Either it's anime or manga, what's the series that 'broke' the usual genres for you? 🙂 (ie: The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya; Mahou Shoujo Madoka Magica; etc)

What's your say on this? 😉

I don't understand

He means content as Eva, FLCL, FMA or in my case Baccano! / Hi no Tori.
Settling on genres for the MU box was hard, as you can´t just spam it, but they are truly about everything and in almost equal measure.
PS: Clementine is better character than Lee. He is a well done cliche and she is as original as you can get in a mainstream game. S02 is too "underrated".

I also read EU/US comics and am a librarian.
Manga-Masters, My ANN-Lists + Imdb

For example, the anime Mahou Shoujo Madoka Magica is about magical girls. It is expected that it has a cute-sy and light-hearted feeling but as you go deeper in the anime, you'd find its darker side of the story. So instead of a shoujo usual feel (which is the anime is categorizes as), you'll get something more despairing.

If it's still vague, here is a definition of the term genre breaking or "Genre Deconstruction". With examples!

S02, Clementine was such a badass but I can't say I didn't tear up over Lee's death. I think it was much sadder because of the relationship developed between Lee and Clementine. IMO, if Kenny was the one who killed Lee, I'd be sad, sure, but not cry.

Nanairo Kakumei, it deconstructs a lot shoujo cliche. It has cute art like shoujo for children but the story is very deep. While almost all shoujo focus about romance, it is focused more about frienship between girls. And it's not happy go lucky friendship like Nijiiro days (MIZUNO Minami), it tells many kinds of problems that can happen in girl friendship

(matching items, selfish friend, bullying, monopolizing, lie, left-out, love conflict, etc).

It also deconstruct character growth via lead male's help, the lead male is not the female's lead shining knight,

he doesn't always help the lead female nor he really care about her. He appears so littl. He actually just give his comments and only do something if things gone out of control. The result is the lead female becomes strong quickly and can solve the problems by herself without the male lead

It also deconstruct about the cliche girl antagonist. The antagonist of Nanairo Kakumei is the best in shoujo manga history.

Rather than cheap bitch love rival, the antagonist is the lead female's friend who is too possesive about her friend. She is wickedly genius and manipulates almost everything. Still, she is really the friend of the lead female and will do anything for her, she get rid all of her friend's obstacles and hurt back everything that hurt her friend.

Soukyuu no Fafner starts out like a typical alien invasion narrative: the inhuman Festums attack for no reason and wipe out humanity and now humans fight back. But it turned out to be a very unique take on the genre, with a lot of poignant points to make about child soldiers and war and communication.

Namely, I loved what it did with the Festums. They aren't the usual war-mongering aliens that they initially appeared to be; they appear so hostile because their entire makeup is so completely alien to humanity that neither group is able to comprehend the other. The Festums absorb humanity because they thrive in a hive mind, and their existence hinges on their existence as one being. They don't understand individuality, and hence they don't understand that it's wrong to swallow humans. The way the series goes about explaining this, and then having the actual humans trying to build a bridge of understanding between two disparate cultures is just incredible. The most nuanced take on war I've seen in anime, I think.

I can't think of a single other series that has elevated its genre quite as much as Fafner did.

Though I do like Helck for starting out as a complete action gag manga and then actually veering into a serious story (that is also great!) without losing that initially fantastic comedic touch.

Vinland Saga veering into Farmland Saga after those initial volumes of gory action was also an impressive authorial choice, and I applaud Yukimura for having the guts to actually do it, and having a better manga come out at the end.

Oh, and of course Pluto--literally genre-breaking its original source. Only Urasawa could have thought to turn Astro Boy into a mystery crime thriller.