Anime fans have ranked what they consider to be the most hackneyed and cliched situations ever to plague virtually every anime ever made…
1. The wishy-washy protagonist gets all the girls
2. A new power awakens in a desperate pinch!
3. After starting out as an enemy, after many tribulations they become an ally!
4. A hitherto invincible new enemy character somehow loses to the protagonist…
5. Despite being excessively popular, for some reason the protagonist is completely insensitive
6. The useless drop-out protagonist becomes the heroic saviour of the world
7. The heroine descends from on high
8. As soon as a girl is accidentally pushed over, someone will burst in and leap to conclusions
9. The girls and boys whose beauty is revealed only when they take off their glasses…
10. The rival who is both sporty and clever
A ranking which could probably be summed up as “harem anime”…
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Wow, zou just described To Aru Majutsu No Index to a T.
You have no clue how much #1 and #4 bug the hell out of me...
I want to be wishi-washy.
HAHAHAHA, Nice one TNinja.
You washy-wish.
The protagonist is always a sad loser because the viewer is supposed to identify with him... why do I feel insulted here?
More like the mangaka is identifying the sad loser with himself :)
Sad
loser
neet
poor
no charisma
an IQ point lower than standart
unneducated or ronin
will never reach manhood
simpleton
uncomprehensive to women feelings and desires
if a final fantasy; Emo
never a dime of fatness
decisive in critical situations
-never a dime of fatness
The protagonist of "Accel World" being one of the very rare and few exceptions to this point.
I'd say this is more insulting to japanese adolescents... unless you're a japanese adolescent yourself >_>
Because you ARE a sad, pathetic, loser who thinks he's intelligent.
You're too GAR for that
I want a harem.
Who doesn't?
That's the only sankaku list which I agree with. Every single one of these cliches is spot-on. This is killing anime faster than Ishihara.
11. Whenever there's a sad moment, it'll start to rain. (The character runs desperately, only to trip and fall.)
12. Whenever there happens to be a (semi)naked girl accident, the guy gets his butt kicked (even if it's the girl's fault).
13. Unnecessary beach trip (in the middle of crisis).
14. A girl groping other girls' breasts in a changing room/bath/...
Not that I hate them but sometimes it gets annoying. Especially in a bad show.
Agreed, bro. 1 and 12 makes me wanna rape and kill the anime creators.
it's mangaka's you should be angry about. They wrote it.
With creators I mean the bastard who creates the plot and situation.
LOL funny shit.
#12 is so so SO stupid and chilly, I wonder why they still do that!
If i were the guy, I would kick her ass first.
if i was the girl and u walked into me, i'd call the police first >=\
Lol, chilly.
Hi, my tought on your points ;}
11-agreed, but i like it.
12-hate it, tsunderes who punch others even when its their fault, its crap.
13-IF girls are cute/beautiful AND a harem anime its a must.
14-not hate,but yes, unnecesary, interesting girls-only conversation its enough for a bathscene.
seconded on #12. It especially sickens me that these psychopathic bitches have to be so damn popular (which is probably why the cliche is in place to begin with; is Akihabara full of fucking masochists or something?). I'd probably be okay with it if they were actually well-written enough to maybe justify their usage of domestic violence and the fact that they're somehow capable of getting away with it, but the majority of the time, that's not the case.
Honestly, that too is exaggeration. Agreed, it's no less annoying, but it's based on Disney/Warner Bros.-esque influence from way back. The exaggerated punch into the sky thing for example is meant to be an expressive action, it's just a tad overused if you want tons of anime. I don't watch as much, and so many things don't annoy me that annoy others.
One example is Love Hina. It was amusing at first when she sent Keitaro flying, but then it pisses you off over time, just enough that future events feel that much better when they happen BECAUSE it pissed you off, so it ended up being a useful story element. And one thing that I found amusing since I read the manga recently is that it didn't piss me off in the manga, because they turned it into a great running gag that the characters all recognized and commented on in terms of Keitaro being an immortal, which I found hilarious, while in the anime, it wasn't given fun attention. I think it was because Keitaro didn't seem as pathetic in the manga when I read him, even if he was worried, he wasn't doing overacted groaning like he did in the anime in my head. But then again, that was later in the manga beyond the place the anime went.
Love Hina doesn't count. It's better than 99.99% of all the generic copy cat shit harem anime's of the late 2000's and early 2010's.
Love Hina is an example of Harem when it was actually good.
Just as with Tenchi.
yes there are a lot of m in akihabara...
15. The evil master sends his servants conveniently at the heroes one by one in order from least powerful to most difficult to let the characters level up effectively.
Why they don't just send EVERYTHING and EVERYONE at them all at once is apparently due to the fact that it is against RPG regulations.
Thanks for your post xD it's so true that I laughed
Villains obviously did not read the evil overlord list =(
GOOD ONE!!! EPIC!
or the evil lord defeats the heroes but spares them saying they are not worth killing only to get owned at the end.
And once the evil lord gets owned in the end, he proceeds to tell about his life story on why and how he became the "evil" character he is.
In an anime this usually lasts from around 3 to 5 episodes.
Dragonball/Naruto/bleach style... 10 ep to defeats 1 subboss :P
The hero is so weak need girls to resolve a fight
The girl more bold and busty is yuri
Although live in a harem, the hero will not sleep with any girl....
Siscom love that always ends in nothing
Animes that after 2 seasons ends without a final
Don't u know? Evil masterminds can't multitask for shit, and their micromanagement is Bronze league-level.
Their macro is awesome, however, due to the fact that they start off at a much higher level than the protagonist.
more like the evil overlord had more resources to begin with and for some reason the protagonist didn't read the manual before he started playing.
This is actually somewhat realistic up to a point. You don't send your best to deal with something minor. You send enough. There is a story due to the character overcoming what the Evil Overlord judges as enough force, the other 1000+ that fails aren't main characters.
Oh right, that totally makes sense. I suppose the next thing to do is send someone slightly stronger, and remember to sprinkly sme powerups along the route.
true, it is somewhat realistic, but these villains really have a nasty habit of underestimating the protagonists. It shouldn't be "They just took out my lowliest commander. Send my second lowliest commander to finish them!", but rather "They just killed a commanding officer! Shit just got real!" At least in One Piece, I could note a subversion: when the navy first recognized Luffy as a threat, they immediately gave him a (relatively high) bounty of 30 million. Had anyone just been able to account for Dragon being there, Luffy would've actually been stopped by them shortly afterwards.
It's not so much a problem with the story, but a problem with the atmosphere. They don't establish the 'commander' level antagonist as being powerful enough to handle every other issue often enough. Since the archetype is so common, many authors just assume (often correctly) that most watchers will understand his power by the character buildup. That doesn't mean they shouldn't give them some kind of impression to the audience of HOW dangerous they are.
An antithesis is Bleach. How Ichigo gets so ungodly powerful so quickly without all THAT much commentary about it in such a way that makes sense. Surpassing centuries-old shinigami with experience the likes of which he couldn't even fathom being taken out by a high-schooler requires a bit more explanation.
...just a bit.
Maybe, but we have saying in the Army: "If first attempt fails, call artillery".
Calling tanks on lone snipers also seem work well.
Airstrikes works fine against RPG ambushes.
105mm MGS rounds fired from 1 mile are somewhat effective against rebels waiting in ambush for us to get close.
Overkill is rarely nessesary, but mostly effective.
They kind of -have- to underestimate the protagonist though. If they didn't, the protagonist would be finished off near the start of the anime/game and it would be over before anything got accomplished. :P
in real life you just get shot down, you did bot have any chance at avenging you mom... some dirty 45yrs old poped you a 9mm and hid you in 5 mins.... like that french movie i hope was not a documentary... those 2 french kids had no chance even with all that buildup... thing is TV lets things not getting shitty... RL raepez you!
Freeza saga in Dragonball Z.
Yeah but what evil overlord is going to think, "Holy shit, three spunky teenagers are attacking my fortress, I'd better send at least fifty of my top men after them!"
yea, but ONE AFTER ANOTHER!
And as they keep converting/destroying more and more of his minions, he'll NEVER get an idea to send all his henchmen AT ONCE, and finish the party off for good!
forgot one
#16 anytime the protagonist is trying to get some, some little sister or friends of the girl cockblock the hero.
They do occasionally. Madoka? Easy shit until Walpurgis Night.
16. Every time when the guy accidentally touches the girl's breast or sees her in her underwear, she screams like she is being attacked by Freddie Kruger with the chainsaw as his dick.
At least in Gurren Lagann they have an explanation for why the Anti-Spiral does this. Not for Lordgenome though.
20. The protagonist is a complete indecisive pussy and shit has to go down before he mans up and takes action. Usually while the hot girls keep shit from getting out of control.
Why can't he just be a man from the start and pawn everything? Cos it wouldn't create fake suspense.
you mean pwn
Actually, Mazinger Z, corrects this problem in Mazinkaiser OVA series, he gets pwned my a dogpile of bad guys from the get-go... but since this IS Mazinkaiser, they had to get him outta the way somehow first.
LOL! That's a funny way to think about it, but its true!
11 is normal, you can't have a good story without symbolism
You can have symbolism without cliche, though.
By default I think symbolism means cliche if you think about it. It's not a symbol if everyone doesn't recognize it as a symbol. A symbol will be a 'cliche' every time if you're doing it right, but just like Iron Man, you can have a well-executed cliche. Much of the Iron Man movie was cliche, but the movie was phenomenally executed and didn't feel like it (unless you were looking for it).
by default most of the time someone tries to use symbolism, it becomes a cliche because whenever someone gets a real stroke of genius, and executes one brilliant example of symbolism, or anything for that matter, in media, it gets copied into millions of replicas which never have as strong of an impression as the original... a prime example would be superman when it first came out, the simile "as strong as a speeding bullet" was considered to be one of the best uses of poetic devices ever, but now, no one cares cause it's been used and overused...
remember ep10 on madoka? that turned out great, of course, after stein's gate ep 13, it would seem that yet another cliche will be born after a year or so... again...
You can (how can one rain in space?), but you gotta admit that it's just not the same without that finishing touch of weather.
@OTIKA 23:55 :
It's a meteor shower!
(And now my spacesuit is full of tiny holes, and the air is leaking out, and I'm getting all chilly, and it is so sad ... )
they allways have some hidden biome more cliche
than the map in mincraft... like in trigun in the space parts they had fake outdoors... if it was gintama you probably would see urinals flush to space only to see the stupid prince who flushed your moment...or simply some one having a touchy moment with rain will have it cut when they realize some one is peeing... how can gintama end at 200 and one piece and detective connan are 500+? the gintama setup is infinite possibilities and yet a show about a hidden box or a shrunk kid gets more...
16. guy enters room/bath when the girl/girls are changing
17. At any hot springs resort, neither the male or female characters seems to know whether it's time for 'male only', female only', or 'mixed bathing', causing an embarassing situation.
18. Whenever any male character gets even slightly sexually aroused, his nose starts to bleed. Happens with girls sometimes, but almost always the guys.
They forgot! LOL
19. Just some of the protagonist's ally gets beaten or some dead the Hero protagonist comes late because he had a training to become a lot more stronger then he show off his powers to the antagonist!
It's over 9000!
Rain is symbolism. It's good if used well.
17. When a character says something that's supposed to be deep and profound and then out of nowhere the wind starts blowing.
"Rain is symbolism. It's good if used well."
Agreed, but Japanese media has overused this specific trope to the point where it has become one of the most painfully obvious cliches. Shame, really.
Girls who are prone to cry easily. What's really weird is that almost all H-manga have the girls crying at some point during sex.
-.- it's not weird at all considering most girls in h-manga are being put there against their will,
And everyone knows that important conversations are all held on school rooftops...
the villain explain his evil plan to the heroes only to get owned at the end and the heroes put the villain's plan at the last minute thanks to the information they received beforehand from the villain himself.
how i wish every villain could be like Ozymandias
"I'm not a Republic serial villain. Do you think I'd be explaining my masterstroke if there remained the slightest chance of you affecting the outcome? I did it thirty-five minutes ago"
ZOMG! When protagonists explain their attacks so they can get easily countered by the antagonists and vice versa, keep that shit secret, how you fight is your only weapon.
Someone yelling whilst the camera pans to the sky.
sounds like all anime these days...
i can understand, and enjoy bath occasional bath scenes
even boys walking in on girls in bath seems ok, but both the girl AND the boy needs to stop freaking out so much, THERES STEAM EVERYWHERE WHEN YOU BATHE ANYWAYS!
rain is fine tbhimo, but should be used in a complete opposite way from time to time
fan service, and lonely otaku service (in the event where the main character is the split image of a worst case scenario guy in real life with a dream to become successful one day) are fine. but just NOT the way those retarded directors have been trying to spoon feed us lately. YES I do want to see Rei naked, NO i don't want her to be on a beach for no reason! Yes i want an emotional break up, NO it doesn't have to involve some sort of rain! YES i want to see some one man the fuck up! NO it doesnt need to be the same fricking guy every anime! YES i want a fucking badass antagonist type guy, NO he doesn't even have to be the bad guy! YES! i want to see people gaining new powers! NO THEY DONT NEED TO EXPLAIN IT IN DETAILS!
as quote hellsing abridged; Allucard:"fuck you, thats' how"
^ THAT NEEDS TO HAPPEN MORE!
YES I WANT LOLIS! NO I DON"T WANT THEM TO COME IN THE DOZENS! YES I WANT HEROINES IN THE SHOW! NO THEY DONT NEED TO MAKE UP THE ENTIRE CAST EXCEPT THE MAIN CHARACTER!!! YES I WANT MAGIC, no, damit fate stay night, stop explaining it like its real.
FUCK, more directors needs to be educated in the epic shits, and not base their bad guys off of the storm troopers from starwars. Get them started on hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy, that should fucking teach them a thing or two about the entertainment industry! THAT WAY ANIME CAN ACTUALLY MAKE IT BIG AND STOP BEING SOMETHING THAT ONLY LONLY OTAKUS WHO ARE OBVIOUSLY LOLICONS IN DENIAL WATCHES!
oh and, all the gundams that came out in the past ten years except unicorn (even that was tainted...) sucked shit, and that's because they decided to give the protagonists a dark and dangerous past...
so heres my number infinity: the protagonist of a mecha or action show will have a terrible, terrible past, where their entire character's based on.
I want my ' screw the past I have a whole life ahead of me ' guy, right now.