The eyes man... THE EYES!

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Too much evidence!

And another cliche I don't like is when the main character's parent/parents/family dies in the beginning of the manga.

Sorry, I know it happens in most shoujo manga, but I just don't like it. It makes me sad.

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I read so much mangas, I'm too lazy to watch anime!

Manga I'm loving ATM: Heart no Kuni no Alice

Sparkly/starry backgrounds during intense emotional scenes, that then ends in disappointment/sudden interruption.

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Crusty old prospector.

Yeah, the parents being dead annoys me and is usually used as a pity thing in the manga. They need to have more blended families or single parents or atleast foster parents.

Mmm... someone mentioned love triangles. It gets worse when both seem like great candidates, or one seems even more interesting than the other, but from the very beginning of the story, you already know who the female lead is going to pick.

You know what I'd like to see more of? Love triangles where no one is happy, and every one stays single. It always seems two out of three get a happy ending. Or better yet, every one is happy and they are a threesome!

Also other cliches that I wish would play out differently:

-"I love you so much that I just want you to be happy so I'll step aside and because I know you really love him/her"

What kind of crap is that? If you love them that much, stalk them, kill the person they love, rape them! Why does this never seem to happen?

-The lead female is always cute/pretty

Why? Why can't she be fat? Or disabled? Or deformed? It's such a pity.

-The lead female is always a kind person

Why can't she be a bitch or a whore? Hell, why can't she be evil?

-The lead female is always young

Now this one makes me sad. I would kill to see some magical girl anime that has the main character be over 50 AND be drawn that way. None of this young forever crap.

-Flowers

They are everywhere. EVERYWHERE. I hate flowers in real life, I hate them in manga. I'm baffled by the use of floral backdrops for every romantic scene, seriously.

-School settings

Why can't it be a shoujo about middle aged women working in an office? Or something? Is that so hard? I've been to school. Actually I'm in college now so I'm still in school. Really, it isn't that exciting.

-MIA Nipples

You know, I was in the shower the other day and looked done to see these crazy things attached to my breasts! Oh shit! Wait... it's just nipples. I haven't seen any in so long in manga, on men and women. They just don't exist. It's almost as funny as the magical glowing lack of penis you see sometimes.

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Just on the off chance you're not being facetious, "shoujo" is aimed at girls up through about high school age, so it's natural that the heroines be primarily (if not entirely) in that age range too.

(For manga about older characters, you'll probably have to venture into josei/seinen - and there *are* manga about OLs and older-than-high-school-age characters, for example manga by Yoshihara Yuki (though they do still look pretty young).)

Complaining that shoujo characters are "all too young" is sort of like complaining that romance novels "have too much about relationships & sex" - not so much a cliche as something that just goes along with the genre.


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"[English] not only borrows words from other languages; it has on occasion chased other languages down dark alley-ways, clubbed them unconscious and rifled their pockets for new vocabulary."
-James Nicoll, can.general, March 21, 1992

Ah, I've just always thought it odd. I've been reading shoujo since my first year in transitional school (junior high school, middle school, what ever you call it where you are from) and it just always struck me as odd. I love shoujo, don't get me wrong but I don't always want to read about people who are just like me. So I understand why the age group is so young, target audience in mind and all but still.

Sorry, I hadn't intended for my comment to seem like banter. I'm not the best with my words yet, I'm working on it though. Real hard.

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one of the worst cliche get from shoujos are when the hero isa bishie and has many fangirls then they will know that that bishie like the heroine and plans to gang up to her in the back of the school then the hero saves the day!!!

OH My I've read it a lot of times!! seems soo stupid!!

another is a story of being unrelated by blood siblings though it sells to me but it is a cliche and many stories of manga happens that way....

there are thousands of cliche!! in manga.. some somewhat and still sells but others are just out right annoying!! but then.... it is what makes the manga

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never thought you'd be so much important to me...

...i never realized it till you were not here anymore

...but my heart will forever belong to you

2 begin w/ i'm very picky w/ the shojo i do read, i like smart romances like MARS(is that shojo or josei?) the shojo cliche i hate the most is probably the desperate kind hearted but not very bright lead female that wants a boyfriend so bad...that annoys me! I just hate that! I mean, Tohru 4rm Furuba was none to bright and was kind but wasn't fixated in getting a boyfriend! It all happened slowly and was cute...so the dumb lead is probably the worst cliche ever!

I don't have the willpower to go through those 11 pages of clichés, so.
The cliché where the couple fell in love with each other and the girl has a secret - she's sick/dying/whatever. Then they have their ups and downs, the girl dies (usually in the lad's arms) and he vows to love her forever. Like in
I mean wth? Why is it always the girl who dies? Is it romantic or something? :/

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Current avatar features Badou from Dogs.

the one I hate is the "fan clubs" for hot guys, I can shrug it off as a cultural thing, or whatever but it still irks me. I mean I really didn't get high school when I was in it or even now that i'm out, but huge stalker clubs seems strange to me. I mean if i just had a silly crush on a hot guy (or funny or smart etc.) why would ....arg!

no never mind, I suppose I just don't understand interpersonal relationships or people

EDIT: I also hate when the mangaka obviously avoids a cliche. They practically point it out and then avoid it to make it seem they are actually creative plot wise.

Last edited by rabookal at 2:11 pm, Jan 22 2008

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Sorry for being incoherent
:'(

I hate it when there's a heroine who has to make every issue that comes up in her life a huge effing drama! Life is not that difficult that you have to whine and moan and angst about every little thing. Grow up and put on the big girl panties.

Love the bloody noses!

Once I was at an anime convention, and I spontaneously got a nosebleed in both nostrals. My friend laughed, and I wondered if there were any half naked bishies nearby. Couldn't find any, though DX

my least favorite cliche is when the girl in question gets targeted behind school one day and her crush comes and saves the day. drives me nuts to see that happen, with the whole "the girl is so completely useless that she can't do anything without the help of her man..." *YUCK*

hmm... come to think of it, while we're at this might as well throw in the whole cliche of weak girls in general. you know what i'm talking about, the ones who can't do anything and just sit there looking pretty, or seductive and who's biggest drama in life is who she's going to walk home from school with. i can't stomach series like that!