Mech Ace is the king of that. That sexual tension during the prison is thicker saucey soup.
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I’m quite fond with heroic sacrifices. It gives one’s death meaning. As in the “death” itself.
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I love (well-written) plot twists and narrative deceptions. I think it’s pretty enjoyable if the writer gives us a mind-boggling story that requires some re-reading to understand everything again.
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I like “good guy” villains. You know, they still do terrible things but you can see their thought process on how it could be a good thing. Like sacrificing a hundred to save a million or something along those lines.
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Isekai, it’s a relatively new trope/cliche in manga/anime where the protagonist is transported to a fantasy world. Done right and this trope/cliche can be really enjoyable
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It’s quite interesting to study the early origins of this trope. But then, of course, we’d have to define exactly what we mean by “other world”. Are we counting things like the Greek Underworld and the Land of the Fey? These were often seen, though, not as a separate magical (or religious) world, but rather as a distant part of this world, and the stories would not be too different from the stories of travellers to distant non-magical lands. After all, to a bronze age (or even mediaeval) storyteller, who was to say what kinds of places lay beyond the horizons? Those who had been would bring back extraordinary tales of the monsters they had seen (e.g. the camel-leopard the size of a house). Despite this, these stories were almost certainly the bases for the modern “other world” stories.
That said, it’s still hard to find a point that I would consider the first “true” other world story: Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, for example, was a dream, while the slightly later Peter Pan could have simply been set in a far-off land. And The Wonderful Wizard of Oz could be seen as either a dream (especially in the film; less so in the books) and a real-world location (the titular wizard flew there in a balloon). Despite that, I think Oz is probably the best candidate (unless anyone else can think of an earlier example).
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Literally Japanese legend and fiction revolves around this. Yokai festivals where human children walk unnoticed. A man eating and drinking at a rich lord’s house to find alas, he has been eating dirt and sleeping on leaves in a fox’s den. An inn run entirely by talking sparrows.
This is an old as balls trope in Japan, long before Oz and before manga was even a thing.
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Well, that sounds more like “Fairyland”, which, as I had already mentioned, isn’t necessarily an alternate world so much as it’s a weird (and often magically hidden) part of our own world.
Yeah, sure but make that the male mc for me please. 
This, so much, main reason I came here anyway is that most CoG’s allow at least some of this to happen and the mc can almost always be a gay man.
Hmm…, yes I tend to like dashing rogues more than knights, of course if the prince is the mc and I play him he might well be the. or at least a, thief himself.
Any chance of incorporating some of it in your current WiP? I mean my mc is so poor he’s not really above stealing and some of the leading families of your republic got to have dashing sons, right?
One of my favourites for ro’s too, if they are instead the ice king/prince of course.
I’d like to add another trope I hate with a passion.
What they said.
You’ve just described how my XoR character may well turn out…if he succeeds that is. 
Well this is one thing of why I tend to be against absolute monarchies, every now and then they’ll inevitably produce a Joffrey with absolutely no checks and balances to constrain them. 
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Agreed. I like my cute boys to stay boys. (Also, I get the feeling that quite a few of these genderbending stories can be unconsciously transphobic.)
But it’s not like democracies can’t produce self-entitled tyrants…
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Oh yes! I love androgynous guys who kick ass while looking fabulous. My favourite of all time is probably Benten from Zone-00. I actually own a 1/7 scale figure of the guy and it is by far the most expensive and most eyecatching figure of my collection. Give me handsome, feminine guys who can still be manly and powerful any day. Basically, every trope that battles the cliché view of the MANLY MAN DUDE who does MANLY MAN THINGS while being ABSOLUTELY MANLY is something that I love. Kind of explains my love for the nerds, androgynous guys or the funny sidekicks in media, haha. =D
This is Benten btw:
Edit: Agree with the gender bending. I like it in art only, when people decide to draw their version of what character X would look like as male/female, without any sort of story or something added to it.
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That artwork looks really great! And I love Agent Peacock for similar reasons; it shows men that they don’t have to conform to toxic masculine standards, and they can be the total opposite of what those standards call for even, and still be incredible and heroic and they don’t have to ask themselves ‘am I enough of a man, do I need to step up my manliness, should I try to make my voice more masculine, etc.’ because they’re enough just as they are. My fave example of this trope would have to be Dragon Age: Inquisition’s Dorian Pavus. A femme gay man who takes absolutely no garbage from anyone, is an absolute BAMF and a secret sweetheart to boot.
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As something opposed to the idea of the manly supermen, I think I like the adorkable male characters.
I also really like the perky goth , not only is an style that I personally like, but I also appreciate the fact that there are symphatetic portraits of goths, away from stereotypes like lone psychos or the gloomy freaks.
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I love it when underdogs excel!!!
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The problem is that the common standard of genderbending is innately transphobic.
The “male” version of a female character has no boobs, a dick, short hair, etc. The “female” character has boobs, has a vagina, long hair, etc. Stereotypical and erases feminine men, masculine women, and trans or intersex individuals that do not, cannot or do not want to conform to cis ideas of gender. It also erases non-binary identities.
It should be called cisbending or something.
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@thatdodgymoggie Dorian is amazing! My favourite playthrough of DA:I is still my no-bullshit, buzzcut wearing warrior elven lady who wields an axe bigger than herself, romanced Solas and is BFF’s with Dorian. =D
@MockTurtle Ugh yes, adorkable characters are wonderful. They make my teeth ache because they are so sweet. And I totally agree with the goth cliché. I’m really tired of the mysterious goth boys with no friends or the bitch goth girls who don’t fit into any girl groups.
@Laguz Ah, that makes sense, yes. I doubt that name for it would gain popularity though. I think it’s difficult to discuss this without coming off as arrogant or hurtful, but for me it’s really the change of physical attributes and seeing how that changes how I perceive a character. So really it’s more a “Now they look overly feminine, what does that change with how I perceive that character?” I know that it’s mostly done to portray guys as hot babes but I can’t take anything away from that. I’m ace, I simply care for my artistic curiosity and how different curves or more angular shapes can create a different portrayel of a character. I hope that makes sense.
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To be honest, several tropes jump out at me, but one of my personal favorites includes your greatest enemy turning out in the end to deeply care about/love you. (Kinda like in HeroFall, Prodigal and you could embark on a romance, though you were each others greatest enemies.)
Also another trope I love, is when the neglected/unsuspecting person/a is finally a hero, (or due to the “neglecting” turns into your greatest enemy to exact revenge on you!!)
Overall, I hope to see more tropes in later releases.
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Those are great examples of this trope, if you look at it from a western perspective. However, stories like the Greek mythology, Alice or Oz might not have been popular in Japan. Personally I think the 2 biggest inspiration to authors of this genre might have been:
- Inuyasha, it’s basically an Isekai story since the MC (can’t remember her name) was transported back to the past. Plus it’s the first Isekai story that became successful
- .Hack, this series is possibly the inspiration for many “trapped in a video game” Isekai. Without .Hack there would be no SAO or Log Horizon.
- JRPG, huge influence for authors of this genre. Isekai stories often contain many tropes taken from early JRPGs such as Dragon Quest
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I’m not going to shit you this quick but as a long-time Dragon Quest player, who has played every Dragon Quest released in the West, I’m here to tell you that Dragon Quest basically created Pokemon. Nearly everything in every RPG known to man owes its existence to this pun-tastic piece of shit. It inspired a crapton, a metric crap-ton of stuff, for better or for worse.
Kagome. It’s not really a Isekai story as the character doesn’t go into another world, rather, she’s in this world in the past. Anyone remember there was a video game based on Inuyasha where you could make your own character, date people and get multiple endings?
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