Horrible anime tropes and bad cliches in general aren’t that bad or annoying. Some just need toning down.
Cliches are normal after all, you can expect to see it in entertainment, real life, and of course anime.
That said, there are anime tropes and cliches I personally can get tired of seeing too much.
Some need to die, others need to take a backseat….
Here they are.
1. Guy falling into girls breasts
This is the kind of thing you’ll see in the Ecchi genre, and I take no issue with that. BUT it’s the quantity that gets tiring.
In fact you can see it in other anime genres outside of
One example is Asterisk War, an anime I feel gets better later on. More so with the 2nd season.
It literally starts out with Ayato, the main character, falling into the female MC’S breasts after their little spat (fight).
What follows from that is obvious as far as how the girl reacts, even if the event is supposedly “accidental”.
The same thing happens in the anime A Certain Magical Index. It’s NOT to be expected with this kind of series, but even still.
When you’ve watched as many anime as I have, certain things become stale, or they just get in the way of what could have been a better anime series.
It does seem like this anime trope isn’t as common these days, especially since 2019-2021.
2. The “justice” trope
This is a trope I feel is one of the worst. It has less to do with morals, ethics, or standards like some other tropes, and more to do with how painful it can be.
The main character, usually in a
It’s usually to a naive degree, and it’s only worsened by how much “justice” talk there happens to be. Meaning how much time is given to it.
This isn’t a trope that needs to die, and not one I consider horrible. More like I think it needs to be toned down.
The main issue is how it’s dealt with and handled. If the writing of the character had some creativity when it comes to this, it wouldn’t be so bad.
At times, it can get too predictable and obvious. The anime Slayers is a bit of a parody, so I give that a pass with this trope.
Related: 17+ Of The Greatest Female Lead Shonen Anime Worth Watching
3. Hand slipping onto girls breasts
This actually works both ways.
First you have the cliche of the guy’s hand slipping onto a
Other times it happens and the girl may “like” it, so she doesn’t need to react violently or whatever.
Then there’s the case of other
Like a lot of things in anime or entertainment, it’s all about the context and how it’s handled and portrayed.
A lot of the time it’s not handled the best, and it takes away from what’s happening because it’s used as a cheap tactic for so called comedy.
4. Painfully obvious plot armor
An anime that comes straight to my mind is Twin Star Exorcist. It’s a
I remember a scene where Rokuro survives something he shouldn’t have. The plot armor was so thick that it was too obvious to not see.
There was no real explanation for it either, more of just a convenience to keep the main character alive.
Another anime where plot armor is abused…. Is
During the last season of
She’s on a whole other level when it comes to power and abilities, and this was demonstrated. But they gave Erza impossible plot armor, along with the power of friendship to an unnecessary degree.
Erza wins that battle, and it’s all for the sake of pushing the plot forward and playing it SAFE.
Plot armor to this degree needs toning down, or killing, depending on the situation.
5. Accidentally walking into room with naked girl
Bringing up the anime Asterisk War yet again, this is something you see within the first episode.
In fact it’s something that happens within the first 5 or 10 minutes of the anime series. Ayato walks into Julis’s room to return something, and she’s in the middle of getting dressed.
Again, cliches and tropes like this aren’t bad when there’s rhyme and reason to it. Or when it’s not abused.
You also see this in the anime And you thought there was never a girl online?
The male MC eventually walks into Ako’s room, and she’s practically naked. And the whole “embarrassed” cliche starts to play itself out as both characters bicker about it.
For someone like me who’s seen it more times than I can count, it can take away from the anime and get boring.
6. The abuse of the word “pervert”
You see this in the anime Darling In The Franxx. Zero Two calls Hiro a pervert when he see’s her naked.
It’s pretty light when it comes to this anime in particular.
For other anime this trope can be taken even further. The male character is called a pervert just for being interested or attracted to the girl.
Or the guy is called a pervert just because the girl is embarrassed, shy, or not honest with her own feelings. So she starts “projecting” onto the male character.
It can get jarring seeing this over and over again. Especially when it’s so out of context and holds no weight.
7. Talk No Jutsu (Too much blabbering)
And finally, Talk No Jutsu comes last. I’m not talking about Naruto when I mention this, even though the phrase started with Naruto.
I’m not talking about the actual meaning from Naruto either.
Basically in Shonen, characters have a tendency to talk too much. That’s what I’m getting at.
Whether that means:
- Preaching for a whole episode.
- Preaching for tons of episodes (during fights, etc).
- Giving too much of a TED talk, literally.
Or anything in between.
The lengthy talks can get overboard. It’s a case of context. If it’s done too much and the point has been made already, then it becomes overkill.
Anime like Monogatari are examples of turning the “chatty” dialogue into an art and giving it purpose.
What other tropes would you consider BAD?
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