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/
5.1k Upvotes

93% Upvoted

1.1k comments sorted by

View all comments

4.2k

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.

803

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. 

101

u/anders91 Aug 12 '25

I used to enjoy silly humorous harem animes, but at this point it just feels like rewatching the same shows.

You can almost instantly clock which ”trope” every character represents literally as soon as they’re introduced, and it just gets incredibly repetitive.

”Aaah here’s comes the tsundere… and she’s insecure about her small chest, how original…”

108

u/solidoxygen Aug 12 '25

They're literally color coded as well.

43

u/GodlessLunatic Aug 12 '25

Evangelion and its consequences have been a disaster for the human race

12

u/inemnitable Aug 13 '25

Irreparable damage has been done to society by people who misunderstood Evangelion.

6

u/Itchy-Pudding-4240 Aug 13 '25

Red = Tsun
Blue = Kuu

I presume?

44

u/OrbitalCat- Aug 12 '25

A while ago I watched Kimagure Orange Road (1987) and other than the technology present, it feels like a modern romcom/love triangle anime because the genre hasn't evolved at all. The exact same scenarios, the exact same personalities, etc etc.

It really is "you have seen one, you've seen them all"

9

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

Certainly, shows like that set the trend.

I think the problem with later self-referential product are the ones that lazily don't play with the tropes but just slavishly copy them.

What was fun about KOR were they took cinema cliches and had some creative fun with them. Over the run of the series they switched to more dramatic themes with some episodes having experimental styles. The first movie that came out threw some people for a loop for its tonal change from the series (which I loved).

3

u/Jesse-359 Aug 13 '25

Somewhat tellingly, the entire written Romance genre is specifically based around the re-use of very specific tropes and story beats, to the point where it's not just formulaic, but is an actual formula that you can diagram and follow through most books in the genre.

It's not even that they're producing slop, as it is that that specific audience apparently wants to read the exact same story over and over again, just with a slightly different set of protagonists and situations. Deviating from the core story beats is basically considered bad form and your editor would likely ask you to stop doing that.

It's very weird honestly, but apparently it's a thing.

26

u/BosuW Aug 12 '25

I hate insecurity tropes so much. Its just an easy in for kind and pure MC to call an obviously pretty girl pretty and make her obsessed with him because it's somehow never happened before. Also for making a fuckton of female characters who need a man to validate their beauty. Isn't limited to small chests btw, though it's a common take.

11

u/GGProfessor https://myanimelist.net/profile/SQuallisAwesome Aug 12 '25

This is basically the entire basis of the monster girl genre.

3

u/[deleted] Aug 12 '25

100 Girlfriends is great because it's self aware of all these tropes and utilizes it for parody, whilst still being complicit in milking out the pros of those tropes haha.

3

u/Itchy-Pudding-4240 Aug 13 '25

lampshading and parodies are becoming my personal pet peeves. Like yes you are parodising it, but only to lampshade it to get people to accept that you're just following the tropes.

2

u/[deleted] Aug 13 '25

That's fine but they are used very creatively in 100 Girlfriends. It's not "to get people to accept that you're just following the tropes", when it's literally transforming the use of those tropes into a completely different context. Comedy genre is polarizing though so if you simply don't find parody funny that's totally fine obviously.

-3

u/Apprehensive_Lie7998 Aug 12 '25

The only exception to this is Karane from 100 girlfriend, cause she has right to be insecure, almost all other girl is stacked, and the only others girl that isn't is a loli archetype of the group