What is your most hated trope in manga right now?

Dex-chan lover
Joined
Jan 8, 2023
Messages
4,072
The one that annoys me a lot!!

When the (usually female) main lead serves up a meal that is either a steak or an omelet and the guy (usually a guy) eating it breaks down and goes OH MY GAWWD THIS IS THE FABLED FOOD OF THE GODS LAST SEEN IN THE EIZO ERA WHEN DIVINE AND DEMONIC BEINGS WALKED THE LAND

I read one manga where some chick got challenged to a food cook off by a royal chef and she cooked a bouillabaisse stew whilst the Chef - someone who works for very powerful people who have the ability to have him killed for serving them a shitty dish by use of hand gestures - ends up charcoalling a fish and sprinkling some rock salt on it.

The best part is is that his food is served first and everyone watching goes "OOOOOOHHH" like it's some sort of Robuchon inspired gastronomic miracle instead of the war crime against ocean life that it actually is.

It just makes me wonder if theres an isekai dimension where the food isnt actually terrible and where someday some generic hero will serve an eggy rice omelet thing to someone and just get told "mehhh" or they'll be offended that he put ketchup on it....
Food (Especially basic japanese food) being treated like it's from gods is defo in my top 5 hated tropes. Like I like rice as much as the next person but plain rice isn't that good it's just ok.
 
Fed-Kun's army
Joined
Jun 5, 2018
Messages
349
Maybe it's more economics than a trope, but I feel like there's an increasing trend of, like, over-overacting, just drawing characters reacting to a thing instead of the thing itself. I suppose it's always been there in cheaper works to an extent.
 
Member
Joined
Apr 27, 2020
Messages
12
Slavery. The MC is in a fantasy world (isekai or not) and gets slaves and such.

From a narrative point of view it seems like a very sloppy way to create a relationship between the MC and the other characters. The author does need to come up with dialogs or progress the way characters interact.

But, what I find worst is that the author thinks that the slavery is an acceptable trope. For me, it says much more about the author as a person.
 
Double-page supporter
Joined
Jun 8, 2020
Messages
139
Another trope I hate is during the whole Death Game style series where it’s about survival and being one of the last few people left standing, it always has the big macho strong guy and the gross degenerate guy. I’m talking like he’s written and drawn to such a degree that it’s cartoonishly gross in how weird he is. Like the whole bit of the big bad macho guy being seen as this ultimate threat is nice because “Brains vs Brawn” but if I see another series with that premise I’m dropping it immediately. Same with the weird gross guy who for whatever reason always has to resort to rape or sexual assault in some degree to show he evil he is.
 
Member
Joined
Jan 8, 2020
Messages
42
For me it definitely has to be the cultivation boom right now, every other new recommendation I get seems to be cultivator this, cultivation that..

It's getting to be as tiresome as the plot armor isekai MC trope.

I've fallen back to Yuri and SoL due to OP Isekai MC Cultivator burnout
 
Dex-chan lover
Joined
Jan 8, 2023
Messages
4,072
power fantasy. i hate it so much. and never forget its best friends plot armor and Deus ex machina.
also something new i found to hate with passion is when author try's to justify mc blatantly immoral actions as moral.
Or the opposite of the end part when they judge a MC's action as immoral when it was either not their fault (Usually in rom coms with girls doing something stupid and MC's getting a view of something they shouldn't but it was all on the FMC/Harem members and not the MC's fault.) or was infact a moral choice.
 
Dex-chan lover
Joined
Feb 4, 2023
Messages
145
Not sure if it's a trope but game-ifying in isekais is annoying. At the moment I'm reading Karate Survivor and every time they talk about leveling up or skills and having a level ceiling it feels like it takes me right out immersing myself in the story. I don't think it would take something out of an isekai if they left it out and for more comedic isekais it could fit. But this tries to be a bit more serious though.
 
Dex-chan lover
Joined
Jan 8, 2023
Messages
4,072
Not sure if it's a trope but game-ifying in isekais is annoying. At the moment I'm reading Karate Survivor and every time they talk about leveling up or skills and having a level ceiling it feels like it takes me right out immersing myself in the story. I don't think it would take something out of an isekai if they left it out and for more comedic isekais it could fit. But this tries to be a bit more serious though.
I would defo say that's a trope and yeah it's a real annoying one. Like why would these worlds have a video game style status screen (When they aren't Videogame worlds).
 
Dex-chan lover
Joined
Feb 17, 2023
Messages
2,660
1) Battles that go on forever
2) Stories about high schoolers
3) Isekai itself: MC reborn into fantasy world
4) Game-like fantasy worlds with status screens, experience leveling, numeric attributes, etc.
5) Bullied MC seeks revenge
6) Attractive female character glues herself to dull male MC for no apparent reason
7) Romance involving timid, indecisive & emotionally dishonest characters

^ all can be fine, all done to death
 
Last edited:
Dex-chan lover
Joined
Feb 17, 2023
Messages
2,660
Not sure if it's a trope but game-ifying in isekais is annoying. At the moment I'm reading Karate Survivor and every time they talk about leveling up or skills and having a level ceiling it feels like it takes me right out immersing myself in the story. I don't think it would take something out of an isekai if they left it out and for more comedic isekais it could fit. But this tries to be a bit more serious though.
Yes, 1000 x this. Those sorts of things exist only in the interface that lets players outside an imaginary game world understand & interact with a representation of it. They're like the letters, words & sentences that perform a similar function in written fiction.

If you entered Middle Earth "for real", you wouldn't encounter chunks of text like "a wizard" or "the dragon" (i.e. the tools used by the external reader interface). You'd simply meet Gandalf and Smaug. Similarly, if you actually entered a fantasy RPG's alternate reality, you wouldn't find the leveling mechanics, numeric stats, mapping functions and skill lists of the external player interface. You'd just be there.
 
Last edited:
Fed-Kun's army
Joined
Mar 15, 2023
Messages
55
This one's more of a story trope but it's when the mangaka has a perfect story and plot going for a good couple of chapters and then something big happens and then you're filled with dread for the rest of the series because the change that happens sucks story-wise and entertainment-wise.

Something else I hate is when the author implies something (and is very on the nose about it) in a vague dialogue/flashback and then later on in the story goes back and completely retcons it.
 
Dex-chan lover
Joined
Feb 17, 2023
Messages
2,660
"Strong female lead" main character [that] gets downgraded into useless nitwit that needs the male lead to save them all the damn time, [or] the male lead devolves into nothing... Why can't we just have both strong leads without the obligatory, incredibly forced savior arc...
^

I'm also getting super tired of male who can prepare edible food = magical unicorn.
 
Dex-chan lover
Joined
Feb 13, 2020
Messages
1,248
Characters making moral judgements that make absolutely no sense in the given context of the situation. Two examples, Nut Master and (I believe) Isekai Munchkin or something I don't remember.

In Nut Master there is a plot involving a father and daughter over how their weapon creation skills should be handled. This is because someone they both loved and cared about was killed using their weapons. Daughter takes it upon herself to be the moral authority and say the dad is terrible because he refuses to stop making weapons and how he's spitting on that persons name or some crap. The thing about this is that the Dad knew that person far longer than the daughter, since his childhood in fact.

The series does not take one moment to point out how ridiculous it is for her to make such an accusation to him, knowing full well that the man had to continue to provide for her as a parent with the means he had available and the constant reminder of loss created by his own hands. Then he has to deal with his daughter hating him and then he has to keep his men employed so THEIR families won't go hungry. This man is so clearly weighed down by the entire ordeal that you could probably figure that such a situation would lead most people to break down... but not a single word of dialogue is uttered to sympathize with him. All of the sympathy goes to the daughter! Boo hoo me, Boo hoo my feelings, Boo hoo my troubles. My dad is dumb, Boo hoo! She eventually changes her mind on weapon creation (obviously) but never really comes to the realization of what she's been saying and doing to her dad.

I sat there so stunned that I was kind of in awe.


-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

In munchkin it's a similar situation. Village Chief is under immense pressure and threat of his entire village being destroyed and he has sacrifice people, which he himself hates. This isn't one of those situations where they THINK they have to, he outright must or they all die because there are no better options. Later MC then goes on to say that the book, which informs him of moral alignments, doesn't inform him of people's full character.

...Except so far that's exactly what it's been doing. The last guy the book said was "Good" was a good person. He hated injustice and evil. YOU oh dear MC are the guy who is radiating energy from what's tantamount to literal satan, so it isn't a far reaching conclusion that you are either one or both of these things. Hell, no one who knows anything about the deity whose presence is all over you is gonna let you go without trying to kill you because 10 times out of 10 the followers are vile, terrible, immoral monsters whose only goal is to cause suffering, chaos and death. You can't say people aren't being perfectly described when YOU are the odd one out in the scenario.

Even with the old man he tries to play like he knows better... until he comes face to face with the reason the chief did what he did. They ALL get mopped by this thing trying to fight it and end up running off. The village is then destroyed because the MC caused them to fail to meet the requirements of staying alive.

That man was a good person, he sought to help people no matter who they were and when push came to shove he made the choice to keep his people alive. He didn't like the choice, wasn't happy with it, but he loved his people and he's their leader and their protector. It's often easy to forget that when you're a leader these are choices you have to make.

It's the kill 10 to save 1000 or kill 1000 to save 10 scenario. It's not meant to be a reflection of morality, it's meant to ask if you could handle a decision where there is no "clean" answer.

That man could have simply killed himself or done something stupid like try to run or attempt to move the village because those were the easier options. But that would've gotten his people chased and killed because, big shocker, evil deity talks directly to and guides the thing that's forcing them to sacrifice people. Even if we assume that they could hide, moving an entire village full of children and immigrants isn't exactly subtle or easy. You would most definitely be found within a week and you'd all die.

So what do you do? Can't run. Can't hide. Can't fight. Can't call for help (as if anyone would take it). You either kill innocent people or EVERYONE (the innocents included) dies.

He was a good man in a bad situation with only worse options but apparently this sequence of events causes the MC to question everything about morality as if the MC could have thought of a better way, had he been in their shoes.

I get that the story is playing with the D&D morality system, but these two situations were not the scenarios to pick when trying to make the point that alignments are unreliable. I dropped it immediately after that chapter.
 
Last edited:
Dex-chan lover
Joined
Dec 25, 2018
Messages
132
I hate when characters have literally one drop of alcohol, or alcoholic chocolate, and get as drunk as a skunk from it, really ruins any immersion I’m having with the story at the time, or they have a beer and get drunk before it’s even settled in their stomach, especially when it’s a romance and they suddenly start getting all chummy with their love interest.

I don’t see it as much nowadays (mainly because I avoid those type of gag mangas now) but when the guy is treated as a pervert for doing essentially nothing and when it’s usually at fault of the girl e.g. dude is walking down the street, girl trips on a pebble, dude sees her underwear, then proceeds to get slapped in the face.

Harems always suck because the MC always ends up being the biggest pussy on the planet and just ends up meeting every girl halfway and never committing to anything. On that note, when mangas don’t have a harem tag and then decide 40 chapters in that it’s going to be a harem (looking at you medaka)

Finally with rom coms: ending the series as soon as the two main characters get together, mainly talking about stories with a lot of chapters and time needed to read it all. Short stories with a few chapters I’m fine with since a lot of progress is made in that time. A manga about two people getting together with 70 chapters needs a big pay off if they still aren’t with each other yet. If you end it as soon as they get together the pay off is tiny and just annoys me as a reader. I want to see them actually do stuff together, I’ve just sat through 70 chapters of them struggling to touch each others hands and call each other by their first name and now when they finally do more interesting things together it just ends… brilliant.
 
Double-page supporter
Joined
Jun 8, 2020
Messages
139
This trope is seen in some battle manga/shounen series but having a character who’s called “a genius”. I’m not talking like Dr Stone levels Genius I’m talking like “Bob is a genius in chess with how he’s an impenetrable wall of strategies”. Only for said genius character to lose to the MC because plot reasons or because the MC has his power of friendship moment. This specifically if the genius character is cold and distant and keeps going on about “im at the top and I don’t need friends” bullshit while the MC and them fight. Like I get it, having a person who’s practically a master in their field being beaten by a novice/underdog is always nice but it gets tiresome when you’re reading a martial arts manga and see “Kazuhiro is a Genius in Oiled Up Brazilian Twerk Offs” and getting beaten by the MC.
 
Dex-chan lover
Joined
Oct 24, 2018
Messages
4,727
Disgusting old men that reincarnate/isekai and retain their previous adult mentality but cant help "get it on" with young underage girls or perverse their gross thoughts about their underdeveloped bodies onto them.
Also fanservice from only the female characters but none from the male characters
 
Dex-chan lover
Joined
Mar 9, 2023
Messages
175
Isekai MCs that just for no reason seem to know so many daily things. Like no 22 year old japanese citizen from tokyo would normally know about farming, growing any kind of plants, raising livestock or any of that shit. Let alone managing an empire properly.
 
Joined
Mar 20, 2023
Messages
3
One trope that I dislike in romance manga is the unnecessary drama between the main character and their love interest, which leads to them not talking for several chapters while a second love interest attempts to swoop in. I find this trope to be quite frustrating and overused.
 
Joined
Mar 20, 2023
Messages
3
As for shonen tropes, the one I dislike the most is when an extremely powerful ally character is taken out, killed, or decommissioned to show how serious the series has become. This trope has been seen in various series such as Bleach with the death of Captain Yama, Black Clover with the death and rebirth of Julius, and Jujutsu Kaisen with the imprisonment of Gojo. While I understand that introducing a powerful character can make it difficult for the author to create tension, killing them off or stripping them of their powers in a cheap manner is not an effective way to demonstrate the severity of the situation.
 

Users who are viewing this thread

Top