Genre Deconstruction / Anime & Manga

• Bokurano:
  • The series is a Humongous Mecha deconstruction (of different focus than Eva, yet similar to it) that showcases only too well the destructive side-effects caused by giant robot battles, not to mention the immense psychological stress caused by having a bunch of kids (who all have their own personal tragedies on top of it) responsible for the continued existence of planet Earth. And then they throw in the fact that the Super Robot they must use is fueled by the pilot's Life Energy, meaning they're all dead even if they win, and we start crossing into Diabolus ex Machina territory.
  • Furthermore, it also deconstructs the "magical tournament/There Can Be Only One" type of manga as well: It's later revealed that the creatures the kids have been fighting are actually human pilots from parallel universes, specifically the battles are contests to determine which of the selected universes would be erased from existence. So the pilots have to choose between either winning the battles and dying or losing the battles and dooming their universes (and thus also dying).
• Bokura no Hentai deconstructs the Otokonoko Genre. At first glance it seems to be a standard tale about three Wholesome Crossdresser tweens but it gets Darker and Edgier after the first chapter. It makes fun of tropes associated with the genre and delves into the psychological issues of the main cast. The series goes on to show how Growing Up Sucks and subverts many tropes, such as cruelly averting It's Okay If It's You by having Shuu's reason for crossdressing being that he's in love with a straight boy. Said boy is homophobic and will only sleep with Shuu if he's dressed as a girl. He's abusive towards Shuu and he helps awaken abuse related Repressed Memories in Shuu.
• Bondage Game OVA is a deconstruction of extreme fetish hentai, even though it's only two episodes long. The sex slaves shown in it have personalities, and aren't just flat characters like most women in hentai are. Also, the reactions of the girls when experiencing their torture make it clear that you're not supposed to be getting off to it. The anime ends when the man who owns the sex slaves gets arrested, and the girls that survived are freed. If it was meant for fetish fulfilment, then the ending would be much worse.
• The Daughter of Twenty Faces:
  • Heist shows like Lupin III or Cat's Eye often have random employees (guards, maids, servants, ec.) who end up drugged, Bound and Gagged, or just knocked out by the antiheroes or antivillains during their robberies, and Episode 5 examines the notion of these crimes supposedly being "victimless". Here, Chiko befriends a young girl whose father is the head of security at the museum Twenty plans on robbing, and the girl states in no uncertain terms that her family will likely end up on the streets if the heist goes off as planned. Chiko is conflicted about carrying out the plan, and for the first time in the series, actually begins to question the morality of what she's doing.
  • Along those lines, the heroes in these heist shows usually escape and don't really have to worry about reprisal from their victims or rivals. In Episode 6, an enemy from one of the earlier episodes returns and VIOLENTLY MURDERS most of the thieves, with Chiko, Twenty Faces, and Ken left as the only survivors.
• Digimon Tamers deconstructs a number of things that were barely or not touched upon in the Digimon Adventure canon, such as the involvement of adults, how the government would react to programs emerging into the real world as monsters, how those programs came about in the first place, what a world governed only by the doctrine of "survival of the fittest" would be like (namely, harsh and unforgiving), how frustrating it is to be the Ineffectual Sympathetic Villain, and what would happen to a Tamer if their partner Digimon permanently died. Later, the first arc of Digimon Data Squad could be seen as a deconstruction of part of the ending of Digimon Adventure 02, specifically the part where everyone in the world got a partner Digimon - it deals with the idea of those of dishonest intent using their Digimon for crimes, something Adventure 02 never even considered.
  • Probably the most striking part of Tamers being a deconstruction is the ending of the first episode. After Guilmon Bio-Emerges into the Real World, Takato is ecstatic to finally have his own real Digimon. And then Guilmon shoots fire out of his mouth, causing a huge explosion. It's at this point that Takato realizes that what's in front of him isn't just a virtual pet; it's a digital MONSTER, now allowed to roam reality. Production notes for the series show that one of the goals of Tamers was to (re)establish the fact that Digimon are ultimately feral beasts who live to battle and Guilmon's introduction nailed it.
• The Executioner and Her Way of Life is another deconstruction of the Reincarnate in Another World genre which focuses on the "overpowered Isekaier" variety. It's not only the protagonist's job to kill these sorts of people before things get out of hand, but also focuses heavily on the downsides of what happens when random Japanese people end up with Story-Breaker Power in a world they have no stake in, often resulting in a Loss of Identity that almost always ends with them turning out malevolent.
• Fate/stay night: Emiya Shirou's life story is quite literally the embodiment of Martyr Without a Cause, Chronic Hero Syndrome, and other related "hero" tropes deconstructed.
  Archer: There is nothing at the end of saving people.
• Several chapters of Franken Fran deconstruct the Toku genre, what with some of the Sentinels using their fame to become rich with merchandising, blackmailing influential people to get more funds, one becoming addicted to fighting to the point that he can't have an erection otherwise (leading him to set up people to get killed just so he can avenge their death), the families of the faceless minions killed by the Sentinels teaming up to avenge their deaths, and the evil organisation's Evil Plan being to cure all illnesses, stop famine, and create hospitals for everybody.
• Gantz, at least for most of the first couple dozen chapters, was a deconstruction of First-Person Shooter-style video games. It showed just how bizarre and frightening it would be for someone actually in it, including being teleported into an unknown area, and being forced to fight dangerous creatures with weapons you've just picked up and have no practice with.
• Geiger Counter deconstructs rape hentai by showing the consequences it has on the victim. Most doujin of the same genre simply ends after the act itself, but Geiger Counter actually shows the consequences of the rape: the victim girl is traumatized, even the sound of a door bell terrifies her, and her family is forced to move. That empty look in her eyes makes it very clear that this is NOT supposed to be masturbation material.
• Goblin Slayer deconstructs the notion of typical fantasy Mooks and their place in the setting and story. Essentially, no one cares about goblins attacking small villages when there are bigger monsters threatening the world; adventurers are far more interested in handling the latter, especially when the payout is much bigger and it's easier to handle compared to goblins, who are more troublesome. Even after a Demon Lord is killed, nothing has really changed when goblins continue to endanger the livelihood of villagers across the Frontier, escalating from thievery into taking women as Breeding Slaves and killing/torturing the rest. There cannot be a "happy ending" when there are countless critters plaguing the setting and are causing just as much pain and suffering to the people that a Demon Lord could do, especially if adventurers aren't interested in dealing with the "goblin problem" at all. The titular protagonist specifically Lampshades this when his current party attempts to recruit him into fighting the Demon Lord's forces.
• Great Teacher Onizuka deconstructs the Save Our Students genre, especially the belief that students and teachers are natural enemies.
• Grimgar of Fantasy and Ash deconstructs the "Narou Isekai" subgenre of Trapped in Another World tales. Grimgar's spin is if people who are NOT gamers get sent to such a planet, and fail to grasp mechanics quickly enough to avoid unnecessary death, they do not become ace combatants or charismatic figureheads. It frames heroes like Kirito, Momonga, and Shiroe having it significantly easier because they know what they're getting into, as opposed to people who never played (or remember playing) these sort of games. Furthermore, Haruhiro's party do not become major players or establish an almighty guild that influences the fantasy world's outcome. They are the unnamed nobodies and underdogs that Kirito and Shiroe style protagonists try to set free or keep from dying.
• The original Gundam series (parent of the Real Robot Genre) could count as a deconstruction of the Super Robot Genre too. To even begin to be able to pilot the Gundam, Amuro already had a strong background with electronics, and the Gundam's manual. His early fighting is clumsy and ends up blowing a hole in his home space colony that kills unknown numbers of civilians and leads to his father suffering brain damage that drives him to insanity. His early battles shook him greatly, and Char kicked his ass easily in their early fights, despite being in the less advanced Zaku II. Amuro is also a whiny brat of a kid and is forced (through good use of the Bright Slap and a stay in the brig) to accept his responsibilities. Of course, in later Real Robot shows, the flavor of the Super Robot Genre would kick in...
  • And that Super Robot Genre flavor that kicked in the later episodes of the show is itself a bitter deconstruction of the "loser mechs", as Gundam Sousei would point out.
• Halo Legends is a deconstruction of the whole Halo series. The themes it presents are all present in the canon of the games, to a lesser extent, and the other supplemental material, to a greater extent, but Legends takes it to a different level.
  • In The Babysitter, it's showed that not all UNSC personnel are fond of the Spartans — some are actually jealous of them for their awesomeness, and they use it as an excuse to treat the Spartans as freaks, which has a bad effect on their cooperation. In the end, even a Super-Soldier is a human being who can die just like that.
  • The Duel reveals that not all the Covenant believe in the "Great Journey"; some are to afraid to admit to it, some rebel against it and others just use the religion as a means for their own selfish needs.
  • Origins is a story about the Forerunners and their war against Flood. The message: no matter how powerful your empire is, it will sooner or later fall, especially if you fight against an enemy you don't have a single clue about.
  • Prototype deconstructs The Stoic. In this episode, the other marines believes that the main character's stoic personality is evidence that he's literally emotionless and that he doesn't give a damn about his fellow men, but contrary to their belief, he has as many emotions as they have, the stoicism just a facade to hide the pain that came from seeing his entire company being wiped out and having his last recruit bleed to death in his arms.
• Infinite Dendrogram is a deconstruction of the MMO-themed Light Novels. The protagonist can get his hands on unfair, rule-breaking powers... but so can everyone else. Features of the game that in most stories would exist simply as Hand Waves (such as NPCs acting like humans, time flowing faster inside the game, and state-of-the-art VR gaming rigs cheap enough for a NEET to afford) are acknowledged by the characters as abnormal or even impossible, and evidence that something very strange is going on behind the scenes.
• Inside Mari deconstructs the Gender Bender Transformation Comic. It's about a hikikomori college dropout named Isao who is a Stalker with a Crush to a high school girl named Mari. Due to unknown circumstances, one day he wakes up in Mari's body. Unlike most examples, he is utterly horrified by the fact and doesn't take it in stride, not helped when he gets his period. Isao has no clue how to act like Mari, so he ends up ruining her social life and her image as the aloof School Idol. He believes Mari is an example of Incorruptible Pure Pureness; however, as the series goes on its implied she's anything but. It also is eventually revealed that no body swapping even occured. Mari has a Split Personality due to childhood trauma and hallucinates that she is Isao, a guy she barely knows but has seen from afar at a store.
• Kakegurui deconstructs your usual Hot-Blooded shonen where the school is filled with Absurdly High Stakes Games. These absurd stakes are treated as absurd. The school's system has everyone waging whatever they want, up to and including unearthly sums of money and even very lives. This is played for horror when some of the girls are faced with the prospect of essentially becoming slaves to powerful politicians so they'll keep supporting the school after gathering millions in debt for losing a Jan-ken-pon game. The absurd high stakes quickly create a setting where people become greatly in debt and are turned in dehumanized slaves with little to no chance of getting out and probably having to spend the rest of their lives as slaves to the council and being used in their power games.
• Maoyu deconstructs Heroic Fantasy and Medieval European Fantasy. It begins by pointing out that killing the Evil Overlord does not necessarily end the world's problems. In fact, the true way of achieving world peace is not through brute force, but through a combination of military, economic, and social reforms.
• Martian Successor Nadesico somewhat lightheartly deconstructs Mecha and especially Yamato. As shown in the first arc alone, just because you have an advanced, state-of-the-art ship with the latest in hardware and the best, yet quirky crew, doesn't mean you can One-Man Army an army that's nearly limitless and wise about the flaws of said ship; the young Captain isn't emotionally prepared to handle Sadistic Choices; the Fanboy Ace Pilot gets killed in a mutiny in an non-heroic manner; and the other Ace Pilot is an emotional wreck who wants to be a cook AND has made a very unhealthy Love Triangle. Oh, and a colony blew up, so nearly two weeks of nothing to do but handling the funerals of the thousands of people on board; and the crew nearly mutiny because their contracts don't allow them to pork. And to top it all off, they failed in their mission and are only alive by SHEER LUCK. It only gets worse from there, Especially when the true nature of the Jovians is revealed.
  • It's also subtle, but Gekiganger 3, when used In-Universe, is a deconstruction of both anime fandom as well as using anime as propaganda for war.
• The Most Heretical Last Boss Queen: From Villainess To Savior can be seen as a Deconstruction to "Reborn as Villainess" Story genre. The story takes a Darker and Edgier route to depict the villainess, Pride Royal Ivy, as a serious Final Boss in the Otome game she is originated from. Unlike many other villainess in other similar works, the original Pride Royal Ivy is depicted as a truly horrid, formidable and irredeemable sadist who loves to torment, manipulate and enslave the protagonists for enjoyment, something which makes Catarina Claes' villainy like a child's play. It causes her reincarnated version (the protagonist) to fill with more guilt and distress, so much that she tries to take the matters on her own hands. Nonetheless, despite her own efforts and success, Pride still has nightmares of becoming her evil self and assumes that the world is forcing her to her game counterpart's bad ending, causing more risks in her way to fight fate. As a result, fearing that she will inadvertently fall into the same tyrant in the game, Pride purposefully improves the abilities of her family and friends via averting their future downsides, so that they will kill her more easily if she became evil and live on in a true happy ending.
• My-HiME functions as a fairly solid deconstruction of the Magical Girl genre, too, with the first half of the series being almost entirely fluffy, silly character-building and harmless Monster of the Week fighting (to further the point: the heroines battle a monster that steals lingerie), until around the halfway point when it decides to Get Serious.
• While the series itself isn't entirely a deconstruction, Negima! Magister Negi Magi does deconstruct a few individual plot points common to shounen: Negi's Training from Hell, while played straight at first, is shown to be extremely emotionally and physically draining on him, and it takes a toll on his relationship with his students.
• Neon Genesis Evangelion deconstructs the Super Robot genre. The basic premise of the show, at first, seems absolutely formulaic; an Ordinary High-School Student falls into the cockpit of a Humongous Mecha designed by his father. He is the last hope for humanity in a war against various alien lifeforms called "Angels." However, it is quickly shown that using fourteen-year-old children as child soldiers in extremely traumatic battles against Lovecraftian horrors is, to put it bluntly, not very nice and certainly not the kind of idealistic "insert-positive-emotion-here conquers all obstacles" affair that previous super robot shows portrayed it as. Case in point, Shinji's first battle almost kills him and he only is bailed out at the last second by a Deus ex Machina. It also played with the following mecha tropes:
  • Changed the mecha from an unfeeling machine with unlimited energy that is easily repaired to a biological entity that bleeds, feels pain, needs an extension cord for power, and may even have a personality.^note The Jet Alone episode illustrates that said unfeeling machine with unlimited energy wouldn't actually be as useful as it's typically portrayed as in most mecha shows since it can be easily sabotaged by rival factions, would be surrounded by bureaucracy that makes it next to impossible to get anything done in a crisis, and its vaunted unlimited energy source can be just as much of a danger as the enemy the mecha was created to fight. Plus, a simple machine has limits that would make it useless against creatures with powers that border on reality warping.
  • Most super robot shows have a teenage mecha pilot and a long-absent father who designed the mecha. So Evangelion shows how traumatizing it would be for a real teen to fight in a giant robot — and what kind of father would abandon his son to design the robot. In short, Gendo Ikari is in the running for worst anime dad ever.
  • Half the cast is made up of what seem at first to be stereotypical anime characters. As the series progresses, however, they are revealed to be severely messed-up people with the same sort of problems that would be expected of real-life tsunderes, hard drinking party girls, and lovable sex maniacs. Shinji's Shrinking Violet nature also gets ripped into, viciously, as he's been forced into a gender role he has no training or capability to handle.
  • Quite a few old super robot shows featured mysterious, alien villains with very lightly defined motivations; cue the relentless attacks of the Angels, alien (or not) assailants on whose motives, constituents or psychology we have a little idea of, simply malevolent MacGuffins to enable the story to play with 'giant robot' tropes. They also happen to get progressively creepier, and more unexplainably eldritch as the show progresses. Most importantly, there is an emphasis on showing the fear and uncertainty that comes with fighting an enemy that is just plain undefinable, thus showing how it just takes a little to turn an idealistic, formulaic Super Robot anime into a depressing Cosmic Horror Story. Various factions within the series vie for the opportunity to take down the Angels in the way they deem most appropriate, with the winner, of course, being the one that causes the most collateral damage.
  • Tokyo 3 is all but destroyed by the end of the series, and its populace is either dead or evacuated — a sharp contrast to the likes of most examples of the City of Adventure. The constant warfare tears the city apart and eventually NERV no longer has the funds to repair it.
  • In some ways, Eva resembles the early days of the Real Robot Genre. Shinji Ikari has quite a few similarities with Amuro Ray, the most iconic mecha protagonist in anime history. While Amuro's relationship with his father is not nearly as bad as Shinji's, Amuro's father does go insane while building the RX-78 and due to his injuries in the first episode (which Amuro himself caused). Amuro is just as "whiny" as Shinji, but is forced to accept responsibilities in the military hierarchy and grows to maturity through that. Even his reaction to his accidental killing of Lalah resembles Shinji's after killing Kaworu.
  • However, in the more recent years, this stance has become increasingly disputed thanks to the much wider availability of older mecha anime and tokusatsu: it's become known that Evangelion drew heavily from Ideon and the Ultra Series. Given that Ideon was directed by Yoshiyuki Tomino, who has been known to play around with already existing mecha tropes some 15-20 years before Evangelion even was concieved, the more dedicated retro anime circles have started to think of Evangelion as a revival of the late 70s-early 80s cynicism rather than a completely new deconstruction. It just so happened that the newer deconstructor was brought first to the States instead.
• No Matter How I Look at It, It's You Guys' Fault I'm Not Popular! deconstructs Pandering to the Base and the Otaku Surrogate genres. Unlike many female otaku characters (such as Konata Izumi, Kirino Kosaka, etc.) who, despite making no secret of their somewhat strange hobbies, manage to be fairly well-adjusted, attractive, and keep a large group of friends, Tomoko is an unkempt, friendless loser whose inability to see the world as reality instead of an anime or game ends up driving almost everyone away from her. Basically, she exists to show that an obsessive female Otaku wouldn't be nearly as cute or endearing as many other series make them out to be in the real world.
• Now and Then, Here and There deconstructs the old anime stock plot of Trapped in Another World. It starts the typical basic premise of "Ordinary High-School Student meets Mysterious Waif and gets whisked off to a world locked in a great crisis." It got worse from there. It shows how relevant an Ordinary High-School Student would be in such a situation (not at all), how traumatizing it would be for someone from a peaceful society like late twentieth/early twenty-first century Japan to be suddenly trapped in the middle of a war zone (extremely) and how likely it would be for anyone from that world including the waif that brought him there in the first place to even lift a finger for a naive and clueless outsider, much less form True Companions or a harem around him (not very).
• Patlabor may be the ultimate deconstruction of the Mecha-genre: It has no superheroes nor supervillains and the mechas are plain and simply tools; the majority of them are used at construction sites and storages. They're anything but cool and if there's something even uncooler, that would be being a member of the Patlabor unit.
• As time goes on, it becomes more clear that A Place Further than the Universe is a deconstruction of the Schoolgirl Series and Four-Girl Ensemble. The main characters all fit common archetypes, but have Freudian Excuses for being and acting the way they are, and the negative sides of these archetypes are frequently shown, unlike the typical cute girls series. The "high school" setting ends up being irrelevant, as it's not the thing the characters are focused around. Unlike other Schoolgirl Series, which frequently revolve around something mundane like playing music, cooking, camping, or something like that, this series' gimmick is completely extraordinary (taking a trip halfway across the world). It also takes great pains to show that no, deciding to suddenly want to go to Antarctica isn't as easy to do as your common moe show would make you believe.
• Puella Magi Madoka Magica is, for the majority of the series, a pretty thorough deconstruction of the Magical Girl genre. The premise starts simple. Young Naïve Everygirl Madoka Kaname and her Wide-Eyed Idealist friend Sayaka Miki are approached by Mentor Mascot Kyubey, and the relative Cool Big Sis and Team Mom Mami Tomoe, where they are given the opportunity to become Magical Girl Warriors and fight to help save the universe. They are granted one wish, that can be anything they want; in exchange, they will have to battle the local Monsters Of The Week, Eldritch Abominations called witches, for the rest of their lives, culminating in a final battle against Big Bad Walpurgisnacht, a powerful witch who will soon destroy the world. They also fight against a Dark Magical Girl, Homura Akemi, who is opposed to this deal, and is constantly trying to prevent the two from making a contract; and another Dark Magical Girl, Kyoko Sakura, who is selfish, bratty, and doesn’t give one lick about saving people or the universe. Sounds reasonable enough. Then the show demonstrates exactly what happens to those young girls who are forced into fighting Eldritch Abominations with no chance at a normal life.
  • Mami is ultimately an extremely lonely Stepford Smiler who is broken on the inside due to losing her parents and being forced to fight with no real friends. When Madoka does become her friend, her subsequent joy leads to her death, reminding us that these encounters are far more dangerous when removed from the sweet and innocent flavor that permeates most Magical Girl shows. And in another timeline, she snaps and murders one of her own comrades after learning the Awful Truth.
  • Sayaka decides to use a Selfless Wish to heal her crush, Kyousuke, much like any typical superhero. But as the other characters demonstrate, there is no such thing as a Selfless Wish, as they all have a selfish intention. In Sayaka's case, it was so that she could get together with Kyousuke; when he doesn't return her affections, she breaks down.
  • Kyoko had a hard childhood. As the daughter of a disrespected priest whose radical ideas were seen as crazy, she and her family struggled just to get something to eat. Her wish was for people to finally listen to her father and they did, but it’s implied she was unwittingly putting them under Mind Control. When the father found out, he rejected his daughter and called her a witch. Soon, he became depressed and eventually killed himself and his family, convincing her that being selfless only leads to disaster.
  • Homura is a time traveler who became close friends with Madoka in a previous timeline. After Madoka's death during the battle against Walpurgisnacht, she wished for the power to save her life and has been stuck in a "Groundhog Day" Loop ever since. This lead to her transforming from a Shrinking Violet into a cold and distant Dark Magical Girl obsessed with saving her best friend.
  • Walpurgisnacht and the witches are not just Always Chaotic Evil Monsters Of The Week- they are former magical girls who were corrupted by despair. Their true goal is to "save" the human race from the beings who turned them into witches in the first place. Like in other shows, they are made from the negative emotions of regular people, but here it’s shown just how chilling (and tragic) such foes would really be if the plot didn’t demand they be ineffectual.
    • As a specific example, Charlotte, the witch that killed Mami, has an innocent-looking demeanor throughout her screentime. This is because, as revealed in promotional material and confirmed in Rebellion, the Magical Girl she used to be, Nagisa Momoe, was a child when she became one, thus also deconstructing the Token Mini-Moe at the same time.
  • Madoka really shows us, perhaps more than any other character in the series, that It Sucks to Be the Chosen One. Not only is she really insecure in her abilities and self-worth, not only does she get subjected to a Trauma Conga Line consisting of watching her friends suffer and die horrible deaths one by one, but she’s destined to become a witch greater than Walpurgisnacht herself! And just to rub salt on the wound, this is thanks to Homura’s time traveling.
  • Kyubey deconstructs Trickster Mentors like Clow Reed by showing us exactly what kind of "mentor" would knowingly send girls off to their deaths without giving the full details, manipulate them and subject them to all kinds of horrors, and more importantly why they would do that - it's revealed that they set up magical girls to turn into the very monsters they fight, getting innocent humans killed in the process, so they can harvest humanity's despair as energy. They are actually a Hive Mind alien species known as the Incubators. And even their seemingly noble goal of wanting to save the universe is deconstructed, as they are revealed to be a Well-Intentioned Extremist with Blue-and-Orange Morality: they're gathering that energy to stave off the heat death of the universe. Like Clow Reed, Kyubey justifies all this by claiming that it's "necessary" and "for the greater good", but this time the narrative doesn't agree with them; and the girls, far from forgiving them, are pissed when they find out the Awful Truth. Whereas Sakura understands and forgives Clow Reed, Madoka gives Kyubey what can basically be summed up as a giant "fuck you" at the end of the series. So Kyubey has a noble goal, but still manages to be the true villain because of their willingness to stoop to any means deemed necessary, with no regard to anyone's feelings or lives, challenging the conventional and unquestioned idea that wanting to save the world automatically makes you a good guy.
  • At the end, the world seems to become more similar to a typical magical girl setting, courtesy of Madoka becoming a Magical Girl, and using a Cosmic Retcon to become a god and make it so that Magical Girls will not become witches (the aforementioned "fuck you"). Although Magical Girls will have to fight demons/wraiths instead of witches, and may still perish as a result (Sayaka ends up doing so anyway), they are no longer doomed and Madoka would take anyone who manages to die in combat to an equivalent of a magical girl Valhalla. Thus, the situation is better than before but still capable of providing tension and drama.
  • And then, Puella Magi Madoka Magica The Movie: Rebellion comes about and finds more things to deconstruct: Madoka's Heroic Sacrifice turns out to be a source of much pain and regret for both her and Homura, the previously Iron Woobie Homura finally breaks and ends up using The Power of Love to take away Madoka's powers not despite, but rather because of her devotion to Madoka, and to culminate it all, an ending that is extremely objectionable from a purely moral point of view ends up with most of the cast happier and the world a better place than it has ever been. In addition, the Incubators' noble goal is ultimately revealed to be self-serving, as they're willing to resurrect the witch system that brought so much pain and suffering just because they find the new system too "inefficient" to save the universe. In fact, a major theme throughout the series is that noble intentions, no matter what they are, do not justify extreme methods that disregard the rights and feelings of others; and "good intentions" can become corrupted if the underlying motive is ultimately selfish.
• Revolutionary Girl Utena
  • The series deconstructs the Shōjo romance. It depicts a web of relationships that, in a normal romance anime, might be played up as romantic or at least cute, and goes to great depths to show just how unhealthy they actually are, as well as what kind of school would end up fostering such relationships, how views on characters are influenced by gender roles, and many other aspects besides.
  • It also deconstructs the traditional Fairy Tale. Things like princes, princesses, and witches are shown to be childish fantasies and clinging to Black-and-White Morality shows an inability to grow up and can cause major problems when reaching adulthood.
• Re:Zero deconstructs the "Isekai" genre (especially the more modern forms of it) by showing how being sent to another world could actually truly suck. The main character, Subaru, thinks that because he was sent to another world, he automatically gained awesome powers. He did, but not what he thinks, when he is killed in the first episode, he realizes that he was merely sent back to a "checkpoint" of sorts, and feels the pain of every death, and it slowly starts to wear away on his mind. Furthermore, he realizes he doesn't have any real special powers besides his respawning, and he doesn't get to really become a super powerful badass, nor does he get to be the hero he wanted to be. It's taken further later on, starting in arc 3, where his lack of social skills as a NEET from our world screws him over big time, as he ruins Emilia's chance at succeeding the throne, almost gets killed by one of the knights of the other princess candidates, and then shows what he really thinks, thinking that just like the main protagonists of light novels, he is entitled to protect her because of what he has gone through, only for her to rebuke him. All in all, Subaru doesn't become a badass hero who gets the girl just because he is the protagonist. A quote later in the story hammers in this point.
  Subaru: Before I got into the situation that led me to all of you, do you have any idea what I did? I did nothing. I've never done a single thing. I had all that time, all that freedom... I could have done anything, but I never did a thing! And this is the result! What I am now is the result! All of my powerlessness, all of my incompetence, is the product of my rotten character. That's right. I have no character. Even when I thought I could live here, nothing changed. At heart, I'm just a small, cowardly, filthy piece of trash, who's always worried about how others see me. And nothing... Nothing about me has changed! ...I absolutely hate myself...
• The Rising of the Shield Hero is another isekai deconstruction of the RPG Mechanics 'Verse variety. Because the world the story takes place in closely resembles various MMORPGs three of the Four Heroes played extensively, and because those three are basically pampered and handed all the advantages they could ever ask for right out of the gate, their actions end up being extremely myopic and they often end up causing more harm to innocent bystanders than good, simply thinking of the world around them as a game and not thinking of things like that dead enemies don't fade out of existence and that dragon you killed and just left there might turn into a rotting biohazard down the line, or that just because you found a magic item in a locked treasure chest in an abandoned dungeon, it's not necessarily beneficial and the person who locked it away might have had a damn good reason to do so. Meanwhile, the titular Shield Hero, with no MMORPG experience and who was persecuted and conspired against from day one until he ended up with almost nothing, has a much more grounded (if incredibly jaded and cynical) view of the world around him, and he often ends up cleaning up the messes of the other three heroes.
• School Days, like the game it was based on, mashes the genre with Surprisingly Realistic Outcome all the way to an honest-to-god terrifying ending.
• Despite being the go-to "silly school comedy," School Rumble messes with the genre and deconstructs a surprising number of its tropes. Not only is the ditzy female protagonist we so often see replaced with a badass male delinquent, many situations are gender-flipped (such as when Eri walks in on Harima naked). Then, of course, there's the deconstructions of Clingy Jealous Girl (Eri nearly ruins her friendships when she thinks her friends are interested in Harima), Tsundere (Eri again, most people can't relate to her because she flips between extremes so much), and Yamato Nadeshiko (Yakumo's inability to confront people turns her into an Extreme Doormat who can't make friends).
• Secret Plot and Secret Plot Deep initially/ostensibly comes off as another Teacher/Student Romance H-manga series about Hot Teachers and the various boys they seduce, specifically Masaki, then it sets in how much of a Crapsack World they live in:
  • The teachers can't get any men their age because they're Christmas Cakes well into their 20s/30s.
  • Masaki has such free time and lack of spine because his parents only care about his education and nothing more, which Mayumi points out in a rush to get him back to her place for sex.
  • A student's reason for cross-dressing is being a Replacement Goldfish for his parents after his sister died, giving him nightmares of losing his identity, not helped by Mayumi using a strap-on all the time, but he gets better thanks to his new girlfriend sleeping with him in a completely normal, romantic way.
  • And it's shown that without boys to have sex with, Miki and Mayumi simply lay around getting drunk in a dive bar.
  • The series also takes a look at All Men Are Perverts and Teacher/Student Romance, seeing as how several of the boys Miki and Mayumi have gone after are visibly disturbed at having women who are both authority figures and older than them by at least a decade come onto them. Miki and Mayumi have shown that they are willing to coerce a boy into sex (namely, Masaki), which is something that sexual predators actually do. Masaki himself is never ecstatic at getting to have sex with Miki and Mayumi, with him being coerced into sex at least once, and his family problems being used by Mayumi towards sex with her.
• Seirei Gensouki: Spirit Chronicles deconstructs not just the isekai genre, but specifically targets tropes pertaining to Reincarnate in Another World:
  • Reincarnation is essentially random in this story: a person who died on Earth can easily be reincarnated as a slave or a resident of a kingdom's slum since it's statistically more likely for that to happen than it is to be reincarnated as a noble.
  • Upon reincarnation, the protagonist Rio is filled with the memories and moral code of his previous life as Haruto on Earth. This sudden rush of thoughts into Rio's head causes identity and personality conflicts throughout the story as Haruto's ethics frequently clash with Rio's cynical, hardened personality as a result of events that led him into being an orphan at the start of Seirei Gensouki. Furthermore, while Rio also inherits Haruto's martial arts skills and knowledge of a university student, that means nothing when Rio is a slum resident set against the backdrop of an aristocratic society whose prejudice against common-born people are so ingrained that there's no way for him to truly overcome it. Even though Rio is invited to attend an academic institution by the king, he can't escape his elitist, jealous peers who simply hate his existence as a non-noble, especially when he does better than them academically.
  • Other isekai works may Hand Wave the notion there's no such thing as a Language Barrier: while the summoned heroes are given an ability to have Japanese translated to and from the new world's native tongue, ordinary people dragged in with the heroes in the summoning process aren't so lucky, leaving them helpless in a world where they can't converse with anyone who isn't a hero or a reincarnator. Likewise, though Rio was born and raised in the new world, he never learned how to read and write (even when Haruto's memories awaken in Rio), thus he's forced to spend the first couple of years at the academy starting from scratch.
  • Summoned heroes automatically gain powers most reincarnators don't have: unfortunately, heroes are nothing more than political mouthpieces for whichever faction summoned them. Worse, if any of the heroes' friends were pulled in with them during the summoning, they could be taken as hostages to force the heroes' cooperation. Additionally, the summoning process, similar to reincarnation, doesn't select heroes based on their skill set or morality from Earth: this means a lot of power can be handed to individuals who may misuse it and/or don't know how to use their power effectively, like a Hikkikomori or a Jerkass.
• Shadow Star deconstructs the pet monster genre in a very disturbing and bloody way. To control their companions, the children have a psychic link with them which can take a heavy toll on both their body and mind, and some become very aware of the power they have and abuse it - even to the point of mass murder. The manga also looks at how the government and military might actually respond to Mons being involved in all manner of strange and violent circumstances, which leads to a lot of cover-ups and extreme measures.
• Strange Dawn for trapped-in-another-world stories. The people of the other world are cute Super-Deformed creatures but they are still as flawed as us humans. One of the girls transported to this world is so bent on going home that she is willing to take questionable actions (like siding with the bad guys). The other girl wants to help the natives but is too weakhearted to be of any use. Things get so messed up that it takes a Deus ex Machina to resolve everything.
• Originally, Super Dimension Fortress Macross was meant to be a Deconstructive Parody of shows like Mobile Suit Gundam. While it veered off that course eventually and played a fair number of tropes completely straight (never mind inventing a few along the way), pretty much every major entry into the franchise has featured at least one major, often scathing, deconstruction of the science fiction, adventure and anime genres.
• Toradora! deconstructs many of the character archetypes seen in typical harem anime. Most notably, Taiga basically answers the question of what kind of experiences could give a person a childish tsundere personality in real life: HUGE personal issues of the familiar kind, which also don't mesh well with the girl's own self-esteem problems.
• Tsukumizu is notable for his work being this for the Iyashikei genre.
  • Girls' Last Tour: A deconstruction of a post-apocalyptic adventure series, with an emphasis on the life one lives during it and the consequences of such. And eventually, death.
  • Shimeji Simulation: A deconstruction of existential crisis in general alongside the limitations of playing against humanity. Yes, against humans that might just be figments of a reality simulation.
• Tsubasa -RESERVoir CHRoNiCLE- starts out as a light-hearted True Companions Gotta Catch 'Em All adventure story with some darkness around the edges and interesting sexual subtext. One-third of the way through, everything you thought you knew turns inside out and the most light-hearted elements become harbingers of the ugliest secrets. From there on out, the series proceeds to do everything it can to make your mind boggle, including introducing major unexpected Squick into what had once been CLAMP's most popular and innocent pairing.
• The first arc of The Twelve Kingdoms takes a look at the typical Trapped in Another World Changeling Fantasy, rolls its eyes, and then goes to show what would really happen if you tossed an insecure Ordinary High-School Student into a hostile fantasy country with the expectation of saving and eventually ruling it: a complete nervous breakdown.
  • Actually, it's more than that. The series includes other characters who are or have been in similar situations, like another king (Shoryuu), two kirins or "sacred beasts" (Enki and Taiki), a peasant girl (Suzu) and, in the anime, two of Youko's classmates (Asano and Yuuka). All of them have huge problems with the premise and have to deal in different ways.
  • Premise: being kidnapped to a strange magical world as the chosen one is wonderful! Decon: no it's not. But per the above comment, that deconstruction isn't allowed to stand as a universal statement. Youko represents the normal reaction, especially when the benevolent kidnapper is himself waylaid and Youko herself subjected to abnormal stress. Yuuka is the one who wants to live the Changeling Fantasy and might have adapted well save for not being the chosen one at all. Suzu and Asano don't even get the illusion of being chosen, and deal poorly, though Suzu's pretty lucky. OTOH, Shouryuu and the two kirin really are Chosen Changelings, don't get waylaid on their way back, and do as well as the original trope would have it. (Taiki's later tragedy is independent.)
  • Premise: a bunch of arbitrary rules and gods. Decon: a bunch of the main characters eventually wonder about the rules, doubt the gods, and try to ask the gods for rules clarifications. Storming the Heavens isn't a practical option, so they don't.
  • Premise: fantasy monarchy is wonderful! Decon: except when it isn't. A filtering system gets rid of the worst cases, leaving the best ones as immortal enlightened despots, avoiding the succession problem. A kirin that's been in contact with modern Japan snarks about possible democratic alternatives anyway.
  • Premise: polite strangers help the bewildered, inexperienced main character(s) out at critical moments in their adventure. Decon: if it serves the strangers' interests, especially regarding material gain. When it doesn't, the main character eventually has to actively choose to not let the subsequent behavior of most peasants turn her to The Dark Side.
• Utaite no Ballad, made by the same author as the above-mentioned Geiger Counter also deconstructs rape hentai. The Villain Protagonist of the series is an up and coming musical performer who is secretly a pedophile, and he isn't a stereotypical fat, ugly Devil in Plain Sight; he is instead a handsome young man. And more importantly, his actions result in consequences: one of his victims is shown sobbing as she informs the police about what happened, and the series ends with him suffering a massive Humiliation Conga which culminates in his rightly justified arrest.
• Uwakoi and Aki Sora, both by Masahiro Itosugi, collectively take every cliche associated with the genre and plays them all for realistic drama and/or psychological horror.
• The "Perfect GT-R" arc of Wangan Midnight has a beautiful deconstruction of street racing. Jun Kitami, who at this point has been portrayed as a reckless, heartless daredevil tuner, says point-blank that there are no winners or losers and that Koichi did exactly the right thing in giving up this senseless hobby so he could return to his wife. Given that the whole manga is about street racing, plainly admitting a truth like this took guts. Even better, this happens in the very first arc after the Devil Z and Blackbird are introduced.
• The World God Only Knows is a deconstruction of Dating Sims in a big way. Keima swiftly finds out that real life girls are nothing like the completely one-dimensional heroines in his precious dating games, usually to his downfall. The series does zigzag on this, though, as sometimes his extensive knowledge of dating sims actually does come in handy.
• Yu-Gi-Oh! ARC-V takes the deconstruction from GX to new levels, with many franchise-specific and franchise-non-specific examples.
  • The magic that helped other Yugioh protagonists kick ass either hinders the protagonist or is beyond his understanding, traumatizes him, and indirectly gets him into trouble.
  • Instead of being a consistently effective Warrior Therapist, the main character can only help his opponents reach a Heel–Face Turn when: their core values align with his own (but they have poor methods of implementing them), or they used to be just like him until their Despair Event Horizon (in which case what he's actually doing is helping them return to who they used to be). Thus far only three people have fit either category, and two of them were entered in a competition for up-and-coming duelists, making them much more likely to have some similarities with the protagonist.
  • Instead of an Eldritch Abomination using supernatural powers via a card game to take over the world, we get humans equipped with Magitek building a powerful military force and invading another dimension with Child Soldiers whose mental state and insanity reflects real child soldiers. The few members of La Résistance (from the invaded dimension) the audience have seen thus far are both traumatized and completely willing to kill, one of them frequently going overkill and showing no remorse even when he knows his targets are innocent ^note Which is not to say he's doing so without reason- his plan is to kill a lot of innocent people in order to draw out the son of an extremely important figure in the invading army and take him hostage. He just doesn't care who gets hurt in the process.
  • The protagonist's side is also recruiting child soldiers and using war propaganda to convince their dimension to join the war, not to mention the Laser-Guided Amnesia they use when convenient and generally slimy business practices.
  • We have a fourth dimension in the mix, where 99% of the wealth is controlled by 1% of the population and everyone else starves, society basically running on Bread and Circuses with the authority entirely focused on maintaining the status quo. Seems like a typical Dystopia in need of a revolution, but this system is supported by a fucked-up cultural system of beliefs and general human apathy, meaning the usual methods of supporting or inspiring an uprising are either completely ineffective^note Specifically, the main character's attempts at convincing the city to change their practice of enslaving people who lose in a card game tournament get him mocked by a large crowd or a minor inconvenience that at worst caused a few riots which Security can easily crush.
  • One of the characters has the power of being able to see and hear duel spirits, a staple of heroes of the franchise and others like it. That character is Z-ARC, who is partially motivated by hearing the spirits cry over having to fight for other's entertainment.
  • Later Arc-V began to reconstruct the series staples, having Yuya bring smiles to everyone by dueling and causing a multitude of Heel-Face Turns, including the Big Bad.
• Yu-Gi-Oh! GX deconstructs the Gaming and Sports Anime & Manga genre, taking the absurdity of elevating a (dangerous) children's card game to an international spectator sport and the method of deciding the fate of the universe up to eleven and past, not to mention the realistic effects this would have on the psyche of a kid.
• Zambot 3 is one of the first deconstructions of the Super Robot genre, made in 1977; just 5-6 years after Mazinger Z came out. You know all of those buildings and cities that tend to get the crap beaten out of them in your average Super Robot show? Yeah, the townsfolk aren't too happy about that. The massive collateral is not fixed up the next day, and the poor citizens who've now found themselves without a house or any kind of home have to try and find a new place to live, and to hide out from the war going on between Zambot and the Gaizok. Because, really, in a more realistic setting, giant robots fighting against killer aliens is a war, with all of the baggage that comes with it. Zambot 3 was one of the first series to realize this, and with a generally dark tone, it would have been a trendsetter for its genre... Had it caught on. It didn't, but Yoshiyuki Tomino went on to do Mobile Suit Gundam two years later.

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