Things You Wish Weren't So Common in Anime

[Metropolisforever_2]

Don't you hate those dumb cliches that plague modern anime? Here are some of the things I'm tired of seeing:

1. Otaku-baiting moe garbage. UGH.

2. Violent retribution for accidental infringement (e.g., a character will do something offensive by accident, and will get beaten up for it). Not funny, guise.

3. Fanservice in SERIOUS SHOWS. It just ruins it. Fanservice in silly comedies is fine, but serious dramas should not have dopey fanservice moments.

4. Shows that take place in high school.

5. Teenagers who are THE WORLD'S ONLY HOPE against whatever.

6. Tsundere characters (who always end up getting their way in the end).

7. FILLER!

8. "Badass" side characters

9. Deflecting bullets with swords and/or dodging them with super-speed/reflexes.

10. Kiddie romances (especially the incestuous ones)

11. The main character falling for a girl who doesn't want him (and there's a perfectly good girl who DOES want him)

12. Shonen/seinen protagonists who are COMPLETE IDIOTS (and their smartass female sidekicks).

13. Mindless shonen fighting shows (e.g. Bleach, Naruto, Kekkaishi, ect.)

14. Fights that last 20 episodes.

15. Sexist depictions of female characters.

I have far, far too many to list. >.>

How about you? What are some things you wish weren't so common in anime?

[Jeffbert]

[Fauna]

I have the theory that some anime is just like english television, and they share the same faults. Nearly everything we do in film and television has an equivalent in Japan. If Cowboy Bebop or City Hunter were made in America, they'd be filmed in live action.

What I really wish wasn't used so much was the tactic of playing pedophilia for laughs. I recently bought the Tetsujin 28 movie, which is a huge deal for me, and was horrified to see a female character from the TV series (whom wasn't that strong a character anyway) turned into a shrieking genki shotacon. She makes advances on the series' main character - a ten year old boy - that are inappropriate and disturbing, but the only thing she is called out on is for making one of the adult male characters jealous. It tarnished much of the rest of the movie for me, which is a huge feat, seeing as the rest of the film was fabulous.

A showdown should take less than one episode. Naruto and Dragonball Z are big offenders of this.

Also, I'm pretty tired of the predictable killing-of-the-show's-coolest-character. As soon as you see all the characters, you can almost immediately expect which of them are going to die. Why don't tsunderes ever die?! Is it because they bring in a lot of merchandise money?

[solitarybird]

But kiddie romances are cute! And realistic!

Lots of kids have puppy love at a very young age. Totally normal.

Though, the incestuous ones aren't, I'd hope!

Teenagers being the world's only hope might be cliche, but no more than a little kid or a group of little kids being the world's only hope. It's a fantasy many children enjoy, that dream of being independent (hence why so many child characters are orphaned-- besides the "technically not seperated from the family, but always absent father" common to many Japanese households and anime, like Pokemon). ^^;

Dumb shounen protagonists are cute, but more variety would be nice. Not in the teenage department. All thirteen-to-fifteen year old boys are just plain dumb.

Naruto doesn't even have that many fights in it. O_o I'll never understand why people always pin it as that. Is it the fandom? It has all of, what, six big fights in the entirety of Part I?

Part II's pretty lackluster, so I won't comment on that.

Bleach has plenty more fights, so I won't argue with that point! But I certainly wouldn't call it mindless. It has a lot of heart.
[SPOIL]
The main character pretty much lives to protect those dear to him, after his mother died to save him and he couldn't do anything as a child. I always found it sweet...

Not to mention, it has one of the best depictions of a female main character in recent kid's anime to date!

Rukia is just wonderful. She's strong, often stoic, and codes as quite masculine and an ideal warrior, but also has her quirks (she loves to draw... if poorly and adores bunnies).

She's not emotionless or inhuman either. She carries a lot of guilt with her and has displayed emotion various times, although a lot of the time, it's merely anger and frustration. xD;;

Still, she's quite fresh. It's hard to describe, have you ever read the manga or watched the show?

Plus she isn't used for fanservice in the show, which is a breath of fresh air. Even Orihime, with her busty chest, who seems to be your typical fanservice character, actually aids in the fights, and shows depth and isn't entirely stereotypical.

I'm not saying it's flawless (urghhhh, some fanservice later on, and Aizen being the most hacked villain ever), but it doesn't deserve that insult when so many other shows are much better targets.[/SPOIL]

That was all me getting rather defensive about Bleach, not exactly on-topic. ^^;

BUT TOTALLY AGREED on the last point.

I understand Japan is still very much behind when it comes to the feminist movement, but... seriously now.

Also!

16. Portraying rape as romantic or for the purpose of titulation. That disgusts me to no end, but the first is sadly common in, oddly enough, works made by women for women (like shoujo and yaoi).

I do love the realistic depiction of rape's after-effects in Shite Wagamama H's one-shot story "Second Rape ~Made-Up Myth~". It's age-appropriate, but realistic.

But, the fact that it's the only one of its nature that I've ever seen?! COME ON. Get your act together, writers!

[Xenops]

I'm assuming #15 also includes scantily-clad women? That's the common occurance that bugs me.

This relates to #4, but I'm annoyed by young protagonists in general. I thought the only good parts of Naruto were when the focus was on Tsunade and Naruto's mentor (the pervert guy, forgot his name). Those were interesting characters--I couldn't care less about Naruto and Sakura and Sasuke's pet peeves and picking on each other. Actually I enjoyed Gaara, but the mangaka seems to have dismissed him. >.<



Anyway, happy news: I just watched Cowboy Bepop, and I think it handles Sci-fi elements very well.

[Bigdog]

1. In animes of the Henshin Hero genre like Sailor Moon or Guyver, they take too long to transform where realistically they would be dead on the ground and floored.

2.Slutty girls. Even in Shojo manga like Sailor Moon and Fruits Basket , it seems as if daily, women are just running around looking like a bunch of hookers and strippers like it's some established norm save to those perverts/pedophiles which are the male audience's representative if they were in the world. Unless the character is a hooker or a hoe or if its a comedic series that is a satire, I want to see reasonably dressing women back in anime and manga where women can actually dress however they want in a nonsimpy way. Not saying burqas should be the norm or that women should be covered neck toe , but I don't see why women should appear as if they are all looking for sex . And they are wondering why women want to look like this.

3.Girls with literal melons on their chest. In American as well as in Japanese media, this always seems to be a culprit that pisses me off. I might be a guy, but I just don't see the appeal of disproportionately sized balls of fat on a woman as anywhere attractive and more like they are freaks of nature. I'm more about semi-realistic depictions that do not border on the ridiculous/sexist since we never see giant hot dogs on a man or a huge unrealistic bump on his pants. Just make them more like #2 if they are slutty and if not gives them the impression as a dumb character which leads to #5.

4.Fillers that do jack-crap. While fillers may add to the anime, having entire seasons makes me wonder how in the bloody hell are ANY of today's anime not canned like Naruto because it has nothing to do with any plot whatsoever. Bleach seems to have mastered the art of the Filler since their filler is pretty damn good, pardon my language, because it actually adds to the plot.

5. Female stereotypes. #'s 2 and 3. In every anime I have seen, it seems to say that women should be submissive ,be weak, and just the silent and meek characters. This reason is why I commend Hayao Miyazaki ,Tite Kubo, Ishinomori and Tezuka for making roles that go against the status quo. I just despise how women are depicted in anime.

6.Hate pedophilia and how rape is positively seen. It's like none of today's modern creators have an ounce of morality, nonetheless even glanced at Tezuka's works. I loved Hikaruon and Guyver , both animes where it is seen as detrimental to women . This is the reason why Melmo will never get an updated anime series because for some reason, Japan has this fascination with being perverted in their media, especially in their female-run creations.

7. Let's all make the umpteenth Dragon Ball/High school Drama girls, guys. Nuff said.

8.An overabundance of child heroes that all seek to be Goku clones ,but fail. This is what turns me off most modern anime because they all try and fail miserably at it. IF I want Goku, I'll watch DB.

9. Endless fights.
10.Repetitive ,predictable formulaic plots. DBZ as in the anime has this down to a science where the new villain shows up, hero or heroes can't beat new villain/s, discover new powers from within/never tapped and pull a Deus Ex Machina out of their butts to where the day is saved.
11.Too many happy endings, no provocative anime series.
12.Stop killing the cool characters and make it less predictable. Someone like the Wayan Bros. needs to consider making an Anime Movie for this reason and exploit every trope that anime exploits too much.
13. Jeefbert's 1- 2.
14. Jeffbert's 3.
15. Metroplisforever_2's 9.
16. 15's 12.
17. Depictions of other races. I can understand older works such as Tezuka's , but it's the 21st Century man. It gets pretty tiring to see such things pervade to today and while I'm not for Political Correctness ,I just find that fairer depictions all around wouldn't be so bad.

[Jeffbert]

I am glad you agree on these points, Bigdog. I saw a recent couple of BLEACH episodes that were parodies of BLEACH itself. I was a bit relieved to see that BLEACH's writers KNEW just how silly this series often is.

[Bigdog]

[Jeffbert]

[Bigdog]

[Jeffbert]

I too, missed the parents, as I indicated on my page for their manga story:


Note that the links on this page may not go to anywhere but the site's main page, I or someone else will fix this eventually.

[Bigdog]