Forum - View topicAnime tropes in real life?
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Andy26
Posts: 41 |
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Do you have a favorite Anime trope? One that will bring a smile to your face whenever it appears? Perhaps an inside joke you share with your best friend.
From sneezing when someone is talking about you, violently erupting nosebleeds, or the girl running late with toast in mouth, some tropes are so well defined that they almost ascend past their designation as such. Others are a little more subtle yet still just as prevalent including two of my favorites. Power Lines and Cicadas. Power lines were something I had vaguely noticed in a few Anime prior to the series S.S.S.S Gridman really bringing them to my attention. I don't know why animators decided to make these commonplace items such an artistic emphasis but the effort is not lost on me. If I recall correctly there is in fact an episode of Gridman which lists a power line animator or some other such designation in the end credits. There are no power lines that float over the prison I live in, surely a security issue there, but it doesn't stop me from appreciating them in live action shows whenever I see them. A dying art maybe? With so much of this infrastructure going underground and wireless even, that perhaps the near future will find our skies unobstructed by these beautiful distractions. My favorite trope however, that I also get to enjoy in real life, is the sound of cicadas. From what I understand they are generally used in Anime to demonstrate the high heat of summertime. The sound reminds me of being on school break and walking along the train tracks. The sun beating down and making the air so heavy that moving becomes difficult. The swelling song of the cicadas in the trees the only sound to echo off of the walls of the nearby bluffs. The echo in my brain a hypnotic lullaby carrying me like an Isekai portal to another place. There is a phenomena that happens though, when suddenly the song stops, and the silence that follows is shocking. It is as if in unison they all pause to acknowledge me, pulling me out of my daydreams and forcing my return to the plane I had briefly left. Gridman also uses the imagery of cicadas to great effect in this dreamscape world and almost seems to mark a transitional point in the story as well. Where the relationship between Rika and Akane really starts to develop. It was last year as I walked the track that circles this prison yard that I experienced that feeling once again. As the cicadas began to cry out to each other I thoroughly became aware of their presence. The razor wire on the fences turned into brilliant diamonds drifting to the sky above. While the breeze scattered these prismatic shards the pale gravel I stood on became soft and light as clouds and it was Ginsberg's words that poured through me "I have mystic visions and cosmic vibrations" or was that Kerouac? Either way it was transcendent for a few moments. Some tropes in Anime are silly and fun things, some are added with a heavy hand and others are artfully inserted with the skill of a surgeon. Think about the tropes, or certain moments even, that speak to you beyond the episodes you watch and appreciate them when you can. And next time you hear a cicada singing just know that somewhere a prisoner sighs, and smiles. |
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Blood-
 Bargain Hunter Posts: 23832 |
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An anime trope I always appreciate (but can't really explain why) is the one where ice cubes settle in a glass, making a little clink-clink sound. It always puts a smile on my face, for some reason. I guess it's soothing in some sense.
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Beltane70
 Posts: 3896 |
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I wouldn’t consider cicadas during the summer in an anime as a trope. As someone who’s made frequent summertime trips to Japan, I can tell you that the cicadas really are that noisy and numerous in summer.
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Blood-
Bargain Hunter Posts: 23832 |
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By the way, it didn't take me long to encounter the ice cube trope... it popped up in the most recent episode (10) of Insomniacs After School.
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Alan45
Village Elder Posts: 9858 Location: Virginia |
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@Beltane70
The fact that the cicada sound is realistic doesn't prevent it being a trope as it is used as shorthand to indicate high summer. I first encountered it in the first episode of Evangelion. That sound with the shimmering effect of the image (from heat) is quite powerful in setting the scene. |
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ChirashiD
 Posts: 108 Location: WA |
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I'm going to add another anime trope that is also another sound effect. I love the bamboo water fountain sound. You find these water fountains at natural hot springs, parks and farms where a small stream passes through. A piece of bamboo is carefully balanced so it fills with water and the weight of the water causes it to dump the water out while hitting a stone, and making that characteristic sound. Then there's usually another sound as it tips back up and starts filling with water again.
What does the sound represent in anime? Often some transitional scene or to express a tranquil emotion or perhaps to convey repetition. Maybe the use of this trope is kind of phasing out as our world is getting noisier and more crowded, it's harder to actually find one of these fountains in IRL. It sure is a relaxing sound |
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InfiniteJest
 Posts: 136 |
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Not a trope confined to anime but I am a total sucker for Manic pixie dream girl characters.
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Andy26
Posts: 41 |
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Hey blood, Thanks for the input and commenting on my posts. Unfortunately with my current situation real time replies are not possible and trying to respond to multiple comments would be too much for me to ask of my avatar - dear old mom
I am so encouraged to hear that people are reading and commenting on some of the things I really enjoy talking about, it helps pass this time with ease 349 days left! In general I don't think of a trope as a bad thing, just a common occurrence that spans across the genre and even into other institutions. I think some are fun, some are annoying but they can all provide one thing A common language we can use to express a situation. Its kinda neat how we find shortcuts to communicate. |
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Blood-
Bargain Hunter Posts: 23832 |
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@ Andy26 - don't worry about real time replies. ANN has been a pretty slow board for several years now, so long lag times are often the norm. And that's from posters who don't have the same kind of reason that you do not to be speedy!
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InfiniteJest
Posts: 136 |
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The term trope is an overused trope. It’s become a cheap and vacuous way pseudo snobs try and dismiss a popular or common element of story telling as if they have a better approach (but they don’t have to provide it). It has become a standard for counter culture, counter mainstream, criticism.
It utterly fails to understand the universal nature of the hero’s journey or what people actually seek in stories. I remember when it was used in Community by Danny Pudi (ironically) to highlight its trendy application to everything. Like a Kardasian buzzword that they try and push into popularity by endlessly repeating on social media, trope is an artificial concept that we can do without. Some storylines are excessively repetitive or derivative. Sometimes the show lacks some imagination and does a shit job of writing. Sometimes the popular interest demands more takes and content on a specific topic. But being popular isn’t inherently bad (as pointed out above) and tossing out “Trope” as a pejorative label rather than engaging in a dialogue of what mad it bad and what would make it better is intellectually dishonest at worst and lazy at best. So yes I have favorite “themes” and themes are something that can appear more than once or even be common. A young person leaves the village, travels out into the world, faces challenges and grows as a result, eventually returning with new knowledge to the village where it started. From the labors of Hercules to the Lord of the Rings this is a Story told thousands if times. Because it is an element of human experience center to most of our life experience. A story of love and loss. A group that had a leader and a clownish joker. A scatterbrained sidekick who is somehow endearing. And on and on. There is a reason why the billions of people repeat a millions of common stories. They are an expression of the forms we find around us. I read recently that humans are just pattern matching monkeys. I’m okay with that. Oh and my most beloved “trope” is still the manic pixie dream girl and had been since Jeff Daniels met Melanie Griffith in Something Wild. Most recently it was Marin meeting Gojo in My Dress Up Darling. |
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HoneyAlice
Posts: 23 |
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I like the glow-up, where the ugly student is made into a mega hot hottie. And of course, it's done by the school's popular hotties.
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InfiniteJest
Posts: 136 |
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The best (worst) part of that HoneyAlice is usually it boils down to 1. Taking off glasses 2. Taking hair out of bun. Ad a bit of makeup and poof!
Think not only in anime but also most teen comedies. |
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Alan45
Village Elder Posts: 9858 Location: Virginia |
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InfiniteJest Wrote:
As a trope it was a staple of Romcom movies dating back to at least the 1940s & 1950 and likely earlier. If someone comes in and says it dates back to Shakespeare's time I wouldn't doubt it. You will see this trope in the upcoming Apothecary Diaries. Check out the latest news article about the show. The hottie with her hand in front of her face is the main character shown elsewhere as a bit of a drab. |
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Andy26
Posts: 41 |
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A fun example of the 'glow-up' was Assassination Classroom's take when the class "helped" Nagisa out. In this case it was making the rather androgynous male character intentionally more feminine to aid in their scheme.
Bothersome kids and their giant octopus. |
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asoka
Posts: 15 |
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Kimodameshi or better known as a test of courage seems to show up quite a bit, I always laugh when the shows normally rational characters suddenly decide that its a good idea to find out if a murderous yokai or restless spirit is in fact real. I’d be interested to find out if this is just isolated to Japan or more wide spread.
My friends & I would always tell ghost stories etc. when camping but I’ve never heard of any of them ever actually going into deserted building in search of ways to improve your courage. . |
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