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Top Ten Cliches in Japanese Anime

August 24, 2006

I’ve been watcing lots of anime recently. I’m somewhat a late bloomer, plus the fact I prefer to watch them slowly, like two or three episodes per week (mainly to make sure they last longer), unlike some people who can finish a DVD season in two day marathon…

I’ve always wanted to blog about the anime I watch, just like Silencers or Dustyhawk, but never got round to doing it, i suppose this’ll be a good way to start.

Top Ten Cliches in Japanese Anime

  • The eyes. The big, shimmering eyes. That has got to be the top anime cliche.

  • The coloured hair. Pink, purple, blue, green, white (popular for villains) and any other colour on the animators’ palette. Funny considering 99% of Japs (like most other Malaysians) have natural jet black hair.

  • One in ten girl characters have cat ears or small horns. But still exhibiting full human characteristics (more or less). Unless it’s Felicia on Darkstalkers, who has bat wings for ears…

  • 9 out of 10 girls in the show have bodies like supermodels with 42DD bustlines. And 23-inch waists. Normally proportionately drawn bodies are reserved for mothers, bystanders, khe-le-fehs and shop assistants.

  • The angsty, moody anti-hero with the mysterious past (usually involving death of parents). Also usually with a secret power or skill with super-large weapons.

  • And his name is usually some bombastic neo-ancient-European-cum-Tolkienesque moniker like Edward Stormbreaker or Zidane Gunblade. Or something like that.

  • If the hero travels in a ensemble group, they usually consist of the following: the abovesaid anti-hero, cheerful pretty girl with useful superpower, another dark, morbid beautiful girl with secret past, huge giant (usually pretty dumb) ‘muscle’ character usually with one defining characteristic (dirty-minded, obsessed with food, etc) and one talking pet for comic relief.

  • The usual Japanese cliches – flashing the ‘V’ sign with a big grin, the huge sweat drop, the giant screaming head with throbbing vein, strange Japanese words appearing around the character when he or she is either feeling embarassed or cute, etc.

  • This one I like – the slo-mo fight scene with the ‘stationery‘ characters and moving lines around them. And the characters shouting out the names of the ‘super moves‘ before they strike. That’s like, giving due warning to your opponent, isn’t it?

  • The big stupid evil henchmen. With bodies like Mr. Universe. But gets beaten to a pulp by girl heroine. Without breaking a sweat.

Update: At the moment, I’m halfway through FMA, NGE and GitS. Like i said, late bloomer.

[tags]Animax, anime, Japanese, cartoon, Japan, Fullmetal Alchemist, Neon Genesis Evangelion, Ghost in the Shell[/tags]

41 Comments

  • Ken

    August 24, 2006 at 7:28 pm Reply

    And with basketball/football/tennis/whatever sports related anime series, the basketball court/football field/tennis court seems to be extra big and the characters take forever to get to the other end.

  • simon

    August 24, 2006 at 8:54 pm Reply

    serge – if i marathon, very soon i’ll run out of anime to watch! but if i got a lot then different story la… 🙂

    ken – speaking of sports anime: the unbelieveable super slam dunks in b-ball. when most asian can’t even reach the rim. And the shaolin soccer style power kicks.

    jason – hmm… mecha anime a bit diff. but other than NGE, i haven’t really gone into mecha yet. Unless you count transformers!

  • Silencers

    August 24, 2006 at 9:36 pm Reply

    Hmm… the top ten cliches are reserved for mainstream anime. As for Gundam shows, well, a lot of the cliches are there, especially the angsty anti hero part.

    I havent watched Eva, lol. But I’m surprised to see going through GiTS which is VERY cult anime.

    most of the cliches you mentioned are valid for anime that were produced around 200-2004. As for the later ones, a lot of the other anime productions have [thankfully] begun avoiding most of the cliche as it no longer sells.

    But the big boobs and big eyes are still quite staple.

  • Serge Norguard

    August 25, 2006 at 1:28 am Reply

    you should watch eva silencer. takes sometime to understand it..very gloomy. another one you should watch is rahxephon.

    oh simon, if you have the time and resources.. go watch Graveyard of the Fireflies.

  • simon

    August 25, 2006 at 7:02 am Reply

    ok. eva and graveyard next on the list. for me GitS is okay, but the tech is just OK, sometimes like just like normal cop shows. but the characters are what makes the show interesting…

  • ferdaus

    August 25, 2006 at 9:15 am Reply

    And just to add up a bit, no matter how serious the storyline, no matter how cool the graphics is, every anime have the same showering-type when crying, the same feet-up-in-the-air style, the same cartoony-angry face, and not to mention the same double cross-type handiplast when wounded. Hmm..

  • Serge Norguard

    August 25, 2006 at 10:29 am Reply

    Err jason … Transformers is anime. The one that we see on TV is the americanized version. What actually happen was, the japan viewers didn’t emjoy it so they sold it to the americans. On american soil it became a big hit. Since it became a big hit, the japs started producing Transformers such as Transformers Masterforce, V:Victory, Headmasters and such.

  • simon

    August 26, 2006 at 7:48 am Reply

    jason – okay, okay, let me go and watch a few mecha shows and i’ll do a top ten mecha anime cliches, ‘K?

    ferdaus – oops, you’re right about darkstalkers. I keep getting the two mixed up. re handiplasts – the bandages come up immediately after they get beaten up!

    IX – Nobita! Nobita!

  • Kenshiro

    December 22, 2006 at 9:15 pm Reply

    Isn’t transformers a japanese anime to begin with? i mean i used to beleive it wasn’t but after i knew how old it was and seen the headmasters series in japanese which ofcourse had some trash language aswell but was cut from the english series as well as the changes in some names like [Optimus] is actually [Convoy]

  • Kenshiro

    December 22, 2006 at 9:17 pm Reply

    And now if your talking about some of the best gundam series i think the mostly would be: gundam wing, zeta gundam, gundam X and the movie: Char’s counterattack.

  • Chris

    July 4, 2007 at 9:19 pm Reply

    If the hero travels in a ensemble group, they usually consist of the following. LOL. BLEACH TO THE POINT.

    The most cliched anime around I think is Bleach. 8 out of 10 of these apply to it. But hey, what the hell is wrong with cliches like big boobs and super large weapons? 😛

  • Guignolle

    August 31, 2007 at 5:51 pm Reply

    I think you forgot that the hero and co are from 10 to 17 years old and that after a good beating they look like they rise form the dead and kick the villain’s ass. The super smart brat who resolves the unresolvable… 🙂

  • Spink

    December 17, 2007 at 1:33 pm Reply

    Mecha cliche.

    constant thrust = constant velocity
    lasers travel slower than light
    somebody singing can take down an enemy armada
    there is sound in space? (except in akira briefly)
    inertia has no effect. (pulling a 10,000g turn will not turn you into poo)
    more to come but I can’t think of any more off the top of my head.

  • AtlasTurtle

    July 31, 2008 at 10:38 am Reply

    A lot of what you mentioned here is the style of anime. The eyes and hair are some of the things anime is known for. Speaking of the hair, just because anime is from the japanese doesn’t mean that the characters are always japanese. Beck: Mongolian Chop Squad, Love Hina, and Earth Girl Arjuna are some I can think of off the top of my head that aren’t all japanese. You should do more researching and redo your little list. One out of ten girls have cat ears or small horns? That’s really invalid.

  • Space cowboy

    August 30, 2008 at 8:13 am Reply

    Dude you need to watch some less mainstream anime, try finding a cliche in.

    The eyes and Hair can be explained easier than you’d imagine…its animation dude disney do the same thing why cant the japanese?

    Take your eyes of the 10 current mainstream anime series and start looking elsewhere you may find someone … (god forbid) original…0_0

  • RoknekRokRok

    December 3, 2008 at 10:42 pm Reply

    Unto what AtlasTurtle said, anime characters are almost never Japanese. Sure, they have Japanese names, but they almost always appear to be caucasians. Always. Apparently in cartoons they don’t have Japanese people in Japan.

  • Anonymous

    December 8, 2008 at 9:02 am Reply

    You forgot to mention the cliche wherein whenever someone does something seen as dumb or clumsy amongst others, the others would just fall onto the ground as if someone had dropped a huge sandbag on top of them. That is, by far, the absolute dumbest thing I’ve ever seen (even back when I was an eight-year-old kid, I thought it pretty stupid).

  • panaghoy88

    February 15, 2009 at 11:21 am Reply

    You forgot crazy hairdos, beach episodes, moe moments, fan service shots, blushing faces and bleeding noses. I’m sure there are more but this is all I can think at the moment.

  • Michael

    July 23, 2009 at 8:55 am Reply

    I have watched hundreds of Anime and you have it pretty good… B ut you forgot the snaggle tooth character… You know the one who is always a little crazy….
    Peace

  • Michael

    July 23, 2009 at 8:56 am Reply

    I have watched hundreds of Anime and you have it pretty good… But you forgot the snaggle tooth character… You know the one who is always a little crazy….
    Peace

  • Alex

    October 12, 2009 at 12:09 am Reply

    Those are not cliches but traits that anime have, if they did not have their wide eyes characters, awesome they would be same as American cartoons. Even American cartoons and superheroes have the perfect body issue (wonder woman, every x-men over 16 and half the time under, every Disney princess etc.) its just traits that they use and shouldn’t really be called cliches. That is like saying superhero shows are cliche because every hero has a power. Regarding number seven, anime use that as their way of portraying mood and emotion, also a trait used in anime and not a cliche. Cliche would be like number 6 as you mentioned stereotype characters, story ideas or words that are used over and over again.

  • me

    March 6, 2010 at 11:36 am Reply

    Yup, that’s bout it, anime’s like every other kind of film or series, the majoirty of ’em in the world are cliched and idiotic and depend upon fantasizing of the viewers, but there are a lot of great animes out there, specifically made to mind-***k the cliches into submission, try Revolutionary Girl Utena, it fits a lot of those cliches but it screws the magic anime girl cliche over, it’ll look ridiculous at first, and if you watch the movie first your mind will die because the movie is just…the animation has enough motion to dizzy and in your dizzy state you puked up the plot of the movie, anyways, Revolutionary Girl Utena made me happy that it technically fit into alot of cliched and still wasn’t at all cliched.

  • Sakichii

    March 1, 2011 at 7:55 am Reply

    First off the eyes are characteristic of the anime style, which was originally influenced by Disney’s characters like Mikey Mouse and Betty Boop, to show cuteness. Generally, the bigger the eyes, the younger or more innocent the character.

    As for the hair colour, the reason why a lot the character have different/unnatural hair colours, as well as hairstyles, is so you can tell the character apart easily and to make their characters stand out from everyone elses. The more unique the hairstyle the more instantly recognisable the character, take Yugi from Yugioh for example, if you saw even a glimpse of his hair you’d instantly know it was Yugi/ or Yami Yugi.
    There are also some animes that don’t have unnatural hair colours like Azumanga Daioh, and most of the characters in Miyazaki’s films.

    I also just read up about the shouting out the super move before attacking, supposedly it’s because otherwise the viewer wouldn’t have any idea what’s going on. There was also some mention about Japanese fighting styles have names of techniques and in demonstrations at fighting schools they shout out what move they’re performing so that visitors unfamiliar with the fighting school can identify one move from the next, something like that.

    I haven’t seen any of the animes you’ve listed, but I’ve seen a fair few others and not all ten of those points are present in all anime. Some of those things vary depending on the genre. Big-busted supermodel women are usually reserved for animes aimed towards men and teenage boys.
    There are a lot of animes that don’t have girls with random cat ears or horns, some the ears are on headbands which is part of their outfit rather than actual ears such as in Moon Phase, where it’s the character trying to look more cute, which tells you something about the character.

    The tough evil henchman being beaten up by a girl, is either show just how strong the girl is. A little girl beating a huge tough guy is more impressive than a big muscly guy beating another big tough guy, because it’s what you’d expect. I mean she must be pretty tough to manage that without even breaking a sweat. Or else it’d be used for comic effect.

    Here’s a link if you want to read up on anime cliches:
    http://robkelk.ottawa-anime.org/hoffmann-faqs/cheatsandcliches.html
    Although you probably won’t be interested considering the number of years since you made this post ^_^’

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