Expy Cleanup Thread

I ended up deleting this

• To Simon the Digger:
  • Both of their respective powers are connected to their mental state, they both take exponential levels in badassery throughout the story, and their adventures allow them to grow as people. Physically, they both also sport dark hair with some type of red incorporated in, goggles, in Simon's case and a different-colored strand of hair in Ryuko's. Additionally, the final fights in both series result in Ryuko and Simon losing someone very close and as a direct result of defeating the antagonist.
  • Despite the similarities between them, there's a notable amount of differences, as well. Simon is a Nice Guy through and through while Ryuko is a Jerk with a Heart of Gold who slowly sheds her rough exterior. Simon is initally looked down upon by his teammates but he gains their trust by his newfound confidence; Ryuko starts out as aloof but opens up to Mako, her family, and later Satsuki. Simon looked up to his Blood Brother, who was always confident in his abilities. Ryuko on the other hand was estranged from her biological sister, who thought the best way to boost Ryuko's power was to constantly antagonize her. Simon eventually becomes a celebrated hero and leader of the world, while Ryuko is a prime target of the higher-ups and stays at the bottom of the social ladder. Simon was never meant to find Lagann, and had to learn how to use it; Ryuko was created to become a perfect being and her father created Senketsu specifically for her, but she had to learn to accept her powers in order to use them to their fullest. Finally, their final speeches are thematically different: Simon's celebrates humanity as a whole, while Ryuko's is about her accepting her Life Fiber DNA.

It sounds way more like Contrasting Sequel Protagonist to me as the character's clearly aren't unambiguous copies. Can't find which user put that but it's blatant misuse and shoehorning.

Holy crazy natter, Batman. Good pull.

When the paragraph explaining how they're different is twice as long as the one detailing the similarities... yeah. not an example.

• One Gainax character she can be considered to be an Expy of is Naota Nandaba. Both are cynical and snarky Only Sane Men thrown into a World Gone Mad, and their interactions with the characters in it take them out of their shell. Both also "wear" weapons to activate them (Senketsu functions as a Sailor Fuku requires Ryuko's blood to activate, and Naota is used to replace Canti's missing part). The pubescent issues that Naota deals with are also present in Kill la Kill, with Ryuko having to accept wearing something that makes her bleed to become strong.
• Also one to Shadow the Hedgehog. Both are "dark and edgy" characters with a black and red theme created to be an enhanced being. Although hers isn't to the extent of Shadow's, both characters carry a Smug Super attitude towards their abilities and carry a cocky demeanor. Also, both end up joining forces with a group of characters they initially opposed to fight a greater evil. In Sonic Adventure 2, Shadow takes to outer space to engage the Final Boss while in Super Mode, just as Ryuko powers up Senketsu for the final fight with Ragyo. In Shadow's final battle, he sacrifices himself to defeat the Final Hazard and Ryuko does not die but Senketsu does, so both suffer a great loss in the final conflict to save the world. And, finally, one of their "parents" were elderly (except in the case of Isshin, who was actually around Ragyo's physical age as Sochiro Kiryuin), while the other wants to consume the world for their race (again, in Ragyo's case, she's still somewhat human). Both Ragyo and Black Doom even look similar (with opposing color schemes (white for Ragyo, black for Black Doom). They also both have (or had) a cheerful female friend (Maria for Shadow, Mako for Ryuko)
• Another character she takes cues from is Akame. Both of them are Dark Is Not Evil Antiheroines fighting in a rebellion against an oppressive government, which in both instances is spearheaded by a team led by someone with white and blue motifs. Additionally, it's later revealed that Ryuko was abandoned by her mother, similar to Akame in her backstory, and it turns out that Ryuko's biggest rival is her sister, much like the case is with Akame and Kurome. Interestingly, Ryuko shares her Weapon Of Choice with Sheele rather than Akame.

Apparently there's also multiple characters she's an Expy of. I have not seen Akame Ga Kill or FLCL (As much as I want to) but FLCL are made by Studio Gainax which split into Studio TRIGGER. I'm just questioning whether Ryuko and Shadow's similarities are just anime tropes or not.

I will point out that Ryuko and Shadow say almost the same phrases◊ but it doesn't mean much.

edited 4th Jul '17 9:41:46 AM by ReynTime250

Troper RemiV just re-added one of the entries I deleted from Characters.Overwatch Offense. They added a bit of context, but it's all still superficial similarities. Looking at the criteria in the first post of this thread, I see "the copy needs to also fill the same role in the work and serve the same purpose within the story." The entry says nothing about this, making it a Zero Context Example at minimum, and almost certainly a shoehorn.

For context, the entry as currently written (referring to Genji):

• Expy: Of Grey Fox from Metal Gear Solid. His Azurite◊ skin is a dead ringer for Grey Fox's own cybernetic suit.◊ And he is even seen in the theatrical teasers sitting atop a robot that looks like Metal Gear Rex.◊

I don't want to delete it unilaterally lest it be seen as an Edit War; can I get confirmation from this thread that I'm correct that the entry as written is not an example of Expy?

Naota is hilariously not an example. That's classic "cherrypicking some examples while not bothering to note that one's a cherry tree and the other is a Douglas fir."

I cut it.

If the entry starts with, "can be considered an expy", it's arguable, and therefore not an example. From other cleanup threads I've learned that weasel words like that almost always mean it's a shoehorn. But for this specific trope it means it's an opinion that the character is an expy, which goes against the definition.

edited 4th Jul '17 10:08:52 AM by AnotherDuck

He definitely is the source of inspiration. Once human now cyborg ninja seemingly working now for the bad guys and now facing off vs his once good friend, with a vibrating sword that reflects bullets. As well as sitting on top of a metal gear

Like most everyone else in Overwatch there really hasn't been anything else of actual plot released with him to see if he has really gone full Grey Fox, being more only wanting to fight his friend and rival and outright helping him fight the bad guys in secret and such.

edited 4th Jul '17 2:29:55 PM by Memers

Genji from Video Game/Overwatch to Grey Fox Metal Gear Solid.

1. Both are cyborg ninjas with similar armor designs. 2. Genji's Azurite skin is colored similarly to Grey Fox's cyborg exoskeleton. 3. The theatrical trailer has Genji sitting atop a legged/walking robot (which the titular Metal Gears are) and this particular robot has been cut up to resemble Metal Gear Rex from Metal Gear Solid 1, where Grey Fox make his appearance as a cyborg ninja. 4. Genji's "Chrome" skin has the Japanese word "Busin", meaning war god, replaced with "Gin-Roh" meaning Silver Wolf (a name highly similar to Grey Fox). 5. He fought and was thought killed by a brother like figure (in Genji's case it was actually his brother, in Grey Fox's case it was his brother-in-arms.). The resulting injuries leading them to becoming cyborgs. 6. Both return and fought their brother figures once again to remind them of some purpose in life. 7. Both were part of a military black-ops unit: Genji in Blackwatch and Grey Fox in Foxhound.

I'm going to go with proper example on that one. Needs a bit of editing, though.

Has Overwatch been released yet? It sounds like No, since the examples seem to rely on what's in the trailer. If that's the case, he may be an expy but it's too soon to be sure. I'd hold off til there's more than trailers and promos to go on.

Overwatch has been out for around a year at least.

Found this on Marvel's Spider-Man:

• Expy: Peter Parker in the origin promo is a dead ringer for Harry Potter, complete with glasses, messy hair and Green Eyes.

No.

Overwatch has been around for a year, there isn't much story to the game though. Animated shorts, in game quotes and the intro trailer is pretty much it.

edited 5th Jul '17 6:07:44 AM by Memers

Pulled the Cross Ange examples. As Another Duck said, even if there's a viable example in the work, there's not in the example list.

• Expy:
  • She's a very dark take on Nia Teppelin; Both of them are blonde Genki Girls with three-letter names that start with "N" who are introduced with/after a massive turn of events that change the protagonist dramatically. They also happen to be Artificial Humans made of the same material as the alien bad guys, and they both die on their own terms (Nia dies so that Simon can defeat the villains, and Nui kills herself so that Ragyo defeat the heroes).
  • Also shares a lot of traits with Dio Brando, specifically his Phantom Blood incarnation. Much like Dio, Nui is a blonde Jerkass with an absurd Healing Factor who loves to toy with the protagonist, who is their sibling.

I'm cutting both of these. The Dio one especially. Dio has a completely different past to Nui Harime and Nui is meant to be The Dragon and Dio is meant to be the Big Bad. As for Nia it's a completely different role to Nui. Nui's a villain and Nia isn't.

EDIT: There's also these ones.

• Even older than Corset is Gendo Ikari. Aside from the fact that they treat their children like crap, they have artificially created children for their own desires, and their ultimate goal is to enslave humanity on a global scale (Gendo to Instrumentality, Ragyo to the Life Fibers). Ragyo's office was even modeled after Gendo's.
  • Played With. While Gendo did treat his son with little regard for his well being, the original series made it clear Gendo loved Shinji, hinted that he was afraid of hurting his son and asked for forgiveness from him just before dying. His actions where also motivated by love for his long dead wife Yui. This is a severe contrast to Ragyo, who pretends she had any feelings for her children but only has the smallest shred of them, tried to outright murder both of her daughters and rejected forgiveness from her child Ryuko. She also didn't give a crap about her husband and outright killed him. while they have a few basic details similar between them, the specifics mark them as rather different characters.
• Several initial concept arts released suggest that she was based on Maleficent, however, her current design is closer to Ultimecia.
• Ragyo shares a lot of similarities with Queen Zeal. Both are the leader of humanity/organization and support (and profit) an Eldritch Abomination which main objective is to drain all life force from the planet. Both gain super powers extracted from the alien (and start to lose their sanity as result) and both don't mind in see the entire planet dying. Plus, Satsuki plays the same role of Schala (first half of the season) and Magus (second half).

Corset I'm not worried about. It's Geno Ikari. I feel like this is the same issue with the Simon one earlier. Also the Maleficent one is bad. If it's just character design then I'm going to cut that as well. Unsure on Queen Zeal.

edited 5th Jul '17 7:13:52 AM by ReynTime250

Point one: If a character is identified as being an expy of two or more other characters, they aren't an expy of either one.

Point two: if the supposed expy is extremely different in tone or treatment from the original character, they aren't an expy. (i.e: "a much darker take on")

I went ahead and readded the Expy entry onto Genji's trope list.

I don't know if this is worth considering but in Heroes of the Storm, a game that also features Genji, he has a few lines that reference Gray Fox and also has colour tint that resembles him too.

Not sure if this is worth considering as this is more of a Shout-Out.

Every time I add Genji's entry, someone takes it down. How much more like Grey Fox does he need to be? All he needs is to have been a South African child-soldier and he'd be a Captain Ersatz of Grey Fox. As I posted on his discussion page, he could have "I AM GREY FOX" branded on his face mask and someone would be like "Nah, too debatable, not an expy".

edited 5th Jul '17 1:56:50 PM by RemiV

That's not an argument. That's a quote. At most your argument is an implied, "because I say so".

I find that to be yet another point in favour of him being an expy.

I wasn't the one who took down what RemiV put up (I'm not an Overwatch player, so I know very little about the game). I'm just posting that from the trope page as a reminder and a possible reason why the example got taken down. If RemiV can find evidence that the character was intentionally meant to be similar, it would help strengthen the example (keep in mind the "superficial or random coincidental similarities (even very striking ones) do not qualify" section; it'll probably be a point of contention brought up by those who don't think the example qualifies).

edited 7th Jul '17 12:52:02 PM by dragonfire5000