Thread: The first?.. A story of anime archetypes.

Originally Posted by dtm42

The franchises of Slayers and Tenchi Muyo were also popular back in the day, and yet nowadays what you hear is former fans saying how they don't like it anymore. And I think to myself, "It took you this long to realise? For shame."

Could you clarify your pronoun there? what is "it"?
Are you saying People liked all three but now don't like Love Hina... but still like the other two? Or one of the others? or any of the three?

Can I assume that means you like Slayers? Personally I got through the whole first series and I didn't find it all that great. Won't be watching the other series. I don't call people who have seen it idiots though.
According to your list you saw one episode of Love Hina. That's fine, you almost certainly would never like it. A split decision based on hating a first episode is valid.
For instance, I saw one episode of a Code Geass, which you rate a masterpiece, I didn't like a single second of it and personally wonder how anyone could enjoy it, probably will never watch another episode and guess what? this is the first and probably last mention you or anyone else has ever heard of my opinion of it.
Why? Because no matter how much you dislike something in a first episode, if you try calling an entire series crap because of it, even if you've read that others don't like it, you come off as an... idiot.

This is a question of origins.

All of us here can probably pick apart the archetypes and tropes that make up most of the manga series we see today. But, many of these archetypes had to come from someplace. Now i know someone could probably trace it back to classical literature, but i'm not really talking about that.

More like:

1.) Who was the first modern tsundere? "Modern" as in the bi-polar type that Rie Kugimiya has made her career off of and not the older type that was more of a transitional "I hate the main character, but now i'm starting to like him" phase than a mental disorder.

2.) Who was the first modern good guy/everyman with a harem?

The great big fixture of harem anime being the nice likeable fellow who is in over his head.


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Stuff more like that I suppose. Maybe even "First" is a bad word to use, since i'm really referring to not characters from obscure anime but characters who essentially defined (or in the case of the tsundere, redefined) the stereotypes that recur again and again.

Can anyone name a few? I'm curious as to see what shaped modern anime.

Originally Posted by Charred Knight

They all love Tenchi in the OVA, it's just that Ayeka and Ryoko are the most vocal about it.

I also see no difference between Lum shocking Ataru, and Akane hitting Ranma into the sky.

Perhaps I need to go back rewatch the OVAs, but I always thought all the girls loved Tenchi (an older brother, a great guy, a science project), but only Ryoko and Ayeka were in love with him and wanted to have his babies.

Again, I feel Akane is more level-headed. As the show progresses, Akane does a lot more of "You jerk, Ranma" and running away in tears than punching Ranma to the stars. Meanwhile, Lum always tried to kill Ataru and Shinobou in the episodes I saw. I remember one episode where Lum stalks them through the phone, jams the frequency and then proceeds to bring lighting down on them before she eventually tries to put them through a lover's suicide.

Akane is agressive (tsundere), Lum is a psycho (yandere).

Originally Posted by Wu Ming

1.) Who was the first modern tsundere? "Modern" as in the bi-polar type that Rie Kugimiya has made her career off of and not the older type that was more of a transitional "I hate the main character, but now i'm starting to like him" phase than a mental disorder.

2.) Who was the first modern good guy/everyman with a harem?

1. Though I wouldn't exactly say she falls under one of the two character types that the archetypal tsundere girl falls under, Madoka Ayukawa from 1988's Kimagure Orange Road is the earliest example of a tsundere I can recall. Her behavior towards love interest Kyosuke Kasuga would depend on her mood, especially with her best friend Hikaru also having interest in him. But, Madoka never went as far as to physically beat or berate him like the more well-known tsunderes of today. There were only a couple cases I recall from the first series of her slapping Kyosuke (one as a front for her reputation as a delinquent, another being justified from Kyosuke misunderstanding Madoka's reputation.)

2. Don't know what you mean by modern good guy. Of what I've seen, Tenchi Masaki is the earliest nice guy that I've seen from the 1992 OAV series Tenchi Muyo: Ryo-ohki to have an unwanted harem of alien girls winding up in his household. But if you are looking for a recent example, Keitaro Urashima of Love Hina from 2000 features the guy as a nice guy ronin student taking over a girl's dormitory because his grandmother, the inn manager, retired from the position which lands him in a dormitory of several girls who follow different romance anime archetypes.

Originally Posted by Wu Ming

Can anyone name a few? I'm curious as to see what shaped modern anime.

The Tenchi franchise was earlier, but Love Hina is what popularised (amongst idiots) the Harem Genre.

Sayaka Yumi from Mazinger Z was one of the first examples of Tsundere, and Lum from Urusei Yatsura popularised (amongst idiotic hypocrites) the character type.

I think that in search of origins of anime archetypes we shouldn't look just at M&A- like nearly everything in culture it had something before. Like western fantasy that takes ideas from medieval chronicles and legends M&A are based on Japanese culture.

Of course there are some cases when we can clearly say what was the "prototype" of some idea like Creamy Mami for "singing magical girls" and Dragon Ball for "happy-go-lucky choosen one", but usually the orgins of some ideas are very difficult (especially for us to find)

the first modern Tsundere was Lum from Urusei Yatsura which came out in 1979.

Hey, dtm, could you continue insulting people's intelligence because they enjoy bad shows? Because no one does that with live action television, or reality TV.

Originally Posted by Dorcas_Aurelia

Hey, dtm, could you continue insulting people's intelligence because they enjoy bad shows? Because no one does that with live action television, or reality TV.

No one should do that with anything quite frankly. No one's opinion is the standard for what constitutes as a good or bad show.

oh and dtm42, high horse:get off it

The Rei Ayanami type... does it have another name?

Very capable, emotionally distant, unreadable, but seemingly has feelings for hero. TV Tropes calls her anExtreme Doormat, although that doesn't fully explain the character type.

Since NGE it has been has a staple personality type when you have a host or harem of girls, especially ones where action is at least a subplot....9 out of 10 times, has short blue hair.

Is there a precursor to Rei?