JCFarnham
Auror
I'm very much of the same opinion, Mytho, on most of your points. Though I have to admit I honestly can't think of an example other than the Furies of Calerdon... I'm probably ignoring a glaringly obvious, if somewhat better, example there.Well, The Furies of Calerdon (the Butcher book) did not work for me on any level, but I do love the unusual mixing of tropes and cliches in anime and manga.
For instance, there was a summer season anime called School-Live! which mixed moe school girl tropes with zombie apocalypse tropes. It sounds crazy, but it was easily one of the best shows of the summer in my opinion (and I was watching about 20 summer shows). It was brutal and heartbreaking and often violent (trust me, they did NOT shy away from the horror aspects) and also cute and fun and emotional on all sorts of levels.
Every season there are some really great, creative anime that stand out from the pack. But a lot of the time those anime are good precisely because they aren't trying to be the most original thing you've ever seen. They're just trying to tell a good story in an entertaining way.
Also, I hate to be that person, but if all you've seen of anime is the big, mainstream series that are dubbed and broadcast over here (like Dragonball or Sailor Moon) then you don't really have an opinion on anime. You only have an opinion on a handful of shows hand picked to be marketing to English speaking audiences. I watched a lot of series of all different kinds before I started watching simulcast anime (anime streaming online at the same time it's being originally broadcast in Japan) about a 1 1/2 years ago and I am still constantly amazed by how many great series are produced every year, how many amazing shows you can find if you're looking for them.
I have yet to experience anything similar in western entertainment. Mostly I find stuff I hate. Something about Japanese storytelling clearly appeals to me more than western storytelling. I prefer Japanese characters, plots and settings. I prefer their characterization and their thematic content. I don't know why. I'm always trying to distill what it is so that I can learn from it and incorporate it into my own stories. In the meantime, I'm enjoying a constant stream of high quality entertainment.
Japanese fiction really does mix tropes up in a fascinating way. If having more western writers take their cues from anime and manga means more of that, then I'm extremely happy. Of course that's just me!
Being a fan of the style, I wouldn't consider it at all insulting if my writing reminded someone of it. I don't actively choose to include such elements, but I watch enough anime and Japanese show in general that I have no doubt it creeps in somewhere...