Japanese animation is bigger and better than ever, with an ever-increasing fanbase around the world and more and more big-budget titles coming out every single year (not to mention related merchandise and manga volumes). Content-wise, the world of anime is rich and diverse, but it's also stale in a few ways.

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Classic ideas such as the shonen-style "never give up on your dreams!" will always endure, but shonen, shojo, seinen series and more have their fair share of ideas or conventions that are simply worn out and no longer relevant. They may stick out awkwardly in modern titles, and anime studios may want to cut them out of the playbook entirely.

10 Tripping And Falling Onto Someone Is Unrealistic And A Bad Way To Introduce New Characters

Asahina has a sandwich in her hands

Many of anime's most worn-out cliches and tropes are fairly harmless, all things considered, but that isn't necessarily an excuse to keep including them in new episodes. One of the most common gags is for a character to trip and fall right onto someone else.

Most often, this is done to force two potential love interests together, and they end up face-to-face, right there on the floor. But it's an awkward and conspicuous way to bring the characters together, and it's hard to believe that everyone is so prone to tripping.

9 Bathhouse/Hot Springs Shenanigans Have Worn Out Their Welcome

spirited away baths

In real-life Japan, hot springs and bathhouses are a big deal, so it's no surprise that many anima/manga scenes take place in them. Nothing is wrong with that idea alone, but too often, these settings are used for cheap gags.

Many anime series depict a character trying to peek at the other side, or accidentally seeing someone else nude, and chaos and shrieking ensue. Even My Hero Academia did it, possibly as a tongue-in-cheek gag, but the idea is pretty worn out regardless. Everyone needs to bathe in peace for once.

8 Self-Insert Isekai Protagonists Are Expected But Diversity Would Be Appreciated

Kirito Smiling In Sword Art Online Anime

The isekai genre is a big one, providing a sense of release and escapism from the grind of everyday Japanese life. That's OK, but things get rather tedious when so many isekai protagonists end up with the same specific attributes and personality.

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Exceptions exist, such as Katarina Claes and Myne the book-loving girl, but too many isekai heroes are a high school aged fellow with dark hair, a neutral attitude and a love of games and swords. There's too many Kiritos out there right now.

7 Women's Underwear Jokes Are Sexist And Have No Place In Modern Anime

gurren lagann yoko

A little fanservice never hurt anyone (so long as it is respectful,) but the idea can get taken pretty far, pretty fast, and there are many awkward cliches surrounding the idea of fanservice. One of them is a total fixation on women's underwear of all colors and styles.

Too often, women's undergarments end up as the butt of a joke, such as a flustered male character trying to borrow or steal a girl's delicates for some reason, only to get caught and beaten up. Or, someone ends up wearing a pair of panties on their head, whether they like it or not. Such a worn-out idea.

6 Extremely Dense Male Leads Are Overdone

luffy one piece

Many of the most notorious anime cliches/jokes are decent ideas that are simply done to death, or overdone to an unreasonable extent. For example, it's a generally accepted stereotype that women are more socially and emotionally perceptive and empathetic than men are, but that does not mean men are completely numb to other people's feelings or intentions.

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Too often, though, this idea is expressed as a dense-as-a-rock male lead who always blurts out obnoxious nonsense or fails to see why everyone is so upset. It gets old, fast, and there's nothing wrong with a strong but sensitive young man who can touch the hearts of others. That would make for a fine change of pace.

Yuki Smiling Sparkling Fruits Basket

This trope is common to the world of shojo anime, though it might appear elsewhere, too. Most high schools have a handful of popular students, yes, but some anime series condense all this into one (attractive) male student who can win over entire crowds of girls.

Rarely will a real person have that much influence, and these high school princes, such as Yuki Sohma or Takumi Usui, don't even have to do much to earn this attention. They just get it because they're so attractive and elegant, but that feels cheap. Actions speak louder than words and handsome faces.

4 The "Hidden Inner Power" Twist Is No Longer A Surprise

Ichigo prepares to fight

Characters in any piece of fiction should achieve their goals and make progress on merit of their own skills, abilities and intelligence, not from special favors or powers handed to them from other characters or the setting. That's encroaching on deus ex machina territory, but some shonen leads revel in it.

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Many shonen (or even seinen) characters are packing a dark, hidden power inside, such as Naruto Uzumaki's demon fox, Ichigo Kurosaki's inner Hollow, Inuyasha's demon side, and even Yuji Itadori's Sukuna powers. The idea of "the monster inside me" is the real monster by now.

3 Big-Eater Characters Are Included For Cheap Laughs But They Aren't Funny Anymore

Anime goku eats cloud

This is another cliche that is most typical of shonen series, but it may appear elsewhere, too. Many series include a character with an endless appetite, and whether or not their friends call them out on it, they'll scarf down anything set before them.

Son Goku, Monkey D. Luffy and prince Ling Yao are good examples of this, and it's not limited to the guys, either. In Bleach, lady Yoruichi Shihoin ate an outrageous amount of food to help her recover after a tough fight.

2 The "Shy Library Girl" Trope Is Lazy Character Development

shiori shinomiya world god knows

This cliche isn't as prevalent as some others might be, but when it does come up, some viewers might think, "not this again." In some animated series, there will be a token "shy girl who comes out of her shell," and most likely, she will treat the library as her haven.

Loving books is a wonderful thing, but there ought to be a better way to flesh out the shy-girl convention, aside from tossing her into a quiet library where she can avoid the chaos of everyday life within a book. There are many other hobbies and activities that a shy character can lose themselves in.

1 The Aloof, Perfect Rival Is Too Predicatable

rival characters uryu sasuke shoto

This particular cliche is practically unique to the world of shonen, where the hotheaded, unpredictable main character is contrasted sharply with their "cool genius" rival. In fact, Sasuke Uchiha was deliberately designed with this trope in mind.

Sasuke isn't alone, either. Shoto Todoroki is a cool rival to Izuku Midoriya and Katsuki Bakugo, and Uryu Ishida fulfills this trope to contrast with Ichigo Kurosaki. In Uryu's defense, though, he can sometimes get flustered or worked up, and he has a charming crush on Orihime Inoue, acting quite protective of her.

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