Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
Let's talk about anime tropes!
327 Plays1 year ago
Warning: This episode may contain topics that some listeners may find upsetting. Listener discretion is advised.
In this episode, Satsunami and Andrew discuss the weird and weeby world of anime tropes. From power-ups to screaming, no stone is left unturned as they venture into this topic!
Patrons:
- Battle Toaster
- Sonia
Use my special link zen.ai/chatsunami and use chatsunami to save 30% off your first three months of Zencastr professional. #madeonzencastr
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction and Sensitive Topics Warning
00:00:00
Speaker
Hey everyone, Chatsunami here. Just to let you know that this episode will be covering some sensitive topics that some listeners may find upsetting. Listener discretion is advised.
Meet the Hosts: Chatsunami and Andrew
00:00:14
Speaker
Welcome to Chatsunami.
00:00:27
Speaker
Hello everybody, and welcome to another episode of Chatsunami. My name's Chatsunami, and joining me tonight with the power of friendship is none other than the one and only, Andrew. Andrew, welcome to Chatsunami. Baka, it's not like I wanted to be on this podcast episode anyway. Yeah, we'll be having more after this episode.
Nostalgia: Spider-Man Month Reflections
00:00:56
Speaker
I can't believe how long it's been since we recorded the Spider-Man month. It honestly seems like yesterday we were both talking about it saying
00:01:05
Speaker
yeah, let's do Spider-Man month. Oh, it's gonna be so cool." And then you look back and go, oh sweet Jesus, how long ago was it? So much content absorbed. So many weird, weird looks from Tobu Aguirre to Note Down. Yeah, to sift through Andrew Garfield's pained expressions.
Diving into Anime: Community and Tropes
00:01:21
Speaker
If you haven't listened to those episodes, please go listen to them when you can after this episode because this is gonna be a doozy of an episode
00:01:28
Speaker
We are of course going to be diving into semi controversial territory and I don't mean controversial as in the traditional sense. I'm talking about anime and let me tell you, the anime community is not a community to be trifled with, is it?
00:01:45
Speaker
No, I for one have felt their wrath in the past, so I'm wary of what we will get in retaliation for this episode. Oh boy, I can't wait to be cancelled over my anime days. They call us the Garbage Opinion Podcast. I say it's like the next day I replace the Red Panda with just a garbage gun.
00:02:03
Speaker
But yeah, today we are... I know what you're going for! Bin palette. Oh, I thought you were going to say rubbish palette. Yeah, I guess that works. I know, I stole half of your joke. I'm already getting cancelled by the anime community. I might as well go
Main Topic: Anime Tropes Discussion
00:02:16
Speaker
with the full hook. But anyway, sorry, back to the topic. Today we are going to be talking about the weird and wonderful world of anime tropes. And if I had my way,
00:02:26
Speaker
I would have been just tearing into them saying, I hate this, I hate that. But of course, Andrew, you're indeed the mediator in this. You have said we should probably include the ones we like, the ones we dislike. So today we are going to have a very chilled out and balanced supposed discussion on tropes that we like in anime and tropes that maybe aren't as great
00:02:47
Speaker
I'm expecting a compliment sandwich in this podcast. I'm expecting you to have, for every negative trope, I want you to present me with two things you like about anime. It's colourful and it makes me feel warm and fuzzy. Also, I hate this character anyway. I've actually jotted down a few and don't worry, we will get into that once we get into the main part of the episode.
00:03:08
Speaker
I'm reading what I've got for the positives and I'm like, oh yeah, those are some good positives. And then you look at the negative side and it's just, it's a long list. Or maybe not long, but I feel as if it's gonna overlap maybe with some of yours. But see before we go into it though, when you were younger and you got introduced to the weird and wonderful world of anime, did you notice these tropes a lot? Or did it take a while for you to clock on and be like, oh wait, I don't like this or do you like that?
00:03:36
Speaker
I think it definitely took a while. I think there was certainly, I certainly grew up with tropes quite prevalent, but I didn't really know differently at the time. So I wasn't really able to say, Oh, I don't like that they do this so much. I kind of took it as like, Oh, that's what happens in a cartoon. Just give me an example. One of the early animes I watched growing up when I was about six was Ranma one half.
00:03:57
Speaker
which I don't think you'll probably be familiar with Ranma one half. It was quite a dated anime. But one of the main plots of it is that when characters get wet, and it's only certain characters within the show, they transform. And our main character transforms. He's like bonded with his sister. So like he switches between being his sister and being himself, I think.
00:04:17
Speaker
But he still has the same kind of consciousness, regardless, but he just has the body of a woman or a body of a man. There's various other characters who also have similar but not quite the same thing, they usually turn into think animals. And there's like a girl who turns into a cat who really fancies the boy version and a guy who turns I think into a panda that really fancies the girl version and neither of them are aware that they're the same person. And they think that the switch person is awful and like their enemy that they have
00:04:43
Speaker
surpass so they can't see like fighting the person that actually likes their other alter ego. And looking back at that, that was jam-packed with so many moments where I now kind of cringe and like roll my eyes at and these kind of painful tropes. But yeah, kind of getting into sort of my history behind it. What about you? I would definitely say the same. Going for a more traditional example, animes like Dragon Ball, for example, where I have to admit I was one of those kids guilty as charged. She was like, oh, pretty colors.
00:05:11
Speaker
and all of these muzzled men punching each other and I just thought the action was cool. I thought the characters were cool and don't get me wrong it does have that cool aspect. The same with Pokemon and I thought oh there's cool battles and cool characters oh gotta catch them all but when you grow up and you look at these enemies through a moor and again I don't want to separate it just and say
00:05:31
Speaker
a more mature lens as I push up my non-existent anime glasses there. But when you grow up and you look at these animes from a grown up perspective you think, oh my god, the pacing is off, there's so many characters and tropes that you just don't like. For example, in Dragon Ball you've got the lack of a better term, the last minute transformations, which was all finding good for the first Super Saiyan transformation, but then anything after that it kind of became a bit gratuitous and
00:06:00
Speaker
it just wasn't well done the same with Pokemon. He had Ash constantly besting these people who in the real life situation, don't get me wrong, he would have been absolutely trumped and beaten to the curb, but obviously because he's the protagonist it's like oh yeah it's all fine and good.
Introduction to the Podcast and Sub-series
00:06:16
Speaker
So there's a lot of, especially for children's anime, I feel as if
00:06:19
Speaker
obviously there has to be that repetition, there has to be that familiarity, but then when you get to other enemies that are dedicated to, you know, an older fanbase, whether that be for Death Note, JoJo's Bizarre Adventures, those kind of enemies, then you start to notice some overlying tropes, and obviously we will definitely get into that, but you know what, I feel as if we've indeed charged our attack long enough, will we get ready to dive into this?
00:06:47
Speaker
Yeah, I think so. I think we're ready to jump back into the weeb and wonderful world of anime. Well, I will just draw my trap card and see what's on it with these messages. Welcome to Chatsunami, a variety podcast that discusses topics from gaming and films to anime in general interest. Previously on Chatsunami, we've analysed what makes a good horror game, conducted a retrospective on Pierce Brosnan's runs James Bond, and listened to us take deep dives into both the Sonic and Halo franchises.
00:07:15
Speaker
Also, if you're an anime fan, then don't forget to check us out on our sub-series, Chatsunani, where we dive into the world of anime. So far, we've reviewed things like Death Note, Princess Mononoke, and the hit Beyblade series. If that sounds like your cup of tea, then you can check us out on Spotify, iTunes, and all good podcast apps. As always, stay safe, stay awesome, and most importantly, stay hydrated.
00:07:37
Speaker
Hi everyone, I'm Lisa. And I'm Dawn. And if you've ever watched a TV show and thought to yourself, oh my god, that season finale plot twist was absolutely bonkers. Or seen a movie and thought, wow, I need to talk to somebody about this train wreck immediately. Then we think you'll fit right in with our podcast. I hate it. Let's watch it. We watch TV shows like Riverdale and Emily in Paris. And movies like Deep Water, Killer Sofa, Rubber and Devil Adusions. And we give them the total ransom they deserve. It's basically group therapy for movie mascots. So come check us out wherever you stream podcasts.
The Impact of Anime Music
00:08:06
Speaker
This episode is sponsored by Zencaster. If you're a podcast that records remotely like me, then you'll know how challenging it can be to create the podcast you've always wanted. That's where Zencaster comes in. Before I met Zencaster, I was put a naive podcaster, recording on low-quality, one-track audio waves.
00:08:41
Speaker
I want you to have the same easy experience I do for all my podcasting and content needs. It's time to share your story.
00:08:52
Speaker
So let's start with the good aspects of these tropes, because there's a lot of bad ones, I feel as if again we will probably overlap, but since it was your suggestion, I'm going to let you kick off with this Andrew, if that's okay, and yeah talk about what tropes you like about anime, what are the ones that really you'll look at and you go, that's fantastic.
00:09:15
Speaker
Okay, so the one that springs to mind first is something that was actually brought up in an episode of Trash Taste recently, which I also I completely agree with, which is the playing the intro song of an anime, like the initial opening intro song as like the climax
00:09:30
Speaker
to like a big significant event like the finale of the show and when like something really important is happening you start to hear like the build up the song starts playing from like the very first opening that got you into the show you were so enthusiastic about the one main kind of example of this that I can remember I don't know if it's similar for you is hunter hunter oh yeah
00:09:47
Speaker
hearing the Hunter Hunter theme song start to play. Hunter Hunter's theme song, I don't think it changes. The visuals do change, but the music itself, I'm pretty sure, stays the same. It's still, I can't remember the artist, but still Departure was the name of the song. Yeah, right, it's completely consistent, but it's the outro that always changes. You know, you've got hunting for your dream, you've got reason, you've got so many good ones, and they always use, you're right, they always use those ones towards the end.
00:10:16
Speaker
of certain arcs and it's just done beautifully. But yeah, using departure, not in like the actual end credits, but like in the body of the episode itself as like something climactic is happening, I think that's such a powerful, it's very emotive. That is what really gets me enthusiastic about a show when I hear something like that. What about you? I was actually just thinking in my head there in Dragon Ball Super, going back to again the very normie we've taken care of it with.
00:10:42
Speaker
Dragon Ball Super, I remember they did something similar where there's like a big fight between, I think it's Goku and Hit, and they have the theme song that kicks in and they're fighting. Don't get me wrong, I wasn't as attached to that as some other animes that I will bring up, but I was just laughing because I was thinking, can you imagine if you're watching Dragon Ball Z in the 90s and Rock the Dragon kicked in,
00:11:03
Speaker
You know, it's like Frieza vs Goku and all he heard in the background was, rock the dragon, dragon ballsy! It would not. That would just cut the tension completely away if you're like, no, no, get out of here. But other ones that came to mind was Goodr Logan. And again, Full Metal Alchemist Brotherhood is one of those ones that the intros and the outros change quite a bit. So I'm sure they do include the intros at the very end.
00:11:29
Speaker
but at the same time I would just extend that to the outros as well. I do think it's absolutely fantastic when they manage to include the theme song as a whole in those moments because then you kind of think, oh my god, you know, this is a very serious moment, this is very impactful, so no, I completely agree with you there. I do think that it's definitely something that hypes up the story, I would say. That's at the risk of me sounding like someone going, hey look, it's a song I recognise!
00:11:58
Speaker
And it is a very base level kind of emotion. It's very simple of just enjoying like a song you've heard before. It's relying on nostalgia, which I brought up a critical of in certain aspects of the past. But I do think that if used in correctly, it is so powerful, it really kind of completes a show and just unlike on a lesser sense, what you're saying like, I don't necessarily think this is like a I don't know if this is a trope.
00:12:21
Speaker
per se but I enjoy when maybe like the season or arc finale of a show when the the outro starts playing while the show is still playing and you'll see the credits overlaid on top of the show while it's still kind of continuing you're kind of seeing maybe an explanation of how things are ending or like what's leading up into what would be the next story and so you're not it doesn't just immediately cut
The Underdog Trope in Anime
00:12:42
Speaker
to some sad person looking out a window while the music plays instead it's
00:12:46
Speaker
you're seeing the continuation of the show, but you're getting the end credits and you're getting the song playing overlaid over the top. So I quite like that. I don't know. What do you think about that? Yeah, no, I completely agree. I do think that's nice because it doesn't just do, and I use a stroke quite a lot, but like a Sopranos cut to black kind of thing. It doesn't just cut and be like, oh, here's the end of the episode. It really shows there's like here.
00:13:09
Speaker
and attention to that and that they want to say, oh yeah, we probably care about the story, we don't want to just cut it off at the finale as it were. So no, I completely agree. I do think that it is quite an interesting trope that a lot of anime seem to be doing. I have to say, I don't know if it's a relatively recent thing, and by recent I mean the 2000s onwards trope. Maybe it was a
00:13:32
Speaker
thing with the 90s and 80s, but shows like Pokémon, Dragon Ball Z, those kind of mainstream ones, I don't ever remember them doing that, do you? No, I don't think they did. You were saying earlier, apologies if I mishear you, but on Dragon Ball Super, do they play the original Dragon Ball intro? No, they play the theme song for Dragon Ball Super, but it's not the good one, it's like the really rubbish-y one.
00:13:57
Speaker
I might as well go all out because I'm going to catch the ire of someone, but all we'll see is if you think the first opening of Dragon Ball Super is better than the second one, what are you doing? Go watch One Piece. Anyway, sorry. I know, I'm dropping the mic. Anyway, sorry. You are going on to your next trope.
00:14:24
Speaker
The very first one I've got is the concept of an underdog. This is something that is very prevalent in a lot of shonen
00:14:34
Speaker
It seems like very cliche at times, you know, you obviously get the main character who's not as strong as the others. Like, for example, My Hero Academia, where, you know, you've got the main character who doesn't have the powers to defend himself and become a hero and then later, you know, spoilers. Oh, he gets the powers. Yeah, that's great. And again, it doesn't really hold up
00:14:56
Speaker
later on. But I feel as if at least the initial getting introduced as an underdog is quite a good trope when it's done right. I don't know how you feel about that. Mason Yeah, it's a tricky one because I do like having an underdog story. It is always fun. After a while, it's tricky because it's one of those things of you've missed the boat a little bit in some capacities of if it's been done too much,
00:15:20
Speaker
It's kind of like we've seen the worst baseball player in Japan try and become a professional and all of a sudden he has to work his way from being absolute worst, who doesn't hold the bat the wrong way around, to being a professional who can hit the ball with the strength of Godzilla and his stan appears as some sort of grasshopper who whacks it really hard. I'm obviously using a ridiculous made-up example. Can I just say sorry, that stan's name would definitely be Jiminy Cricket. Sorry, go on.
00:15:49
Speaker
nice. Yeah, so we've seen them start from the bottom and kind of rise the way up. It'd be nice. It would be nice to see more often when they aren't garbage from the bottom and like are already decent. And that happens. It happens. It doesn't happen. I'm going to talk about IO actually, which is a soccer football anime.
00:16:05
Speaker
actually is like the best striker in his school in his like in his high school. And he ends up getting to play for this Academy of like really good players and he's garbage in comparison to them. And so he almost has to learn from scratch how to play football. It's so annoying because it builds up the kind of idea like, oh, he has ability because he was the best in his school and he has all his enthusiasm. So
00:16:26
Speaker
So he has the drive to be a better player. But when you kind of drop him into a situation where you're then told like, oh, he's actually the worst among all these people, you kind of go like, but why? Why is he the worst? Why have you set up in this way? Like, you can create a ladder for him to climb that doesn't put him at the bottom peg, you can start him off in the middle.
00:16:45
Speaker
I know that may not be as satisfying, but it's more realistic. It's more grounded that like someone who starts off playing on the ability level of a non-league football player is now by the end is like the ability of Messi. You need to have a kind of grounded level. A player who is 18 years old playing at the bottom league is not going to be playing at the highest level after a few years. You've already been spotted and are already designated as being one of the best by that age.
00:17:11
Speaker
I think it can be done really well. I think the underdog thing can be done really well. And something like I've mentioned it to you, and I think I've probably brought it up in the podcast before, Hijimi no Ippo, the boxing anime, and I'm bringing up sports anime a few times here, but they do technically fall into shounen. That is a very good example of an underdog story.
00:17:27
Speaker
Because he's this kind of nerdy kid who hadn't really learned the fundamentals of boxing before and was being bullied, but he was really strong. No one really realized like how strong he was because his job was to carry these like heavy fish supplies for like his mother's fishing company. And so when they actually got him into the gym, they saw he already had the strength required. He just needed to sort of hone some of the fundamentals of boxing and like learn how to do that from like an expert boxer. And then he kind of built up that way.
00:17:54
Speaker
And that felt a lot more believable. I could understand that. That did make sense to me. It's a bit hypocritical. I can understand that. You can say, well, why does that okay? But I actually isn't. And I don't actually have a concrete reason for why. It just does feel different to me. And I can't put my finger on what it is that is different about the two. I think that maybe it seems as if
00:18:13
Speaker
it is. And again, I would add this caveat as well, but it seems as if there has to be a progression for the underdog, because this is going to sound like a weird thing to say, but if you are eternally the underdog, then you're not really an underdog, if that makes sense.
00:18:29
Speaker
you're constantly in this plateau state of you're just the loser. Essentially you're someone who keeps losing over and over again and there's no growth there, there's no learning if you go back to and again draw in the ire here, but if you look at the first part of JoJo's Bizarre Adventures, that is like a very key example of although Jonathan who is the first JoJo, although he is very much born to a wealthy family, he has all the privilege, he is soon usurped by his
00:18:59
Speaker
evil step-brother, I know it sounds more like a soap opera but he is usurped by his step-brother Dio and then he ends up having to work his way both physically and mentally, which I know there's the joke there that even though they're like 17 years old they're supposed to be teenagers not like jacked bodybuilders but there is a progression there and it is good to see that but I do agree though that if it's overplayed too much
00:19:26
Speaker
then you're kind of just watching the same thing back over and over again. And again, when we go to the bad tropes, there are a lot of these that I've got written down that I feel as if can be done right, but overall because they're overdone that's death by overexposure as it were, which is going to be a bit weird when I tell you one of the other
Complex Plans and Overused Tropes
00:19:45
Speaker
ones.
00:19:45
Speaker
to have a good plan. But yeah, sorry, going on. What is your next one? I'm going to bring up a negative, just like alternate between the two. So one negative trope or the one trope that I find to be a negative is the I anticipated that you already did this.
00:20:00
Speaker
So I enacted this plan to counteract this plan. Oh, but I know you would do that. And so instead, I instead did this so that you would have no choice but to do this and like just continue going on. And you see it in so many shows that think they're being really clever. I like
00:20:15
Speaker
death note but it's so guilty of that. There's aspects of Jojo I like but Jojo does that so much. Backie, the grappler franchise, there's loads of that kind of stuff. It's a trope and anime that infuriates me so much because it's just so stupid. No one like plays 12D chess of like knowing five moves ahead of what your opponent is doing so counteracting that and doing it in this way and it's so frustrating that that is considered to be, I don't know if it's done for comedy, doesn't seem like it a lot of the time so like it's just silly. I don't
00:20:45
Speaker
like that. Yeah, it can be a bit contrived. The only defense I will say for Drodo is, from what I know anyway, it seems like it was a one-off. In some cases, at the very end of the fight between Joseph and Kars, the main villain of Battle Tendency, there is a scene where he says, oh, you were planning this the entire time. And he's like, yes, I was. And then he's in their monologue, he's like, I'm just saying that to wind them up or something like that. And I thought, okay, that's pretty funny. But
00:21:14
Speaker
Yeah it can get a bit tiring I have to say when you have it especially for shows like going back to a very younger audience like Yu-Gi-Oh for example or any kind of monster or battle kind of anime you know where it's like oh I anticipated this I did that.
00:21:31
Speaker
I have to admit, through most of the animes I'm actually thinking of, I mean even Hunter x Hunter is guilty for that at some point. Not always, I will say not always, but it's weird how even in good animes like that, it does seep in. I would agree with that for sure. There's a lot of animes I really like that do it, which in many ways makes it more frustrating because we're going to talk about this quite a lot in this episode of these tropes are so prevalent in anime, they occur in anime we like.
00:21:57
Speaker
and it makes us roll our eyes and get mad that it's sullying an otherwise good show. There's one anime I actually watched recently called Super Crooks. Did you ever watch that one? I didn't watch Super Crooks, no. I watched The Great Pretender. Oh, that was the next one I was going to bring up. Both of them do very similar things where they have basically a point where you can't go back
00:22:20
Speaker
with what they've said, what they've done. It's like, oh my god, this is a turning point of the anime. How are they going to come back from this? And then, yeah, there's some elaborate twist that, oh yeah, it turns out that we were in on the twist the entire time. And don't get me wrong, if done correctly, I feel as if that's fine. But for things like Super Crooks and especially The Great Pretender, that really annoyed me. And I was messaging you when I was watching that, because I think you'd watch this before me.
00:22:49
Speaker
I'd watch The Great Pretender pretty soon after it came out, yeah. But yeah, no, I totally agree with you. It's okay sparingly, I would say, and if there's progression there, but it's like a fine line, and this is probably going to be the sentence of the night that's going to get repeated that's saying, oh, it's a fine line between this and that. But that's the thing about tropes, it's like they can go so well or so bad depending on how you frame
Problematic Character Tropes
00:23:14
Speaker
it. But one
00:23:15
Speaker
that I want to bring up, and I don't know if you've got this on your list, and I'm going to go to the negative side again as well, is the idea about pair of characters? Have you got this on your list? I do. I knew you'd bring it up. I was avoiding having it on my own because I knew you would include it. So what you're saying is you anticipated my myth. You said so.
00:23:35
Speaker
I knew you would say that, so I avoided that move. Yeah, I hate, hate, hate this trope with a passion. I don't know if it's a cultural thing I'm missing, I don't know if it's a particular form of comedy that I'm unaware of, but I cannot stand the trope of the pervert, and I feel as if this is what puts off a lot of people off of anime. And again,
00:23:59
Speaker
going back to, you know, an example I gave before. Anime for young people, for example, Dragon Ball, that has really obscene, pervert moments with Master Roshi. You have Sword Art Online, that I said about the animator, but you have very explicit moments with that. You have one of the
00:24:16
Speaker
weirder ones. I mean even with Jojo's Bizarre Adventure, I actually nearly turned off Jojo's clothes of one particular scene. I think it was the third part, not was it was exactly the third part, where they get stranded at sea and then they come across this boat and there's this like underage girl that tags along with them and for some reason she decides to have a shower. But then as she's having a shower, this I think it's an orangutan who turns out it's the enemy stand user starts looking in on her and
00:24:46
Speaker
everything and it's just it's very uncomfortable. I'm sure you'll have a lot to say about this but I never, not once in my life, ever watched an anime and thought oh this was necessary to the plot, even with Seven Deadly Sins that ruined it a lot for me as well because that's when I watched the
00:25:04
Speaker
first season I want to see. I've watched almost all of the content of Seven Deadly Sins and that was actually going to be one that I brought up just in a second. Seven Deadly Sins is a very good example of a show that's alright, it's a good show. I would say Seven Deadly Sins is a good show but the way they handle Meliodas groping one of the other main characters and like making comments about characters
00:25:25
Speaker
I don't think he's the only one. I think there are other characters where there's issues with that. But he is certainly the worst, I would say. And when your main character is the pervert character in a show, there's something that's gone really wrong. Because I mean, with something like My Hero Academia, where you have, I think it's called Mineta. It's called an abomination, is what it's called. Yeah, a real great fucker. He is awful.
00:25:46
Speaker
He's considered by so much the fan base to be awful. And if the show did not have him, it would not be any worse. But you can't do that with Meliodas. Meliodas isn't vital to the show. And they're making him the main character a creep. It really screws with the entire show. Why have you decided to do that? And again, I'm saying show it was a manga prior to this. So you can go back to the the mangaka and I didn't read the manga. So I don't know.
00:26:11
Speaker
if it was too different in that regard, but I'm willing to sort of bet that there's a strong likelihood it was very much the same in the manga than it was in the anime in that regard. This is such a prevalent thing in so many shows that I like. It isn't always like the super perverted sense, sometimes it's just like a weird obsession with women, but it's still very annoying like for example with One Piece, Sanji the cook is obsessed with women.
00:26:33
Speaker
And he'll get like a big nosebleed when he sees them in sexual outfits and in compromising situations and hovers in the air with like his tongue wagging and his eyes turned to hearts and it's painful to watch. One of those moments that makes you cringe and I think more so than any other trope that we will discuss today. It is the one that makes you reconsider what you're watching and also prevents you from recommending it to others.
00:26:59
Speaker
because you don't want to be the person who goes, oh, this show is really good. Check it out. And then they see a scene where a tentacle monster is holding up a woman talking about fondling her. And then they look back at you and be like, this is what you like. OK, it's good after episode three, I swear. Yeah, it's that kind of thing. You feel like a weirdo or even watching a show that has this kind of content in it. And it's like I've mentioned a few. It happens so often. And we've come to refer to as God damn it, Japan moments.
00:27:26
Speaker
It is our understanding, it's very much a cultural difference that it's represented in that way. But it's still, it's just so uncomfortable. I'm gonna branch off of it a little bit. And I'm going to talk about another, this is a trope in a way, but I think it's quite related to yours, lollies. For those unaware of what that means, it's essentially young girls. Sometimes there'll be like appearance of a young girl, but actually thousands of years old kind of thing. But in the end, it's just the appearance of a young girl and often then sexualized.
00:27:53
Speaker
It is essentially pedophilia masquerading in a cartoon and is defended by so many fans of anime. This is the one opinion that might get us, uh, I'm not gonna say cancel, because to be honest. Sorry, I'm saying I was cancelled. Yeah, I know. Real rough opinion. This is the one opinion where like a lot of anime people might kind of get like mad at us for saying like, Oh, that's not not the case. It's not pedophilia. But I think history will be on our side in the end and saying, yes, you're a fucking creep. So yeah, we might get some flack for
00:28:22
Speaker
this particular point but stop it. Stop being a little weirdo. Seek help. Going off at that point and again it's quite a for obvious reasons as a controversial territory but I remember ages ago watching and again I brought this anime up so many times that I absolutely hate this anime and see if you're a fan of this anime you know what whatever that's your prerogative but the anime black bullet is one that I
00:28:48
Speaker
cannot stand. It has some interesting ideas, it's basically it was meant to be all the next Attack on Titan, which was bullshit, but you know, that's what shows in PR people do, they try to hype you up for it. And the whole premise is you've got a guy who is like a, I don't know, teenager, young adult, and he's running around with this lowly sidekick, and you're kind of like, right, okay, you're just having her hand for cute value, or you know, and then all of a sudden she starts
00:29:16
Speaker
constantly flirting with the older protagonist and you're like, I don't like this. I think that it's completely unnecessary. It made me feel very uncomfortable watching it and then there's obviously other characters who are presented as young girls with these psychic abilities, or not psychic, but whatever abilities they have. Again, they are flirting with the main character and then the characters are all laughing going, you
00:29:40
Speaker
And you're like, I don't even know where to begin with this. I'm like, this is just absolutely at best degeneracy. I mean, the other one which garnished some controversy recently was, or I say recently, probably like a couple months ago, was Miss Kobayashi's Dragon Maid, which initially I did watch some episodes of it to see what the hype was, and I can see why certain characters being presented
00:30:07
Speaker
the way they wear is just terrible. There's no excuse. I'm not even going to sit here and spend hours just to find it. There's just no excuse. But if I may jump off at that point as it were, if you think about it, the whole trope of, and again this is sensitive territory, but like sexualising teenagers as well, this is something that
00:30:26
Speaker
isn't new. It's not new in anime. It is, unfortunately, a staple of anime. You've got things like Food Wars, which I swear to god, I watched Food Wars with the best of intentions, thinking that, oh yeah, it's just an anime about cooking food, and people are like, oh no, it's not. And then, you know, you get into it and it's like, Jesus fuck.
00:30:45
Speaker
Christ, you've got one anime that I haven't watched, mind you. You've got High School at the Dead, which I've never watched but I know enough about it from other anime fans that they say it's quite gratuitous. Of course, you've also got the most infamous one, Kill the Kill. Maybe not as
00:31:04
Speaker
I mean, yes, it is bad, but... Killa Killa's kind of a parody of that. Yeah, but even still, where do you draw the line though? Yeah, I can appreciate that. No, I completely agree. It is meant to be parody, but can you imagine trying to describe that to someone who has no idea about anime though, saying things like, oh, it's a parody of this genre.
00:31:23
Speaker
Yeah, I would definitely say many people did watch Kill la Kill without having much other experience than anime before and I'd hold power to them. I would say something like Kill la Kill and a lot of, a lot of Studio Trigger stuff actually is not always as appropriate for people who aren't already invested in anime because it's not a lot of like their parody of tropes won't translate as well to them. And that's not to excuse anything that does happen in it. And I do Greeks, again, these are underage girls, they are being sexualized. That is a very kind of dodgy territory to be in.
00:31:53
Speaker
It is a very difficult one that a lot of these studios attempt to work with and I don't want to defend too much after just disparaging the use of such tropes. So yeah, I do agree that it does need something that I would like to see less of in anime.
00:32:09
Speaker
positive tropes. Yeah, I think so. I'm going to nominate something that is a personal one again. I don't know if necessarily you're going to be a fan of this or people in general will be a fan of this.
Magic Systems in Anime
00:32:19
Speaker
But I really like the unique magic systems that exist in a lot of anime that they kind of use. One of the main examples I'll present is Hunter x Hunter with Nen. I think Nen is such an interesting magic example where you have this power that is sorted into different categories. And then within those categories, you shape it in the way that suits you best.
00:32:38
Speaker
And for many people who are in a specialist category, they kind of have to put conditions upon themselves in order to get the best result from that particular NEN device. And there's one character, Kuripika, who has to convince you into telling a lie or something. I don't know if you remember the exact conditions that he has to place someone under. I think he can only use it on the spiders, doesn't it?
00:33:01
Speaker
Is it? I was so sure he could use it on others, but maybe you're right. I can't remember, but yeah. It's been a while since I've seen it right enough, or sorry, since we've seen that, because we watched it at university together. Yeah. It's been about seven or eight years since we saw it, so you have to forgive us. But yeah, there's such interesting magic systems in that. I'm not a big fan of JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, but the STAM system I know is very popular and very interesting, how people utilize that, as well as Hamon in JoJo as well, different types of powers that utilize through Hamon.
00:33:31
Speaker
I do agree because it does show you that the writer themselves have actually thought about this combat system because again I keep bringing up Dragon Ball but it's just the reason I bring it up is because there's a lot of good tropes in it and there's a lot of bad tropes. Mainly bad in hindsight but the reason I bring it up is because it's kind of the quintessential anime where
00:33:52
Speaker
you see there was a power system in place but then all of a sudden people just brought random techniques and random power scaling into it. So it was a very simplistic way of like fighting. They would just like fire beams at each other and I remember for the longest time thinking oh right okay you know the hero wins at the end blah blah blah. It was very expected but then you watch something like Hunter hunting you're like oh my god these characters can actually lose.
00:34:20
Speaker
living, it opened my eyes in a way that showed an anime could be like this. Even with Filmed Alchemist Brotherhood, the way that they have to use their powers to balance it out, that is fantastic. That is a very good example of a unique kind of magic system, Filmed Alchemist. Just going back
00:34:37
Speaker
When I was trying to think of my positive tropes, and I initially was going to say power scaling because I do quite like it because I think it kind of provides a fun kind of comparison between characters, but I decided to kind of pivot into different magic use instead because whilst I do like it in concept, I do think that it is generally used quite poorly and usually becomes meaningless after a while, which some anime is the point of it that it was designed to then become meaningless.
00:35:02
Speaker
by its purpose. And so yeah, I kind of pivoted away from having that as my positive trope into instead being about the magic system. Kind of going off on that, and this is just a brief side tangent. What are your thoughts about the trope of the year when your anime attack?
00:35:19
Speaker
I like it. Me too. I actually really enjoy it. And I had this conversation with my partner recently. She despises it. We watch, I don't know if necessarily it was for Demon Slayer that she had an issue with it for, I think probably was, but she really does not like the shouting the attack as you're doing it. She thinks it sounds very silly and like no one does that.
00:35:40
Speaker
kind of thing. But I think it's so it's so interesting. And it's one of those things that like when you're a kid, and this is kind of pulling anime into being something that's sort of childlike and child centric in a way, but like when you're a kid, did you try and mimic the Kamehameha? I think you know the answer to that.
00:35:55
Speaker
Exactly. And people do that. Like I've seen people do the gear second gear third for Luffy from One Piece. I've seen like other people doing Detroit smash from my hero academia. Like there's loads of these fun tack shouts that they do when they're doing their moves. It distinguishes
00:36:10
Speaker
is what you're seeing from any other kind of attack. So you know you have it imprinted in your mind what has been used in that moment, that you know that that is distinct from any other just firing a successive volley of laser beams, that there is a difference between the attacks that are being performed. And so Demon Slayer's one is a bit weird because like you just say like second form, third form, it's still kind of hard to tell how one's different from the other. I've not really examined one from the other enough to kind of fully understand it. And you call yourself an anime fan.
00:36:40
Speaker
Yeah, I'll hand in my otaku badge. Your hunter license, you mean? Yeah, my hunter license has been revoked. I enjoy it. I've tried to justify it to my partner and there's no real way of justifying it because it is stupid, but I like it. I 100% agree. I think it's so silly and over the top and no one in real life would do it, but it is very nostalgic. You almost feel as if you're saying, oh, it's back to that day, as you said, that you would practice the kamehameha. But yeah,
00:37:06
Speaker
it's cheesy, it's nostalgic. I do love it, I do. There's not much I can add to that, just that it is so nostalgic that you do, you think. It brings you back to that time and it's something that I would say that is quintessentially anime, if that makes sense. Speaking of overexposing oneself with
00:37:26
Speaker
with, you know, their attack names and things. Can I talk about one trope that just really annoys me at times? That of course being the overemphasis on narration and inner monologues. Yes, please go on and talk more about that. I have a similar opinion on that, I think. Don't get me wrong, it can be done well, and you know, other opinions are available, but I also feel as if, especially, and again, I don't keep going to the same animes, but for Hunter x
00:37:55
Speaker
especially, there is an arc called the Chimer Arc, which is a very, very popular arc that they do. But for the first half, it's done really well. But then for the second half, for some reason, they just have this whole bombardment of narration.
00:38:12
Speaker
you're kind of just like, what is going on here? Don't get me wrong, that's not the only anime that's guilty of that. There's so many animes I've seen where they just tell rather than show. You know, they don't actually let you breathe and say, okay, we're going to watch the fighting and kind of work it out for ourselves. Like Jojo especially is bad for that. They'll spend about five minutes talking about the fight rather than
00:38:36
Speaker
showing it actually reminds me of when I was in high school and I had this PE teacher that every five minutes he would stop us from playing football to tell us what we were doing wrong and that's what it feels like, it feels like that overexposure of, oh do this, this is what's happening, that's what's happening, it's like I don't want someone to tell me, if I wanted someone to tell me, then I would listen to a podcast with a red panda, wink, wink, available on podpage.com forward slash chance of that making
00:39:03
Speaker
But, you know, same jokes aside, I feel as if that kills my enjoyment of especially action scenes. But what do you think of it? Yeah, no, I agree. I think that by over announcing what's happening, it treats the audience like they're idiots. And you need to kind of let things sit and let people figure things out themselves. You don't need to spell everything out. And that is very frustrating.
00:39:26
Speaker
I don't know why there's this kind of need to do that. And you pointed out the Hunter, Hunter, Kamira. And when you and I were watching it, we were always teasing the sort of announcer just constantly saying what someone's thinking. And then immediately they say it afterwards. You're like, what was the need for the announcer then? But that was literally a scene. I always bring that up to people and they almost look at me as if, oh, hi, you're just being very over the top and over exaggerating. And I'm like, no, no, there's literally a scene like that with Killua, one of the main characters and the narrator.
00:39:55
Speaker
narrator x narrator, as we said, but sorry. No, just that's kind of my opinion on that. I don't really understand why they're so reliant on doing that. It's one of those things I think leads into one other negative point that I have of filling space,
Anime Pacing and Filler Critique
00:40:10
Speaker
filling time.
00:40:10
Speaker
that I think that they're doing that because it like fills a lot of period of time within the episode so that they can fill out and get as many episodes as possible, whether that's just to try and milk content, or whether or not it's concern over catching up to the manga. So they have to kind of slow things down a little bit. And that is one of the big issues within anime. And that leads me on to my next negative trope, which is filler and
00:40:34
Speaker
episodes taking so long. See I have a mixed opinion about this because initially I'd put that down as one of the good tropes but I feel as if it definitely falls hard in the middle because on the one hand you get really fun filler arcs like for example you know the driving arc in Dragon Ball but at the same time for every driving arc that you get you get a thousand and one tournament arcs, training arcs, my hero academia especially is
00:41:02
Speaker
terrible for that and that's actually what turned me off the show because it's like every season they always have to have a class A versus class B and I'm like I don't care they're super power mutants outside the school. Honest to god it's like imagine watching Robocop and then saying I wonder what's going on in the Detroit classrooms. Obviously no one would think that so why?
00:41:23
Speaker
I don't know. So that's the thing. There's doing it in a way where you create a little kind of story, which is mixed. I think sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. I'm going to bring up One Piece again. One Piece had a filler arc at one point in the show. I'm blanking on the name of it now. I think it's kind of like Marine, Marine forward nine or something like that. Which is just kind of accidentally fall into a base of the Marines who's the enemy. And they have to sneak their way out for like their core and people realize they're there. That's a fun filler arc that lasts a few episodes. I guess I don't remember how long exactly it lasts.
00:41:53
Speaker
What is now more so the issue and it's happened like more so in the last like few hundred episodes because it's one piece last few hundred episodes is just elongating episodes of one shot glancing for this person. Now we're glancing in this person. Now we're repeating what we said before. Now we've showing a flashback to something that happened five episodes prior. Now
00:42:11
Speaker
was showing a flash spread of something that happened hundreds of episodes prior. And it's like, none of this was necessary. My dream one day is for someone to go through and just edit through a bunch of one piece into like removing all that nonsense fluff into a watchable show that you can just absolutely fire through. And I honestly believe you could cut off hundreds of episodes.
00:42:33
Speaker
by doing this. Dragon Ball pad, Dragon Ball Kai, I think you can have something quite similar in that regard. Again, it's not technically an anime-centric thing because there's a lot of shows, even The Simpsons, had that with their own flashback episodes, which are some of my least favourites. I'm going to put my cards on the table there, but if you think about other even sitcoms at the time and things like Friends, Seinfeld, popular shows are always going to have a flashback episode or
00:43:01
Speaker
a clip show or something like that. An anime obviously is no different but it does annoy me. I feel as if My Hero Academia did that quite badly when it was like a news reporter came to interview Deku and I think it was season four or five. I can't remember but he comes to interview him and then the whole episode is essentially just a flashback
00:43:22
Speaker
and I was like, but I know what happened here, I've seen it, I've binge watched it, why would I want to watch this again at excruciating paces? I don't want to watch this. So no, I completely agree. Just filler. It could fall on either side. It can either be really good. Because I mean, even if you go into other things with Dragon Ball, you've got the Garlic Junior arc, you've got the Otherworld Tournament with Ferg to Hunter, you've got the Zoldyke arc,
00:43:51
Speaker
where Gon and Gon and friends, they go to see Killulan try to rescue him and things. There's a lot of beauty moments that can come out of Fiddler, but at the same time if you're just going to do it the lazy way by saying we're going to use these flashbacks. So it's almost like it's a trope within a trope, like the trope of a flashback within the trope of that. So within the trope of Fiddler arc. So yeah, it's like a double whammy of
00:44:18
Speaker
really bad. But see, as we wrap up and we come to a last couple of tropes, could I inject some positivity?
The Found Family Trope
00:44:26
Speaker
Can I introduce you in the wee ray of sunshine for the next one? Oh, I don't know. That doesn't sound like us, but I'll permit it this one time. I'll go out just this once. Forgive me, Andrew. One trope that I have found myself in
00:44:39
Speaker
recently liking and noticing in a lot of other shows is the trope of found families. Like if you notice this recently. There's been a few I think, isn't there? The Spikes family being the most prominent one. Yeah, that's the one I was thinking of. It's definitely the one that is very prominent. You've got the Folger family, quote unquote. They're not a real family.
00:45:01
Speaker
family, but you know, they work a lot better. And ironically enough, I think this is something that they brought up in Trash Taste as well, that they function as a better family than a lot of other families too, even though they're supposed to be like a fake family that are set up for this mission, for this spy organisation, yeah, dear and dear to them.
00:45:20
Speaker
And it's because, even though the characters try to convince themselves, oh this is just for the mission, or oh this is just for convenience, it's really heartwarming to see these characters come together and bond and care about one another.
00:45:35
Speaker
If you look at it in a wider perspective, going back to other enemies we discussed, for example, Hunter x Hunter, I mean it's not in the traditional sense, you know, they're not like a family unit, but if you look at the four main characters of Gon, Killua, Kurupika and
00:45:51
Speaker
Liorio. I mean, you could say they are technically family because the only family Gon has is, I think it's his aunt, Kurupika, has nobody. Kimura has abusive parents and abusive family. And Liorio, that's kind of out, but it's that whole idea of there's a lot of animates like that. Even with Guren Logan, you can extend it to that of the main character. You've got Simon who is
00:46:14
Speaker
spoilers, but he always has someone very important to him and he has to find his family through the people that live inside his giant robot. Just your typical nuclear family. Yeah, exactly. It's the family that others don't want you to know about. But that's the thing though, it's
00:46:30
Speaker
finding a sense of belonging as it were. There's another anime that I haven't brought up in this episode but it's one that I talked about great length with friend of the channel Wonko and we were talking about one called Tunibio. That maybe falls more into the trope of finding a sense of belonging because the whole point of that is it's about a girl who basically she doesn't know how to grow up
00:46:54
Speaker
because of our past issues and everything and you know without spoiling too much because it's a fantastic anime but the deeper you go into that the more she starts to accept her friends as actual friends not just as classmates who find her weird so that sense of not only found family but also found identity by extension I really like I think that's usually done really well and if it's done really poorly then they have to mess it up something ridiculous
00:47:23
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, much similar to what you were saying, I do really enjoy the found family. Yeah, it doesn't necessarily have to be a family unit like you see in spy ex-family or spy family, I think the ex is silent, or it can be something like within
00:47:36
Speaker
up again sports anime, the team you're on becomes your family and you're kind of fighting for each other like the power of friendship kind of thing. It could be the pirate crew in one piece, it could be the seven deadly sins after having their own kind of previous trauma now having a family together having found each other now our family together.
00:47:53
Speaker
You get to see this kind of bonding and generally a healthy relationship between these characters and there'll be conflict that they will get through together with and that they'll help each other, support each other. They have this supportive network and that is so lovely to see. And I think it's one of the things that people find so comforting with anime that you have these comforting individuals
00:48:12
Speaker
not that the top 10 anime betrayals thing isn't always the case, that there is top 10 anime hugs, top 10 anime friendships. Now that there is just these found family that as you put within so many different anime that allows you to be in touch with them, you almost kind of have a parasocial relationship with these animated characters that you have an investment in them and their friends, their family.
00:48:35
Speaker
going on to one bad one before I kick it back to you again, much like the laws of equivalent exchange, we can't have a positive without invoking the negative here, and this is one that'll probably be a little bit controversial but shouting anatomy.
Character and Sidekick Critiques
00:48:50
Speaker
shouting. I don't know if it's because I'm getting older or what it is. Is it Black Clover you're taking issue with in particular? I haven't seen that because people keep telling me that characters shout and I'm like I don't want to watch it now because I don't know. It's not like the typical shonen anime where people shout and they power up and everything. That's not what I have an issue with. That's fine because you know it's that kind of primal oh look I'm yelling to get stronger. But with
00:49:18
Speaker
some anime such as somewhere people yell so damn loud and they're just so goddamn obnoxious. The worst one, or one of the worst sorry, was Dr. Stone for me. And again that kind of leads onto another trope that I have of characters that are a bit too full of themselves and gone back to your Emiliaudus point of he's not a pervert but he's more just
00:49:41
Speaker
He's a pervert to science. Yes, that tis true, buddy. That's the thing though, he is just really, oh look at me, I'm so amazing. If I probably relates more to your, I anticipated your move trope, where it's like he knows everything and he's just smug about it, but he's got a sidekick. And again, this also relates to one that I'd written down about the unnecessary sidekick, where there is just either a cute animal just randomly thrown in there, or there's just something and you're like, why do they have to shout?
00:50:11
Speaker
I didn't have to be so loud. Do you think that as well, or am I just being an old man at this point? For the most part I don't mind the shouting. I did initially watch Black Clover, I did find the main character kind of annoying with the shouting initially, but I got used to it pretty quickly and that didn't bother me so much.
00:50:26
Speaker
Shouting isn't like a big thing for me. What you were bringing up is kind of almost a separate point of the side character. I don't know. I don't mind a side character. They're used in a useful sense that doesn't make them just seem there for the sake of being there or just to fan an ego. Then I don't mind them. On your point about silly animals for no reason, my partner and I watched a gymnastics anime. My partner loves gymnastics. She actually loves gymnastics. And so she wants to ask me after I've been watching all these different sports anime, is there a gymnastics anime? Like, is there a good gymnastics anime we could watch? And I said, I'll look into it.
00:50:56
Speaker
And it just so happened not long after that, one came out and it was called the gymnastics samurai. And we were like, all right, weird name, but okay, we'll give a shot. It was on like a different subscription service than reviews before. So I had to end up getting like this new subscription services so we could watch this show. It was terrible already. It was really bad. And then for some reason, there was a gigantic colorful pelican that they have in their home. And occasionally it would say words. And we were like, what the f-
00:51:19
Speaker
fuck is going on? Why is this weird bird in this? There was like no reason for it to be in it and it would just be like, oh squawky, like what you like? And he would like, yeah, I know, right? And it's like, ah, why? Everything else is relatively grounded. And then you have this weird, colourful bird that this cagey says words. Why? Why have you done this? You must have loved to say some history growing up.
00:51:42
Speaker
Fuck you, Big Bird. You can't tell me what to do. You're not even real. I know my colours. Screw you. I was going to say that like, yeah, imagine an anime with a talking bird. No, I know exactly what you mean. It does feel as if when they have the random animal and you're just like, why are you here? You know that way when you go to a party, but you don't know anyone except one person, and then that one person
00:52:09
Speaker
Yeah, and the one person wanders away though, and then everyone turns around and is like, who did you come with? Did you just gate crash or something? And you're like, that's what it feels like. Just that awkward moment of isolation as the bird goes to fly away and teach children about, I don't know, counting or something. Just like all the kids do these days, but no, I totally see what you mean.
00:52:29
Speaker
I'll start with another negative. One thing that's been annoying me of late, and like I say of late, it's been a while of this, of harem anime. Do you know funny enough, I actually have that on here as well. Yeah. Yeah. So I just find it so frustrating. I feel almost guilty for having this opinion because in some ways you have female representation that are like strong fighters and stuff in anime. And like, that's really cool to see that you've got these sort of strong female characters
00:52:54
Speaker
But then they are made to be really stupid or clumsy. All of them are in love with one main character. They're all fighting over our main character. There'll be a fantasy anime, we'll say, and there'll be a group of people. And it will be one guy who's this cookie cutter, either black or gray-haired young boy. Why, Andrew, what anime could you possibly be talking about?
00:53:16
Speaker
Who's to say? And his adventuring party will be entirely girls. The girls will be all like skimply dressed like you'll be oogled out and that kind of thing. Why are there no guys in the party? If you want some representation, have the guys oogled out a little bit as well. I'm pretty comfortable in myself to say like, they should also have similar for both. You shouldn't just be no homo bro. I'm only going to oogle at these young girls kind of thing like they should have an interesting if they're going to sexualize one sexualize both.
00:53:41
Speaker
It's very strange that they are so adamant that they must have an entire group of girls and that they can't just be strong, independent women. They have to be objects of desire. But the main character is always like not interested. The main character is always very kind of ambivalent to the whole thing and that the girls will just kind of be like,
00:53:59
Speaker
Oh, my Kirito. Oh, my Belkan. They're like obsessed with this one character and it's like, Oh, I wonder if he's thinking about me. Oh, I can't believe you like him that way. I like him that way. He's my Belkan. He's my Kirito. And like them will also be like underage, which goes back to our point earlier about the loli characters.
00:54:16
Speaker
it's so frustrating. I've rambled on. I mean, I assume you'll have similar to say if you have another point to make in that regard. ALICE Funny enough, you were talking about how it's mainly the main characters, like a male, who is fawned over by a lot of these suitors, as it were, or suitor races. I know that's not a word about it, let's go with it.
00:54:39
Speaker
But I actually did watch a hand of anime that was reversed when it was the woman that was the target of affection by all these guys. And the way we just say it was awful. It was terrible. And the reason I say it's terrible, so the anime's called Kiss Him, Not Me. And it's about this girl. The premise was funny. And that's what I thought. I thought, okay, maybe if I get over the premise, then I'll be able to enjoy the anime.
00:55:05
Speaker
So the premise is, there is a very overweight girl who she's obsessed with this particular drama, and then one of her favourite characters gets killed off, so she ends up, she goes in something like this very deep. I don't want to say depression, because I don't want to trivialise it, but you know, she gets really sad and upset about it, so much so that she doesn't eat for a week, and then suddenly she becomes very thin and
00:55:29
Speaker
pretty and there's that whole can of worms that we're just not going to touch there with the implications but of course she ends up going to school when she gets all these suitors and I know it's supposed to be teenagers in a high school but just the way she acted sometimes very much reminded me of
00:55:46
Speaker
people I either knew in high school or I met online during my time in high school, where she would get confronted by the evil, I don't know, other school or something, and her harem would come round the corner and be like, you bitch, hey, and punch the shit out of these people, you know, and they'd be in this fight. All for her. And then she would run away wailing and crying, going, oh, this isn't what I wanted, oh no,
00:56:11
Speaker
And they're like, can we not just deal with this after the fact that your friends are risking themselves getting punched in the face? I don't know, there was just a lot of things like that. So I definitely think that I'm not going to sit here and pretend that I am like a master expert in the hand of animators because there's only a handful that I've seen and there's even a bigger handful that I know of. But at the same time, yeah, I agree. If you like that kind of anime, fair enough,
00:56:37
Speaker
but it's not my cup of tea, I would say. But actually, if you don't mind me jumping off your point, you talked about the idea of the genetic self-insert, the protagonist that looks, oh, looks wonderful and they can do no wrong and completely agree. I feel as if that is a very boring trope.
00:56:57
Speaker
you know, we've mentioned Sword Art Online, but there's a wealth of other animates out there. I think, and again, could be totally wrong, but I'm sure Overlord did that, and that really weirded me out, because it was like a guy who gets trapped in a video game as well, but instead of being like, oh no, I'm trapped in a video game, he was like the, as the name suggests, he was the Overlord of the whole realm, and he had to get concubine, or a succubus, or whatever you call it they did.
00:57:24
Speaker
Yeah, it's the power fantasy trope that you're already the most powerful person in the entire game. And it's the entire kind of story structure is centered around things encountering you and how you just wipe them off the mat. But here's the thing though, and this is going on to my good tropes.
Overpowered Protagonists and Escalating Stakes
00:57:39
Speaker
And this has a caveat to get me wrong, but I actually like
00:57:42
Speaker
the trope of the OP protagonist when used in a particular setting. So let me explain. Some of my favourite enemies involve characters who are totally OP, they're over the top, they've got amazing powers and there's not really anything
00:57:58
Speaker
threat to them. There's not really any threat to their wellbeing or anything, and it's just that it feels like a comfy anime. So one's off the top of my head, there's of course Mob Psycho, with Mob being a very talented psychic. You've got the disastrous life of PsycheK, which again, that's another psychic that's very gifted. One Punch Man, need I say more? And this last one,
00:58:22
Speaker
Technically it's a Chinese animation, so I don't know if that counts in the same category, but Daily Life of the Immortal King, where it's all about magic in a contemporary setting, and the main character's so powerful that, you know, he's trying to hide his powers.
00:58:38
Speaker
I like those kind of stories though. I do think that sparingly, maybe it's cause there's such a limited amount of them that work so well. I mean, I like the side characters that bounce off them. I like the adventures they get into. And they're getting me wrong, they're not perfect. Like there's some really weird things with Psyche Kale. Again, there's like two characters that fall in love with Psyche, but they actually handle it in a really good way because he's not interested at all.
00:59:04
Speaker
completely uninterested and he tries to let them down and aim their attention elsewhere, which I think is really well done. But then of course that's balanced out with the fact that his love interest, or rather the person who likes him, is also liked by her brother in a very, very creepy way. And that's not great, so it makes it hard to say, oh yeah, this is a great anime, you should watch it. And then you get to that scene and you're like,
00:59:28
Speaker
Dude, what the hell. It's two sides of the same coin. I feel as if the OP protagonist is good. It works well. I would say only if they are in their own isolated bubble, if that makes sense. Yeah, no, I understand that. And just jumping off that, I quite like the surprise where a character just underestimates another character. For example, in Dragon Ball Z when Goku comes back in the Saiyan arc
00:59:53
Speaker
and absolutely like destroys Napa and that Napa doesn't see it coming. That's really fun. And then sort of likewise, again, the Namek arc where he comes back and defeats the Ginyu squad where he comes back and easily defeats each of the Ginyu squad. That kind of moment is really, really cool. I love that moment, but hate the build up to that moment because I find it so frustrating of like, Oh, why do we have to wait for this character to come back? But the payoff is often so good that I end up not minding it so much.
01:00:16
Speaker
I'm just going to rattle through a few of my other negatives just quickly, just as we're kind of wrapping up before we end. I was saying too, that's not me. I do have another couple positives, but they're exited from my mind. So I'm just going to go through these for the time being. But episode titles that tell you what happens in the episode. Captain Ginyu is a frog. Oh, yeah. No, I can't even make a joke about that, continue.
01:00:36
Speaker
It's like, I can't justify it. Dragon Ball was the worst for this. It's hard to say it's a trope. It might just be just Dragon Ball, but like, it's the one I can think of off the top of my head of just Dragon Ball is so bad for just telling you what happens in the episode, in the name of the episode. Does Pokemon not do that as well though? And I get that it's for kids and everything or young teenagers that I push, but you're completely right. It does feel as if it is spoiling the entire episode.
01:01:01
Speaker
Yeah, so that's a really annoying one for me. I did actually remember my pro, Escalated Stakes. Over the course of an anime where you've gone from it being kind of a simple adventure. The example that kind of comes to mind is from Alchemist Brotherhood, where you are trying to get your body back and by the end you're fighting God. I think it is a very fun thing that's very unique to anime of that kind of Escalated Stake.
01:01:23
Speaker
a couple other kind of examples, UI and Adam for an episode watch Beyblades. The first episode featured them just kind of having like a battle with a Beyblade shark that was kind of stealing other people's Beyblades. And by the end, they were having a fight within a pocket dimension, two dragons battling it out and the result of which would lead to global conflict.
01:01:44
Speaker
I have to admit that actually reminds me of the first time we watched Hunter x Hunter together where I was convinced it was going to be a happy-go-lucky, oh it's a chill anime, shonen anime, and then yeah by the end of it it's like they're fighting, not sell, and not North Korea trying to save the continent in like a smaller way, but I know exactly what you mean. It's good because I think
01:02:07
Speaker
the good thing about it is it shows the growth of the characters. It's not just a case of the characters have remained stagnant, and as a result, the stakes have remained stagnant, so you're kind of like, well, what's the point? I completely agree with that. I think that's an excellent way of summarising it. Instead of something like Pokémon, where he might be going from gym to gym to fight the Elite Four kind of thing, it still kind of feels pretty much the same either way. We might win, they might lose.
01:02:35
Speaker
Whereas something like Dragon Ball, where it started off with a young kid going around with a young blue-haired girl to find these mystical wishing balls to end up being fights between aliens and masters of the universe and that kind of stuff. But yeah, no, those were some fantastic points, Andrew. So first of all, thank you, Andrew, for coming on this episode and discussing your favourite tropes and your least favourite part of it.
01:03:00
Speaker
Yeah. Thank you for having me. It was fun to wax lyrical and rant and under the same breath with you. And I hope, hopefully we haven't offended too many people with our hot, hot takes, with our spicy opinions. Yeah. And if you guys have anything you want to comment on, on the topics we've mentioned or suggest some pros or con tropes for yourself, please do contact us on Twitter at chat tsunami, or you can reach me at greenchill95. And yeah, do you want to plug where else they can reach us on certain other platforms we have available? I thought you'd never ask Andrew.
01:03:30
Speaker
If you want to catch more of our content then you can catch us on podbase.com forward slash chat tsunami. You can find the podcast on Spotify, iTunes and really any good podcast app so just look for the red panda under the name chat tsunami and we'll see you there.
01:03:48
Speaker
We also have a Patreon page that we have just released, of course under the name Chat Tsunami, and first of all I would like to thank our current Pandalorian Patrons for already subbing to us, that of course being BattleToaster and Sonya, thank you so so much for supporting us, but if you want to catch
01:04:08
Speaker
more exclusive content or if you want to catch episodes that are a week early then please feel free to check out our patreon under patreon.com forward slash chat tsunami but until then thank you all so so much for listening as always stay safe stay awesome and most importantly stay hydrated