Yeah it kills me. Especially that one you mentioned where, because they're appealing to middle/high school kids, the main character (no matter what occupation, history, or place they have in the story) is ALWAYS 13-18 years old. And is usually some wish fulfillment about how they were an ordinary student and then discover they have secret magic powers and are the one true savior of the universe!!1 DESTINY blah blah

I know it's not only manga that does this, but they are really, really blatant about it. I was scrolling through the anime section of Netflix and nearly every single one was like this.. "everyone thinks she is a regular college kid but at night she's the mysterious assassin known as X!" etc.

when I don't like an anime for various reasons I stop watching it (stop reading the manga) and you're right about the overly done cliche I'm all roll of eyes and be like here we go again.  that's why, when this happens, I turn back to my old school favorites, the reason/s why I fell in love with anime to begin with. 

it's like this with anything, what sells they tend to do (the most of), not everyone is going to like it.

I know a manga that has NONE of these. you can find some "fresh" manga if you read anything pre-80s basically. Mine is Lupin III. Not the anime. The anime is COMPLETE different from the manga. There are women, but when they are villainous they get beat back no hesitating. It isn't super exploding violent and usually kept very much in the boundaries of real life. save for warner brothers style physics

there is a samurai with a super sword, but to be far he's not in the manga too much as his sword is never used to solve the situations. most situations are solved simply, yet ingenuously. NEVER are the power of emotions mentioned (seriously, this is my #1) There is fanservice, but really not in the way you're used to. there are no revealing shots and it is draw very much from a distance so you know it is happening, but it is done to show that the characters are jerks and not for the benefit of horny viewers.

While I get your point it's not too hard to find anime/manga that is unlike those cliche's. Western comic books have a lot of cliche's too but there is a world of Western comics that is often obscure or harder to find. 

I had the same question in my mind for a while, but eventually I found a video, made by an anime critic, that answered it for me : www.youtube.com/watch?v=rnV9Dy…

I know how you feel, I was a total weeaboo back in high school but afterwards I gradually outgrew manga and anime because my favorite series were either cancelled or out of print and the modern ones all seem to employ the same tropes and cliches, the art all looks the same and the animation is mediocre (manga is a static medium, of course) and the stories seem to get more and more depressing while others are getting more and more mundane.

and plus when I first got into anime and manga it was still very underground, and that's kinda what made it cool and exotic, but now it's become so mainstream that it's popularity and accessibility kinda ruined it for me... it's like when everyone starts liking your favorite band all of a sudden.

Agh I HATE the harem animes. It's fine if it's done well but I feel like I'm just watching a different version of the same thing over and over.

as a fellow manganime fan, i share your pain my friend. manganime used to be fun & exciting & fresh... nowadays they are just filled with cliches and porn. i didn't give up on them since it has become part of my art, but i must say it's getting harder for me to find mangas or animes that really appeals to me, and doesn't make me gag with all the same old type of characters and same crappy storylines and sex sex sex...

anime girls nowadays are the worst... just walking pair of boobs without any brains that could reach orgasm in 3 seconds...

(sorry for the bad language)

Manga and anime attracted me in the first place because they were somehow different from what I had come across with before. Maybe it was the fanservice, maybe it was that the stories were often practically endless, but at some point it really became a bore. Fanservice is still good if it makes sense, if it's innovative or between the lines in a clever way, but sometimes it just seems that the artists expect the readers to welcome everything with a zest. And now I'm tired of the kind of "eternity stories" that are divided into tens of sagas. I prefer a story with a beginning and and ending and know, or at least don't expect, that an end is ever written for any of the long series. Without an end stories don't really have a meaning of any kind.

Still I would consider myself a fan of manga and anime because I dwell in the series that I like. I sometimes write fanfics and readerfics, that works as a way of preserving the series until I find something new. Besides, it's the best way to see the storyline and the characters exactly as you want to see them. There's no facepalming at someone else's clichés xD

Look at self published comics and manga. They generally have better story lines as the author/illustrator has been working on it for longer because they may not have a strict deadline.

I agree there aren't that many mangas I am interested in reading these days but as an independent comic creator, I still have the utmost respect for what these artists do. Most of them write and draw them by themselves for 15+ years and that is amazing to me.

What about a  character who is an audience surrogate to the point of self insert?

The reason i never even started to like them at 1st place...  I feel at times so off-this-universe-and must be only person, who never-ever-ever even had manga/anime phase in life ... 

Not too much much to add , your deviation summarizes everything what I hate of todays anime and many japanese videogames. Very good work on that one.

Damn THACODs ugh!

Now bear with me, I'd like to rant and take this off my chest too.

Yup, I'm in the same boat here. I've started to get my first contact with anime when I was 5~6 years old. I would watch stuff like sailor moon and saint seiya...them came pókemon (which nowadays I avoid both game and anime tbh), and bam! got addicted and never looked back, until...
The years have passed, and not only I was starting to noticed the cliches more and more, but also the designs and other aspects were starting to change...the most glaring change to me it's that damn moe thing, it's everywhere! It's a little bit less jarring when it's just meant to be cute, but a fair share of it it's fanservice with girls that look REALLY young, and them they excuse like no!they're actually 16~18. I know quite a few women in RL (like me, for ex.) that look younger than they actually are, but anime/manga nowadays sure likes to pretend that 80% of women looks half their actual age huh?
Which is also another point I'd like to make...too much fanservice too. Don't get me wrong, I'm not anti-fanservice, I even draw fanservice/nudity (mostly with males but still...), but don't shove it in our faces all the time! Oh maybe they do this because they don't want to bother telling an actually good story haha
Also, I don't remember seeing this in your top 11, but it's just me or in a lot of anime, the characters talk like retards? for example someone says "'hey don't go to the forest of Barthandelus, it's dangerous because of the zombie chimeras", and them the other says "oh so I shouldn't go the forest of Barthandelus because of the zombie chimaeras?" 
*flips table* NO NEED TO SAY IT TWICE I'M NOT DEAF lol
Anyway, yeah, it's sad...I still draw in manga style, but as for now I only watch/read a few anime/manga. At least Ghibli is usually pretty good and avoid most of these cliches huh?
So no I don't hate manga/anime. But I just wish they would snap out of this, with this whole hardcore otaku pandering and all. *goes back to watch cartoons on CN or watch live-action series*

All of SAO was a cliche.

What about characters with the same body type and facial features.