Anime Clichés You Hate!

Naga

Naga

Well-Known Member
Bamboozled we don't have one of these.

It can be anything from small movements to storytelling choices, post what you hate the most! Bonus points if you can guess titles other users are referring to!

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Few stolen examples I find true:

1.
>mc is going to fight against a really strong opponent.
>anyone can win.
>suddenly a new plot element is introduced that if the mc loses something really bad is going to happen, thus giving the mc a plot armor.

2.
>looks like a kid
>acts like a kid
>sounds like a kid
>they're actually adults

3.
>series begins with mc meeting a mysterious girl
>1st episode/opening arc ends with them suddenly becoming a transfer student
>"EEEEEH???"

4.
>"why do you like this guy so much"
>because he was nice to me

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  1. Girl who is somehow socially undesirable (e.g. fujoshi, overweight or both) undergoes a dramatic transformation that makes her socially desirable and gets the attention of the shallow as heck guy/s who didn't give her the time of day before the transformation.
  2. Girl likes boy. Boy isn't sure who he likes yet. Boy gets the attention of other girls. Girl beats the ever-loving stuffing out of the boy and blames him for her outbursts. Bonus points if the pair has a history that the boy has forgotten about the details of.
  3. Dull-as-dishwater boy gets all the girls. And the superpowers. And sometimes even the superpowered girls!
  4. "Sadistic" love interests. (Just call them abusive and be done with it!)
  5. The guy with glasses is either a doormat or the villain.
  6. Accidental groping.
  7. First sight boy sees of girl is either her undies or her boobs.
  8. Beach / onsen / Christmas episodes.
  9. Queerbaiting of any kind.
  10. Dull-as-dishwater boy starts the series monologuing about his dull-as-dishwater life. Strange events ensue and he wishes for the safety of his old life back.
 
Shot of a girls' changing room, where all the girls are stripped down to their bras and panties at the same time, happily chatting, and comparing breast sizes and bras.

That one always gets me. (Never mind the facing each other and not trying to get changed as fast as possible part, but a) who takes off their shirt and pants at the same time in a public place? and b) where are the girls sitting down, blatantly trying to hide they're on their period?)
 
Starletka said:
Shot of a girls' changing room, where all the girls are stripped down to their bras and panties at the same time, happily chatting, and comparing breast sizes and bras.

That one always gets me. (Never mind the facing each other and not trying to get changed as fast as possible part, but a) who takes off their shirt and pants at the same time in a public place? and b) where are the girls sitting down, blatantly trying to hide they're on their period?)
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I remember in 6th grade. Daryl Bob Wheeler (Or John Bob Tanner. I always got those two mixed up) peeked in the girls changing room. I have never seen a boy so letdown in all his life.
 
1a) Pan to sky
1b) EEEEEEEEEEEEH?

2a) boy walks in on girl changing
2b) now I can never get married

3) deus ex machina power up (unless directed by Imaishi)

4) forgotten childhood friend

5) Tomboy always loses

6) "ah so it's like that"/"so that's how it is"/"you didn't have to actually say it"
 
- a large group of people arrives/tells the MC something, the MC calls every single one of them by their name, one by one
- something happens and every single person gets their own shot, one by one ("Congratulations.")
- someone explains something, MC has to repeat every other sentence aloud to themselves
 
-The "loser" harem protagonist whose teenage life would still drown in pussy even if he never were to meet the main girl.
Honestly, this is the primary reason I am favorable to the recent trend in harem anime of having the MC be conventionally attractive, even if somewhat generic in character design.
Like, the weakling permavirgin protagonist, even without the main girl, will still have some busty childhood friend he didn't remember showing up and openly declaring how much she wants his cock. I'm not really even exaggerating on the last part.

-A character declares that now "X will win for sure with this!" and then X suddenly finds him(them?)/herself in an unfavorable position. Like, really? Even kids aren't surprised by that open jinxing.
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Find a better fucking way of introducing the antagonist's secret ace, please. It's so laughably easy to predict the flow of events when storytelling clichés like this are being used.
Probably the reason I love Kaiji so much is because that's one of the few series (seriously, why so few?) to play with this trope in order to fuck with viewer expectations. You're never sure if the story is trying reverse-psychology on you, and by the time you even consider that, you're already unable to be confident in a guess.

-Slightly related to the previous point:
When someone wins because their plan is kept secret from the audience until a dramatic reveal. Even Kaiji is guilty of this to some extent, and it's pretty infuriating in a lot of series.
Why is it done? To maintain suspense for the audience. The problem? It's cliché. The audience knows success is imminent because they saw you do a cutaway previously, so it's self-defeating.
And this one is in practically all genres: battle series, romance, mystery detective, thriller, horror, etc.
Romance series are one of the few were this is not so much of a destructive problem to the narrative.
The only way this works is when it's some well-executed batman gambit.
High-stakes and shounen battle series are usually the worst offenders of this cliché.
I fear the reason it's so popular in use is because authors are not confident that they can have the audience be in the know and still maintain tension.
But one of the things that make D&D so great is to see the characters trying to follow a plan, and being in constant suspense of whether or not it will actually work.
One of the more interesting subversion of this cliché is to trick the audience, too, hiding the fact that you did this from the audience just as much as you do to the opposing force in the narrative. That way it's actually a cool surprise.
Prison School (manga) comes to mind as a recent example of this.

-"I can explain!" then doesn't try to explain.
I would put in the "refuses to listen to the explanation so that the writer can create artificial drama", but I feel that one has become less common in recent years.
Characters either actually stand and wait for the explanation, or the above happens where of course the character that is mistaken will continue to be mistaken when you refuse to freaking speak up and tell it straight!
Fake-outs to toy with that old cliché have also become more common where, say, character C walks in on character X and Y, and then storms out before X can explain, but then it turns out C believed it to be something completely different than what X and Y thought C believed. This is certainly preferred over the old "refuses to listen" cliché.
 
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This one can physically hurt me and it's not just exclusive to anime.

Female is obviously in the wrong.
Gets BTFO by valid arguments.
Visible emotional shock and sometimes a gasp.
"Never should've said that."

YAMEROOOOO
 
g3data said:
1st girl always winning despite their lack of bestness
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To add to that:
The lack of harem endings in harem anime.
Like, you know you can do that, right? There's no law preventing it, and I bet the audience would actually be thrilled by a genuine harem end.
But no, at best you get joking nod to the obvious solution, but it never seriously manifests. The closest you'll get is the MC being a non-committal little prick, which is just the most cancerous thing you can do in that genre.
More harem anime have MCs not pussyfooting around the fact that they'll obviously choose the main girl, which is good in its own right, but the complete absence of harem endings in a genre that's literally named after the concept of having more than one partner is annoying as hell.

I suspect it has to do with the old school otaku "purity" bullshit.
 
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