Remove ads

Cliches you can't stand

Q99 said:
Chad from Bleach became a boxer. A boxer! Dude can punch through three meters of steel without blinking, I'm pretty sure, and his spiritual pressure made him superhumanly tough before he trained it. Yamcha being a baseball player also strikes me as unfair but at least it's possible to work around a single superhuman player, it's flat out impossible for literally anyone on the planet who isn't part of the main cast to beat Chad in a boxing match.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
That seems to depend a lot on how the rules of the sport and league in question define what is and isn't fair. The methods of obtaining good technique, strength, toughness etc. aren't against the rules, and the sources thereof don't count as doping according to WADA and/or whatever other organizations are responsible for defining and weeding out cheating, then fair's fair.

And since I don't know those two characters: are they doing anything that is against the rules, lying about stuff that would disqualify them under the current ruleset etc.?
foamy said:
You say that

But if I was a Jedi


I'd totally become a hockey goalie.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Ah, so that's what Han meant about Ben promoting hockey religions.
 
Last edited:
There's this problem with a lot of Animanga and LN's where they present an interesting and unique premise, and don't go anywhere particularly unique or inspired with them.

For example, Aesthetica of a Rogue Hero:

Iron Roby said:
Aesthetica of a Rogue Hero

I know, speaking about "wasted potential" in a light novel adaptation seems like an oxymoron, but unlike most, the setting background included a really interesting idea - you know the usual "teenager sent to another world" isekai scenario? What if you went full meta with it and turned into an actual socially-acknowledged phenomenon, with the teenagers of a specific modern alternate Earth being the risk group? So its society has to deal with the returned "Chosen Ones" and made a school specifically for them.

So, what do you do? Do you explore the implications of probably half of the students being heads of states of some fantasy kingdoms now and the politics that can come with it? What about those who went to worlds with more advanced technology and brought some with them, what sort of impact has that had on the world (not even talking about magic)?

And the social environment within the school. How do you handle the situation where everybody is special, has saved the world/galaxy and kicked some Evil Emperor's or Dark Lord's ass and used to being the protagonist and in charge? How do you handle things like conflicts and bullying, when no one is in the habit of backing down after having faced all the challenges they did, and any slight could always have the danger of escalating into an interdimensional war? What do you do in a school, where delinquents could be edgy antiheroes with a kill count of thousands or millions, the hall monitors/public morals committee actual righteous paladins and the Student Council members Machiavellian heroes, who put all their skill points into diplomacy and have plotted to success in actual deadly decadent royal courts?

Do you get to see anything like that? Ha-ha, no. Instead the point is to masturbate over how the jerk protagonist is the only true hero among all those supposed "heroes". It's not just about power, almost no other student acts like a survived successful isekai hero, instead of like the usual side characters from your usual Super-Powers-High-School anime with no baggage of implied experience, coming-of-age-journey character development and heroic achievements. So what was the point of making them all isekai heroes? Presumably to make the protagonist look even more special, of course.

Sigh, what a waste.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

Seriously, how the fuck does shit like this happen?

Hell, here's my response to that:

Nilay said:
Hell, even better, how about creating a Made in The Abyss style story about a bunch of teenagers who live inside a boarding school dedicated to the dangerous task of diving into other worlds and extracting precious resources from them by becoming isekai heroes of the world they dive into. You could also switch things up by making them dive into realities that aren't just generic fantasy worlds; for example, dropping someone in a goddamn horror story and forcing them to deal with things like Pennywise the Dancing Clown (an expy of him at any rate), or dropping them into the middle of a cyberpunk universe, or see them (very hesitantly) co-operate with a superhero universe.

Could that work?
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

And here's the response to that quote:

minusmagnus said:
Oh boy. Would you believe me if I told you there's a manga with that premise?

It's called Maou na Ano Ko to Murabito A. About a world where a method of extracting reources from other worlds was discovered, by sending people that fit specific archetypes there and then bringing them back. Those achetypes vary a lot, from generic Hero, Ninja, Necromancer, to some really out there like Robot. The main plot is about the interactions between a dull guy stuck with the Villager archetype and a girl who got freaking Demon Lord as hers.

Sadly, that story also deseves a mention in this thread. As far I've seen, it doesn't actually do anything with the premise of sending people to other worlds. It just focus on school shenanigans of the people stuck with archetypes and how it affect their daily lives (very little drama, it's mostly shenanigans). I can only hope it will at some point adress the fact that, if the girl will truly take the role of Demon Lord once she's sent to another world, she will be up to some despicable shit.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

...Why, universe? Why does shit like this happen.
 
The Laurent said:
This is less a cliche I can't stand, and more a cliche it'd be amusing to invert? You know how video game enemies (especially in horror) so often turn into horrific abominations after you hurt their human forms, and have multiple forms before you kill them for good?

It'd be interesting to play a game, or read a story, where the main character was like that. You'd kinda have to have a game centered around it (such as what to do after a fight if you're forced into monstrous horror form and then have to return to the game) or whatnot, but it seems like it could be a nifty concept.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

You mean like the original Far Cry?
 
vicky_molokh said:
That seems to depend a lot on how the rules of the sport and league in question define what is and isn't fair. The methods of obtaining good technique, strength, toughness etc. aren't against the rules, and the sources thereof don't count as doping according to WADA and/or whatever other organizations are responsible for defining and weeding out cheating, then fair's fair.

And since I don't know those two characters: are they doing anything that is against the rules, lying about stuff that would disqualify them under the current ruleset etc.?
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

I don't know whether or not the rules mention supernatural powers (they are not public knowledge!), but if they don't, it's still Air Bud type rules lawyering at best, on something that gives an unfair advantage.

It's an advantage that is utterly unbeatable.
 
Q99 said:
I don't know whether or not the rules mention supernatural powers (they are not public knowledge!), but if they don't, it's still Air Bud type rules lawyering at best, on something that gives an unfair advantage.

It's an advantage that is utterly unbeatable.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Unbeatable and unfair are two different things. At this point, AlphaGo seems to be a better player than any human known, and has an unbeatable advantage over humans. However, that does not mean that AlphaGo's victories are unfair. On the contrary, AG's advantage being unbeatable is what defines it as the definitely better player - it wins in accordance with the rules that define what a fair win is for the tournaments it participated in.
 
vicky_molokh said:
Unbeatable and unfair are two different things. At this point, AlphaGo seems to be a better player than any human known, and has an unbeatable advantage over humans. However, that does not mean that AlphaGo's victories are unfair. On the contrary, AG's advantage being unbeatable is what defines it as the definitely better player - it wins in accordance with the rules that define what a fair win is for the tournaments it participated in.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

Sure, but imagine entering AlphaGo in a tournament that didn't know AIs existed.

Mundane performance enhancers are illegal, spiritual power blows them out of the water in terms of effect, and no-one knows it exists to put it in the rules.

If Chad disclosed his fullbringer power and they said yes, then that'd be... well, a really dumb rules committee because he could just stand there for 9 and 9/10ths rounds of a ten round match, wait for the match to be 12 seconds from over, and KO the opponent every time.
 
Q99 said:
Sure, but imagine entering AlphaGo in a tournament that didn't know AIs existed.

Mundane performance enhancers are illegal, spiritual power blows them out of the water in terms of effect, and no-one knows it exists to put it in the rules.

If Chad disclosed his fullbringer power and they said yes, then that'd be... well, a really dumb rules committee because he could just stand there for 9 and 9/10ths rounds of a ten round match, wait for the match to be 12 seconds from over, and KO the opponent every time.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
It's not so simple. Some mundane performance enhancers are banned and others are not. It generally takes the regulatory body doing some research and deciding to add something new to the banned list. One of the reasons people dislike WADA is because it's trying to overstep its authority and do things like retroactive changes (no idea whether successfully or not, but it seemed to be the backroom talk in the days when I paid at least some attention to it), or pressuring people into cooperating with them with the effort to move stuff from the non-banned to the banned list.

AlphaGo uses moves/techniques that humans never used in tournaments. But AlphaGo doesn't need to run its secret technique by a rules committee and ask permission to use them if the moves have not been banned by the current ruleset; in fact having a secret but rules-legal technique is often the path to victory. Breaking the meta in a way nobody has a way to counter is a path to victory. Developing a training regimen that allows achieving better results is a path to victory.

Now, I'm not a baseball connoisseur, but this reminds me of second-hand accounts of the history of the baseball gloves - something that at first almost nobody though would provide a noteworthy advantage, then someone started using it for said advantage. From someone in the know, like most modern players or fans, the existence of the source of advantage is obvious, but that's 50/50 hindsight.
 
Last edited:
vicky_molokh said:
It's not so simple. Some mundane performance enhancers are banned and others are not. It generally takes the regulatory body doing some research and deciding to add something new to the banned list.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

Look. If someone can punch out city blocks, and it takes at least that much to hurt them, it deserves to be banned.

AlphaGo uses moves/techniques that humans never used in tournaments. But AlphaGo doesn't need to run its secret technique by a rules committee and ask permission to use them if the moves have not been banned by the current ruleset; in fact having a secret but rules-legal technique is often the path to victory. Breaking the meta in a way nobody has a way to counter is a path to victory. Developing a training regimen that allows achieving better results is a path to victory.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

It's an inborn ability most cannot train, only a minority have spiritual potential at all, and most of those have nothing like Chad's. Also, regardless of AlphaGo's moves, popping it into a tournament against human opponents and informing neither the players nor judges that, hey, this is *literally* a superhuman computer, is still a bad move. It's not what moves it uses that's the problem, but non disclosure of superhuman status is inherently iffy.

Now, I'm not a baseball connoisseur, but this reminds me of second-hand accounts of the history of the baseball gloves - something that at first almost nobody though would provide a noteworthy advantage, then someone started using it for said advantage. From someone in the know, like most modern players or fans, the existence of the source of advantage is obvious, but that's 50/50 hindsight.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

Sure, but, like, when they tried it, everyone knew what it was and was able to do the same. The refs saw it and were ok with it. They didn't suddenly pull it out of no-where and it was not done in secret.

Chad is a living physical god no mortal can nudge with anything that can be legally brought into a boxing ring.
 
Last edited:
Q99 said:
And relatedly, people with superhuman powers getting in irresponsible jobs. Chad from Bleach became a boxer. A boxer! Dude can punch through three meters of steel without blinking, I'm pretty sure, and his spiritual pressure made him superhumanly tough before he trained it. Yamcha being a baseball player also strikes me as unfair but at least it's possible to work around a single superhuman player, it's flat out impossible for literally anyone on the planet who isn't part of the main cast to beat Chad in a boxing match.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
That... sounds pretty bad.

Getting a job that is challenging because one's powers are irrelevant? Cool. Getting a job where one's powers can be helpful (Picture Laura Kenney as a civil engineer noticing how off the newly poured structure smells, getting a core sample on the spot, and demanding words with the contractor)? Also Cool. This? Not Cool.
 
htgriffin said:
That... sounds pretty bad.

Getting a job that is challenging because one's powers are irrelevant? Cool. Getting a job where one's powers can be helpful (Picture Laura Kenney as a civil engineer noticing how off the newly poured structure smells, getting a core sample on the spot, and demanding words with the contractor)? Also Cool. This? Not Cool.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

Like to name some other super jobs- Clark Kent, reporter is great because he can use his powers to help find stories. Peter Parker, photographer, he does it partially as a time management thing, he can do it *while* hero-ing. Peter Parker, wrestler, was honestly pretty questionable though I don't think he realized just *how* invincible he'd be at the time (he'd been in zero fights before getting in the ring, just knew he could leap around and was stronger) and he was a kid. Hercules, construction worker who fixed buildings wrecked in super fights, not at all a problem.

I notice anime/manga especially seems most unlikely to factor in the powers. Like, in Dragonball, Chichi really pushes Gohan and to an extent Goten to learn and study, and, like, it's fine that they do, Gohan becomes smart enough to do some great stuff (iirc some games set later in the timeline has him develop a lot of theories on ki and such), but there is approximately a 0% chance a saiyan will be unable to provide for themselves and their family using their strength.
 
Q99 said:
How about, 'failure to acknowledge that having superpowers really guarantees you for a job/source of income'?
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
TBH I'd be a tad uneasy about basically tossing my old life plans down the toilet unless I was fully confident that the superpower were clearly workable and permanent. What happens if it doesn't function as well as advertised, is it even possible to train it up to higher levels of power and finesse? What if it has a limited number of uses, or is eating away at my health, or is just temporary? If I'm wrong, well next thing you know, I'm a college drop-out with no useful skills, or possibly just dead. And a lot of powers could have relatively few options, most of them unappealing.
 
Last edited:
Voikirium said:
"Villains Out Shopping."

(Yeah yeah, I know, trope shit)
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

Are you against the idea of villians doing normal things or just the use of it as a joke villains for x amount of power. I mean over half of the times Juggernaut shows up he is 'villain out shopping'. It happens so much it might as well be his secondary mutation (well his primary mutation since he isn't a mutant but look that makes don't make as good of a joke). Also one of the biggest sources of conflict in UC Gundam is that Amuro ran into Char and his girlfriend when they where having a relaxing time on a space colony and they hung out for a while.
 
firefossil said:
TBH I'd be a tad uneasy about basically tossing my old life plans down the toilet unless I was fully confident that the superpower were clearly workable and permanent. What happens if it doesn't function as well as advertised, is it even possible to train it up to higher levels of power and finesse? What if it has a limited number of uses, or is eating away at my health, or is just temporary? If I'm wrong, well next thing you know, I'm a college drop-out with no useful skills, or possibly just dead. And a lot of powers could have relatively few options, most of them unappealing.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

Oh, yea, if it's something unexpected, have options, and it never hurts to be well-rounded, but I see it a fair amount in things where they have a pretty good idea of their powers.
 
Scenes and Sequences that help stay consistent with Tone or establish it, but are utterly fucking pointless and contribute nothing to the Plot, and even taking away from it.

For example, the John Henry scenes from Justice League: The New Frontier are pretty good, all things considered. The use of the old song intersecting with the panels is spot on, the colouring is gorgeous, the start and outcome of it tragic, it's depiction of the fucking depressing and disgustung levels of Racism help establish just how bleak a world this is.

So, that all said, what does it do in terms of Plot?

Nothing. Remove the John Henry moments, and not a single thing in that story will change, and that entire subplot doesn't really lead to anything either—no Black people are in the final fight, his death doesn't really ennoble anyone, all it does is cement something that was already pretty fucking obvious in the mind of one character. Hell, it was removed entirely from the Animated adaptation, and it didn't suffer any more or less from that; and the same applies to the Comic. It was good and it fit the tone, but it had no reason at all to be there.

If you're setting up a sub plot and showing it to us repeatedly and extensively, it should lead somewhere and it should matter. If not, as good as that scene was, what the fuck was the point of showing it to us?
 
I would think that would depend on me, if the scene and sequences are good and within the tone of the work and doesn't take away from the story then it should stay even if it adds nothing because it helps to flesh out the work even if it doesn't advance the main plot but if doesn't just add anything but actually diminishes the story then it should go.
 
Alane1 said:
I would think that would depend on me, if the scene and sequences are good and within the tone of the work and doesn't take away from the story then it should stay even if it adds nothing because it helps to flesh out the work even if it doesn't advance the main plot but if doesn't just add anything but actually diminishes the story then it should go.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

There's a balance, and it depends on the story. Establishing atmosphere and setting is good. Exploring them can be fine- but if you've got a plot as a central focus, be aware that anything not advancing them in some respect is slowing things down.

IMO most major movies could easily have 15 minutes trimmed off and benefit from it.
 
You must login or register to reply here.
Remove ads
Back
Top