Every form of media has its tropes, which can help or hinder its appeal. Like the lead in romcoms making a last-minute chase to the airport to confess their feelings for their love, comedies often featuring a record scratch in their trailers to highlight the yuks, and a cop being killed a few days before retirement in action movies – often with a partner who’s “too old for this.”
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Anime is no different. When push comes to shove, it’ll break open the big book of archetypes to fill time or create whole arcs. For example, how does the hero and/or his party get strong enough to save the world? They havea story arc devoted to their training.Dragon Ball’s Goku did it, as hasJojo’s Bizarre Adventure’s Jonathan and Joseph Joestar. However, these anime shows saw these training arcs as arich source for parody.
6Assassination Classroom
The series about a school class learning how to kill a squid-like alien teacher before he destroys the Earth doesn’tsound like a barrel of laughs(except perhaps in a dark way). This is probably why its take on a training arc is more of a deconstruction than a straight-up parody. Training arcs are usually presented as being hell to go through, with strict teachers putting their charges through the worst challenges possible just to make the leads stronger.
But inAC, Karasuma and his classmates find the new P.E Teacher Takaoka’s training to be deliberate and pointless abuse. So, Takaoka offers them a wager: if a student of Karasuma’s choosing can take him down, he’ll leave for good; if not, he’ll keep going. The result is a triple dose of humiliation. He gets beaten by Nagisa (the so-called weakest student in the class), punched in the face by Karasuma for being a sore loser, then fired by the school chairman for being bad at his job. Turns out it takes more than being a hardass to be a good trainer.
5Ranma ½
Parodies are generally more outwardly funny than just serving up humble pie,and Rumiko Takahashiis no stranger to jokes.Ranma ½saw her combine kung-fu movie tropes with her romcom background and gender-bending as the lead suffers a curse where he turns into a woman when doused with cold water. He also developed a severe fear of cats when his father Genma tried to teach him Neko-ken (Cat-Fist, or “Cat-Fu”) via a manual.
It mentioned shutting a student in a pit full of hungry cats with fish sausages tied to them as a method teachers shouldNOTuse. Unfortunately, Genma didn’t read it carefully enough and actually put Ranma through it. Now Ranma can’t handle being around the “furry demons.” Prolonged exposure to a cat will drive him into a primal, feline state where he’s faster and stronger but loses his mind. The only way to bring him back is to either wait until he falls asleep or splash him with water.
4Kekko Kamen
Go Nagai is as iconic in anime/manga circles as his mentors, Shōtarō Ishinomori and Osamu Tezuka. He’s credited for creating the super robot genre and popularizing more mature themes in his works. This also included creating the modern ecchi genre through works likeKekko Kamen. In it, school student Mayumi takes on the masks, gloves, boots (and just that) of the titular superheroine to fight the sadists in charge of Sparta Academy.
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It was a parody series already, as the name of the show (meaning “Fine Mask” or “Reasonably Okay Mask”) was a play on the tokusatsu heroGekko Kamen(“Moonbeam Mask”). But one episode spoofed the baseball mangaStar of the Giants, where its lead Hyūma wore a spring-loaded device under his clothes to train harder.Kekko Kamenincluded a Hyūma-lookalike who’d make Mayumi wear a similar device just to master calligraphy.
3Ramen Fighter Miki
Getting into more safe-for-work territory,Ramen Fighter Mikisaw its lead take a job as a delivery worker ather mother’s Chinese restaurant. Except she’s boisterous, violent, and always getting into trouble, especially when she faces off against Megumi, the delivery worker for the bakery just across the street from Miki’s workplace.
Despite the two being untrained amateurs, they fought so well that trained tokusatsu heroes like Star Pink and Hell’s Bunny would take tips from them. The closest the show gets to playing the trope straight is with Kankuro, Miki’s male rival, who, after years of failed attempts to get one-up on her, goes into training. But it’s not to be a better fighter; it’s to be a better person and get over his hang-ups.
2One Punch Man
In a world filled with cyborgs, giant monsters, and tiny but tempestuous psychics, it’s amazing thatOne Punch Man’s strongest hero physically isa bald guy in a generic supersuit. Whether his strikes completely obliterate his foes or merely humiliate them, he always defeats his foes with one punch. This is an issue as he also needs personality, charm, and flash to impress the people and the Heroes Organization and an income to survive.
How did Saitama get so strong? By exercising in his spare time: 100 push-ups, 100 sit-ups, 100 squats, then a 10-kilometer (6.2 miles) run every day. Doing this non-stop for 3 years turned Saitama into the bald but mighty hero he is today, though his student Genos calls “complete bull****” on it. Without rest, it would leave Saitama more smashed than his opponents. With rest, it might be a solid, even lenient regime for the already-fit (beginners would still get burned out, though).
1Excel Saga
Excel Sagaragged onnearly everything under the sun, and Episode 9, “Bowling Girls,” spoofs training arcs when Excel and Hyatt do recon at a bowling alley while an episode of the sport-themed TV show “Bowling Girls” is being filmed. They then get attacked by the bowling-themed terrorist organization Stick & Balls, who force the show to try and make this game riddled with middle-aged men more popular with the youth (despite its dead midnight time slot).
Luckily, Excel gets tutored in the sport by Nabeshin in the women’s bathroom, kind of. He teaches her off-screen in less than a second (if at all), hands her his ball, and leaves. Excel uses her newfound bowling skills to save Hyatt, the TV crew, and the show’s OP singers to uphold Nabeshin’s legacy and let him rest in peace (“I ain’t dead!”). All that, and it still finds room to spoof the Olympics,The Matrix,Robocop, tokusatsu shows, and pop idol programs.
