This week's poll is about how you prefer your realism in manga! Discuss away!

For me, I don't care. Some cliches are cute too! But originality is a nice thing to see and to just point at: "OMG! I never would've thought that would happen!" or "WOW! I haven't seen this happen before..."

Question: How unrealistic/cliched do you like your manga?
Choices:
Completely realistic and none of those stupid cliches - votes: 300 (3.6%)
It has to seem real, but cliches DO happen in real life all the time! - votes: 1387 (16.9%)
I don't mind some silliness, but the story had better be original - votes: 3764 (45.7%)
Anything goes for me - votes: 2110 (25.6%)
I like my manga as wild and fantastical as possible - votes: 670 (8.1%)
There were 8231 total votes.
The poll ended: June 29th 2008

A just ruler amongst tyrants

I would pick the third one when I'm picky or tired of finding the same clichés in most of the manga I read. Most of the time I would pick the "Anything goes for me" option.

This week's favorites:

• Golden Kamui

ççççççç[Ô.Ô] tsutopodus© will eat your manga and steal your cats!

Ideally it seems real, so I picked the second option. Cliches exist because they are successful enough to be used commonly, not because they're inherently bad writing. In any case, they can add rather than retract from something if used in moderation, but serious carbon copies always fail. Comedies work pretty well though.

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NightSwan also said that she wanted to peg me, once, but I'm not sure whether to take that as a compliment or a threat...

I chose the fourth one, because to me, anything goes. In fact, I'm not bothered by "cliches" shown in manga these days. But I like some mangas that have realistic things for once.

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

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

As realistic as I can get, usually. Depends on the manga genre though, obviously I'm not looking for full realism in a comedy and such.

I don't mind cliched stuff all that much in general, but it can get old if I read too much stuff loaded with them. I picked option 3 because I guess it's the closest thing.

Anything goes, because there are mangas with cliche`s done right and mangas that try to be completely original but fail completely.

In my personal opinion a truly good story requires no deus ex machina to have a truly enjoyable story. Of course, I rarely see a story like that. The Wheel of Time would be a good example. Having that is honestly what I think lets you really get into a story.

Many stories are basically possible, but only some stories are told such that their premises don't seem less likely than any others, and what occurs from them is probable.

For example, the contrast between much modern science fiction, which is totally out there, and classic science fiction which is totally reasonable. Anyway, the idea is that you start off assuming certain things are true, and then what follows from there is both reasonable to expect and enjoyable, so you don't have to feel like it's contrived.

So, I'm one of the few people who voted option #1. I almost voted #2, actually. But I think it's because people misunderstood the poll. Still, nothing wrong with the others.

I couldn't quite understand which of three subjects the poll was addressing so I wrote the post in three sections.

I completely agree with myopius on logical plot development. I was going to say the same thing actually: the premises of the the story can be completely unrealistic, as they must in any fantasy for example, for example but the story should follow logically based on this. I voted for the second one though because the odd unrealistic comment and slapstick joke is nice.

Personally, I think that the realism is especially important in comedies. What really makes me like a comedy is the dramatic irony behind it. Something that has so much potential in many gender benders for example. Slapstick jokes are welcome from time to time but I detest it when they take over the story. I am very often extremely frustrated by series that start off with a great premise and dramatic irony driven comedy and then once the initial cliches are taken care of move into an episodic story with almost exclusively slapstick comedy. Not to say that I dislike slapstick completely just that all the plot is forgotten so often that it becomes boring. I suppose moderation is key and taking the most suitable cliches or jokes for any specific manga while not going off track to use them.

As for originality, I again think it is a matter of balance. Making everything completely original doesn't work because all manga worth reading have the same purpose of gripping the reader's interest by presenting scenes to which they have emotional reactions. To do this they will have to share some ideas in common and a cliche is just something that is used often, sometimes situational, part of the premises, etc and it is just as important to use these when fit as to go for a different approach when trying to bring about a different reaction. Originality gives the manga its unique charm but the cliches should be there to support it.

I voted for as wild and fantastical as possible, becasue I read manga becasue real life is boring, I want tog et away from real life, so why would I read manga that is realistic? plus, cliches dont bother me.

When the plolt and characters are both cliche I drop a manga. So I would say I dislike cliches, but can live with them in moderation. An unoriginal plot line can't have to much cliche, it would have nothing new or worth noticing. :/

anything goes since i love negima 😀

I can tolerate some cliches. On the other hand, if done right, the manga can be as unrealistic as possible.

For me, it's all about what mood I am in. Right now, I am loving the shoujos with as many cliches chocked in there as possible. Give me a hot male teacher falling for his mildly attractive young student and I'm in Heaven.
But for a while, I loved the super realistic ones. Yeah, ramble on Jerricka.

When I was younger, cliches didn't matter (because I didn't know any better.) I'm not too fond of cliches now (and too much of it makes me gag), but I believe that it ultimately depends on the manga-ka's execution and style. 🙂

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