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The Tragic Girl in Anime

It makes sense in that portraying an extremely-unlikely scenario tends to strain one's suspension of disbelief to the breaking point

Top Gun wrote:

I almost feel like portraying it as something that could feasibly happen does a massive disservice by potentially dissuading people from giving blood.

Why would people be afraid to give blood? Didn't she get it from receiving blood?

Well, I am certain all the fathers and mothers who are staying at Ronald McDonald houses across the United States wish what you said was true.

It makes sense in that portraying an extremely-unlikely scenario tends to strain one's suspension of disbelief to the breaking point, which at least for me personally just makes me feel like I'm being blatantly emotionally manipulated, instead of being allowed to organically empathize with the characters in the story. In SAO's case, I am aware of the real-life incident in Japan that most likely inspired that arc, but that was literally a one-in-a-million shot, and I almost feel like portraying it as something that could feasibly happen does a massive disservice by potentially dissuading people from giving blood.

Part of my initial exposure to anime involved a marathon viewing of Kanon. Makoto's arc simply entranced me, rod, line and sinker.

Ever since watching Clannad and being regaled with stories of what a mastercraft work it was supposed to be and just not seeing it at all I've grown to rather loathe this trope over the years. To me it is just emblematic of lazy emotionally manipulative writing that is like a fast track to instant critical acclaim within the anime community but to me is just done to death and rarely works at all. Usually I don't even care about your average dying girl trope in anime because they don't bother to give me a reason to get attached to them other than they might be kind of cute before they start wasting away and suffering.

Then usually the actual dying bit is so hamfisted and weepy that it'd arguably be called gauche by even the most ardent chick flick supporter and not to mention often drawn out for the maximum illicitation of tears. I've never understood watching something because you feel it's going to make you cry or feel like shit for a character even though I know it's kind of a staple of Live Action Asian drama. I mean I'm open to it and it has happened in things before, but it's not a reason to watch a show for me or lavish it with praise because it depicted the plight of a side dying girl suffering from some mystery disease which seems like is just the rule. Anyway the fact that this is one of the most sought after kinds of story nowadays tells me all the more that I'm not really cut out for this whole modern anime thing. Sorry but I just didn't get into anime for it too try to make me feel like shit and drag out story arcs for the purposes of some sort of emotional payoff that doesn't work on me anyway when I can usually see it coming a mile away and is often handled with the grace of a hammer blow to the back of the head saying "YOU CRY NOW!!!"

I was hoping that this article would ask “why?” Why does this trope exist, and why is it so popular? What does it say that we have so many shows in which a girl has to be sacrificed to allow the (usual) male lead to ... do what? Play the piano better? Since all mentioned except anohana (which was an original anime later serialized in a josei magazine) are shounen or seinen, the target audience is clearly male. This is a sexist trope, a kind of tragedy porn that asks the viewer to wallow in a female character’s death which works for the benefit of the male character. This trope is barely a step up from “Women in Refrigerators.”

I was hoping that this article would ask “why?” Why does this trope exist, and why is it so popular? What does it say that we have so many shows in which a girl has to be sacrificed to allow the (usual) male lead to ... do what? Play the piano better? Since all mentioned except anohana (which was an original anime later serialized in a josei magazine) are shounen or seinen, the target audience is clearly male. This is a sexist trope, a kind of tragedy porn that asks the viewer to wallow in a female character’s death which works for the benefit of the male character. This trope is barely a step up from “Women in Refrigerators.”

I do quite like how this trope is handled much differently in ef - a tale of melodies. This is one of those rare male examples, where the accomplished violinist (hey, that trope too!) Kuze is dying of a conveniently obscure terminal illness and has decided to "settle his accounts" before dying, therefore having no time for the affections of manic pixie schoolgirl Mizuki, who is fairly obsessed with him.