[Triple_R]

Originally Posted by hyl

No idea why you are actually nitpicking and overanalyzing on such trivial details ,

They're not trivial details, in my view. I explained why I don't consider them trivial details.

seeing that by your way of interpretation even the Wizard of Oz doesn't even fit to your own discription because Dorethy was also accompanied by her dog Toto.

Toto is not a person, so the Wizard of Oz does fit my own description.

Which means she had atleast an emotional comfort from her own world accompanying her.

Sure, but it's not the same as having a person from her own world to talk with.

Also if we are going to be so specific, then every premise can pretty unique depending on how much element you want to see it narrowed down to.

There's a reason why I took the two sentences approach. I'll explain that in a bit.

Now, instead of getting into a lengthy tangental debate over several specific anime shows, there is something I want to raise to your attention.

A lot of the examples you keep suggesting for having a premise like Spirited Away's are from the 90s. In some cases, we're talking almost 20 years since these shows aired.

The fact you keep having to dig that far back for anime examples of a premise like Spirited Away's shows that its premise really isn't that common. There's a considerable difference between a premise that is used 10 times over 20 years, and a premise that is used 10 times over 2 years. One is extremely more commonplace and heavily used than the other.


To be fair, it's not so much "original vs. unoriginal". A truly original premise may indeed be exceptionally hard to fine. So it's more a case of "rare vs. commonplace", in my opinion. Some core narrative ideas are used more rarely than others, meaning that they have more room left for significant concept exploration, and also that they'll feel less stale to a lot of potential viewers.

Yet you can get too specific. Like how many stories are about an orphan ninja boy with sealed demonic fox powers inside of him, while trying to achieve his dream.

Why is that too specific? You can even sum it up in one sentence. I guess Naruto actually does have a pretty unique premise.

Still way too vague because it's for starters pretty subjective what some animes are about (those with themes which leaves to the viewers interpretation like evangelion) and some stories are too complex to fit accurately in just 2 lines.

A couple points:

1. If a theme is left to viewer's interpretation, then it's not really part of the series concept.

2. Much of the point to my 2 sentence approach is that it forces people to distinguish the most important elements of a show from less important details. It is through that filtration process that we determine what are the core, defining elements of a show. Even the most complex of stories tend to central ideas or an overarching focus running throughout it.

It also depends on how far you are in the story. Like relentlessflame has posted somewhere in this thread, a premise based on the first few episodes is different than from looking at it as a whole after it has been finished.

Perhaps sometimes, but certainly not always. Does Koi to Senkyo to Chocolate ever cease to be about Koi, Senkyo, and Chocolate?

Originally Posted by Dawnstorm

"High school romance comedy" is a blanket term that covers a lot. Your "buts" suggests that assume there's some sort of default those deviate from. As if we're plucking "high school romance comedies" from some sort of platonic ideal, and then we're starting to midify it.

But that's not really how it works.

I'm sure you're familiar with TV Tropes. TV Tropes makes it clear that certain character type/genre match-ups are exceptionally more common than others; so much so that they're basically defaults.

If I say "harem anime male lead", what's the first character concept that pops into your head?

Now, which female character archetypes are likely to be part of the harem male lead's harem? 9 chances out of 10, it'll include at least one tsundere, so that's essentially a default as well.

And if the harem anime male lead has a sister, what do you think are the chances that her feelings for him are entirely familial/platonic?


I mean, seriously, let's not play coy/naive here. We all know that there's a very standard approach to the more common anime genres. It's not hard to imagine what the platonic ideal of a harem anime would look like (lots of slapstick and situational comedy, at least one girl with big breasts, at least one tsundere, at least one very feminine girl that may well double as a loli, at least one girl that likes preparing food for the male lead, the male lead is very indecisive and can be a bit of a doormat, the male lead will at least once or twice stumble in on a female character in a state of undress, the male lead will at least one or twice have an accident in which his hand conveniently lands on top of a female character's breasts, there's going to be a beach and/or hot springs episode, etc..., etc...).


I'll grant you that highschool romance comedy tends to have fewer defaults, but even here, what do you think is the chance there will be a love triangle?

You see, some things you might call "branching details" are virtually defaults. These branching details are only truly notable if they buck the trend of the defaults; if they go against genre convention.

If they don't, if they consistently go along with genre convention, then well... here is where I think all the great execution in the world can only make so much difference. If you're taking a concept that's been done literally dozens upon dozens of times before, and you're not putting some notable twist on it, then great execution might still make it enjoyable, but I'm not likely to find it all that fresh or interesting anyway. And I doubt I'm alone here.

Whereas a notable twist can, in and of itself, make something more interesting just on the face of it.

So, just on the face of it, if you have "Generic 'Platonic Ideal' harem anime" vs. "Harem anime where the male lead is actually a pro wrestler that takes his bumps in the ring, and not from his harem", I can tell you what interests me more right from the get-go.


As for K-On, my friend 0utf0xZer0 shared an interesting thought on that with me once. He said (and I'm paraphrasing here) that it's success could be due to being like a harem anime that cuts out the weak harem anime male lead and leaves you with "just the girls".

Plus, as common as "all-girls" anime are nowadays, I'm not sure if they were that common when K-On first came out. K-On is a case where a particular concept became more popularized by a popular show.