, said that repeating what the other person said is a way to show that you’re paying attention to (and thus respecting) the person. It’s reasonable that anime would follow real life in terms of how people actually speak.
Plus, I’m a native English speaker, and I often repeat what patrons say while I’m at my job, just to make sure I got it right.
This is so fkn true. It’s why I only watch One Piece and DBZ because they don’t do this shit
Watch Mashirioro Symphony. Reverse harem, but the first girl DOESN’T WIN. *gasp* (YES I JUST DID THAT)
Not trying to play the Devil’s advocate here but I think some of your peeves are a bit unfair and it sounded like you don’t really know what a trope is and kind of fail to understand how much Japanese culture is ingrained in anime. The gasp is present in colloquial spoken Japanese just as much as the ‘erm…’, ‘huh?’ and ‘you know’ are present in English. It’s just something that people do, it’s not exclusive to anime characters. Same goes for repeating what has just been said, as someone pointed out above.
As for the idea of loneliness, I think it tends to have a greater significance to them than to us westerners. While we are encouraged to be assertive and to come out of our shells in order to succeed in a social environment, they do not really encourage this kind of behaviour as it could be perceived as rude or arrogant, so a Japanese person who’s stuck in a cycle of loneliness is pretty much doomed, as is the case with many otaku there, whom the shows are intended to pander to.
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