Forum - View topicINTEREST: Readers Rank Over-Played Shojo Manga Tropes
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EricJ2
 Posts: 4016 |
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I thought it was the uniquely Japanese insecurity about hoping to be in a situation where you're a lucky victim of soicumstance to be stuck in the same room with your significant other of interest handed to you on a platter, rather than the terror of actually talking to them in the school hallways out of the blue... 
(Which also explains the prevalence of harem/marriage-contract premises in boy's comedies, and the new popularity of incest titles where the girl/boy is already living in the main character's house.)
And much as I thought Lovely Complex did it right, we usually don't need an entire series of the main two going out with the wrong people to chase some ideal or spite each other, before ending up together like there was never any suspense they were going to. Yes, it's hard to stretch these things out to 26 episodes, but still. |
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puppy1843e
 Posts: 101 |
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Main girl gets bullied by the girls in the prince guy's fanclub. Main guy happens to be a genius in school and helps tutor the main girl who gets really horrible grades. Main girl is secretly rich/royalty and has to go and live in a mansion/castle/a wealthy school where she meets her love interest. Main guy is stoic and unapproachable and people think he's scary/a thug but the main girl with her cheerful nature and optimism breaks his shell and sees his true self.
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Ashen Phoenix
 Posts: 2909 |
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Parental neglect or outright absence always bugs me, where the MC lives with their grandparents or alone without any decent reason why. IF it's explained better than "oh they work overseas" then I'm okay with it.
Or the klutzy, airhead heroine who's So. Damn. Innocent. Her idea of dating is walking home from school together or *gasp* holding hands. I know part of this is a cultural difference but at some point it feels ridiculous. They're not 6 years old. They can have adult thoughts. 
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Chrno2
 Posts: 6171 Location: USA |
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Well, I'd be curious to know what the Japanese women feel about this. Since they read this stuff on a daily basis. I mean I'll admit that some tropes are fun and some are overly done. This is probably one reason why no one has seen anything different in all these years. It was good decades ago, but now... Talk about LOTS of guilty pleasures.
Thankfully I don't read shoujo because 1) never had an interest in comics aimed at girls or women, and 2) not really interested in the aesthetics of the genre. I'm slowly changing looking at stuff that's ground breaking, ie, Utena or Dear Brother. But hey there's enough tropes on both sides. Ditsy clumsy girl trying to find her confidence to speak to guy/girl on the the shoujo side, ditsy busty trying to find confidence after falling out of the sky into guy's lap. Obviously, they haven't gotten tired of these yet. And isn't tropes more of something that defines a character, these are more like formulas that define the plot? It seems that it really is pretty hard creating something new. Especially if everyone is used to these formulas. I often wonder if any of these Japanese readers even take this seriously. |
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lys
 Posts: 1008 Location: mitten-state |
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I think these both might be somewhat dated/old-school tropes: Inu Yasha isn't shoujo, but similar world/time-traveling has been done in series like Rinko Ueda's Ryo, or Red River, Fushigi Yugi, From Far Away... etc. Past-life lovers is an idea I think I see getting more nuanced examinations these days when it's used at all (Oyayubihime Infinity and NG Life are a couple of my favourites and neither ends with a replication of the original past-life pairing). I think a committed fan of shoujo manga (or any genre-medium) must have a tolerance or love for the heavy reliance on its set of tropes. Their familiarity is a comfort, or a source of amusement if presented in unexpected ways, and so on. But I do get frustrated with over-reliance on tropes to the detriment of the storytelling. To second what a few others have brought up, conflict arising from lack of communication and the fangirl-bully-squad are probably the two I most dislike. I also don't care for (and have never quite understood) the mandate that the rival boy or girl (who we know isn't going to win) MUST confess their love before they can move on. Do people really do that in real life? |
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lebrel
Posts: 374 |
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It should be pointed out that stories that stop at handholding tend to be from magazines aimed at least partially at middle-school girls (or younger). Most US-published shoujo falls into this category, because US publishers want books without sex scenes so they are suitable for a 13+ or 16+ rating. Material aimed specifically at girls in high-school and above is quite likely to deal more explicitly with sex. For example, "Say I Love You", which Kodansha USA brought over specifically to appeal to a slightly older female audience than typical US-published shoujo; it runs in a magazine for high school girls, and it's quite up-front about the fact that most of the main characters are sexually active. |
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lebrel
Posts: 374 |
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"Yukarism", which is just starting to come out in English, is a currently-running shoujo series with a past-life time-traveling romance (plus gender-swapped reincarnation, for a dash of spice). |
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Momokochan
 Posts: 103 |
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#1 and #8 are soo SO hypocritical and disgusting. If the character is smart and/or pretty then she's labeled a "Mary Sue" or a "slut" or BOTH. But if she isn't then she is dumb and simple like for Zeus, get a grip.
This is why we can't have nice thing 8 / |
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Crisha
Moderator
 Posts: 4290 |
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The bolded part is my own little edit, and I've always considered the the two to be pretty equivalent (since the other world most characters travel to tend to have a culture similar to a culture from our world's history). In which case, there's: Fushigi Yugi, Fushigi Yugi: Genbu Kaiden, Red River (time traveling to ancient Anatolia), From Far Away, Shinobi Life, Kyou Kara Maoh (romance is optional/secondary). Escaflowne has a shoujo manga adaptation. I haven't read any of the Alice in the Country of... manga. Those might count.
Please Save My Earth is the most obvious one that comes to my mind. There's also NG Life, though the couples end up being different. Doing some research, there's Sarasah, Replay, and Oyayubihime Infinity. ------- One of the most annoying ones for me is definitely the "lack of communication / communication misunderstanding / maybe I should talk to this person and try to fix things but nah that'd correct this issue too quickly we gotta drag this out a few more episodes / okay I finally worked up the urge to talk to this person and correct things but SUDDEN PLOT INCONVENIENCE takes this moment to stop me and f*** the audience we get to drag this out longer." That bullshit is infuriating whenever it decides to rear its ugly head. The longer it gets dragged out, the worse it gets. I spontaneously sprout a third arm just to give the series another middle finger when it happens. Also, I've become less and less enthusiastic over the years with using rape as a plot device. Whether it's an attempted assault on the main character by a rival/enemy to get the main guy to protect/save the girl or whether it's the main guy who likes the girl so much that he can't control himself around her (leading to "no! stop!" scenes of the girl who either doesn't really want it or who arguably likes it but is embarrassed/overwhelmed by it and isn't ready). Or, hey, those scenes that are made to look like rape but actually aren't rape (the guy was actually sucking out her soul or a needle was actually being driven into her back). Oooh, aren't you edgy? Stuff like that is just waiting to cause shitstorms. My tolerance for such things has dropped over the years, though it still has to be pretty egregious to make me drop the series altogether (Red River is one such series, and I refuse to touch Black Bird). However, such scenes can drop my enthusiasm of the main couple. Also, and this is not just for shoujo, but for romances in general, but I'd like to see a series where the MC ends up with the girl/guy that isn't the first one introduced in the series. Instead they end up with a character introduced later on. Two people may be all gaga in the beginning, but they end up with different people by the end (and it isn't a sudden thing, but just a gradual, natural situation of two people moving on, having an interest in different things, etc). Oftentimes, I come across a scenario where a character/romantic rival introduced later on is more interesting than the main love interest, and dangit if I don't want a change up. I'd like a series that actually takes the risk and has the MC pair up with that person despite it potentially pissing off the fanbase, because it plays up against the tropes and expectations. Yeah, I can get this with my fanfiction easily enough, but man I just want to see someone take the risk in canon. This would be more likely to happen in seinen or josei, and maybe I just haven't dug around to find such a series. |
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FenixFiesta
Posts: 2581 |
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I look at the ones that scored under 15% as either being something that doesn't come up too often in modern Shojo for the particular readers, something that if it does come it is seen as benign by same readers, and for some readers something that is seen as "romantic" specifically with regards to the time travel/past life bit.
the top cited offenders are signs of tropes being used as crutches far too long and the amateur hour writers just needs to rethink there game if even the reader base is catching those same trends so much it has become a nuisance. |
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Wandering Samurai
 Posts: 875 Location: USA |
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Having been an avid reader of shojo manga for a time, I just had to laugh when I read the entire list, because it's TRUE. In some way, shape or form. However I do have to agree that this list can be reversed to reflect that it can be applied to shonen or seinen series where the main character is male too. The thing is, these stereotypes exist exponentially, but still remain popular enough that writers use the same formula and it still will get people to read them.
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Darstorm-Sandude
 Posts: 57 Location: only real world location, please |
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Number 9: BOY♂NEXT♂DOOR
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niastyle
Posts: 73 |
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One that I always see, but actually kinda like, is the handsome, smart, and/or rich guy blackmails or is a total ass to the main character (and they don't get along) only to find out he's actually secretly in love with her.
Ex: Tsukushi and Tsukasa - Boys over Flowers Kotako and Naoki - Itazura na Kiss Hatsumi and Ryoki - Hot Gimmick Haruna and Yoh - High School Debut Kyouya and Erika - Wolf Girl and Black Prince Mimori and Haruka/Kuniyasu - Tokyo Boys and Girls Yukino and Arima - Kare Kano Tohru and Kyo - Fruits Basket Hikari and Kei - S A (Special A) Sana and Akito - Kodocha Nanami and Tomoe - Kamisama Kiss These are all the ones I can think of off the top of my head. I'm sure there are many more. I'm not much of a shojo fan myself. They're cool, but I prefer yaoi. And trust me, yaoi has just as long, if not a longer list of tropes. |
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teferi
 Posts: 400 |
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Unnaturally dense should top the list no problem. The whole genre revolves around people jumping at each other with hormones raging out of their eyeballs but they never notice (unless they're a secondary character). |
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katscradle
Posts: 469 |
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This is an interesting survey. I'm familiar with most of the list as tropes, but I think several of the shoujo manga I've ended up keeping in my collection are either series that started trends or avoid the use of prevalent tropes. Of course I also don't tend to read a lot of the more romantic based shoujo manga.
But, no age gap trope? I could swear that's shown up several times in shoujo manga series I've read. Is it just not tiring?
Can anyone name a series this happens in? I have the feeling it is a very familiar situation but, can't remember an actual shoujo manga where it happened.
I've always been surprised at the number of titles licensed with a variety of rape tropes. Comparing fiction with a female demographic, in Western romance novels such writing is largely regulated to more supernatural categories in the last few decades. But, nearly regardless of the category such plot points definitely have to be written carefully or...
Ai Yazawa has done this if I'm not mistaken(?) it's been awhile since I read any of her series I own. (Talking about the categories she creates in is difficult sometimes too the way her work is marketed differently outside Japan though.) I can vaguely think of another title through comments the mangaka made that I've read but, can't put my finger on any name at the moment, sorry. |
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