Regular readers know I bring a few perspectives to these posts. Published writer looking at writing. Award-winning animator looking at animation. And yeah, I can do the critic/critique thang, too, although that’s not a primary emphasis. Here’s one more: I’m a trained chemist, with a four-year degree from a top science institution and professional experience. […]
Confessions of an Overage otaku
Dec 30, 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 Oaf
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Oh, So Trope-ical: Pawn Queens
There’s a really great character trope out there if the writers are careful in how they deploy it. You know what it is. The title says it. I…


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
Oh, So Trope-ical: The Ugly Duckling Okay, you know the story of the Ugly Duckling and I know the story of the Ugly Duckling. It’s from Hans Christian…


Oh, So Trope-ical: The Big Brother
For storytelling reasons heroes often have sidekicks. Sure, right? A sidekick can do a lot of things, like be comic relief, or have some skill that the hero…


Oh, So Trope-ical: The Metastable Relationship
I’ve talked about metastable relationships in passing so many times it occurs that there’s something bigger going on there. And sho ‘nuf … The term metastable comes from…


Oh, So Trope-ical: The Hair Bra
The point of manga and anime is to get eyeballs onto content, whether it’s paid for directly (by buying manga) or indirectly (by ad sales during anime). In…


Oh, So Trope-ical: The Idol Girl
There are a lot of idol girls in anime. It’s almost unavoidable, right? The purpose of anime is to get eyeballs on the screen, and a key way…


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: 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 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 Trope-ical: Too Cool for School
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 ……


Oh, So Trope-ical: The Infantilized High School Girl
The Law of Tropes #1: Tropes is tropes because they work. Right? Certain characters/situations/relationships are common because users recognize them and understand them, and because they do somethi…


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…


Oh, So Tropical: The Chosen One
The essence of The Chosen One trope is that there is someone out there in the universe who has been Marked by Fate (or the Gods, or whomever)…


Oh, So Tropical: The Nose Bleed
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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,…


Oh, So Tropical: The Family Princess
I started out wanting to do a character analysis of Rea Sanka, the main female character (and namesake) of Sankarea, Undying Love, but I ran into a little…


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 Convenient Stomach Rumble
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Oh So Mysterious! The Mystery Blogger Award!
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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 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 Meta: Excel Saga
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Oh, So Meta: Lucky Star
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So I Watched Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness
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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
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The Sneezing Trope in Anime
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The Worst Trope in Romance
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Oh, So Tropical: The “Nice To Meet You, Ms. Ayanami”
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Doctor Appointment
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Dragon Ball Super: SUPERHERO REVIEW
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This Superhero is Incredibly Shy
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This Anime Superhero is Relatable
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My Thoughts On The Inner Demon Trope.
The Inner Demon Trope In Anime And Manga. Let's talk about it. Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/maskedasura Twitter: https://mobile.twitter.com/masked_asura Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/the_masked_asura/?igshid=OGQ2MjdiOTE%3D Tiktok: https://www.tiktok.com/@themaskedmanyt?_t=8ZLL7iPa77m&_r=1 ► "Copyright Disclaimer, Under Section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, allowance is…


Miss Kuroitsu and the Anime Trope Department
Your favorite Super Sentai show, but from the perspective of the poor employee making the monsters.


X-Men '97 and the Superhero Soap Opera
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What’s your favorite romance trope?
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More like Gundam oh oh Oh Oh! OHHHH!
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