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.