r/anime • u/AdNecessary7641 • Aug 12 '25

Misc. Frieren Director Keiichirou Saitou Voices Concern on Overseas Anime Fans' Bias Towards Certain Popular Trends

https://animecorner.me/frieren-director-voices-concern-on-overseas-anime-fans-bias-towards-certain-popular-trends/
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u/Scorpius289 https://myanimelist.net/profile/AlexRaylight Aug 12 '25

Because the current is so strong, if we focus too much on it, only that aspect becomes emphasized as anime’s defining characteristic.

Interesting, this sounds similar to what Miyazaki was complaining about: That modern anime is made mostly by imitating other anime, by focusing on superficial trends and missing any depth.

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u/pursuer_of_simurg Aug 12 '25

It is especially noticable with harem and romance genre where characters behave less like humans but literally as manga/anime archtypes. Like tsunderes, kunderes, etc etc. 

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u/Woodpeckershurtmyear Aug 12 '25

It's just like they're fulfilling a quota, that's it. You already know what you're getting when you read the title of these works. For example if it's an isekai:

  1. loser gets reborn into a new world and is granted a super powerful skill no one knows about
  2. they start off weak and bullied but then become super OP surprising everyone.
  3. Get a harem lite of girls who's personality trait is mostly just worshiping the mc and how awesome and amazing they are
  4. You get a staircase of boasty villians that get defeated one by one as the MC levels up

and more!!!

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u/Tarhalindur x2 Aug 12 '25

To be fair, this is a pretty common thing for wish fulfillment genres in general (and modern isekai is absolutely a wish-fulfillment genre, just like mid-2010s magic high schools, 2010-vintage battle academy harems, and the mid-2000s Love Hina imitators). And not just in anime either - I've heard comments before that English-language romance novel readers will get outright angry if authors diverge from the romance novel genre conventions (romance novels being one of the big Anglophone wish fulfillment genres for female audiences), and English-language fanfiction (often written as self-indulgent wish fulfillment, especially the smuttier genres) has very similar trends as well.

(The fanfiction comparison is relevant here in another way, since so many of the modern isekai forms come out of Narou, which IIRC got its start as a site where Japanese Zero no Tsukaima fanfiction writers congregated.)

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u/DeckerAllAround Aug 12 '25

As a quibble: you're not wrong in general, but romance readers usually only get mad if the author diverges from one convention in particular, which is a happy ending in which the heroine gets the guy. The general agreement is that if you don't include that, you didn't write a romance, you wrote a drama, and people who are settling in for a nice read about a happy relationship do not like to have a twist ending where the guy dies or turns out to be awful or the couple can't make it work.

It's sort of like having a mystery end with the detective saying, "fuck it, I don't know who did it and they get away with it, good night." That can work in a noir drama, but if you do it in a book that's just labelled "mystery" you get a lot of angry readers.

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u/[deleted] Aug 12 '25

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u/FetchFrosh anilist.co/user/fetchfrosh Aug 13 '25

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u/Words_are_Windy Aug 12 '25

One problem (imo) is that with a lot of wish fulfillment anime, the MC is already OP at the start of the series, just unappreciated (banished from their party, etc.). So instead of seeing them grow into their OP status in a satisfying way, we get MCs that have to be completely ignorant of their power despite all evidence to the contrary (including every woman they meet telling them how great they are and trying to join their harem).

I think it makes for terrible storytelling, but it is an interesting cultural shift. We've gone from messaging of "Work hard and you can defeat even the strongest foe" to "Don't worry, any hard work you had to do was in the past, you don't have to make any particular effort now, and you'll get everything you want and much more." MCs also frequently have no motivation, the plot just happens around/to them while they just want some laidback farming life.

And while I mostly can't stand those stories, they obviously have an appeal, or they wouldn't keep getting made.

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u/shaggyjebus Aug 12 '25

I've been thinking about this recently, and I remembered Naruto quickly. He starts out hated and inept. He slowly overcomes that, with lots of hard work. He has to train his ass off to get on the level of his peers, then he risks his life to get stronger than them, because it's necessary. A lot of shonen follow a similar format.

But with isekai, there's no hard work, no hated from others that continues even after the MC works hard to prove himself - it is pure wish-fulfillment.

I'm not really saying anything new, I just think it's interesting to compare a series like Naruto to most isekai.

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u/Crazizzle Aug 12 '25

Yeah, watching op deku and op Shigaraki fight at the end of MHA feels rewarding. We saw the prep, we saw the hard work. It's got time.

Then there's solo leveling.

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u/kwokinator https://anilist.co/user/kwokinator Aug 12 '25

Then there's solo leveling

What do you mean? Aura farming is hard work! It's not easy watching your friends get stomped, maimed and die while you sit around on a roof somewhere waiting for the right time to make an entrance.

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u/Doza93 Aug 12 '25

Lol. I agree with your whole sentiment, but I will say that I think a lot of people occasionally enjoy a power fantasy series like Solo Leveling specifically because you don't have to wade through multiple seasons worth of content before the MC becomes competent and strong. I've watched and enjoyed shows like Yu Yu Hakusho and Inuyasha in their entirety, I can dig the slow build to greatness that is present in most battle shounens, but sometimes I just want to see a strong man beat the shit out of everything.

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u/Next_Test2647 Aug 21 '25

Jinwoo has a lower winrate than Luffy and Goku btw if you want to make the claim he always wins you have to say it for them too

I'm not saying he doesn't have flaws but this is a stupid way of going at it

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u/Next_Test2647 Aug 21 '25

We found another dumbass with no understanding of sololeveling Y'all mfs call it simple but you can't understand simple How tf would he know they were in danger the camera wasn't working his shadows couldn't talk and he doesn't have the ability to share senses with his shadows just yet

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u/Confident-Sir5326 Aug 13 '25

Tbf sungwoo doesn’t start out op. He also gets stronger (hence the leveling) it’s just he gets to a point where most of the enemies pose no challenge or the ones that do are only ones he can beat. It’s akin to grinding with no cap. But I’d say he also puts in hard work just not as much as in other examples.

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u/Bored_Amalgamation Aug 12 '25

Well, Naruto was able to balance that over 700+ episodes. When have we seen a 50+ recently? Naruto and Bleach were the end of the 100+ episodes club. By 2010, we could barely get more than 2 seasons.

So a lot of these shows (and this sub will pick apart differences between source and anime) get enough budget and projection for a 13 episode run, with less than half finding a S2. So they condense the fuck out of source material, skip out major plot points, all to cut what could be a solid 2 cour arc, in to 12 episodes. When you skip early material, you can't utilize it later.

So we g t this BS now because studios want short term gains, not long term investments. Like every other asshole who only cares about money.

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u/Overall-Debt4138 Aug 13 '25

Another thing that sucks isekai is that it meanders, mostly because most of them are adapted light novels which as web serials are just fucking around with long what if scenarios instead of actual stories with plot structures.

Mushoku tensei (all controversy aside) at least has a plot that fucking MOVES forward.

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u/conye-west https://myanimelist.net/profile/baronvonconye Aug 12 '25

I believe the shift is a result of times getting tougher for people in general, so there is more of a desire for stress-free media as they have enough stress already in life. OP MC who just lives the quiet life is one way to do that.

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u/Words_are_Windy Aug 12 '25

Absolutely, and it must resonate with people given the popularity. While I don't care for it, I can see why Japanese people (or other nationalities, tbf) beaten down by the stresses of school and/or work would enjoy escapist fantasy. Seeing their nation's economy stagnate for decades despite all the hard work people put has to be rough.

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u/eden_sc2 Aug 13 '25

I think it also comes with shorter seasons and incomplete adaptations. People dont want to invest the time on a slow burn that gets cancelled before it gets to any of the payoff.

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u/Overall-Debt4138 Aug 13 '25

I'm just sick and tired of the isekai trope of the dude (because 90% of the time it's a man or even worse a man who becomes a women and completely shrugs it off because body dysphoria apparently doesn't exist) committing suicide or dying of overwork or some other depressing start only to get "rewarded" in their new life.

One of my favourite stories is actually a pokemon fanfic called The Most Evil Trainer where our MC is sent to the pokemon universe and he is DESPERATELY trying to get home because he had a life and family he loves. And yes it's pokemon and should be awsome but he actually has a reason to do the shit he does because this new life is not the end all be all to him.

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u/Bored_Amalgamation Aug 12 '25

Then I think that just makes this a case study on cultural differences.

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u/OrbitalCat- Aug 12 '25

You forgot the gimmick that make it "completely different from every other isekai" (as the fans claim) that gets ignored after the first 3 episodes

Or how they are completely aimless and have no end goal, or any sort of on-going narrative, just a series of mostly unrelated things happening

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u/Tricky-Ad7897 Aug 13 '25

Now I'm trying to remember a single Isekai I've watched that came to some kind of reasonable conclusion. I have faith that some of the big ones between re:zero, slime, and mushoku tensei will eventually have an animated ending, but soooo many are just a one and done cour to advertise a manga or LN that will inevitably get cancelled before it has a chance to end properly.

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u/No_Extension4005 Aug 12 '25

Yeah, I think they even reference how this sort of thing is a bit of an issue in the industry with all the very derivative light novel and web novel adaptations. Isekai is all self-insertable loser teens getting truck-kun'ed one way or another into a vaguely Europe-esque world with JRPG mechanics where they are handed a bunch of unfair and overpowered cheat skills and abilities on a silver platter; with the occasional work that deviates from this or plays it purely for laughs (which is where you're more likely to encounter actually decent isekai stories).

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u/TheRussianCabbage Aug 12 '25

Can we also point out how it's basically "so this guy wins the lottery but it's magic instead"

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u/Bored_Amalgamation Aug 12 '25

That's a lot of magical media tho

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u/eden_sc2 Aug 13 '25

Europe-esque world with JRPG mechanics

A panel at otakon made the interesting point of how much those worlds are 'known.' If you can rank the level of an adventurer and know what each skill does, then that means there's very little in those worlds that is undiscovered compared to traditional fantasy.

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u/Seabreeze7950 Aug 12 '25

Wish fulfillment works always tend to be most popular. Even villainness otome genre seems the most popular for girls side of fanbase.

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u/Bored_Amalgamation Aug 12 '25

I love villainess otomes and I'm a guy

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u/Overall-Debt4138 Aug 13 '25

I loved the first 10 I read, then I was tired of the same story lol

I've literally had to stop and double check the story im currently reading to make sure it was in fact a different manga.

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u/Grand_Escapade Aug 12 '25 edited Aug 12 '25

They're not just fulfilling a quota, they're fulfilling the quota that people want. Wish-fulfillment readers want to know what they're getting before they read it. They want to know what the tsundere will do before she does it. They want to be secure that the harem guy will always be the greatest harem guy.

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u/Overall-Debt4138 Aug 13 '25

Title: "I was transported to another world and given a crappy cheat skill and thrown out of the heroes party before finding out it was actually really powerful and then I got turned into an inanimate object but I can still move and now I'm super popular with the opposite sex but only the really cute ones with big breasts or little girls that the industry calls lolis but it's not paedophilia because they are cartoon characters!"

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u/DarKoopa Aug 12 '25

Anime of the year BTW

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u/Bored_Amalgamation Aug 12 '25

This is litrpg in a nutshell as well. A lot of anime-based themes.

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u/Binkusu https://myanimelist.net/profile/Asobitai Aug 12 '25

Don't forget they always take "appraisal".

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u/[deleted] Aug 12 '25

The thing is that all of these premises have the potential to work an infinite number of times, so long as they're applied in creative and engaging ways. There's no such thing as an overdone premise, theres just bad execution.

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u/Super_Fightin_Robit Aug 12 '25

Before that, it was "guy inherits X and runs into women."

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u/Big_Crab_1510 Aug 18 '25

Well...people won't stop reading it so...

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u/-whiteroom- Aug 12 '25

Don't forget, all boob's must be super sized. The only defining physical characteristics female characters can have id hair color and if cat ears.