I thought it might be fun to list some of the most notable cliches I’ve noticed in Japanese Animation. Granted, I am not the definitive source on Anime, however I’ve seen enough of the more mainstreme stuff to see a couple of patterns.
Feel free to comment or add your own.
Oh yeah! Nothing like “large eyes” or “crazy colored hair”! I’m commenting on character/plot themes, not on the drawing style.
Here it goes:
-The hero or other major character will fall in love with a member of the enemy camp. Their love will directly or indirectly alter the course of the war.
-Cities of the future look like something out of Blade Runner.
-Girls kick ass.
-Male hero broods A LOT.
-Giant robots dominate the battlefield. They generally are very ornate and look like they are painted in demonstration colors (bright colors as if they were in an air show or parade instead of drab greens and browns). Often, the other weapons on the battlefield (planes, tanks, man-portable rockets) are pitifully ineffective against said robot.
-The courageous inexperienced crew of a single ship has to face overwhealming odds to return home.
-Standard good guy team consists of inexperienced leader, fresh-faced recruit, charismatic irreverent buffoon, jaded tough-as nails vetern, brainy guy.
-Standard bad guy leadership - enemy supreme commander, his/her loyal aide, a brash warmongering underling, warmongers idealistic counterpart.
Y’know, msmith537, reading your post, I couldn’t help but think how closely anime cliches resemble American SF cliches.
Anyway, my favorite anime cliche comes from the childish ranks of “fighting” anime - Dragonball Z, Yu Yu Hakusho, etc. - where the protagonist meets an enemy who is incredibly strong. Protagonist wanders off to train for a few weeks (how the hell they find the time is always kind of weird to me), picks up a new technique or two, and kicks the crap out of the incredibly strong antagonist.
It’s not really anime unless a major metropolitan center is annihilated in a giant explosion.
Schoolgirls.
While I love any scene with a giant robot destroying an entire army, I love the scene right after where one guy with a sword takes out the giant robot.
Intelligent science fiction movies.
Tentacles, tentacles, tentacles. And I’m not just talking in the porn, either.
Loopy new-age mysticism saves the world!
When ever a character leaps into the air to deliver a killing blow, and hangs there for fifteen or twenty seconds while the background goes all streaky. Bonus points if he’s screaming at the same time.
The only, and I do mean only, person who can operate the Gianr Robot is a teen-aged kid (or kids, plural) who operates it in battle perfectlly. Even though he is completely untrained in it’s operation, and usually has never even seen the damn thing before.
I love the little teardrops and superdeformed stuff. Not a plot theme, but so cute. I’ve been reading Card Captor Sakura manga and, while I’m overdosing on sugar and ruining any reputation I had of being evil, I think it’s all so cute. Like a bunny rabbit.
Thirding the brooding guys. Bonus points if it’s a teenage guy prettier than me.
The people which seem perfectly normal and quite human (not supposed to be superheroes or anything) suddenly acting superhuman and invincible is amusing.
jessica
The beautiful bishounen gay guy – my favourite cliché (Yeah, CLAMP!)
The gay lovers are translated as “just friends” in the English version – my least favourite clichés.
And far worse than boring clichés among animé series are those pointless series than run on so long they develop their own clichés – I’m thinking Fushigi Yuugi here.
Everything can fly. Regardless of how huge and heavy it is, little stubby fold-out winglets or jet thrust can lift 100,000 tonne loads.
Almost everybody has a cute/annoying little brother who tags along.
When all else fails, just pull out the invincible super-weapon and blow your opponents away. Of course, Popeye was guilty of this decades earlier.
All females have legs accounting for at least two-thirds of their total height. They also either wear skintights or micro-skirts three inches too short to cover their white silk panties. (Not that I’m complaining, mind you…)
An alien/mutant/genetically-engineered goofy creature as a pet/mascot.
Weirdly anachronistic designs, such as a WW2 battleship retrofitted into a starship, or a character that dresses in 19th century clothing.
I want Tokyo Babylon, manga or OVA, but I can’t buy it until I get my own credit card and/or source of income. My dad would have a heart attack looking at the tape box. It’s one thing, after all, to see bloody destruction and another thing to see two guys hugging each other. :rolleyes:
jessica
Let’s not forget that heros and heroinces, as well as the brooding villain, all have costumes that are silmultaneously ridiculous and fashionable. They shoudl retire this now that Cardcaptor Sakura has had so much fun parodying it.
Or the '70s dune buggy is standard military equipment, alongside the hovering tank/truck and giant jet propelled anti-gravity device equiped partical beam firing robot.
Not to mention that good guys always belong to a ‘Federation’ or ‘Kingdom’. Bad guys belong to an ‘Empire’ or ‘Principality’. (What, no Commonwealths in the anime political world?)
Good guy ‘mecha’ and ships looks like something manufactured by Mitsubishi Motors or General Dynamics. In other words, sleek, mechanical looking stuff. In comparison, bad guy equipment often looks like it was grown in a giant petri dish - rounded, organic looking machinery with lots of tenticals, insectile ‘eyes’, etc.
But my absolute favorite anime cliche is the simply enormous amounts of food the (main) characters eat. If I could eat like that without going bankrupt, becoming obscenely obese, or needing to be a bulemic, I’d eat like that in a heartbeat (I like food!).
Alas, real life human physiology and my personal economics prevent me from going to restaurants and ordering “everything from here to,” sliding finger way down the menu, “here.”
Speed has nothing to do with mass, or gravity. Heavily armored mecha are the fastest objects known to human science.
Anyone who can play an insturment automatically knows how to do such mundane tasks as performing martial arts moves, piloting mecha, piloting starships, fighting interplanetary wars, etc.
Super deform (yay CLAMP!)
[tangent]
I really get annoyed with the censor’s butchery of perfectly good anime. Thank god no network idiot has decided to subject Rurouni Kenshin to this indignity (ye gods, what would they do to it???)
You can be raped by a 9’ tall giant, have your back snapped in his bear-hug, and then be thrown into the sea, and you will be OK after a night in the hospital. The same thing goes for having a chunk of concrete that has to way at least a ton dropped on your head.
You can swear to uphold what ever passes for law and order until you question a suspect then its open season and civil rights dont exist
From the glogo 13 films : any female that sleeps with duke togo will be killed in the next 10 minutes and declare there undying love for him as they pass on in his arms
in general: every 5 years or so a robotech type of series will some out it will use almost the exact same plot lines but every fan will swear its diffrent!
Any type of anime thats based on a video game will for the first series play out the video game ie dbz pokemon ect
