Affectionate Parody / Anime & Manga

• One-Punch Man is a loving parody of not only the superhero genre but Shōnen manga and anime in general. Its a parody of nearly every anime and superhero trope and subgenre in the book.
• Albegas is a parody of several mecha anime that preceded it; in a way it can be comparible to Megas XLR.
  • The main heroes are three kids that are Famed In-Story for their heroic exploits, but their Sixth Ranger, Goro, who does a lot of the work, is always ignored (which is a reference to how anime fandoms favour certain characters over the others).
  • Goro is fat and unattractive ^note the main female lead doesn't show any attraction to him, but shows attraction to the two male main characters, even though he likes her. He is parody of how otakus (in this case, mecha anime fans) are seen by non-otakus. To further accentuate the "otaku" angle, his robot is a parody of Boss Borot from Mazinger Z, and there is a poster of Captain Harlock in it.
  • The popularity of the Super Robot Albegas results in dedicated fans creating the "Albegas encyclopedia". It is a bestseller and contains details such as the combining of Albegas, the strategy the Dellingers up to that point, and it's pilots. However, it doesn't mention the Gori-Robo, causing Goro to get angry and complain about the lack of respect he gets.
  • The main female lead is constantly kidnapped and used for gratuitous fanservice (despite the fact that of the main three, she's the most skilled with robots).
  • In the Grand Finale, the main character genocides the entire race of the alien that invaded their planet, massacring several innocents along the way. Keep in mind that throughout the show, some of the aliens of this race were amongst their friends and allies.
• Bobobo-bo Bo-bobo parodies Shonen Jump-y action manga, particularly Fist of the North Star, Dragon Ball Z, Kinnikuman and Yu-Gi-Oh!
• Ouran High School Host Club parodies a lot of cliches associated with romantic shoujo series, reverse harems and high school comedies, even though the series itself falls under all of these banners (and the manga artist herself had written things like it in the past until Ouran became her breakout hit). The anime has somewhat different characterizations and cuts off with a Gecko Ending, but it still manages to be both a hilarious reverse harem parody and gender farce and a high-quality reverse harem series in its own right.
• My Love Story!! parodies a lot of tropes in romance manga. It also shifts focus of the story to a character who would normally be seen as "the best friend" in most Japanese love stories.
• The Show Within a Show of Martian Successor Nadesico, Gekiganger 3, is a homage to and parody of classic Super Robot anime such as Getter Robo, and also serves as an ironic counterpoint to the main show's plot! Impressive.
  • Martian Successor Nadesico itself is a friendly send-up of the Real Robot (and Unwanted Harem, although it plays that end mostly straight) genres, though not without its moments of seriousness and genuine life lessons.
• Space☆Dandy is a parody of 60's and 70's exploitation movies and space adventures tv shows with cheesy narrations.
• Although Neon Genesis Evangelion is meant to be a deconstruction of Giant Robot series, the creators are such big fans of the genre that they cannot help but show affection to some of the genre tropes.
• Despite its successor becoming one of the most influential and popular manga/anime franchises in history, the original Codename: Sailor V manga reads like a lighthearted parody of the Magical Girl and Henshin Hero genres. While Sailor Moon could be pretty jokey at times, it doesn't come close to matching the sheer absurdity of Sailor V.
• Special Duty Combat Unit Shinesman is an Affectionate Parody of the Sentai genre.
• The first Ganbare Goemon OVA sees Goemon and Ebisumaru race to rescue Omitsu from a castle, while being thrown into spoof levels of Grandia, Castlevania and Twinbee.
• Project A-Ko was a sendup of just about everything popular in anime between 1976 and 1986.
• One Piece is a fairly standard Shōnen anime with a focus on humor that occasionally leans toward parody. The most obvious, though, is cowardly hero Usopp's disguise of "Sogeking", a clear parody of live-action tokusatsu series'. He even has a theme song, complete with 60's style Japanese Live-action special effects and the appearance of being largely filmed inside a quarry.
• Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann is arguably as much an Affectionate Parody as it is a Reconstruction of the super robot genre; the heroes are able to win, for example, on pure determination alone, literally (and we do mean literally as the series explains halfway through the series) and it's otherwise just so over the top as to be awesome even when it's not trying.
• With Godannar's hot-blooded retro theme song, ridiculous Voltron-esque Multinational Team, attack-yelling and absurd robot design, it's highly unlikely the creators were being serious here.
• Sumomo Mo Momo Mo, the manga slightly more so than the anime, is an affectionate parody of both martial arts anime and Unwanted Harem romantic comedies.
• Being a very popular show, Dragon Ball Z has been parodied in lots of anime and manga. The Super Saiyan Transformation and Kamahame-Ha, the show's most recognizable trademarks, are always used. It even shows up in the shojo demographic: FU-GI-SA-KI-HAAAA!
  • The 2008 OVA is almost an Affectionate Parody in its own right. A lot of its humor is derived from Lampshading various absurd aspects of the series' tropes.
• Irresponsible Captain Tylor can be seen almost as a comedic spoof of the Space Opera genre, which was popularized by dramatic shows like Mobile Suit Gundam and the like.
• Macross was originally going to be a sendup of the mecha anime genre, back in the day when a city-sized spacecraft shifting to robot mode was considered ridiculous. However, it proved so popular that the creators wound up playing it straight to a much greater degree... and thus setting up a whole new generation of parodies!
• Surprisingly enough for such a... well, dark show, Darker than Black has an Affectionate Parody of the entire Private Detective genre in the form of the Plucky Comic Relief duo of Gai Kurosawa and his Sassy Secretary Kiko.
• Hetalia: Axis Powers parodies world history. With extra Ho Yay!
• School Rumble replaces the intense drama of high school romance anime with over the top and often illogical humor.
• Love Fighter Shuravan is one for Sentai shows.
• The World God Only Knows is an affectionate parody of both Dating Sims and Unwanted Harems that oddly enough relies on both This Is Reality style lampshading of the nonsensical nature of the tropes while at the same time playing every one completely straight.
• The classic SD Gundam series is entirely devoted to the Universal Century shows.
• Super Robot Retsuden, a Mazinger Z / Great Mazinger / UFO Robo Grendizer / Getter Robo / Kotetsu Jeeg Crossover with story and art by Ken Ishikawa, parodies the seventies Toei Animation Crossover movies that featured several Go Nagai robots.
• Episode 10 of My Bride is a Mermaid, which introduces Lunar's dad, is a parody of Terminator 2: Judgment Day. Lunar's dad himself is a parody/Shout-Out to Ah-nuld.
  • The show itself could be seen as poking fun at Unwanted Harem setups; it uses a similar setup of one guy surrounded by girls, except for the facts that 1. it's dead obvious from early on that the First Girl Wins and 2. all the involved characters are various degrees of insane and the series focuses far more on their antics than it does on any relationship aside from the obvious winner.
• Animation Runner Kuromi is an affectionate parody of the anime production process itself.
• Lupin III: Of Arsène Lupin, obviously. The characters are often used to parody other stories, such as Mission: Impossible (1996), The Pink Panther, and even Superman.
• Fate/kaleid liner PRISMA☆ILLYA is a great parody of Magical Girl shows and the original Visual Novel Fate/stay night, featuring Illya as a Magical Girl. She is incredibly smart and points out a lot of the silly things happening around her. However it all soon changes tone to have more serious moments as well.
• Shounen series Monthly Girls' Nozaki-kun is a light-hearted parody of shoujo manga and its making.
• Cute High Earth Defense Club LOVE! pokes fun at the Magical Girl Warrior genre (and quite a few other things along the way).
• Ninja Slayer is pretty much a parody of '80s and '90s anime from how Americans thought of anime at the time. That is, Ultraviolence, Les Yay, Ninjas, Cyberpunk and Limited Animation.
• Don't Meddle with My Daughter! is an adult parody of the superhero genre, with its two lead heroines (Athena and her daughter, Clara) being parodies of Power Girl and Supergirl respectively. Athena, while more commonly known as "the First Generation Eighth"^note since she was the original from 20 years ago, while Clara is referred to as "the Next Generation Eighth" is also known as: "the MILF of Steel".
• The Red Ranger Becomes an Adventurer in Another World is an affectionate parody of stock Toku heroes. Tougo plays all of the sentai tropes incredibly straight, but they don't always mesh well in a fantasy setting. For instance, summoning your Humongous Mecha in a tiny cave means that it simply can't move inside such a cramped space.
• Carnival Phantasm is an affectionate Self-Parody of the Nasu Verse, as it depicts characters from Tsukihime and Fate/stay night in bizarre and goofy situations, such as the Holy Grail War being reduced to a Game Show, or playing a beach volleyball match (with Melty Blood mechanics no less), where poor Ciel was severely injured and abused (Mostly by Arcueid). Aside of all this absurdity, they all look pretty happy (Even the local Chew Toy Lancer) and living normal lives, very uncommon in the source material.
• Kaguya-sama: Love Is War:
  • Chapter 74 as a whole to Shōjo Demographic romance stories. Kaguya goes from a calculating person to a typical shoujo heroine, she's in a Love Triangle with Shirogane and Ishigami (of all people) and has to choose between them to go to the aquarium, and Bishie Sparkle is rampant. And it's all because they started reading Today Will Be Sweet together. Extra points go to Aka for trying to imitate the large advertisement space of shoujo magazines during the chapter.
  • Chapter 96 is done in the style of a cooking manga, complete with Fujiwara giving long (and inaccurate) descriptions of everyone's fried rice.
  • Chapter 172.1 puts Shirogane as the protagonist of a harem romcom. Kei is now Not Blood Related and has a brother complex, Fujiwara is a clingy next-door neighbor with whom he made a Childhood Marriage Promise, Kaguya is an evil Ice Queen who falls in love with Shirogane the instant he stands up to her, Hayasaka is a pervert who propositions him immediately, Miko is his kohai who is in love with him for no adequately explained reason, and Ishigami...doesn't exist, because harem protagonists don't have male friends.^note They actually do...but at best they're a Bromantic Foil (like Ishigami is) and at worst they're Social Circle Filler This is when it turns out to be Ishigami's nightmare.
• Rune Soldier Louie spoofs adventure series and the Harem Genre, by having the titular protagonist join a travelling party of beautiful women, who only put up with him because they need a magician... even if he's a lousy one.
• Shimoneta: A footnote in the manga adaptation's third chapter explains that SOX is a parody of the SOS Brigade. Ayame and Tanukichi, in particular, are analogous to Haruhi and Kyon respectively, complete with both girls drafting the guys to be their first inductees.
• Go For It, Nakamura! is a parody of Boys' Love, in which the Butt-Monkey protagonist fails multiple times to get closer to his crush despite trying to invoke multiple tropes associated with the genre. That said, the main romance is so earnest and legitimately cute that it seems to come from a place of love for the genre.
• The 100 Girlfriends Who Really, Really, Really, Really, Really Love You parodies the typical Harem Genre manga. The premise is Exactly What It Says on the Tin, giving the manga tons of ammunition to poke fun at common harem tropes and cliches.
• Rooster Fighter: The manga takes the classic superhero format, but the hero is a supernaturally strong and perpetually angry small animal.

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