Most HATED anime tropes discussion

[neflight86]

I used to make topical, non series specific threads about this or that years ago; lets see if we can drum up some discussion!

Everyone here knows the typical seasonal anime is comprised of approximately %75 tropes on average. They aren't deal breakers per say, but they sure are noticeable if you've been consuming Asian cartoons/comics as long as we have. What are some of the most heinous tropes that almost immediately tune you out of whatever you're watching, and why?

I'll start with an example: The shounen light novel self-insert main character trope. This trope is where the main character of a series is awesome, the strongest, and surrounded by coveting girls, and still somehow above it all and uninterested in the world rending events they are apart of. Very popular in the mid 2010's with shows like Sword Art Online, Asterisk War, Chivalry of a Failed Knight, and Irregular at Magic High School. It just reeks of teenage escapism and a lust for prosperity facing minimal hardship and even less character. One youtuber years ago put it well: "these characters are designed to appeal to how young boys see/want to see themselves". The clumsiest degeneration of the "rule of cool". It also betrays a fundamental lack of skill in the author, as a character devoid of personality is so much easier to write than a developed one; perfect fodder for serialized light novels... After a point, I was more saddened by the personality seeking this kind of validation than repulsed the laziness of the trope itself.

Writing it out, it sounds more bitter than I had hoped...

That said, the trope is done well (or at least interestingly) in Classroom of the Elite, where the main character is portrayed as a sociopath and the system he resides within enabling his personality a fundamentally 'bad' one. I consider that the exception that proves the rule, though I've watched plenty of power fantasy in spite of this trope souring things.

Well, what are your hated tropes and where are they especially bad? Where have they been good, if ever?

[MFauli]

Where to even begin?! lol. Nice thread idea, I will probably keep posting a lot in the future as I come across something in current anime ;>

Let me start with these:

- "Gay Hero"-trope. It's often part of the trope you meantion, but what irks me here is not some self-insertion or whatever, it's that the hero is written to attract all the girls, but NEVER shows any real interest, outside of POSSIBLY blushing. This exists in 2 variations, either a completely "gay" hero who never shows any interest despite hot girls flinging themselves at him. Or a "pussy" hero who is fuly aware of the hot girls at his disposal, but keeps making up bs reasons for why he mustn't do anything. Just to be clear, I don't need a School Days-situation where a hero bangs EVERY girl. What I want are realistic heroes who take up an opportunity when it arises, to some degree. And yes, Ichika from Infinite Stratos will always be my main hatred hero in this trope.

- "Effort is being punished", I just thought about this yesterday. In anime, putting in effort into training your body is always punished. See all those muscle men who trained years to get to where they are? Screw them, let's make fun of them and defeat them like it's nothing, because our scrawny teenage heroes who did some "special training" for 2 weeks are now stronger than them, and without showing any muscles on their body, too! Honestly, this trope makes no sense to me in context of Japanese society where effort and diligence are being held so high, yet in anime, fuck effort. Just makes me feel bad for the side-characters that spent so much time and energy to train their bodies properly.

- "Gravity does not exist", call me nitpicky, but whether it's falling or jumping, gravity appears to not be a concept in many anime. Just two days ago I watched the new episode of Vigilantes, and the new vigilante who kills with a sword just casually jumps up buildings and skyscrapers. And I have my doubts that this is part of his quirk, it's just something he can do, because ... because! I wish gravity was taken more seriously, as it'd make situations feel much more serious and thus interesting. It's especially bad when you actually have a character taking damage or even dying from falling. Like, why this time and not the 1000 other times?

More shitty tropes incoming ...

[shinta|hikari]

I hate the harem member trope, when they just create archetype characters to add to the harem, not because they are inherently interesting. No, adding animal ears and a tail does not make it a better character.

[Death BOO Z]

anything with high percentage of blatant fan-service usually get a "no" from me. until it reaches the extreme when it becomes art again. If "Rosen Garden" was half, I'd hate it. its also true for emotional/"moe" fan-service, there's a level of cuteness/purity that makes me de-attach.

anything with a status screen of abilities, that's never been good. and the whole genre of "weakest? actually strongest!" of crap. and since this is an isekai roll, I'll add the trope of gathering waifus at the pre-determined order of "waifu, loli, beast girl, hero, older lady", characters who live in fantasy worlds but somehow don't consider magic an option (the muscle guys who get beat up to have the hero save a child), adventure guilds are usually a sign of a bad story. anytime a person ability is ranked and that is presented as "always true". extra hate boner for "the machine did a full spin and now everybody thinks I'm weak but I'm actually too strong to measure".

---
side note: the whole power levels thing? E-rank to S-rank? quantifying a person's power numerically? DragonBall Z told us this is bullshit. you can't put a number on a person worth. even though Toriyama practically invented power-levels (or at least made them popular), it was very clear the numbers weren't accurate, could change, and most of all - this was something the villains did. decent people don't view others like that.
---

contrived romance stories where the whole world arranges itself to fit the drama of the teenager heroes, like having a very important business deal rely on some bet between the love rivals.

male characters who want to live "a slow life" and spineless female characters that are afraid of not being polite to the point they allow the worst things to happen just so they won't have to take an initiative. this happens so much that when I read stories that have characters with actual "wants" I'm shocked because I forget characters can be interesting and engaging, and not just vehicles for world-building and exposition.
stories in which characters somehow avoid asking really basic questions about the world they reside in for the sake of surprising the audience. shows that end the first season at the starting point (most of netflix live-action adaptations), or keep the plot start to the final episode in a flashback (miraculous ��).
shows with very rapey men that female characters don't try to avoid.

[neflight86]

Great stuff so far.


- "Gay Hero"-trope. It's often part of the trope you meantion, but what irks me here is not some self-insertion or whatever, it's that the hero is written to attract all the girls, but NEVER shows any real interest, outside of POSSIBLY blushing. This exists in 2 variations, either a completely "gay" hero who never shows any interest despite hot girls flinging themselves at him. Or a "pussy" hero who is fuly aware of the hot girls at his disposal, but keeps making up bs reasons for why he mustn't do anything. Just to be clear, I don't need a School Days-situation where a hero bangs EVERY girl. What I want are realistic heroes who take up an opportunity when it arises, to some degree. And yes, Ichika from Infinite Stratos will always be my main hatred hero in this trope.

Fair observation. I think this is more of a 'sexless' hero than a 'gay' one, unless he has/develops romantic feelings for another dude. I believe this phenomena stems back to the 'self insert' in that young boys have no experience reciprocating to romantic advances, and it is a very personal emotion to explore, meaning it is quite out of the depth of those authors to capture in the first place, and might make young readers uncomfortable, but they need the fanservice and teasing to remain relevant when their paper thin stories can't maintain an audience, so the flirtation must remain. It's like having your cake and letting the girl hold it, too.


- "Effort is being punished", I just thought about this yesterday. In anime, putting in effort into training your body is always punished. See all those muscle men who trained years to get to where they are? Screw them, let's make fun of them and defeat them like it's nothing, because our scrawny teenage heroes who did some "special training" for 2 weeks are now stronger than them, and without showing any muscles on their body, too! Honestly, this trope makes no sense to me in context of Japanese society where effort and diligence are being held so high, yet in anime, fuck effort. Just makes me feel bad for the side-characters that spent so much time and energy to train their bodies properly.

That is certainly a trait of lazy, hyperbolic storytelling we get more often than not. That said, thankfully there do exist some examples of 'effort beating out genius' and 'your training will never betray you'... predominantly in sports stories I've noticed, but in general action, brevity is prioritized over consistent world building and physical limitations. It could be argued that animation is especially suited to this kind of fudging of reality, but for many it is a bridge too far when lolis send grown men/robots/architecture flying with seer physical prowess. One theory is that bulking out women into Armstrong levels of strength makes them unattractive, and so the audience turns a blind eye towards the inconstancies to maintain the ever important moe. It is always silly when viewed by a normie, though. Great gripe.


since this is an isekai roll, I'll add the trope of gathering waifus at the pre-determined order of "waifu, loli, beast girl, hero, older lady"

I find it hilarious you've noticed even an order of collection in the harem gatcha.


male characters who want to live "a slow life" and spineless female characters that are afraid of not being polite to the point they allow the worst things to happen just so they won't have to take an initiative.

I hate this too, and I think it represents herbivore men trying to justify their own lack of ambition. We can't all be the best, but not even trying anything but 'living a slow life' is a cop out hiding a repressed, consuming fear of responsibility... at least that's the lens I view such characters through. Especially if you are (undoubtedly) blessed with talents by your creator (author-kun), you have a responsibility to use them to better the world for those not so lucky- wait, that begs all sorts of sociopolitical philosophy...


side note: the whole power levels thing? E-rank to S-rank? quantifying a person's power numerically? DragonBall Z told us this is bullshit. you can't put a number on a person worth. even though Toriyama practically invented power-levels (or at least made them popular), it was very clear the numbers weren't accurate, could change, and most of all - this was something the villains did. decent people don't view others like that.

Interesting, I've never heard that take, but it makes sense. Funny that the point was more or less lost over the years as almost all anime use naming/ranking systems as pretty firm descriptors of its characters by both good and bad alike, typically as a jobbing short-cut.


contrived romance stories where the whole world arranges itself to fit the drama of the teenager heroes, like having a very important business deal rely on some bet between the love rivals.

I get why it can be annoying, but I typically like those hammy contrived 'we gotta pretend we're dating/married or some such arrangement' scenarios because it is the fastest way to force infinitely demure anime characters out of their comfort zones. That said, making entire real-world consequences hinge on trivial teenage angst like you mentioned can make the eyes roll; I believe Asian countries are more fixated on melodrama than any other region and it shows in the storytelling like this.

I suppose it depends on the execution, because I enjoy something like Love is War because the absurdity is leaned into, yet found the Yakuza conflict in a show like "Nisekoi", or more recently "I'm marrying a girl in my class I hate" silly and trite because the extraneous cast (Yazuka and grandparents) came off more caricature than character. Like you said, the entire world shifting and existing to tell a specific story requires one heck of a story to feel satisfying.

[Kraco]

A thing that regularly makes me drop series are idiotic main characters. Not always, as I like some idiots, like Black Star from Soul Eater, but I dislike those that feel like they are idiotic because the author is lacking any logic and ability to make the MC act rationally at all. But I suppose this isn't really a trope, so it's not relevant to this thread.


I'll start with an example: The shounen light novel self-insert main character trope. This trope is where the main character of a series is awesome, the strongest, and surrounded by coveting girls, and still somehow above it all and uninterested in the world rending events they are apart of. Very popular in the mid 2010's with shows like Sword Art Online, Asterisk War, Chivalry of a Failed Knight, and Irregular at Magic High School. It just reeks of teenage escapism and a lust for prosperity facing minimal hardship and even less character. One youtuber years ago put it well: "these characters are designed to appeal to how young boys see/want to see themselves". The clumsiest degeneration of the "rule of cool". It also betrays a fundamental lack of skill in the author, as a character devoid of personality is so much easier to write than a developed one; perfect fodder for serialized light novels... After a point, I was more saddened by the personality seeking this kind of validation than repulsed the laziness of the trope itself.

Almost all isekai is trash, and it's also mostly isekai, though sometimes cliched non-isekai fantasy, where these instantly OP main character appear these days. While I'm not denying what you are saying, but we also need to remember that fundamentally isekai is escapism literature. The Japanese people are living in a rat race from the kindergarten age, and it only gets worse further down the line through education until they finally end up working for, that is, exploited by a black company. So, they like to read about the hero who gets everything without effort and is the strongest of all. Maybe the MC is worshipped by others, maybe he's disliked by others, by it doesn't really matter when he's so strong he can do anything and doesn't depend on anyone. This is, essentially, a story targeted to that vast portion of the Japanese population who aren't satisfied with their life and never will be. It's pure entertainment industry, not literature submitted to the Nobel literature prize committee for evaluation.


- "Gay Hero"-trope. It's often part of the trope you meantion, but what irks me here is not some self-insertion or whatever, it's that the hero is written to attract all the girls, but NEVER shows any real interest, outside of POSSIBLY blushing. This exists in 2 variations, either a completely "gay" hero who never shows any interest despite hot girls flinging themselves at him. Or a "pussy" hero who is fuly aware of the hot girls at his disposal, but keeps making up bs reasons for why he mustn't do anything. Just to be clear, I don't need a School Days-situation where a hero bangs EVERY girl. What I want are realistic heroes who take up an opportunity when it arises, to some degree. And yes, Ichika from Infinite Stratos will always be my main hatred hero in this trope.

I suppose a part of this is due to what is traditionally shown in the shounen publications. Since they mostly can't show much, maybe it's a tradition to not even create situations where much would happen. They can still show boobs, unlike in the Marvel comics, but otherwise nothing can happen. But even if this is a part of the reason, more reasons must be elsewhere.


- "Effort is being punished", I just thought about this yesterday. In anime, putting in effort into training your body is always punished. See all those muscle men who trained years to get to where they are? Screw them, let's make fun of them and defeat them like it's nothing, because our scrawny teenage heroes who did some "special training" for 2 weeks are now stronger than them, and without showing any muscles on their body, too! Honestly, this trope makes no sense to me in context of Japanese society where effort and diligence are being held so high, yet in anime, fuck effort. Just makes me feel bad for the side-characters that spent so much time and energy to train their bodies properly.

The Japanese society is not a meritocracy. You need to put in a lot of effort, but it's not necessarily meaningful effort. The society is very formulaic, hierarchical, and ceremonial. It's more important to lick your superior's boots than to perform well. It's more important to do the same 12-hour workdays as everyone else, even if hours were wasted on socialising with your coworkers and flattering the bosses, rather than working efficiently. Because if you leave work before the others, not doing regular overtime, you aren't showing proper dedication to your employer. Exam results and a prestigious school background are more important than what you can actually do. So, that two weeks of special training is better than years of hard work. Because it's special.



I get why it can be annoying, but I typically like those hammy contrived 'we gotta pretend we're dating/married or some such arrangement' scenarios because it is the fastest way to force infinitely demure anime characters out of their comfort zones. That said, making entire real-world consequences hinge on trivial teenage angst like you mentioned can make the eyes roll; I believe Asian countries are more fixated on melodrama than any other region and it shows in the storytelling like this.

I thought I'd come up with little to complain about, but I hate those "let's pretend" plots.

Other thing I dislike are extreme harems and insecure writing, where no other important male character apart from the MC can exist, at least for longer than a single arc (naturally not counting the enemies). It's always more interesting if the MC can have buddies and those friends can develop their own relationships, which don't need to compete with the MC.

[KrayZ33]

I think it would almost be more interesting what tropes are actually good and always fun.

Most anime tropes are making your eyes roll, it's just the amount of stuff you can suffer through and still enjoy the show. I love shows that makes fun of a trope, while also using it itself.

Like Shadowgarden. I think the Harem take, OP character Isekai, is sufficiently made fun off so that I can overlook the fact that the anime itself is basically just catering the tropes too.



Worst trope for me is: omnipotent MCs, especially when they get cheat coded all the time through means not established yet.
Like a power up that wasn't there until he needed it. The only time that is okay is if he is going berserk.

[neflight86]

I think it would almost be more interesting what tropes are actually good and always fun.

Don't let the title stop you- share what tropes you like. I usually seek out what I think is different almost on principle, but that doesn't mean the comfortable can't be fun. Matter of fact, I probably drop more experimental shows by proportion than bottom tier trope repositories.


Almost all isekai is trash, and it's also mostly isekai, though sometimes cliched non-isekai fantasy, where these instantly OP main character appear these days. While I'm not denying what you are saying, but we also need to remember that fundamentally isekai is escapism literature. The Japanese people are living in a rat race from the kindergarten age, and it only gets worse further down the line through education until they finally end up working for, that is, exploited by a black company. So, they like to read about the hero who gets everything without effort and is the strongest of all. Maybe the MC is worshipped by others, maybe he's disliked by others, by it doesn't really matter when he's so strong he can do anything and doesn't depend on anyone. This is, essentially, a story targeted to that vast portion of the Japanese population who aren't satisfied with their life and never will be. It's pure entertainment industry, not literature submitted to the Nobel literature prize committee for evaluation.

I don't disagree, but when you put it like that it's kinda depressing, like everyone in Japan is one good push from suicide. In that regard, escapism sounds downright wholesome. I'd figure an interesting story would serve just as much as a 'distraction' as any escapism, but an interesting story is much more difficult to write.

To add another: I've always hated the talking animal sidekick ever since it first appeared in whatever magical girl show I first saw it in. Must be a cultural thing, but talking animal guides/companions just don't jive with me, though I'm quite fond of pets. Maybe it's because it robs cute little animals of their innocence?

[MFauli]

Okay, another bunch:

- "Isekai as a fixed concept": I talked about this before, but I HATE how the isekai-genre has become this samey "hero reborn in generic fantasy-world PLUS one gimmick". This limits what an isekai story could be so much. Isekai in theory is anything where someone travels from one world to another, with one of the worlds usually being our real world to make for a better contrast. But instead of telling all sorts of different isekai-stories, it's always the same generic setup: A Kirito-esque hero, dying, reborn, overpowered, and one gimmick to advertiste the anime with. Sigh. I cannot even mention any fanfic for what good isekai I think of, because there's just sooo much. My favorite concept, reverse-isekai, are entirely underrepresented, with GATE and Re:Creators being the "best" examples. I have no idea where there is no desire to create more mature, realistic isekai stories that feature properly developed characters and plausible stories. Again, so much potential for exciting stories, but now, we only get "THE" isekai ...

- "Fixed romance": When the hero meets a girl at the beginning and now they are the destined couple and nothing can ever change. Made worse by having other girls around that try to win the hero's heart, but you as the audience know that they'll all fail, because the main girl already has his heart. One of the anime I hated this most was ReZero. Subaru had NO reason to be in love with Emilia that hard, when Rem confessed to him. By everything that's holy, he should have switched to Rem for his big love. Ofc, plot required him to stay with Emilia, sigh. But there's countless stories in all genres where the hero already has his desinted girl and nothing will change it. Especially after they're together, god forbid that someone breaks up and gets another girl then.

- "Delinquents as a force of nature": You know, when there's evil delinquents who do bad stuff all the time, but NOBODY ever calls a teacher, a parent, or someone else, or if they do, they're being ignored. Or if they're not ignored ,the delinquents somehow hold so much power that they actually expand their terror reign over the teacher/parent/etc.. This infuriates me every time. Especially in severe cases where the hero is getting robbed or severely beaten up. There was this one basketball anime where delinquents took over the boy's basketball clubroom, drilled a hole in the wall to spy on the girls who had their dressing room next door. These guys were huge and looked dangerous, and the way they behaved towards the girls was SO rapey, it made me drop the anime. Like, it felt like they could at any moment rape one of the girls and I hated that. But again, countless cases of shitty delinquents that keep getting away with doing bad stuff until much later in the story.

[shinta|hikari]

- "Isekai as a fixed concept": I talked about this before, but I HATE how the isekai-genre has become this samey "hero reborn in generic fantasy-world PLUS one gimmick". This limits what an isekai story could be so much.

100% this. Instead of a typical modern dude transported to a fantasy or even scifi world, or even that in reverse, why not create new settings for both origin and destination? That way, we are introduced to two fresh worlds at the same time and how their cultures and technologies interact.


I also hate the fixed romantic partner aspect, unless they start a committed relationship, in which case it is expected they don't find other partners (assuming they aren't poly). I want there to be tension and wonder about who will end up with who. I liked how Ichigo 100% handled it.

[Ryllharu]

Easily my most hated anime trope is the perfect and angelic female lead in a romance series. No wants or desires of her own, no faults (unless it is something stupid like can't cook), no personality quirks, nothing that would ever deter her from her singular devotion to the self-insert male lead's wants or need for emotional comfort. Perfectly demure, perfectly subservient, perfectly behaved.

There are more interesting non-sentient female androids than some of these shonen/seinen romance female leads.

It's a trash invocation of regressive Japanese societal roles and it is boring as shit. Give me Nana or Hachi of NANA any day. Flawed, whiny, vulnerable, fiery, and self-motivated. This stuff never happens in Korean series either, at least of what I've read.


100% this. Instead of a typical modern dude transported to a fantasy or even scifi world, or even that in reverse, why not create new settings for both origin and destination? That way, we are introduced to two fresh worlds at the same time and how their cultures and technologies interact.
I feel like this is something that Villainess subgenre series actually do well.


- "Delinquents as a force of nature": You know, when there's evil delinquents who do bad stuff all the time, but NOBODY ever calls a teacher, a parent, or someone else, or if they do, they're being ignored. Or if they're not ignored ,the delinquents somehow hold so much power that they actually expand their terror reign over the teacher/parent/etc.. This infuriates me every time. Especially in severe cases where the hero is getting robbed or severely beaten up. Time for you to read Angel Densetsu, from Claymore's author.

[shinta|hikari]

Angel Densetsu is legendary.

[DarthEnderX]

Fantasy worlds with video game mechanics for no logical reason.

If you're inside a VR game or simulated reality, fine. But if you're in an actual fantasy world, wtf are there levels and status screens?


Don't let the title stop you- share what tropes you like.I always love it when nobody knows how strong the protag is, then he one-shots a fool.

Get fucked Bellamy!

[Kraco]

(unless it is something stupid like can't cook)

This one I also dislike. Treating cooking like it was a combination of rocket science and quantum physics. Though I believe it's partially based on the Japanese reality: Housewifes always do the cooking due to it being a part of their work, the children thus gaining no experience. After moving out, the children always eat out because that's so cheap in Japan, along with relying on the affordable bento boxes grocery stores are selling. So, there's no pressure to learn anything in Japan, unless you become a housewife (or househusband). This isn't just manga/anime reality either, as you see it mentioned in Japanese Youtube videos showcasing single life as well. Some Japanese small apartment (studio) tour videos also show how a person living alone efficiently isn't supposed to be doing any food preparation or even storing back home, with the absence of anything you could honestly call a kitchen.

[MFauli]

I feel like this is something that Villainess subgenre series actually do well.


No, no, no, no. This is the problem: Stop creating new genres, new categories, new rulesets. Create SINGULAR, UNIQUE, INDIVIDUAL stories. That's what sucks about isekai as is now, and villainess isekai are just another variation of that. The point of my critcism was that isekai shouldn't be defined by anything but "protagonist travels between two worlds" (probably could be even more reduced than that). That's like the only thing that an isekai-story requires. From there, let loose. Before the name "isekai" got popular, we had fantastic isekai-anime like "Visions of Escaflowne" or "Now and Then, Here and There" that just told a great story. Nowadays, isekai means a very narrow checkbox of boring things plus some gimmick and that ruins the genre.

Just 3 examples for more interesting isekai (imo) stories:

- middle-aged protagonist bored of life, happens to stumble into another world (after newspaper reports of various missing people events, so he's not some chosen one or lucky one), faced with the harsh reality of a medieval fantasy world where people are not overpowered. His only advantages are his natural interest in fantasy stories and the subsconscious excitement to be freed from his boring life. Basically the "Ging life". This then slowly escalates into bigger things, from barely surviving, to making friends, to learning some skills (helpful, but no cheat-skills), to getting involved with more meaningful plot twists.

- a long-running series (minimum 52 episodes) that starts out as a mystery-story. Rumors about monsters appearing in our world make the rounds, but there's no hard proof. Protagonist is the friend of secret states agent who investigates these monsters appearances (they actually do occur) and is part of the clean-up squad, their job is to make sure nobody notices what's going on. Eventually, the protagonist stumbles accross some cute fantasy-girl (be it an elf, a furry girl, whatever) and protects her from another monster's attack. The clean-up squad appears and the protagonist claims this monster he barely defended against was the only appearance; he decided to hide the girl because he feared the squad might also get rid of her like with all appearances. Since his friend is part of the squad, he gets to be free, but also offered a job at the organization. Yada yada, he takes home the fantasy-girl, keeps her a secret, doesn't know what else to do, joins the organization to find out more. First half of the anime takes place in our world, second half has us travel to the isekai where things suddenly switch and now the fantasy-girl leads our protagonist through her world.

- "Death Isekai", where the hero has the supernatural power to show other people a world where their loved ones die. Might be a more episodic anime, where each episode features a situation where someone is being treated badly by others, then the protagonist uses his ability to switch to "Death Isekai" where the bullied person dies in a "fitting" manner and all the bullies and assholes are hit with the sudden realization of what their behavior did or how they should have been friendlier. The "dead" person also can observe this from a "ghost"-pov to find out what people truly thought about him/her. And it could also involve him/her leaving a message from before "death" to dish out some long-needed truths. Basically, it'd be the ultimate "stop treating me like shit or I'll kill myself!"-anime, but with a non-permanent death, as the protagonist then switches back to reality where nobody died, BUT everybody remembers. They don't realize it was anyone's doing, more that it was a dream or something, but they still remember and will now, in some cases, change their behavior towards the "dead" person.

That's just 3 examples that go beyond the usual pattern, and I haven't even touched upon time travel-isekai or such ^^

[Ryllharu]

No, no, no, no. This is the problem: Stop creating new genres, new categories, new rulesets. Create SINGULAR, UNIQUE, INDIVIDUAL stories. That's what sucks about isekai as is now, and villainess isekai are just another variation of that. The point of my critcism was that isekai shouldn't be defined by anything but "protagonist travels between two worlds" (probably could be even more reduced than that). That's like the only thing that an isekai-story requires.

Way to overreact.

Villainess isn't restricted to isekai. It's a subgenre that overlaps with many others the same way that "samurai", "martial arts", "office environment" or "monster girls" does.

They broadly land in Reincarnation (same timeline and protagonist is not a from another world) or Isekai, but that's not universally true, and more often than not, they're the former. Especially true of the better ones. They're time travel series more often. That's why they took off.

My point is that on the whole, they have better and more inventive settings than standard shonen isekai (Castle-nim frequent reappearance notwithstanding, which is still many steps better than "standard isekai town with a river through it at a 65° angle")

[Kraco]

No matter what kind of isekai series it is, it's still the lazy path for the author. It allows so much easy material from the simple fact it can directly compare our world to another world. And obviously because integrating (drawing in) the reader/watcher is so much easier when the plot says the MC is someone from our world (could be you, ugh). Whenever the author tries to reduce that, it begs the question why make it an isekai in the first place. Probably because isekai sells for reasons I mentioned earlier. So, I wouldn't necessarily put my name under a claim you can make isekai a significantly better genre. It is what it is. All the wish fulfillment and other Scheiße simply are inviolable parts of it. Even the edgelord revenge isekai are wish fulfillment because the torture the MC might go through is meant to please the feelings of the numerous bullied and oppressed Japanese people who self-identify with it. Then they keep on reading to enjoy the outrageous revenge. In reality in Japan they aren't allowed to do anything to get back at the bullies. So, it goes back to escapism.

[DarthEnderX]

They broadly land in Reincarnation (same timeline and protagonist is not a from another world) or Isekai, but that's not universally true, and more often than not, they're the former. Especially true of the better ones. They're time travel series more often.Really? I don't think I've ever heard of one that wasn't "I died and got reincarnated inside my favorite visual novel."

[KrayZ33]

edit: nvm, I misunderstood the topic.


Big disagree on many points either way.

Isekai like Grimgar is great, it's basically not what people say they find annoying about Isekai.
The Kids are not OP, they aren't special, they are the underdogs, they basically just try to survive in the new world as adventurers with absolutley no skills, because they wouldn't know how to do anything because they are... well.. teenagers/kids.

Obviously the show could have made them blacksmiths, servants or bakersin that new world, and while that might be interesting to see once, I don't think I have to explain why it's overall a better choice to make them try be adventurers.

[shinta|hikari]

I liked the Grimgar novels until they decided to just flip the table. The anime was a bit too slow for me.

[neflight86]

This is the problem: Stop creating new genres, new categories, new rulesets. Create SINGULAR, UNIQUE, INDIVIDUAL stories. That's what sucks about isekai as is now, and villainess isekai are just another variation of that.

The issue is that by not abiding by genre guidelines, readers are left without descriptors of the content and many aren't interested in seeking out the nuance of a work before taking the plunge and trying a show out... or dismissing it altogether. Shows that don't conform to genres can be great, but are a hard sell when unless there's a marketable hook. Slice of life (shows about nothing in particular) deal with this all the time and only get by because they are essentially guaranteed to be filled with cute girls. I wish for more non-standard shows but I can understand why we don't get them.


Fantasy worlds with video game mechanics for no logical reason.

If you're inside a VR game or simulated reality, fine. But if you're in an actual fantasy world, wtf are there levels and status screens?

I also hate this because it is a tacit agreement between author-kun and the audience that 'neither of us are going to take this world building very seriously- its a video game, got it?'

It assumes the reader is a simpleton who doesn't care about the craft of storytelling and simply wants to consume entertainment with a side of fanservice. That may be true, but I don't like it rubbed in my face like that.

[Death BOO Z]

bad tropes:
regular day assholes that are 100% willing to become murderers/rapists at a moments notice. not a single line of morality that they won't cross, even though the worst thing they have ever done was hit the unpopular nerd in school. this is a prop, not how humans act.
romance stories where the main couple never interacts directly, and spend most of the time in contrived separation.
fantasy stories that invent the magic equivalent of modern technology - phones, televisions, household appliances.

good tropes:
when it's an isekai story and there are multiple people who got sent there at different times and their actions mess with each others plans inadvertently. or just stories that smart people make smart plans which fall apart because other smart people (not their enemies) also made smart plans. like Spy X Family, Love is War and Youjo Senki (Tanya the evil).
sport stories where the sport is low-stakes and the focus is on how the characters relate to it, and sometimes the big game is just 20-30 people in the crowd. like High score girl, Destroy all humans - they can't be regenerated (before it turned to shit).
stories where the world changes because of the things that happened in the story during the plot (not afterwards).

[MFauli]

Some more:

- "Characters in shounen never die"; unless it's made a super-huge deal. It's one of the reasons why I hate One Piece. You see those dramatic fights, liters of blood, characters look like they're dead. But then an arc ends, Luffy is healed, and on some side panel you see what happened to the villains Luffy beat: They're alive and well, whether they're in prison or elsewhere. Same with Naruto (Neji's death is the most random, unfair bs lol), Bleach (why tf couldn't the author even kill off clearly evil guys?!) or Boku no Hero Academia (fuck you, blood girl). Literally THE father of shounen, Dragon Ball, manages to kill off characters and, while reviving most heroes, has most villains stay dead. So don't tell me there's a rule where villains cannot die in shounen. But same with good guys. "They're children, they cannot die, then it wouldn't be shounen", oh fuck off, anime like HXH are so brutal and gruesome and still called "shounen", but children dying would be the one "too much" thing? Don't believe it. And Chouji should have died.

- "Girls being hot af, but oblivious of sex", this is a big one for me and it's getting more frustrating the older I become. WHY have anime full of sexy, hot, beautiful girls with perfect bodies sporting huge curves ... but NEVER make use of them?! 99% of anime are tease straight from hell, showing us the goods, but nobody ever gets to use them. It's plain stupid why all these anime girls have such sexy bodies when there's clearly no need for it in-universe. It's 100% a tease for the audience and that's what makes it so dumb, because what are the authors of these shows thinking, that the viewers cannot find some hentai themselves? I really wish anime would tone down ecchi designs when they don't have the faintest of plot relevance, plot relevance being "boy wants to fuck girl", so really not much. But we get NOTHING. Just stupidly sexy girls who seemingly exist in a vacuum.

- "Adults dumb, children/teenagers smart"; that's a trope I couldn't hate more. When an anime features a teenage cast of heroes and all the adults are portrayed as ignorant if not outright dumb. Okay, so the teenage heroes have witnessed aliens landing in a spaceship and adults don't believe them: Then don't stop at that and show us, how the teenagers keep pressuring adults to believe them until the adults follow them and see the aliens for themselves, and then the plot evolves from there. As an adult myself, it's so frustrating how apparently being old means being ignorant of the world which I'm not and refuse to be painted as. In general, I wish more anime would be open to mix various aged characters more willingly, there's no reason why the heroes must all be adults or all be teenagers, just mix them as the plot requires.



The issue is that by not abiding by genre guidelines, readers are left without descriptors of the content and many aren't interested in seeking out the nuance of a work before taking the plunge and trying a show out... or dismissing it altogether. Shows that don't conform to genres can be great, but are a hard sell when unless there's a marketable hook. Slice of life (shows about nothing in particular) deal with this all the time and only get by because they are essentially guaranteed to be filled with cute girls. I wish for more non-standard shows but I can understand why we don't get them.

Thing is, even IF an anime stayed within the "established"" isekai rules, so much could be achieved by simple doing it better. More quality. More diligence. And, of course, better animation. 99% of isekai anime have the worst, cheapest animation and the worst writing and the blandest character designs. There is no rule why that must be the way it is :/ But alas, that's another topic ...

[DarthEnderX]

WHY have anime full of sexy, hot, beautiful girls with perfect bodies sporting huge curves ... but NEVER make use of them?!The same reason every movie ever is full of hot girls and guys, even the ones that aren't porn.

Seriously, this is like going "Why did you hire Scarlet Johansson for this if you aren't gonna make her fuck?!"

[MFauli]

The same reason every movie ever is full of hot girls and guys, even the ones that aren't porn.

Seriously, this is like going "Why did you hire Scarlet Johansson for this if you aren't gonna make her fuck?!"

Simply not true. Especially in the past 10 years.

[KrayZ33]

Simply not true. Especially in the past 10 years.

why is it not true, lol.

It's literally the same thing.

[MFauli]

why is it not true, lol.

It's literally the same thing.

No it's not. Literally ALL anime are filled with ultra-sexy girls.

Hollywood-movies nowadays rarely feature any outright "sexy" women, they're all normal-looking, at most normal-attractive. You're trying to spin reality as if movies were full of Pamela Anderson with giant boobs and half-naked outfits. That's not the case.

And don't bother continuing this exchange if you can't admit I'm right, this is super dishonest to claim it ain't. Again, almost every anime features hentai-level girls with exaggeratedly sexy bodies that only exist to get fucked. This is in no way comparable to most western movies.

[KrayZ33]

I seriously think you don't know what a normal woman looks like.

Touch grass.

What you see in Hollywood are usually already way above average looking women.


To claim that almost every anime features "hentai level girls" is dishonest as fuck too, because that's just the shit you watch. Or if I'm going to take you word for word ("literally ALL anime are filled with ultra sexy girls"), I'd have to think you find the girls in Lucky Star ultra-sexy, weirdo.
Many/most are more "cute" than anything else, and guess what, old people watching anime for cute girls is nothing new.

[MFauli]

I seriously think you don't know what a normal woman looks like.

Touch grass.

What you see in Hollywood are usually already way above average looking women.


To claim that almost every anime features "hentai level girls" is dishonest as fuck too, because that's just the shit you watch.
Most are more "cute" than anything else, and guess what, old people watching anime for cute girls is nothing new.


Ok, have fun trolling yourself.

This sucks. Why lie? You know exactly what I mean, you know I'm right, but you disagree, because ... REASONS. Sucking all fun out of even trying to discuss anything here. Bye.

[KrayZ33]

How am I supposed to know what you mean if you obviously mean something different from the stuff you write?

Either you admit that there are many animes that aren't filled with sexy girls.
Or you change what you are saying into "I hate that those animes that have sexy/ecchi girls where nothing happens"

Like... telepathy doesn't exist, and when you say different things they have different meaning.

I could also give you an example of an anime which has sexy girls and sex scenes.
Like Mushoku for example.
It's not even the only one that comes to mind and I'm not watching a lot of stuff in recent years.
Gonna ignore that too? Just like the Lucky Star example, which is way more common?

There is no fun in discussing shit with you because you aren't living in a reality anyone shares with you.

[Death BOO Z]

my understanding is stories which are filled with fan-service, super sexualized woman, which are somehow unaware of sex and love in general, and don't feel anything regarding it.

trope example being the very sexy female character walking naked into the bath while the dude is there and feeling nothing wrong with it, and not understanding why this might be uncomfortable for him or others.

I'll add to this girls publicly groping one another and talking about how big some other girl breast are in front of their male classmates. this is not how humans act.

people know about sex long before they know about sex. even before they start thinking they want to have sex or don't want to have it. nobody turns 17 without ever having the idea cross their minds.
---
MFauli is right about Hollywood, but I'd express it differently. mainstream movies have sexy characters which are sex-less. they don't fuck. a lot of it is the rise of the franchise movies (superhero genre in particular) and the death of drama movies. super hero have love interests, but not a love life. Tony stark supposedly has Pepper Pots and they even have a daughter, but zero on-screen physical attraction. Thor and Jane Foster probably didn't touch each other on-screen since the first movie. Rey and Kylo don't show any arousal towards one another, and Peter Quill (? from the guardians of the galaxy movies) has sex at the start of the series, but it's treated for comedic affect.
and before saying it's just a "Marvel/Disney" thing, I'll start by saying I haven't watched most of the DCMU stuff, but from what I did watch, wonder woman 1 had some on-screen lust, and the only part of of BvS I enjoyed was Clark getting into the bathtub with Lois. but nothing in the JL or the extended version.
basically go watch Patrick H Williams on youtube - for the actual explanation.

[Ryllharu]

No it's not. Literally ALL anime are filled with ultra-sexy girls.

Literally all anime.

https://i.imgur.com/4znaeZs.png

Literally ALL anime.

https://i.imgur.com/VazLnYA.png

This is exactly because you only watch a very narrow set of anime subgenres and you don't read manga.

You don't see them culminating relationships in most anime because they don't make anime of smut series. It's always offscreen. Even like most novels which have a romance subplot. Because the writing in sex scenes is notoriously and hilariously bad.

[MFauli]

Literally all anime.

https://i.imgur.com/4znaeZs.png

Literally ALL anime.

https://i.imgur.com/VazLnYA.png

This is exactly because you only watch a very narrow set of anime subgenres and you don't read manga.

You don't see them culminating relationships in most anime because they don't make anime of smut series. It's always offscreen. Even like most novels which have a romance subplot. Because the writing in sex scenes is notoriously and hilariously bad.

Yeah, let's pretend like the following isn't the standard for most anime nowadays:

2166

And then you compare that to how female actors look like in all the Oscar-winning movies of last year. There's ONE movie with hypersexualized women and it's part of the plot, "The Substance".

[KrayZ33]

Typical,

now only Oscar winning movies can used to show he is wrong.

Lets forget about the aforementioned examples from Death BOO Z, they didn't win Oscars (or did they? probably not) . So the women in Jumpsuits there don't count, even though they are what is currently making the big bucks in theaters.


edit: just saw that "Anora" won 5 Oscars, lol.

[MFauli]

Let's move on, this topic isn't about whatever lies you want to keep telling yourselves. More bad tropes!

[DarthEnderX]

MFauli is right about Hollywood, but I'd express it differently. mainstream movies have sexy characters which are sex-less. they don't fuck.But that's not even what he said about Hollywood. He didn't say Hollywood movies have sexy women that don't have sex(that's what *I* said). He said Hollywood movies don't even have sexy women anymore.


Let's move on, this topic isn't about whatever lies you want to keep telling yourselves."Let's move on. But first, let me get the last word in where I call you all liars."

[neflight86]

- "Girls being hot af, but oblivious of sex", this is a big one for me and it's getting more frustrating the older I become. WHY have anime full of sexy, hot, beautiful girls with perfect bodies sporting huge curves ... but NEVER make use of them?! 99% of anime are tease straight from hell, showing us the goods, but nobody ever gets to use them. It's plain stupid why all these anime girls have such sexy bodies when there's clearly no need for it in-universe. It's 100% a tease for the audience and that's what makes it so dumb, because what are the authors of these shows thinking, that the viewers cannot find some hentai themselves? I really wish anime would tone down ecchi designs when they don't have the faintest of plot relevance, plot relevance being "boy wants to fuck girl", so really not much. But we get NOTHING. Just stupidly sexy girls who seemingly exist in a vacuum.

If you are arguing from a morality standpoint, I sympathize, but attractive characters sell better to audiences so it's probably not going away any time soon. If that is not your beef, it appears you are tired of sexual teasing/suggestion without (it) being accompanied by sexual gratification, which as has been mentioned, is another genre's expertise. It is simply set dressing and character design. Why not make it attractive? For you, is there a difference between attractive and sexy? That might be closer to the root of why we have trouble following your arguments.


regular day assholes that are 100% willing to become murderers/rapists at a moments notice. not a single line of morality that they won't cross, even though the worst thing they have ever done was hit the unpopular nerd in school. this is a prop, not how humans act.

Agree 100%, these cease to be characters (no matter how minor), but shoddy projections of an unskilled writer most of the time. I also like redemption, so I appreciate when bullies get some development and become real characters (or stay bullies and get a real comeuppance). Either way, 99% of people aren't psychopaths who can kill or wound at the drop of a hat.


- "Adults dumb, children/teenagers smart"; that's a trope I couldn't hate more. When an anime features a teenage cast of heroes and all the adults are portrayed as ignorant if not outright dumb. Okay, so the teenage heroes have witnessed aliens landing in a spaceship and adults don't believe them: Then don't stop at that and show us, how the teenagers keep pressuring adults to believe them until the adults follow them and see the aliens for themselves, and then the plot evolves from there. As an adult myself, it's so frustrating how apparently being old means being ignorant of the world which I'm not and refuse to be painted as. In general, I wish more anime would be open to mix various aged characters more willingly, there's no reason why the heroes must all be adults or all be teenagers, just mix them as the plot requires.

I'm with you here. It always comes off as pretty indulgent when super rational, awesome teenagers with their decades of experience have to clean up the feckless messes left by their universally incompetent custodians. Part of my annoyance stems from only being able to portray smart characters by giving them dumb ones to bounce off of, and the rest is a general contempt for authority and a thinly veiled 'my way or the highway' philosophical outlook. High School of the Dead, for how much fun it was, completely submerged in this trope almost every chance it got. An example of a multigenerational cast put to good use off the top of my head is Bakuman: Passionate, creative youths tempered by the experience of the older editor characters, and no one had to look like a clown for it to work (except Kazuya).

[MFauli]

Some more:

- "Hero is a social outcast, despite being handsome, smart and ultra-moral"; I feel like this happens a lot because of authors self-inserting their self-righteous feelings. "I was such a good guy at school, but people bullied me and were mean to me and girls didn't look at me", and that's how you end up with those quiet perfect heroes who sit in the back of the classroom and somehow are unpopular despite ACTUALLY being the hottest guys in school. Which they become once the story gets rolling. Whether it's because they join a sports club, or monsters appear and they're the one who has the courage to protect his school mates, or whatever. I understand that a school setting will always be popular in anime, but there's really no reason to give us these every-same, perfect protagonists. How about a less than smart hero? A chubby guy? An ugly guy? Heck, an ugly girl? And then build the story around that. I'd really like a story where a fat guy (yeah, this is about me lol) shows some courage in terms of protecting others, has a crush on a beautiful girl, and has to go through all the hoops that fat guys encounter irl; meaning: instead of the girl immediately falling for him after being saved once, she still sees only the fat body, so he goes through continued rejection, and only due to a chain of events, she slowly lays off her shallowness. I was super disappointment what they did in Accel World, yeah, the hero was fat, but he was cartoonishly fat and small, so it didn't count imo. Anyway, my point is: Pick one: Social outcast with "flaws" OR hot, smart, perfect.

- "Loli girls"; almost more than a trope, eh? I HATE loli characters. And just to make sure what I mean with loli: Child characters aren't loli. What's part of loli is an unrealistic "adult" touch to their design, almost always involving some degree of sexualization and having them behave like small adults, often even working as soldiers, or scientists, or whatever. These characters have no right to exist, make conversation with non-weebs uncomfortable, and they're almost always annoyingly loud, screaming, unpleasant. The sexualization is especially bad when its combined with flat chests, like, wtf is your problem, mr pervert author?! At least make them "oppai loli" so we can confirm that a fantasy is at play. Anyway, loli suck and hurt anime as a whole.

- "Don't say Voldemor-I mean, sex!"; one more with a sexual background. The whole "handholding is almost the same as having sex"-like attitude that most anime have. Even anime with adult characters most often have them react to any prospect of sex with panic, blushing, and whatever else. Really? It's just sex. Even if you're a virgin, you know what it's about, you've jerked off plenty unless you're an asexual person which these characters are certainly not. Don't mistake that with "I want sex scenes", no, it's entirely about how characters react to anything involvign the topic of sex, even the first steps towards it. A little nervousity is fine, but when I see a 20something character freak out over physical intimity, it makes me lose my suspense of disbelief.

[DarthEnderX]

I'm beginning to think that you might just hate anime.

"What are your most hated anime tropes?"

"All of them."

[MFauli]

I'm beginning to think that you might just hate anime.

"What are your most hated anime tropes?"

"All of them."

Sounds you like you enjoy shitty tropes.

[neflight86]

- "Hero is a social outcast, despite being handsome, smart and ultra-moral"; I feel like this happens a lot because of authors self-inserting their self-righteous feelings. "I was such a good guy at school, but people bullied me and were mean to me and girls didn't look at me", and that's how you end up with those quiet perfect heroes who sit in the back of the classroom and somehow are unpopular despite ACTUALLY being the hottest guys in school. Which they become once the story gets rolling. Whether it's because they join a sports club, or monsters appear and they're the one who has the courage to protect his school mates, or whatever.

That's pretty specific, but I'm drawing a blank. Do you have some examples of shows that do this? I think usually the 'back corner by the window' characters are quiet and unapproachable, to explain their unpopularity. You are describing something else?

[MFauli]

That's pretty specific, but I'm drawing a blank. Do you have some examples of shows that do this? I think usually the 'back corner by the window' characters are quiet and unapproachable, to explain their unpopularity. You are describing something else?

Didn't have any specific anime in mind here, but just recently there was this isekai anime where the whole class got isekai'd and the hero got to choose his ability last and ended up with, dunno, he was able to build a nice cozy cave with furniture, and ofc it ended up being a cheat ability that let him overpower everyone else in the end. And he was introduced as a quiet, shut-in type person. But ofc he was good-looking, capable and courageous.

But this type of character appears a lot, hence why it's such an annoying trope to me. If you introduce a character as a social outcast, give us a REASON for why he is a social outcast. Something beyond his own choice. Tbh Subaru from ReZero fits in here, too. When we got to see his flashback, I was like "okay, so you're not the best at something and that's why you're depressed. Uhuh." Guy was perfectly normal, normal-good looking, and had no reason to be a social outcast. And as soon as he's isekai'd, he's super confident and surrounded by hot chicks. The author had no idea what it means to be a true social outcast. Welcome to the NHK is a good example of how to do it.

[Ryllharu]

So this trope literally doesn't exist in isekai, but you hate it. Cool.

It does exist in school romance series, and I'm not real fond of it there, mostly because it makes the series boring after a while if they don't adjust and make it integrate properly and give a sustained excuse for it being present before.
e.g. "The Guy She Was Interested in Wasn't a Guy at All" is an example of this trope in school romance done right, which will be getting an anime in the future.
"Horimya" was an example of it not done that well, and "I'm Sick and Tired of My Childhood Friend's, Now Girlfriend's, Constant Abuse, so I Broke up With Her" is an example of the trope done poorly and worth complaining about, though it started out promising.

Welcome to the NHK is nowhere near as good as it is frequently claimed or remembered to be. It's deeply bland and medicore. Honestly, possibly the most overrated series I'm aware of.

[MFauli]

So this trope literally doesn't exist in isekai, but you hate it. Cool.

It does exist in school romance series, and I'm not real fond of it there, mostly because it makes the series boring after a while if they don't adjust and make it integrate properly and give a sustained excuse for it being present before.
e.g. "The Guy She Was Interested in Wasn't a Guy at All" is an example of this trope in school romance done right, which will be getting an anime in the future.
"Horimya" was an example of it not done that well, and "I'm Sick and Tired of My Childhood Friend's, Now Girlfriend's, Constant Abuse, so I Broke up With Her" is an example of the trope done poorly and worth complaining about, though it started out promising.

Welcome to the NHK is nowhere near as good as it is frequently claimed or remembered to be. It's deeply bland and medicore. Honestly, possibly the most overrated series I'm aware of.


Rofl, at this point you're just the personified version of this meme whenever you read my postings:

2167

Anyway, some more shitty tropes:

- "Stark colorful hair"; I'm not gonna put this against older anime, it is what it is. But it annoys me more in modern anime where we have enough quality to differentiate characters without the use of silly hair colors like green, blue, purple, pink, etc.. This gets even worse when its basically a SPOILER for the characters' personality, aka "the red haired character is hot-headed"; "the blue-haired girl is quiet", "the white haired guy is mysterious", "the pink-haired girl is lovey-dovey", etc.. It's not clever and if your story requires it, it's probably not a good story. And there's a third layer of shittiness to this trope: When you have an anime where MOST characters have normal hair colors, but the QUIET, INTROVERT protagonist has some outrageous hair color and style. I spontaneously think of Yugi from Yugioh, that boy had no business sporting such a hairstyle, lol. But there's plenty of modern anime where you'd think the introvert would try to be less conspicuous, but no, colorful hair, like he/she wants to attract bullies. Anyway, colorful hair needs to go. You got black and brown, and on rare occasions blonde and red, that needs to be enough. And it is, we have plenty of anime that manage to do with it.

- "The Incest Tease"; oh my. Look, I don't NEED incest in my anime. But when you imply incest, and do so intensely, then either go through with it or quickly put a stop to it. Most recently, this was dumb in "Anya speaks Russian" with the sister of the MC, but then you also have entire shows like Oreimo, and then just a myriad of shows where incest is being casually teased in various ways. Stop. Pls. Either take the incest and make it a relevant part of the plot (rare anime do that), or just don't bring up any incest at all. Like what the hell.

- "Heroes being more powerful than villains from the start"; this really is something that I feel became more prevalent in the past circa 10 years, maybe 15 years: The heroes are more powerful than the villains from the very start and there's never even a SHRED of a doubt that they'll defeat any opponent. Like, don't get me wrong, it's ultimately expected that a series' hero wins, it's kinda required. But there's a meaningful difference between Guts or even Naruto barely defeating some monstrous villain, or ... what happens nowadays. Perfect example is the recent "Maou 2099" or whatever its title was. Demon Lord awakens after hundreds of years of sleep in a futuristic present, story happens and while there's a brief time of "weakness" in the beginning, that vanishes almost immediately and now he just goes on to fuck over any opponent he encounters. No matter who gets in his way, he just pulls out another special move. Then there also was "I parry everything" where you knew the hero would easily handle any opponent with ease. Then, for a more popular example, there was "Solo Leveling" where we had like one episode of "hm, how will he overcome that monster?", but then the rest was just basking in Jinwoo's aura, lol (and I'm ngl, it was somewhat okay here thanks to the quality of the animaton and music). But if we went through any battle-anime, this trope has become so ubiquitious, it just removes any excitement and tension. Heck, it makes me root for the villains, because why would I root for a hero who gets to win with ease?!

[Ryllharu]

You don't actually want a discussion in this thread, as usual, you just want to hear people agree with your fringe takes.

I think DEx was right, you just hate anime at this point, or at least your imagined version of what the totality of anime is because you only watch a narrow type of shows that you've gotten burnt out on.