Anime Irks

Perhaps one of my biggest irks about anime is how there isn't anything truly new conceptually about it. A lot of them follow the same sorts of stereotypes that each new series feels like some kind of derivative from another. While each series does have it's own story to tell, a lot of the other things such as the characters, the expressions, the tropes all feel recycled to me. I guess this isn't a bad thing, since it brings a sense of familiarity to an otherwise unfamiliar concept, but it makes me feel like anime studios rarely want to take a risk at making something smart or new, or something beyond their own experiences. Contemporary anime hasn't changed much from what I've seen, and much of it caters to an already established fanbase. Few anime series do try to take that leap, but they're usually unpopular or don't do as well as their more generic counterparts.

For example, anime doesn't have to deal with school life ALL THE TIME, but it's almost always present in an anime series. War, sci-fi, fantasy.. somehow anime studios will find a way to fit a high school setting in all of those. Not to say that these aren't any good, but it just feels to me like an easy fix to establish a familiar setting.