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What a surprising bump, but...
So I was searching for "Anime Cliches" on Google, found this forum, and discovered a wealth of discussion dating back to '04 nearly a decade ago when I barely knew what anime was.
With that out of the way, may I mention my own opinion on anime cliches? I'll try my best to avoid retreads, but this is 9 years/18 pages of materiél. It's almost become a cliche to try to avoid cliches.
I- Calling Your Attacks. This was also irking to me. Sure it's cool, but what's the point?
II- Super forms/transformation states. It never relies on skill, talent, or training: all you need to do is transform to win the battle.
III- We already mentioned the shounen action hero's lack of parents... but what about their own lack of psychological depth? The pressure of being a 7-15 year old and being forced to save the world for some reason wouldn't make me angst for a moment and then will up to do what it takes; I'd be denying it all the way through, act maybe once half-heartedly, realize everyone's counting on me, perhaps win, then live the rest of my days scarred by the experience if I'm not rich and famous.
IV- On that topic... you save lives, property, the whole world and all you get is some recognition??? We turn brave warriors, generals, and leaders into presidents, kings, and dictators and much of the time they don't actually fight themselves; just lead. If a 12 year old saves the whole world, expect that kid to never have to worry about retirement!
V- What's with the rigid power tiers? Getting specific, because IMO Dragon Ball Z perfected it, take DBZ. You have a very concrete identification of the power structure by the end of the series. This character is the strongest, that character is the 2nd, that one is the third, and so one. And you'd better remember it.
VI- Magic vs. Technology. In the sho genres, it feels like magic is predisposed to come out victorious over technology.
VII- Flashbacks anyone? It's been mentioned and I just love it's used to make stories deeper, provide characters with some sort of motivation, or remind them of the POWER OF FRIENDSHIP.
VIII- The hair. Of course, it's a staple of the style and I'm not raging against it, but spikey hair is a must have eh? Though a lot of modern anime has turned towards realism in that department. As real as it can get at least.
IX- Those eyes... those eyes...
X- Chibis. What is the history behind chibis?
XI- The camera angles; why is it anime has such zooming, cinematic camera panning and angles?
XII- The limited animation. This is less of a cliche as much as it is a trend-become-status quo. Keep the best and most fluid animation for the action scenes, first, major, and last episodes. Otherwise, keyframes and jagged animation is commonplace; avoid character's talking on screen at which point their mouths flap more or less.
13- Someone conjures a magical beast/entity, and you fight it with your own. Yeah, it dates back thousands of years, but still it's not my favorite style. At least have some characters fight these beasts with their bare hands/weapon
14- Anyone not Asian/white/whatever race anime characters are is flanderized at best and stereotyped horribly at worst.
15- Fluctuating power levels. One minute, you can tear down your city with your fist. The next, you're being overpowered by a typical mugger. With no explanation given for this.
16- Kemonomimi by themselves are WTFery enough, but what I could never understand is: WHERE ARE THEIR EARS? THEIR HUMAN EARS?! It's not helped by the fact that you never see any with normal human ears because they just happen to have enough hair to hide the area their human ears would be.
17- Power changing your clothes. In order for raw energy to condense enough to become matter, it would take... well... a ton of energy!!
Of course, cliches transcend culture and medium so some of these are present in other forms of entertainment. Except catgirls having/not having human ears. Seriously, can someone get me a picture of a catgirl with short enough hair that we can see whether or not they have human ears?
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