Why I Hate Time Regression Trope In Anime



 SPOILER ALERTS !!!!

This is my first opinion blog, or simply a rant you will, but if you have completed Solo Leveling and Dr. Stone, bear with me on this one. Recently I found an anime called Aiyou’s Secret Room, a mystery thriller based on escape rooms, and since the 1st episode, it hooked me on itself. The characters, the plot, everything was thrilling! At that time, 15 episodes were released, and with each episode, I was awe-stricken, the mystery deepening, with no easy solution; made it all the more interesting! The hole of mystery dug in Episode 1 had become an endless abyss by then! So, I binged watch them in a day, and waited, for the final one to be released. The finale- where all threads of mystery will be untangled! And today, it was released. So, how was my experience? Well…now, I’m no author but lemme tell you, if you are writing a story and at the end of it you leave a major plot point unexplained…much less what is the centre plot around which the story revolves, and also move your protagonist back to square one, on the name of taking the story to a ‘full circle’, then regardless of how great and thrilling the story has been, it will all go down the drain. Unless there’s a season 2, but there weren’t any details to be found.

And here’s where I rest my argument. Regressions. The ‘back to square one’ trope. Sorry, but I hate them. Why? Cause going back to square one literally defeats the purpose of the story’s development! All progress is lost. Is it that hard to understand?

Let’s take Dr. Stone for example. The manga is finished, and when it was ongoing, I awaited every week for another fabulous chapter. The story may have a lot of cliché tropes, but it doesn’t disappoint on its very central theme- science in a stone world. How Senku develops modern science once again along with other scientists even in a world of primitives. Its science is top-notch, and so are the adventures. So, what about its ending? Well…

The plot is driven by the mystery of petrification itself, and with each turn it deepens. Until ultimately, in the final arc, it is revealed- that the petrification devices are aliens?! The entire moon arc was ‘maybe’ too rushed, and for the entire thing to develop into this, it also felt weird. But alright, this may be my opinion only, but man, when the in the last chapter Senku decides to create a FUCKING TIME MACHINE, trying to return to 5000 years in past, I lost it. Wait, so what about the present? What about Kohaku, Chrome or Suika? What about going to the future together? Won’t they just disappear? What’s the point?

Solo Leveling. It was thrilling. Every chapter. Up until the end, I remained in a thrill, what would happen, how will he win, will he die? But what our protagonist does? Reverses time itself so that everyone forgets his existence and he goes back to square one, of course with all his powers, so that he could redo it overall! I mean, from the audience’s point, all the development that happened, is lost. What makes Solo Leveling so thrilling is this growth of our weak protagonist, and now what? At the other end, he is just an overpowered ‘all-knowing’ protagonist.

This ‘all-knowing’ is so damn annoying. Now, many fantasy manga/manhwas start with the MC returning to the past to solve the problem all over. This leaves us with an ‘all-knowing’ MC and no mystery is left. A reincarnation is different; you go to a distant future. But overpowered cause you are a ‘know it all’?

Let’s compare it to an anime like, let’s say Tokyo Revengers. Regressions are its plot, the protagonist’s power. He corrects the past to get a better future, but mysteriously the future just worsens. Tokyo Revengers doesn’t put a ‘know it all’ ‘correcting the past’ MC on the plate, but an intriguing MC with some mystery entangling him and the past. Its plot is delivered well, unlike the other regression fantasies.

But that can just be my preference, cause these regressions to correct the past making a ‘know it all’ MC is still a well-received trope. But Dr Stone or Solo Leveling? Heck no! Pulling that shit on end, destroying all the ‘development’, back to square one, WHY?

This distaste that I held for these tropes is just reignited with Aiyou’s Secret Room, and unless anyone can confirm there’s more to the story, my advice: please don’t waste your time watching it.

Or any such story for that matter!

 

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