Cliches and anime are old buddies. Lewd hand-holding buddies that go for long walks on the beach. And that’s not a bad thing! You know how cliches are made? Because fans enjoyed them so much that creators just keep using them. However, that doesn’t mean originality needs to be dead. Breaking cliches in anime can breathe new life into a well-beaten dead horse of a genre. Furthermore, anime series that choose to forgo cliches in its plot can lead to some wonderfully creative series.
I’m not counting the parody genre as cliché breakers, although those little rascals make frequent use of it. Consider series like Gintama or Konosuba as honorable mentions.
Best Anime With Limited Cliches
Madoka Magica
Mind as well start with the obvious, right? The magical girl genre was once only made of sugar, and spice, and everything nice. However, Madoka Magica came in made out of death, and terror, and depression. Now that Madoka Magica has celebrated such popularity, the magical girl genre is just mostly dark magical girls now, because of course it is.
Regardless, its popularity is proof that a solidly destroyed genre cliché can revitalize any genre.
Beastars
Having no exposure to the manga, when Beastars came out, you looked at the furries and the bright pink poster, and you thought, “yeah, this is for a specific sect of people.” That’s fine, too. Furries are a vast and largely untapped market. However, what Beastars brought was the opposite of how it looks, which is a shame considering how many people likely did not give it a shot. Instead of something cheery and vaguely flirty, what you got was something dark, thoughtful, and sexual (but not in a weird way).
Dorohedoro
You know what are two genres that are really hard to blend? Horror and comedy. Dorohedoro tries and actually succeeds really well. Yet the charm of Dorohedoro isn’t just how well it gives you whiplash between laughs and vicious violence, or even how gloriously psychopathic Nikaido looks beating that meat (for gyoza). It is really the villains of the series. They don’t have some evil agenda. En and his crew are very much presented as normal people doing there job, but only being the villains from the standpoint of the main characters. It is refreshing as hell.
From the New World
I think that because From The New World (Shinsekai Yori) was originally a novel, it skipped a lot of the traditional anime tropes to focus on things that novels focus on like world building, plot, and strong characters because it didn’t have visual display to fall back on. What comes out is an anime series that is accented by beautiful visuals with an interesting world to explore, and one explored by children that grow in it. The relationship between them is equally as interesting too. Certainly you want to solve a few of the mysteries it presents, but the characters form relationships in unexpected ways, breaking even young romance tropes.
Scum’s Wish
Some romance anime series are absolutely interchangeable. Some naive/earnest/hard-working girl falls in love with a troubled/arrogant/hard-outside-soft-inside guy. They then have relationship misunderstandings that could be solved in one sentence by normal people.
There is a time for those series, but why not instead try Scum’s Wish where everyone is a garbage person and does terrible things when it comes to love? It is frustrating if you want that twee hit of oxytocin from your brain, but the plot certainly isn’t your standard romantic drama plot.
The Tatami Galaxy
Hey, look! Another anime series based on a novel. The same thing as I said about From The New World goes here, although as it was directed by Masaaki Yuasa, you can find some of his own personal tropes that he injects into most of his animation.
The Tatami Galaxy is difficult to explain, and that’s not a bad thing. It is provides you with such a wholly original plot, and is very much a piece of art.
Showa Genroku Rakugo Shinju
Is it a cliche-breaker if the subject matter is on something so obscure? Not necessarily, but in this case, yeah. Rakugo is essentially storytelling, an art form in an of itself just like the story. That is interesting in the series, certainly, but Showa Genroku Rakugo Shinju is very much a show carried by strong and complex characters. They are cliched in some ways, but only because they are presented very much like normal people.
Made in Abyss
This is another one that sets expectations with the way it looks. It has those lovely little cute child characters that may make it seem a whimsical adventure anime aimed at a young demographic. However, what it actually is is a series with deep maturity. It doesn’t look to achieve maturity by piling on gore or disturbing scenes, though. It has some disturbing moments, but each is purposeful as you follow the struggle-filled adventure of the characters.
This is one of those very fine examples of adventure anime where the series does indeed feel adventurous and unexpected.
Paranoia Agent
It is a shame Satoshi Kon only got to create one full anime series before he died. His movies are complex classics in part because he didn’t really enjoy most anime tropes. Paranoia Agent is much the same, and like Dorohedoro, a series that does a good job at blending horror and comedy.
Not only does Paranoia Agent present a thoughtful plot with ample mindfuckery, but it also presents characters not as cliches, but as people. There is good inside the bad, and bad inside the good. They are ugly and complicated characters, making them a joy to explore.
Grimgar of Fantasy and Ash
Isekai series have a specific formula that is stuffed to the bursting point full of cliches. So much so that now we have moved on to series that subvert them to keep the genre alive, the “isekai, but” genre, if your will.
Grimgar is an “isekai, but” the main characters suck at everything. They aren’t the super strong ones that adapt effortlessly. They struggle to kill weak monsters and even suffer fatal losses. They grieve, they struggle, and strength comes slowly (not in a montage). It was one of the first in the “isekai, but” genre, so it is easy to forget. However, it was refreshing during its time.
Do you have anime more anime series to add to this list of cliche-c-c-combo breakers? Let fans know in the comments section below.
