Highschool setting.
Cute mascot character that makes perverted jokes about the underage characters.
The super intelligent and capable rival character that is Machiavellian and treats the other characters like garbage but is still treated with respect and awe by the other characters because they're so smart and capable.
The characters are constantly repeating themselves and stating the obvious.
The deaths are so twisted like the Joker.
Transphobia.
"Women just don't understand male friendship!"
I don't like the artstyle. There's something "2010s ahegao hoodie" about it.
Anyway, this rant is 16 years late but I just wanted an excuse to talk about anime tropes that I hate.
On that note is there a single anime that's not misogynistic or at the very least weird about women? I'm not sure I've seen such a thing.
I'm gonna go through things I remember offhand, mostly recent-ish stuff that's still fresh in my memory.
Frieren - this should be well known enough to not need a blurb.
Secrets of the Silent Witch - fairly light and fluffy formulaic shoujo slop, but inoffensive and sort of charming.
BOFURI - no-stakes SAO with a primarily female cast and no weird stuff at all, just the protagonist accidentally min-maxing a terribly balanced VRMMO and then stumbling into every overpowered item and skill synergy possible. Empty, fluffy, completely inoffensive slop.
Call of the Night - despite what the cover art would suggest, this is a very good series that grapples with alienation, depression, and to some extent gender and sexuality, with a more or less ace protagonist trying to become a vampire by falling in love with a depressed alcoholic gremlin of a vampire who's been mostly sitting on the floor of her unfurnished apartment drinking and playing the same PS1 games for more than 20 years. The other vampires are also all complex, deeply broken people alienated from society. There's even a crossdressing bisexual femboy character who is actually just sort of there and treated normally instead of being treated as a gag or fetish material. I can vouch for the first season and most of the second, but I haven't actually finished the second season nor have I read the manga yet. Also has an absolutely amazing OP and ED.
May I Ask For One Final Thing - villainess genre subversion vaguely riffing on Alice in Wonderland but mostly just being a story about a terrifyingly powerful ball of repressed rage kicking the shit out of all the ontologically evil slaving aristocrats she's been forced to not kick the shit out of, after being given official sanction to just go wild and kick the shit out of all of them by the crown prince.
A Wild Last Boss Appeared! - this is genderbending isekai slop, but is actually pretty clever isekai slop that draws on and uses the way the world and its history was something both shaped by the protagonist (and other players) but also that's its own distinct thing that exists in a way that's forcibly trying to reconcile the half-assed lore and player stories with how a world would actually have to work to make those things happen and all the bits that would have had to have happened offscreen. I read several of the LNs and it never got gross or weird from what I remember.
Sakamoto Days - story about a former assassin who retired after his wife forced him to stop killing people. It's extremely creative and silly, and I can't remember anything gross and objectionable happening in either season. Great OPs and EDs on both seasons too.
Nokotan - funny deer show.
ZOM100 - phenomenal pro-social zombie apocalypse story about a burnt out office worker reveling in the end of the world because it means he doesn't have to go to work anymore, and setting out to do everything he always wanted to but never had the time to before it's too late. If that sounds nihilistic and toxic, making the "pro-social" comment I led with seem out of place: the story would agree with that criticism and it repeatedly interrogates the premise in an almost dialectical way to reorient it into a form that's more responsible and centers the human element and what experiences mean to people to arrive at a healthier place. It's also incredibly stylish and fantastically animated. It is kind of riffing on schlocky grindhouse aesthetics, but I don't remember it ever being particularly gross about it the way some things are.
Bofuri DEEZ NUTZV hahahhh gottem
I say that literally every time I remember it exists lmao.
Dungeon Meshi
Full Metal Alchemist: Brotherhood
Anything by Ghibli
But yes, there is a huge problem with that in anime. It's very unfortunate because there is good in there, it just gets overshadowed by the "let's make gooner slop for a quick buck" studios
Ghibli can get super misogynist. The main character in Porco Rosso is openly and proudly misogynist and even the victims of his misogyny agree with him in his misogynist views, and almost every studio ghibli movie revels in traditional gender roles.
Don't people call Porco out on his misogyny constantly in that movie? I think the only one who agrees is the yank who wants to marry a child.
He is "called out" once by the mechanic girl, who then immediately concedes to his misogyny.
Maybe the message of the movie is that Italians will agree with a literal chauvinist pig.
*Except the part where he says he doesn't like fascism.
"Even socially repugnant pig men hate fascists, what's your problem?" is my new go-to jab for right-wing anime enjoyers.
Ranma 1/2 maybe? It plays with gender a lot but it helps that it was written/drawn by a woman, so the "harem trope" is portrayed more as a running gag than as wish fulfillment and the "waifus/husbandos" are more like a rotating cast of antagonists.
Surprised it hasn't been mentioned, but Bocchi The Rock.
Keep Your Hands Off Eizouken!
This show is wonderful. Everything that can be good about anime.
Have you heard of yuri
checks out the yuri
it's an endless slow burn, one mindmeltingly intimate scene where they cuddle, then the autistic butch turns into cyber jesus and her crush marries a dude
Lol which yuri is that?
That's actually Serial Experiments Lain lmao
Oh lol
Toradora! and Rec. Both seemly present as generic high school and office romantic comedies (respectively) but that belies their great characterization as the MCs navigate their deepening relationships.
If I remember ACCA-13 and mushi-shi are my go-to standard for Japanese stuff. I haven't really touched Japanese media for about half a decade if not more so I'm fairly out of touch with it. Like the last thing I remember reading when it was just starting to be published was saihate no paladin, and that recently had its own show published.
I mean shit, I read solo leveling years back and that recently got a show, I'm afraid the industry will start burning through Korean manhwas like a wildfire in a few years and I'll be left almost the same as I am with Japanese stuff.
ugh I want more, can you believe the show ends before he even kisses his elf boyfriend
I wouldn't know, I was reading the comics when they were first coming out. I generally moved away from Japanese media before the first major arc finished.
JJK maybe? Nobara and any other female characters other than Maki from what I've heard got sidelined heavily at the later chapters.
From what I've seen at least Maki side plot is all about destroying a patriarchal clan so its prob not WEIRD about women, I only watch/know the hype moments and aura clips so perhaps theres some weird fanservice bullshit going on in the manga.