Even the mangas that everyone's saying "OMG, This manga is the best and it's so unique!" I'm able to predict to a 90% correct average.
Maybe I'm just getting good at this, or maybe shoujo mangas are just becoming more and more dull. Especially the characters, don't even get me started.

I think I need to go read some more shounen =c=

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Why hello thar young one >:3

Must be hard to come up with new ideas when there already are so many. Just look at the music industry, most songs are just recycled.

Shounen isn't that much better either btw

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This life sucked. Where's the reset button?
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I agree with Aenonar. That happens not only in manga and music, sometimes it happens even in mainstream movies.
Sometimes you can pretty much guess what might happen in a shounen manga now days.
I think that Josei/Seinen manga are less predictable than shoujo/shounen manga.

Even though I know by predicting how the plot will turn about, I still enjoy reading shoujo. I always say in my mind 'Ha! I knew it!' when something predictable happens.

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"Beware How You Take Hope From Another Man."

That's half the fun, no matter what it is. Movies, books, manga. Because everything is just endlessly copying of the things that came before it. Shoot, even Romeo and Juliet was based off of some Italian poem...(not that I'm saying R&J is all that great...one of the worst stories I was ever forced to read, but it's supposidly one of the best love stories *shrugs*)

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I am a breath of insanity in a world of chaos.

Me: Performing Random Acts of Klutziness for over 30 years.

It's not just you its life, almost everything in entertainment are getting predictable and clichéd. Because I was tired of the same old same old in movies I turned to anime and manga now they are getting that way to. I wonder where I should turn next?

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I know. XD I actually enjoy comparing how long it will take for the plots to become predictable.
(I didn't like that play either, I tried to be absent as much as possible when we were reading it. Sadly I got tests about it, but luckily I went online and read other people's summary about the play. XD )

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"Beware How You Take Hope From Another Man."

I've always hated "Romeo & Juliet", I thought they were both pretty stupid. The only thing that kept me entertained when I had to study it was keeping a body count.

I've seen several versions of it, but only one (done by the local Shakespeare Festival where I lived ~15 years ago) that actually made the characters feel *real* and their actions understandable (still stupid in a lot of ways, but...).

If you read/watch/listen to enough of anything, the majority of it will get repetitive and predictable, unfortunately.

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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

I agree. But you could always read the old mangas. I find them a lot better, even though the art might turn you away.

I think they've always been painfully predictable...and a lot of media has been. :/ I suggest reading shoujo by artists that always tend to add in a kick of the weird. Yumeka Sumomo has some fairly predictable stories, but she also has ones that are awesome.

That, or maybe start reading ones with a sub genre that's different? Like fantasy, sci-fi, etc...but I guess you really need to be interested in those from the start to be attracted to them. Lately I've been reading a lot of things published in Kurofune Zero, and while some are predictable, a lot are just "what the hell D:" since it's traditionally yaoi artists busting into the shoujo genre, so they get a lot of their weird urges out---like Kiri Route of Infection. Don't know how much of that has been scanlated yet, but I'd keep an eye out for once it is.

Don't forget that the target demographic for most shoujo manga is females approx. ages of 8-16. Most girls are pretty stupid at that age.

i just dont read that much shoujo. not enough for them to be predictable to me. yet.
i take it back. i see whats happenin with vampire knight

Harsh.

If you really want some diversity, trying out Seinen might a good idea. Shounen and Josei are pretty predictable too, but I'm pretty satisfied with most Seinen I read.

Moved to Shoujo/Josei.

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And if the world were black and white,
you would be my rainbow in shades of grey.

Click 'n Play!

If I had a fantasy self, it'd be a tentacle monster.

I believe the same could be said about shonen.

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They recycle the same stuff for young readers. After the girls grow up and get tired of the materials, they will either move to seinen/josei/yaoi, etc or stop reading manga. Also because grown-ups have less time, they will read smaller number of seinen/josei titles and probably won't find much repetitive stuff. Then the industry can still sell the same old shoujo stuff to a new group of younger readers. That's how most shoujo (and shounen as well) work, I guess. I think large amount of manga reading is the habit of hardcore otaku. However, younger people might tend to read more manga no matter they are otaku or not. That's why many shoujo and shounen are popular.

Though I admit, due to social change or something, shoujo/shounen content has been updated a bit compared with what they were like 15 - 20 years ago.

Last edited by base_coat at 12:47 am, Apr 2 2009