Narm Cleanup

The second kinda reads as just a regular flaw as written, to me.

Bringing up the following example from Werewolf:

• Narm: The entire movie essentially feeds a high-pressure main of unintentional comedy, but if we had to pick one example, it'd be when Natalie's actress takes a rare stab at emoting, and this is the line she delivers:
  "So it's come to thess? You and Noel is [sic] in it for fame and fortune?! But over my dead-body!"

That's very poorly written, on top of being a ZCE. It's overly bashy and gives no context to the scene.

Bringing up the following examples from Narm.Valvrave The Liberator:

• Akira's rather campy self-motivational battle cry: "SUPERMARKET!!!"
• Saki doesn't care about being raped by cursed Haruto. Instead in season 2's beginning she suggests Haruto doing it again if he needs it. This is more awkward in the manga when there is a 1 page angst and then we go to a happy montage. When Haruto tells Saki he wants to remove his curse so that he will never hurt her again, Saki instead becomes sad because the curse was their "bond."
• L-Elf shooting Marie in episode 15 just because she knew the secret of the immortality (even though Cain already knew about it) seemed as random as Sōsuke Sagara from Full Metal Panic shooting for trivial reasons. Except not even Sosuke used real bullets!
• Episode 17 has the appearance of Haruto's dad as a one-dimensional crazy scientist who experimented on the children of his co-workers and created the Valvrave robots. During their meeting, the scientist father generally acts quite goofy towards his son and his creepy concern for Haruto is played up almost as Black Comedy, with him having a portrait of Haruto's DNA instead of a photo and making exaggerated gestures or strange proclamations about evolution, including casually dismissing the gene-splicing of children because he had permission. The fact that he does all this while having the mustache of a 70's porn star and with a jovial grin on his face makes him especially hilarious to many fans, though that's probably part of the intended effect.
• L-Elf's depression in episodes 19 and 20 might be understandable but it doesn't stop from being hilarious. In one scene he has written dozens of plans involving how he could have saved Lieselotte covering the walls from a room with a single marker. In episode 21 what was supposed to be a Tear Jerker was ruined by him floating around without caring about whatever was going to happen.
  • What makes it even more hilarious is that he somehow wrote on the ceiling even though the gravity is clearly turned on.
• In Episode 22, when while they are stuck in a crater on the Moon, L-Elf and Haruto have a fight due to their angst, repeated traumas and frustration at not just each other, but the world. What makes it impossible to take serious is that they are both dressed in extremely bulky space suits the entire time, which makes them look extremely overweight.
  • Not to mention the CG animation. The CG in Valvrave has actually been highly praised so far, but what works for giant robots doesn't work for bright orange marshmallow suits with human faces in them. That is to say, faces, as they didn't bother animating their necks, so the two boys kind of look like squishy robots with holographic human heads.
• Episode 23 has Amadeus making a face very similar to the YARANAIKA? face after his throat is slit.
  • Not only that the scene was broadcasted live in slow motion. Just how the heck is that possible?
• Episode 24 has X-eins claiming his heart was betrayed.
  • Then aliens just a minute before the series ends. What are they? What do they want? Who knows? And it really doesn't help that they look like they're made out of lemon-lime Jello.
  • While it's impossible to prove the writer are Pandering to the Base seeing the poll after the finale is quite hilarious considering the most popular characters survived while the least were subject of a Kill Them All. Maybe it wasn't even intentional but makes it weird.
• While most likely unintentional, the name Liselotte becomes this to Scandinavian viewers. The name itself was a fairly standard name before World War II, but nowadays, it's replaced by "Lise" or "Lotte". The sheer unexpectedness of seeing the full name used in an sci-fi anime makes it unintentionally hilarious!

Second bullet point can probably be salvaged as an Angst? What Angst? entry.

• ZCE
• What said.
• I don't know what this is saying. It also doesn't say what's funny.
• Seems to be intentionally funny, so cut.
• This doesn't give enough context for me to tell what's supposedly funny without having watched the show.
  • Natter
• Kinda seems like a stretch.
  • Regular flaw
• ZCE. I don't know the meme this is referring to, so it could also be Association Narm.
  • Fridge Logic
• ZCE
  • Regular flaw. What's funny here?
  • No idea what this is trying to say. It's probably natter anyways.
• Is it "unintentionally hilarious", though? It's just an unshortened name. That'd be like if I said "this character's name is Frederick, and he doesn't just go by Fred?? That's Narm-tacular!" It's also a general example and not played for drama.

Bringing up the following example from Radio Flyer:

• Narm: Some critics thought that The King being The Faceless, having such a ridiculous nickname (for an adult), and having a cord named Old Trusty that he uses to beat Bobby, is this, portraying such a serious issue as child abuse in mythic terms. Fridge Brilliance kicks in, however, when one realizes that the story is told from a child's point of view, and children do tend to see the world around them in mythic terms. Except Richard Donner shot that down, leaving one to wonder what exactly he was thinking.

That's just a bad example altogether. It seems to be listing three separate things all at once. However, it doesn't explain what makes any of them unintentionally funny, and it just uses weasel words "some critics"-which ones? and the classic bad example of "is this trope."

It then raises Fridge Brillaince only to be self-defeating a sentence later. Bad all around.

There's something there, but it's not Narm, at least not remotely written like that.

Bringing up the following example from Conviction (2016):

• Narm: One plot description for the show given during early marketing described Hayes as being blackmailed by her "sexy nemesis" (referring to Wallace); this was part of the Misaimed Marketing that played up the Belligerent Sexual Tension between Hayes and Wallace mentioned above. The reaction from the sites who republished it was basically to laugh out loud at how cheesy that description was. Afterwards, another plot description was released that removed that phrase and only mentioned Hayes being blackmailed.

I'm unclear on if we keep Narm examples that aren't actually part of the work itself. I lean towards cutting it.

I found these entries on Adventures in Wonderland. The first entry is okay I guess (although it seems more suited for Never Work with Children or Animals), but I don't understand how the rest can be considered narm. It's like the editor decided to copy the source material and add some errant nonsense.

• Narm: The bookends to each episode, in which Alice discusses various things with Dinah, are often this. The cat playing Dinah is usually clearly disinterested, staring at things off-camera, or acting completely opposite how Alice says she is.
  • Morgan Brody in Wonderland!
  • Alternatively, Christina Nickson in Wonderland.
  • The Mad Hatter is played by John Robert Hoffman, who would go on to co-create the acclaimed Hulu series Only Murders in the Building.

The last three feel like the editor was trying to add Retroactive Recognition examples and posted them in Narm by mistake.

Yeah all those are easy deletes, ZC Es and entries that would probably fit more under the "Hilarious in Hindsight" tag

Ah, that makes sense. I should have guessed that but the number of times this place makes me go, "People find that funny?" sometimes makes me mistake genuine errors for absurdity, if that makes any sense.

Bringing up the following example from Thor: Love and Thunder:

• Narm: A common criticism of the movie is that it takes Taika Waititi's signature Bathos a little too far and ends up making a lot of its serious moments unintentionally funny as a result, with the most commonly cited example being Gorr himself; namely, how he often feels like he's from a completely different movie then everyone else, Christian Bale's serious, heart-wrenching, all-in performance clashing hilariously with the other actors' (such as Jonny Brugh) more whimsical, campy, and irreverent tones.

It's general and mostly seems to just be complaining about tonal whiplash, so cut it.

Bringing up the following examples from Narm.Yu Gi Oh:

• The first episode, Anzu draws a "special sign" on everyone's hands - it's a giant smiley face. So they'll never forget their bond of friendship.
• In the dub, Téa's friendship speeches. Anzu's speeches in the Japanese are cheesy, but are more generally about determination, hope, never give up, etc. Téa on the other hand manages to rant about how awesome friendship is and somehow apply it to any situation.
• The fact that Yugi's grandpa and Mokuba were trapped inside a television box and a card, respectively.
• Yugi's hair. Even for anime, the large Duraflame cut-and-color is out there.
• The Big Bad Zorc Necrophades's phallic dragon head emerging from his crotch. This was all pointed out on Yu-Gi-Oh! The Abridged Series:
  Marik: By the way, what is that thing on your crotch? Y'know, that dragon... head... thing.
  Zorc: Oh, that's my willie.
  Marik: Jeez, man! Put some *EFF*king pants on, will you?!
• It's ridiculous how Genre Blind the cast can be. A duelist purposefully lets a monster be destroyed? They can't possibly have a strategy in mind, they're just a terrible duelist. An opponent lets the hero get a lead without putting up much resistance? This duel is in the bag.
  • Throughout the franchise, duelists judge monsters with low stats as worthless, seeming to forget that a look at the card text may reveal that monster has a really useful effect. In fact, any time a low-Level weak monster is mocked as useless, it almost always ends up being very powerful.
• Kaiba's reaction to the word "cooperation" is too over the top for its own good. Screenshots can be found here.
• There's a scene in the Duelist Kingdom arc where Kaiba grabs Jonouchi's wrist and tosses him into the ground. Then, as Yugi runs in to check to see if Joey is alright Bakura says this rather questionable line, namely "Check his pulse Yugi!"
• Yu-Gi-Oh subtitles often ruin the mood of serious scenes with Blind Idiot Translations that get the names of characters and cards wrong, use names from the dub, have bad spelling and grammar, or have other bizarre mistakes — for instance, having characters call Yugi "Mutou" in the subtitles when you can hear everyone call him by his given name). It's hard to take duels where lives are on the line seriously when you're busy counting all the errors in the translation.
  • Kaiba is called a seahorse in the sub because he really was called a seahorse. 'Seahorse' = 'young dragon'. It's a cultural thing, so it still qualifies as Narm; if you approach it from outside of Japanese culture, your first thought may be about ''male pregnancy''. There's no excuse for grammar or names, natch...
  • The translators are often unable to get the names in Gratuitous English correct.
  • One sub translated a rather long sentence from Kaiba as "Power power power" - no punctuation.
  • There's also some occasional blatant swearing in said subs that come off as very much extremely out of character for the protagonists. It is very hard not to crack up when Yami Yugi calmly says to an opponent "Fuck you" out of the blue.
  • Some of the cards have their names so badly mistranslated that you have to wonder if the translators even had the slightest idea of what they were doing. For example, the card known as "Heart of the Underdog" becomes "The Dignity of the Retarded".^note This may be because the word for "underdog" used, "bonkotsu", was misheard as "ponkotsu", meaning "junk". No, seriously.

• Intended to be a comical moment.
• Complaining
• Doesn't explain what's funny
• Not a moment
• Not a moment
• Complaining
  • Pure misuse
• This one could be rewritten so as to not rely on an external link, but otherwise it's fine
• Keep.
• None of these are part of the show, they came up in poorly done fan works. Cut.

RIP Takahashi.

Edited by TantaMonty on Jul 10th 2022 at 5:53:12 AM

Bringing up the following examples from Power Rangers Mystic Force:

• Narm:
  • Fear the mighty Titan Megazord as it stands majestically before its quivering foe and draws its mighty swor- is that thing wearing a witch's hat and pointy elf shoes? Not to mention the giant wings, which don't look so good in whatever material they used to make it, and said wings visibly wobble at times (like during the Mystic Spell Seal finisher).
  • Hey, Xander unlocked a new spell code! I wonder what awesome magical power they'll get this ti-...boxing gloves?!

• Not a moment, just poking fun at a character's design.
• Not enough context, but considering that Power Rangers runs on cheesiness, it's probably safe to assume that the silliness is intentional.

Bringing up the following examples from Charmed S6E22 It's A Bad, Bad, Bad, Bad World Part 1:

• Narm:
  • There is no subtlety in the evil counterparts' appearance. It's hard to take them seriously the way they're dressed in grunge and, most especially, have bad bad hair. That's not evil, that's The '70s.
  • Paige constantly shouting "Arrow!" to deflect her evil counterpart's shots gets really annoying, and actually ruins any tension of the scene.

Edited by RandomTroper123 on Jul 14th 2022 at 11:07:05 AM

I'm gonna have to disagree. Both were written to complain, and the first one doesn't describe a moment. For characters that are supposed to be intimidating but look comical, the correct trope would be Nightmare Retardant.

Edited by TantaMonty on Jul 14th 2022 at 5:34:10 AM

Agree with . The first one is general, among other issues. The second one is just a non-funny complaint.

Bringing up the following examples from Narm.Yu Gi Oh:

• Monsters in this series often have attack names (which sometimes make it into the real card game as cards themselves), but Umbra the Rare Hunter from the Battle City arc put what has to be the least effort into his Rogue Doll's attack name ever. He summons it, equips a Mask of Brutality, and after weakening Kaiba's Blue Eyes, shouts, "ROGUE DOLL, SMASH ATTACK!!" Something tells me that's not making it on to a real card.
• In a late episode, the group encounters Yami Bakura in the Pharaoh's tomb. Yami Bakura causes a Duel Disk to materialize out of thin air and challenges them to a duel. Yugi shouts "He's got a Duel Disk!" in the same tone of voice other people would use to shout "He's got a bomb!" Even in this 'verse, that might be overreacting.
• It's hard to take Pegasus seriously as a villain in the original Japanese version when he uses Gratuitous English in most of his lines - sometimes, almost the entire line.

  "Welcome deeessu, Kaiba-boy."

• The ending of the duel between Yami Yugi and Raphael. Yami Yugi's over the top "AIBOOOOOOOOOOOOOUUU!" is hard to take seriously, especially when there's rock music blaring in the background. Though many fans find it heartbreaking... or both.
  • After their rematch, while they are trying to leave the crumbling building, Yami Yugi yells "Raphael" 8 times consecutively.
• In the manga, a Brainwashed and Crazy Jonouchi yelling, "I'M GOING TO @"#$!%^ FRY YOU!!!"
• The English dub of the Yami Bakura and Yami Marik duel. They keep going on about how they're going to send the other into the Shadow Realm. It's as if they were competing over who could be more evil.
• While season 4 is generally rather narm-tastic, nothing beats the way Kaiba's plane is prevented from crashing: The dragon cards "react" to the danger, the dragons materialise, grab the plane and land it more or less safely.
• Five words: Blue-Eyes White Dragon Jet. In the manga, it's a regular jet with a paint-job, but in the anime, it actually looks like the monster.
• Because waiting the few seconds it would take to summon a monster is too much to ask of Yugi.
  Daimon/Lector: "You couldn't begin to imagine what monster lurks in my deck!"
  Yugi: "TELL ME!"
  Daimon/Lector: "Oh you'll find out, I'm about to summon it."
  • Memetically Mutated, courtesy of LittleKuriboh.