Amusing or annoying anime clichés

[Johanthemonster666]

What are your favorite or most hated anime tropes that make you either laugh, rage, or just scratch your head in confusion? Specific titles, manga/comics or even parody examples are welcome.

This trope always makes me scratch my head,I understand the chivalrous theme behind it but literally EVERY anime uses this trope where a boy basically 'becomes a man' after this line it uttered.

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/DeclarationOfProtection?from=Main.IWillProtectHer

 

[Casual Shinji]

1) The comical boob grab.

You know the kind... Guy trips or falls on top of girl and accidentally grabs her tits. Or girl grabs other girls boobs, because she's amazed by how huge they are. Oh the jolly shenanigans!
I fucking hate that shit, and every anime/manga that pulls this immediately loses a good chunk of credibility in my book. Which unfortunately also includes Berserk, though this happened after the point where it kinda went downhill anyway.

2) Where are your parents?

There's a distinct lack of parental guidance in anime land, seeing as at least 90% of all teenaged anime characters seem to live completely alone. Their parents are either dead or abroad, and the government just lets these kids take care of themselves for some reason.
I don't mind this one that much, since I can understand the reason behind it. Anime/manga where this happens is generally catered to teenagers anyway who typically don't care what the protagonists' parents are up to. And also most of these stories tend to have a fairly large group of adolecent characters, and creating a home life for even just half of them would be a lot of work for something the audience probably doesn't even care about.

And if it was still the 80's or 90's I would've included the blood cough.

 

[[Kira Must Die]]

There are a few anime cliches I like:

Spoiler

- Perverted main character. If you're gonna go for any cliched harem lead, at least make him (or her) a dumb, drooling pervert and not bug-eyed scared of tities.

- Tromping insurmountable odds through sheer willpower. Although it depends on what kind of anime it is. Sometimes it just feels good when the main character starts kicking ass.

- Hammy, over-the-top evil anime villains. I just find them so much fun.

- Over-the-top anime fighting moves. Hey, it's one of the staples of anime.

- Cheery, kinda-childish, quirky female characters that are strangely talented. For some reason I've always liked these characters. They always put a smile on my face.

Katana/swords > everything else- I like the idea of a katana being the most badass weapon ever.

Some of my least favorites are:

Spoiler

- Generic, bland, forgettable male lead. There's just nothing interesting about this character. I get that they're trying to relate to the audience, but it just doesn't work. Please put effort into your main characters.

- Contrived ecchi scenes. I have no problem with fanservice, but please don't make it so fucking trite. Also, when female characters blame male characters for something pervy that is clearly not their fault and hits them for no reason, which brings me to...

- Over-abusive female characters. I have nothing against tsunderes, in fact I like a lot of tsunderes. I'm talking about the ones that go too far, the ones that harp and abuse the main character and not in a friendly, playful way like when you're joking around with your friends.

- Over-the-top ecchi physics. It always bother me when female characters look like they're made of jello.

- Reverse harem. Nothing against it, it's just not my thing.

- Cutesy anime phrases like "Uugu~", "Desu~" and "Hau~". This is something that started to bug me after watching Little Busters. Maybe it was cute a couple years back, but now it's just getting irritating for me.

- Pervert characters who only care about breast size and only breast size, and treats any girl below a D like a man. I mean, I like tits as much as the next guy, but it's not all there is to a woman, and they're still very attractive. Seriously, what asshole thinks that way?

- Secondary, romantic rival characters. Usually either the male lead's cousin, sister, or childhood friend. It's obvious that she's never gonna end up with him, and by the end she'll just be extra, unnecessary baggage.


- Trap Characters (Males who look or dress female, to be specific). This one frustrates me but not for the reason you think. I just find it stupid, especially when it's definately a female design and it's just pasted on there that the character's actually a boy. It just seems like there's no good reason for it, like it's just there to throw men off. For example, the UTAU vocaloid Ritsu Namine. I'm calling bullshit, that's clearly a female. I don't care if his breast are missiles or some bullshit, there's no reason for it. He's (or she's) a freaking vocaloid. Why does a vocaloid need to be a trap? Or missiles for tits? I mean, there are some traps I like, mostly because they have context, but having a character be a trap just for the sake of it is just stupid to me.

And three that confuse me:

- The hot, lonely, middle-aged teacher with a shitty love life. I just... don't get it. Are love deprived teachers really a common occurrence in Japan?

- Characters who speak in third person. I don't know if it's the translator's fault or not, but it just sounds too childish. Hell, children don't even talk like that. It just sounds barbaric, like cavemen talk.

- When characters are angry, they hit the wall with the side of their fists. I get that they're angry, but I see this all the time. Not really something confusing or bothering me, just something I noticed.

There's probably some others that I can't think of right now.

 

[Dirty Hipsters]

Anime cliches I REALLY hate:

1. Average guy from the normal world is transported to another dimension/universe/planet/etc, where he is tasked with saving said dimension/universe/planet/etc. I hate it and I think it's fucking stupid. No no, we can't kill these demons on our own, we need the get the help of some guy who knows nothing about anything in this universe, nor knows anything useful whatsoever, and he'll obviously triumph over the evil because reasons.

2. When characters fight the laws of physics are completely abandoned for unexplained reasons. Somehow normal people are now able to jump 10 feet in the air, and dash at ludicrous speeds and punch through walls because...fuck you it's flashy.

3. Over-sexualization of characters. There's times when it's ok, and then there's times were it just gets so over the top that it completely ruins the anime. High School of the Dead, I'm looking at you.

4. Being good at "x" skill automatically makes a character good at everything else. Martial arts expert? Well then obviously he's trained in every form of combat from swords to guns, can drive any vehicle from a motorcycle to a tank, and eat 15 bean burritos in a single sitting.

 

[Johanthemonster666]

1) The comical boob grab.

You know the kind... Guy trips or falls on top of girl and accidentally grabs her tits. Or girl grabs other girls boobs, because she's amazed by how huge they are. Oh the jolly shenanigans!
I fucking hate that shit, and every anime/manga that pulls this immediately loses a good chunk of credibility in my book. Which unfortunately also includes Berserk, though this happened after the point where it kinda went downhill anyway.

Very true, this variety of fan-service, and honestly rape-ish type content (or pleasant lack thereof) makes or breaks an anime/manga for me.

 

[Johanthemonster666]

Anime cliches I REALLY hate:

1. Average guy from the normal world is transported to another dimension/universe/planet/etc, where he is tasked with saving said dimension/universe/planet/etc. I hate it and I think it's fucking stupid. No no, we can't kill these demons on our own, we need the get the help of some guy who knows nothing about anything in this universe, nor knows anything useful whatsoever, and he'll obviously triumph over the evil because reasons.

2. When characters fight the laws of physics are completely abandoned for unexplained reasons. Somehow normal people are now able to jump 10 feet in the air, and dash at ludicrous speeds and punch through walls because...fuck you it's flashy.

3. Over-sexualization of characters. There's times when it's ok, and then there's times were it just gets so over the top that it completely ruins the anime. High School of the Dead, I'm looking at you.

4. Being good at "x" skill automatically makes a character good at everything else. Martial arts expert? Well then obviously he's trained in every form of combat from swords to guns, can drive any vehicle from a motorcycle to a tank, and eat 15 bean burritos in a single sitting.

High school of the Dead was an abomination from the first 10 minutes onward. I literally paused the first episode to see if I had somehow accidentally clicked on a parody of the original. Nope, in all its boob jiggling, gun-fetish glory that's exactly what hundreds of thousands of dollars and many more hundreds of hours of animation/voice work went into!

I know the anime industry has a habit of cranking out hundreds of assembly-line, copy-paste/mix&match popular tropes/plots from other shows type shit every few years..but these days it's absolutely unforgivable.

 

[Casual Shinji]

1) The comical boob grab.

You know the kind... Guy trips or falls on top of girl and accidentally grabs her tits. Or girl grabs other girls boobs, because she's amazed by how huge they are. Oh the jolly shenanigans!
I fucking hate that shit, and every anime/manga that pulls this immediately loses a good chunk of credibility in my book. Which unfortunately also includes Berserk, though this happened after the point where it kinda went downhill anyway.

Very true, this variety of fan-service, and honestly rape-ish type content (or pleasant lack thereof) makes or breaks an anime/manga for me.

It's the comical aspect of it that really ticks me off. I mean, if it's a genuine positive sexual moment between two characters, fine. Heck, I'd invite it.

But this mindset of, "Oh dear, I'm casually sexually harassing you, isn't humorously akward?!"... UGH!!!

 

[Terratina.]

Just anime hair. Yes, I'm looking at you, Yu-Gi-Oh! and many others. I love to hate on some of the ridiculous hairstyles that come out of anime. How do they even work? Hair cement? I dunno.

 

[Angie7F]

I would thik the absence of parents and abundance of money is the biggest one for me.
However, without these settings I would think the story would be awfully dull.

 

[Little Woodsman]

Annoying--
It's OK for a girl to physically abuse a guy for a perceived grope/peek when the incident was *clearly* an accident. You fell on *him* dearie, and his presence may well have kept you from being injured. Please stop hitting him now.

Characters with absolutely no ability to express their feelings/intentions to another character, or to give a compliment.
It's amusing for a very short time, after that it's just frustrating.

Amusing--
Armor seems to make you more vulnerable to injury. Conversely a Girl's school uniform makes you nigh-invulnerable. A bikini makes you completely invulnerable. (Amusing mind-pictures if military groups ever figure this out.)

The lower the technology behind a weapon, the more effective the weapon is.

The more devastating an attack/accident that injured you was, the more that you immediately recover. Due to this effect,
a man who was hospitalized for falling halfway down a flight of stairs can in fact fully recover by jumping in to the blast of a nuclear explosion. (If you too are amused by this trope watch the old one-shot Tokyo Project--everyone at the anime club I went to was in stitches by the end.)

Hmm, looking at the ones I find amusing--Iron Man would be in real trouble if he was facing off against a badly-injured bikini-clad woman holding a stick with a bullet tied to it.

 

[Nazulu]

Avoiding whats already been brought up

Annoying

Side characters vs main villain, has no effect what so ever - Some anime just do this all the time and it's pretty obvious how it's going to end up.

"I am doing this for the greater good", starts licking lips or laughing maniacally - Oh fuck off. Do they do this for stupid people who can't figure out who we're voting for?

Amusing

Average looking characters/villains you know are not going to do much except die - I just like looking at them and thinking "bye, bye generic man".

 

[KarmaTheAlligator]

One I hate would be the main character moping and fighting the villains without really trying for some reason until there's no other choice than to actually do it, and now it's OK to go full power, but then the next fight they're back to moping and hardly trying... screw you, Bleach!.

I haven't watched masses of manga but a fair few over the years. It's not really a cliche as such, more a visual repetition, but the tear drop or sweat drop (?) confuses me. I used to think it was embarrassment but it seems to pop up all the time. I now have no idea what it means.

It's the equivalent of a sigh.

 

[Easton Dark]

I watched the entirety of Love Hina for whatever reason and every episode up to the last one has the joke of the main character bumbling into girls in bathrobes, having them go after him and making him blush, or being pushed up against some boobies, and then getting just blasted through the wall and into the sky team rocket style by a punch, while being called a pervert.

It got old fast.

Luckily I re-watched Code Geass afterwards which harbors no anime cliches I'm aware of, or care about.

 

[Gatx]

I LOVE whenever they have that thing where a bad guy shows to impede the heroes' progress, so one of the side guys steps up and says "You go on ahead," and then has a one on one battle with him while everyone moves on. It's cliche as hell but man, I love it anyway.

 

[Flamezdudes]

1) The comical boob grab.

You know the kind... Guy trips or falls on top of girl and accidentally grabs her tits. Or girl grabs other girls boobs, because she's amazed by how huge they are. Oh the jolly shenanigans!
I fucking hate that shit, and every anime/manga that pulls this immediately loses a good chunk of credibility in my book. Which unfortunately also includes Berserk, though this happened after the point where it kinda went downhill anyway.

2) Where are your parents?

There's a distinct lack of parental guidance in anime land, seeing as at least 90% of all teenaged anime characters seem to live completely alone. Their parents are either dead or abroad, and the government just lets these kids take care of themselves for some reason.
I don't mind this one that much, since I can understand the reason behind it. Anime/manga where this happens is generally catered to teenagers anyway who typically don't care what the protagonists' parents are up to. And also most of these stories tend to have a fairly large group of adolecent characters, and creating a home life for even just half of them would be a lot of work for something the audience probably doesn't even care about.

And if it was still the 80's or 90's I would've included the blood cough.

Don't you remember how Eva did this with Shinji?

OT: Not sure what cliches I dislike or like. I dislike a lot of fanservice and I hate it when there is no resolution to romantic storylines in certain shows and they won't show a kiss scene. For some reason it doesn't seem complete without one.

 

[Asita]

I'm just gonna go with the old 'explaining your attacks' bit during the fight. I get that it's fun to understand how the writer justifies abilities, but there are better times to do it and better ways than spelling out the mechanics to your foe, especially when it interrupts the scene for the sake of exposition. At its best it still tends to at least break the storytelling convention of "show, don't tell", and at its worst it gets used as a weak attempt at justifying tricks that don't naturally follow from what's been shown (Say, for instance, a sword suddenly - and without any form of foreshadowing - developing the ability to disintegrate foes). It just seems so lazy most of the time.


Captcha: let me know ...please don't, captcha. I don't want more exposition! D:

 

[xplosive59]

Comic relief side characters with no real development really piss me off. They are just there to make you laugh with no substance. Also Characters returning from the dead/re-wind, I am not talking about Steins;Gate or anything like that where the deaths/revival are vital, more characters returning to form a happy ending or just because the producer wants them back.

 

[Soviet Heavy]

LACK OF ADULTS.

Sweet jesus, is it really that hard to make a show where the protagonist is older than 20? I know there are some (and they are usually good, I've found), but by and large, I am fucking sick of teenager protagonists. Half the time it feels like a forced excuse to add a Highschool dynamic to a show that doesn't need it (Code Geass), or an excuse to push what is an acceptable dress code for said High School (again, Code Geass mini skirts on noodle people).

Bishies: Just, no. When the man looks like he is wearing more makeup than the woman, there's a problem.