Anime Cliches

[Tungsten]

Hey guys if you're like me you've seen a lot of animes. I know this doesn't apply to all animes (just most) but after watching the typical action anime you've seen your fair share of common traits / cliches. This thread is dedicated to posting these cliches for our amusement. If you want feel free to post some animes that have this trait. Also feel free to give the cliche a name

I'll start things off

I'm just an ordinary boy but not really cliche
The hero always begins to be an ordinary boy, but throughout the course of the series turns himself into a super powerful person. Then later we discover that the guy wasn't so ordinary and it turns out he has some special trait unknown to him that kind of makes him predestined to be super

Stereotypes are true cliche
Everyone who isn't Japanese is essentially a giant stereotype and in almost all cases inferior to the Japanese characters.

Anime has a crazy definition of love cliche
The girl who hates the main character or constantly beats him up in the begining always ends up as the main love interest.

Since I couldn't kill you, let's be friends cliche
All of the hero's friends start off wanting to kill him

Reoccuring what now? cliche
There is no such thing as a serious reoccuring villian (as in more than 2-3 appearances outside of standard villian arc). All villians either become allies or comic relief.

So let me get this straight, the second you stop trying to kill me you've become useless? cliche
All friend rivals essentially become useless in the "ultimate villian battle" at most all they do is delay the bad-guy, take people to saftey, comment on certain aspects of the fight to others, loan some of his power to the hero / inspiration for the hero to get stronger, get beat up the ultimate bad guy to showcase how powerful he is or give the main hero the chance to see the villian's ultimate attack.

All that training for nothing cliche
No matter how much training a hero does, it is never enough to defeat the ultimate bad guy. Usually the power required to defeat the bad guy comes from the fight itself (transformation, inspiration, etc). But training does do wonders for taking out the bad guy's minions through

So which sexual deviant did you train from? cliche
All male masters who train the main hero always or majority of the time ends up being a major pervert.

Apparently stop absorbing wasn't an option cliche
All enemies who utilize absorbing the hero's energy (with the exception of the ultimate villian) ends up being destroyed by absorbing too much.

Teeeaaammmeee wooorrrkkkk? cliche
When push comes to shove team work is essentially useless in battles. In the end it's always ends up being a one on one fight.

Rival's inferiority complex cliche
There is always one battle where the rival is stubborn to battle a strong enemy on his/her own. Always this battle involves everyone watching and the rival constantly telling the main hero to not interfere or he/she will attack em'

[Pleading Eyes]

Your forgot

Magical Girl will Somehow, However Unlikely, Lose All Her Clothes In Front Of The Other Characters In At Least One Episode Cliche

On occasion it may be the male instead, but usually it's the busty magical girl who somehow loses her clothes in public, whether in battle, magic gone wrong, or just through a strange series of events.

Yeah, I don't get it either...

[Tungsten]

Good one PE, here's two more

Anime Eyes cliche
You can tell if a person is good or bad based on his eyes. Small Pupils = Evil, while Big Pupils = good. When a bad guy turns good his pupils always increase in size (kind of like the Grinches heart).

Never trust the guy whose eyes are always closed cliche
The person whose eyes are always closed ( as in always ^_^ ) is in reality ultimate evil incarnate.

[Pleading Eyes]

tungsten said:

Never trust the guy whose eyes are always closed cliche
The person whose eyes are always closed ( as in always ^_^ ) is in reality ultimate evil incarnate.

Either that, or a good guy, who's just a real pervert. XD

[Chevalier Vi Liberté]

tungsten said:

Never trust the guy whose eyes are always closed cliche
The person whose eyes are always closed ( as in always ^_^ ) is in reality ultimate evil incarnate.

That is a perfect description of Gin Ichimaru from Bleach.


Anyways,

Main character is a fool most of the time but extremely powerful when needed and is rival who turns evil is the "cool" guy.

[girlunderglass]

Boobs!

Why is it that every anime series has to have at least one girl with these gianormous breasts and there always has to be at least one reference that points out the obvious- whether it be they get in the way, get exposed or end up in someone's face?

[attonbitus]

Glasses are the door way to your split personality

Glasses on anime character having a special quality that allows them to suppress "the eviL" side of any character. So much so that none of the Glasses wearing friends ever thought said person could be the "evil genius" behind all their woes. I like to call this "the verse superman". Can also be used to suppress "the wild child" personality in place of t3h 3vil persona.

*side effect to wearing the glasses, Girls will always be terminally shy and will always most ways be beautiful once they take them off. Guys, will suffer from, the brainy but cowardly nerd syndrome, brainy but stuck up syndrome, or the Glasses will fail and they will have have a "I'm so freaking smart and you can't stop me MUWHAHAHA" syndrome.

One eye covered by your hair psychosis

Very similar to the Glasses phenomenon when a character has one eye covered it's for 1 of two reason.
1) he's emo and uses the hair to hide his mysterious past
2) he/she uses the hair to over their other eye which is inevitably a different color. Should the eye coverings get switch it will unleash the murderous persona that was hidden. This really takes form of a split personality that generally "talks" to the more innocent side which not actively in control of the body.

[godhunter]

I've never seen the eye thing used in any other anime/manga than Air Gear. Where else has it shown up o.O

[Tungsten]

@ godhunter: My eye thing or attonbus's eye thing?

[godhunter]

Attonbus's

My bad for not making that clear

[Sakura]

The Five Magical Girls who Always Look Up To The Main/First-Appearance Girl Cliche

Ya know it's true...maybe.

[attonbitus]

godhunter1053 said:

Attonbus's

My bad for not making that clear

My most recent experiance with it is Allelujah/Hallelujah Haptism from gundam 00. Very much like Agito/Akito in Air Gear.

The one eye hair cover to be emo/mysterious is done a lot, the one that stick out in my mind always is Trowa Barton from Gundam Wing. Mostly cause the hair slick was so long and pointy it should have been used as a weapon.

[Chibi Chan-o]

There's Always Someone (Often The Hero) That Masters Some Uber-PWNAGE Technique Or Attack Move Thing In No Time At All, Even Though It Supposedly Takes Years To Master Said Attack Move Thing/Uber-PWNAGE Technique

Yeah, the great fighters that came before couldn't do it but then some teenage character (or otherwise young) comes in and masters the move WAAAAAY ahead of time. Sometimes, they master a move that wasn't able to be mastered by others!!!

Example: Naruto and the Rasengan. It took Minato 3-4 years to master it and Naruto does it in a week!!

[mahatista]

IN THE MIDST OF EVERY FIGHT A WARRIOR MUST EITHER 1) HAVE A RIDICULOUSLY LONG-WINDED INNER MONOLOGUE WHILE ALL ACTION WAITS OR 2) HAVE A RIDICULOUSLY EXTENDED FLASHBACK TO ANOTHER EPISODE OF THE SHOW WHILE ALL ACTION WAITS RESULTING IN A FIGHT THAT LASTS 3-5 EPISODES IN LENGTH.

I recently saw an episode of Naruto Shippuden where the flashback during the fight was from an episode that aired just a few weeks before.


----

I actually haven't seen some of these cliches, but a lot of them ring very true. I've only got about 8 animes under my belt and that includes classics like Speed Racer and Marine Boy .

[Tungsten]

chibichan said:

There's Always Someone (Often The Hero) That Masters Some Uber-PWNAGE Technique Or Attack Move Thing In No Time At All, Even Though It Supposedly Takes Years To Master Said Attack Move Thing/Uber-PWNAGE Technique

Yeah, the great fighters that came before couldn't do it but then some teenage character (or otherwise young) comes in and masters the move WAAAAAY ahead of time. Sometimes, they master a move that wasn't able to be mastered by others!!!

Example: Naruto and the Rasengan. It took Minato 3-4 years to master it and Naruto does it in a week!!

Let's not forget Master Roshi from DBZ who spent his entire life mastering the Kamamaha and it took Goku and everyone else like 2 seconds to master. XD