Alright AJAS'ers ... rules are simple , please describe plot clichés and with anime examples by title (i guess games are just as acceptable).

Wimp becoming l337
NGE , Rahxephon , FLCL

Chosen 1 syndrome ...
Bleach (ichigo) , Photon

Fate/Stay Night would be Chosen 1 Shyndrome but I refuse to ever say Shirou left wimp status.

Er, I don't think any wimp from NGE ever became 1337. Quite the opposite.

I would beg to differ here. Shirou is not a wimp.

Last Exile wrote:Er, I don't think any wimp from NGE ever became 1337. Quite the opposite.

Correction: they became 1337 wimps.

stormy001 wrote:I would beg to differ here. Shirou is not a wimp.

Wrong term, my bad. Self-righteous, arrogant prick is far more apt.

The Hot Springs/Shower/Bath cliche:

Ai Yori Aoshi, Chrono Crusade, Elfen Lied, NGE, Fate/Stay Night, FMP: Fumoffu, Grenadier (about every couple of minutes!), Genshiken, Love Hina, Midori Days, Please Teacher, Please Twins, Scrapped Princess, Lunar Legend Tsukihime, Steel Angel Kurumi, Trinity Blood.

I'm sure there's more but I don't watch that many ecchi series.

Every single anime must feature a minimum of one beach filler episode featuring all female cast members in swimwear.

Bazza wrote:Every single anime must feature a minimum of one beach filler episode featuring all female cast members in swimwear.

Even though I've seen it I'm still wondering how Initial D managed to do that.

Atory wrote:

Bazza wrote:Every single anime must feature a minimum of one beach filler episode featuring all female cast members in swimwear.

Even though I've seen it I'm still wondering how Initial D managed to do that.

When you have that many episodes, you have to throw in something like that eventually.

Last Exile wrote:The Hot Springs/Shower/Bath cliche:

Ai Yori Aoshi, Chrono Crusade, Elfen Lied, NGE, Fate/Stay Night, FMP: Fumoffu, Grenadier (about every couple of minutes!), Genshiken, Love Hina, Midori Days, Please Teacher, Please Twins, Scrapped Princess, Lunar Legend Tsukihime, Steel Angel Kurumi, Trinity Blood.

I'm sure there's more but I don't watch that many ecchi series.

With "onsen" in its title, I'm sure the Shakugan no Shana special has added that series to this list.... Aria also has an episode set at a giant bath house. And, of course, there is NieA_7....

Question to Paul - What particular quality/incident makes you label Naota as a wimp? He was always hot-headed and launching himself into anything. He was just an angsty brat. However, he did reach 1337 status.

Psike81 wrote:Wimp becoming l337

Trigun

Last Exile wrote:

stormy001 wrote:I would beg to differ here. Shirou is not a wimp.

Wrong term, my bad. Self-righteous, arrogant prick is far more apt.

Self righteous? Maybe. Arrogant? Hell no.

If you reading my translated works on the game story, he is pretty humble man.

Spring bath scenes are excellent cover of fan service. I mean, the steams covered them pretty well.

Err Atory , unless you meant the middle bit of Trigun where he did doggy in the nude ; Vash was never really a wimp ...

He just pretends to be one .

"Blasted to the stone age" ... where the setting is now lush and green over the nuked landscape of high civilisation .

Scrapped princess , El Hazard , Saber Marionette J (i think or was it the other) , Nausica - Valley of the Wind

1. old man captain with caps covering their eyes.

2. loud mouth blonde US girls who can't speak English

Bazza wrote:Every single anime must feature a minimum of one beach filler episode featuring all female cast members in swimwear.

I think its alot easier to list series that don't fall into that cliché.
E.g. Ergo Proxy, But its is defiantly wimp to l33t wimp.

Psike81 wrote:Err Atory , unless you meant the middle bit of Trigun where he did doggy in the nude ; Vash was never really a wimp ...

He just pretends to be one .

It doesn't show much of Vash's past when he was a kid but he was a wimp back then. Knives even proclaims that Vash is still a wimp when they go to battle.

1. Germany is anime's resident twilight zone. Any character who leaves to go there is never seen or heard from again. Unless the character was German to begin with, and sometimes even then....

2. Pink-haired girls are almost always airheads. Even Utena was kindasorta clueless. Vectors have made this congenital idiocy dangerous.

3. In space, constant thrust equals constant velocity.

All schools in anime , regardless of location in the world seem to use the same "Grandfather clock" tone to signal periods .

Eg . Too many to count , perhaps best explained with *Parody Massugu No Iko

The best martial arts hero is always the one who picked the art that's dying .

Eg . Rurouni Kenshin , Shadow Skill

Crickets in summer


The girl who always beats up the male lead.
Love Hina, Full Metal Panic,

Panty scenario/thief - Chobits, Full Metal Panic, Mai-Hime, Genshiken, Love Hina (I'll leave it to B&M to post the full list)

1. Crows usually squawk at early evening. Or, conversely, during awkward moments....

2. Boys who walk in on girls in the bath/shower are perverts. Boys who are in the bath/shower when a girl walks in are, equally, perverts.

3. Japanese houses suck at having locks on their bathroom doors.

4. The deadliest and/or most prolific weapon in anime is the mallet. There is a pocket dimension attending nearly every female character where said mallets are kept, since they appear out of nowhere and one doesn't like to think where they are being kept if there isn't one....

5. Main female characters cannot cook. Main male characters are cordon bleu chefs.

6. All Japanese schools have the same swimming uniform for girls.

7. The military-industrial complex immediately think of Japanese schoolgirls when looking for the perfect soldier and/or person to convert into a living weapon of mass destruction.

8. The quiet ones always have the biggest issues. In the past they just angsted like whiny emos. Today they kill you with billhook machetes or boxcutters. Especially if they're minderjährigen mädchen. See No. 7.

- Each series must have a moe chick, a minderjährigen mädchen chick and a tsundere chick.

Mecha's that use guns have l337 guns ...

Mecha's that martial arts have l337 moves ... but must be preceded with a battle cry of said move name .

and worse of all , they're repeated over and over and over and over (rate of once per episode)

Last Exile wrote:- Each series must have a moe chick, a minderjährigen mädchen chick and a tsundere chick.

Or, more correctly, a moe minderjährigen mädchen tsudere chick.

Mappy wrote:Or, more correctly, a moe minderjährigen mädchen tsudere chick.

Shakugan no Shana comes to mind...


I'd like to flame her haze, if ya know what I mean.

Since, apart from PsYcHoMoE and Tsunderes, 2006 has been the year of The Trap, I suppose I should add this cliche:

A guy (especially a main character) who crossdresses as a girl is almost invariably better looking than all the girls around him. Conversely, a girl (especially a main character) who crossdresses as a guy is almost invariably better looking than all the guys around her.

Mappy wrote:A guy (especially a main character) who crossdresses as a girl is almost invariably better looking than all the girls around him. Conversely, a girl (especially a main character) who crossdresses as a guy is almost invariably better looking than all the guys around her.

These guys must also have an un-naturally feminine voice off the bat. (A!MG spoiler)With the one single exception being when Keiichi was turned into a 'girl' That made me sad; because with a little work he could have pulled it off quite nicely.
Get your mind out of the gutter. It was a figure of speech. >.>

It probably doesn't help that I've been watching though YUA recently. Futaba Aoi, the Grandfather of Traps....

Bathhouses always have a panorama of mount fuji on the back wall.

Any male characters must immediatly try to peek on the girls side. Spineless male characters are against peeking untill persuaded otherwise.

If male characters are nearby all female characters automatically act like lesbians.

Bathhouses must look like they were bulit in the feudal era.

Death by steak ...

A secondary character WILL die when he/she orders restaurant steak only to be called away on combat emergency .

Leaving the steak half eaten ... damn what a waste .

Eg. Macross , RahXephon

1. All school toilets have the ghost of a girl in one of the cubicles. And she usually starts her haunting by sobbing when someone is washing their hands.

2. Characters in deep, personal and momentary introspection have this tendency to stare at the palm of their hand.

3. Stimulation of any kind causes nosebleeds. Anime characters have the weakest array of nasal capilliaries in existence.

Mappy wrote:2. Characters in deep, personal and momentary introspection have this tendency to stare at the palm of their hand.

Reminds of me a particular scene in NGE...

That did occur to me.

Mappy wrote:That did occur to me.

Think of all the needless pain and suffering that could have ended there!

Another cliche:

Gorgeous chick falls for worthless guy.

Last Exile wrote:Another cliche:

Gorgeous chick falls for worthless guy.

Well, of course it is a cliche. It's there for all those guys who watch anime to feel better about their dim and distant prospects....

Mappy wrote:

Last Exile wrote:Another cliche:

Gorgeous chick falls for worthless guy.

Well, of course it is a cliche. It's there for all those guys who watch anime to feel better about their dim and distant prospects....

Now why on earth would someone do that for?

Last Exile wrote:
Now why on earth would someone do that for?

Japan has a high enough suicide rate already.

Ryan White wrote:

Last Exile wrote:
Now why on earth would someone do that for?

Japan has a high enough suicide rate already.

Well I don't think psycho killer moes help that at all.

The problem with that approach is if you take that route, you could get to the point tha'ts all you want and that the fact real life couldn't supply such fanatsies constitutes a reson to no longer exist on this plane and do themselves in. Just like the Korean WoW junkie.

odds of 1 to 1.5 billion ...

Only in Scifi anime that any one single ship can take on those odds and come out top ...

(with or without help)

Macross , Vandread , Nadesico

Last Exile wrote:The problem with that approach is if you take that route, you could get to the point tha'ts all you want and that the fact real life couldn't supply such fanatsies constitutes a reson to no longer exist on this plane and do themselves in.

Well, it wasn't as if real life was ever going to supply them with anything to begin with. So it really doesn't matter to them.

Psike81 wrote:odds of 1 to 1.5 billion ...

Only in Scifi anime that any one single ship can take on those odds and come out top ...

It also happens in medieval fantasy anime to a much smaller degree.

Mappy wrote:

Last Exile wrote:The problem with that approach is if you take that route, you could get to the point tha'ts all you want and that the fact real life couldn't supply such fanatsies constitutes a reson to no longer exist on this plane and do themselves in.

Well, it wasn't as if real life was ever going to supply them with anything to begin with. So it really doesn't matter to them.

Well, they didn't have my mother.

Atory wrote:

Psike81 wrote:odds of 1 to 1.5 billion ...

Only in Scifi anime that any one single ship can take on those odds and come out top ...

It also happens in medieval fantasy anime to a much smaller degree.

StormTrooper Effect is not an anime cliche Its been done in movies since they were born.

Hmmm,

Missiles in anime world is cheap and you need dozens of them just to kill one target. Economy per enemy head kill. Impressive.

stormy001 wrote:Hmmm,

Missiles in anime world is cheap and you need dozens of them just to kill one target. Economy per enemy head kill. Impressive.

Quite ironic when you consider that modern militaries use missiles because they provide a surgical strike option as opposed to the carpet bombing techniques used with conventional bombs. Full Metal Panic avoided using this cliché, can anybody this of others that do as well?

Ryan White wrote:

stormy001 wrote:Hmmm,

Missiles in anime world is cheap and you need dozens of them just to kill one target. Economy per enemy head kill. Impressive.

Quite ironic when you consider that modern militaries use missiles because they provide a surgical strike option as opposed to the carpet bombing techniques used with conventional bombs. Full Metal Panic avoided using this cliché, can anybody this of others that do as well?

Elfen Lied? Just go for the meat and cut 'em apart! Killer cuties ftw!

Ryan White wrote:
stormy001 wrote:
Hmmm,

Missiles in anime world is cheap and you need dozens of them just to kill one target. Economy per enemy head kill. Impressive.

You can count GPM to that .

Construction sites in Japan seriously suffer from bad security . Just about anyone can get in ...

Noir ,
Excel Saga ...

Psike81 wrote:Construction sites in Japan seriously suffer from bad security . Just about anyone can get in ...

Noir ,
Excel Saga ...

Epic battles also frequently occur on/in/over these construction sites.

And those that aren't are usually over Tokyo Tower.

Simultaneously , Tokyo seems to have THE most hardworking construction crews ...

At just about anytime part of the city is demolished , stomped , death-rayed , etc ... by the next ep , its fully rebuilt or in the process of quick rebuilding .

So effectively whole city blocks are rebuilt within minutes .

Which is probably why nobody is all that concerned when they're trashed. They're made quickly with the crappiest materials.