One of the things you typically look for in kids’ media … and remember, the target audience for most anime is slightly nerdy Japanese high school boys … is what in my racket (communication professo…
Confessions of an Overage otaku
Sep 23, 2024 • Subscribe
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Oh, So Trope-ical: Pinocchio
Yeah, yeah, you’re saying to yourself that Pinocchio wasn’t an anime. First of all, that’s not entirely true. In fact, there have been TWO Pinocchio anime series, one…
Oh, So Trope-ical: The Big Brother
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Oh, So Trope-ical: The Gamer God
There are certain tropes that are so obvious it’s almost a waste of time to look at them. Oh, man, what’s the point of the Princess in Peril…
Oh, So Trope-ical: The Broken Girl
It sure seems like the number of anime where the kids belong to/come from a complete nuclear family with a mother and a father is pretty small. There…
Oh, So Trope-ical: The Ugly Duckling
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Oh, So Trope-ical: The Metastable Relationship
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Oh, So Trope-ical: Raised by Wolves
Well, no, I don’t literally mean raised by actual, you know, wolves, since, you know that doesn’t really happen, the myth of Romulus and Remus aside. But what…
Oh, So Trope-ical: The Idol Girl
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Oh, So Trope-ical: The Hair Bra
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Oh, So Trope-ical: The Sexually Aggressive Gal
Yeah, I started spelling it Trope-ical. There’s no point in a pun no one gets. But yeah, there are a lot of tropes in storytelling. That’s not an…
Oh So Trope-ical: Magical Shopping Arcade Abenobashi
Tropes are one of those things that I’ve mentioned about a zillion times but never actually talked about. There’s probably a formal definition, but a trope is basically…
Oh, So Trop(e)ical: The Dirty Old Man
It seems like just about every anime comedy with a romantic plot or subplot has at least one dirty old man. Well, not ALL of them. Those that…
Oh, So Trope-cal: I Can’t Say “I Love You”
Look, if you’re writing a popular romance manga, or an anime made from a popular romance manga, you often have a big problem: How do you keep the…
[Eleven] “(You’re) so cool!” — Tsuritama
Many anime series have ruined an excellent start with a mediocre or bad ending. Tsuritama is not one of those series. Instead it’s one of the most well-plotted…
Review: Too Cool to Kill (2022)
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Reflections: Am I too old for anime high school?
For most of my adult life, I’ve put on this guise of being an old, world-weary man who had it all figured out. Even when I was 24,…
Cute Girls Eating Too Much – The Adorable Glutton Trope
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Karate For Cool People
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Oh, So Meta: Excel Saga
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Oh, So Meta: Lucky Star
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Shikimori’s Not Just a Cutie – 10 – So Cute, So Cool
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Oh, So Tropical: The Chosen One
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Oh, So Tropical: The Nose Bleed
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The Oh So Fun Blog Update
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Oh, So Tropical: The Family Princess
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Oh, So Tropical: The Soul Girl
I don’t know how many times I’ve looked at a trio of characters and seen them forming a classic Mind-Body-Soul trio. Sure. How about Blossom, Buttercup, and Bubbles,…
Solo Leveling (Volume 6) – I’d Lost My Cool Too!
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Oh, So Tropical: The Convenient Stomach Rumble
I’m a writer so I can say this: There are a lot of gimmicks writers use to keep the story moving. For instance, the great crime writer Raymond…
Oh, So Tropical: Avatar: The Last Airbender
I had a date with a nice lady whose only experience of anime was Avatar: The Last Airbender. “I wonder what you think of it?” she said. Well,…
Oh So Mysterious! The Mystery Blogger Award!
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Oh, So Tropical: The Princess in Peril
You know that the Princess in Peril is one of the oldest tropes in film, let along anime, right? I mean, seriously, The Perils of Pauline was made…
Oh, So Tropical: The Pre-pubescent Horndog
As a writer I love tropes. Tropes are tropes because they work in telling good stories. Sure. Take the “Hero-Sidekick-Girlfriend” trio, right? You can use that interrelationship to…
Oh, So Tropical: The Stupid Harem Protagonist
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Oh, So Tropical: The Look-at-Me Woman
You know what? I think I may have discovered a whole new trope. Okay, let’s start with this fundamental fact: Anime is a medium largely created by Japanese…
Oh, So Tropical: The He-Can’t-Love-Me Woman
In a lot of ways romance animes are some of the dumbest on the air. I mean, seriously? You have Person A and Person B and everyone knows…
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