Anime Cool

''Do you have a character who just isn't awesome enough for you? Anime Cool them to hell with eye-poking hair, waaaay massive weapons, and heterochromia!''

A form of pseudo-coolness and Cheap Attractiveness. The playing subject has unnecessarily flashy details in order to make itself more interesting to the audience. This UnTrash got its name from anime and how many of its characters, especially males in the Main Cast, have spiky hair, scars (Bonus Points if the scar is over an eye) and other body cuts, eye patches, Oversized Objects or hair, unnatural hair and eye colors or shapes, or other distinguishing bodily features to make them seem tougher. Anime Cool can be compared to Anime Cute, a kind of tryhard cuteness that better applies to female characters. The two UnTrashes share many common pitfalls that hamper how seriously the audience can take the franchise, its cast, and its creator.

There are several examples of what classifies as Anime Cool. The trait that unites them is how they tend to impart to characters a gaudy look or one that practically begs the audience to roll their eyes. One of the areas this UnTrash touches on the most is the person's body. As listed earlier, hair, eyes, and additional features like scars all count here. Body proportions are also valid for Anime Cool if they're too large or small to belong to a real-life individual. Creators who fail in this department typically go for a bulky, muscular upper body that would crush the chopstick-like legs underneath once put under the gravity of real life. A character's clothes and held items are also a favorite destination for Anime Cool. Generally speaking, the most common modifier is sticking outward from the person's base. Things like spikes, chains, ornaments, and tassels do a great job at this. Having so many bells and whistles attached to their outfit may cause a viewer to wonder how the character can put up with taking those clothes on and off without detecting any tedium. Suspension Of Disbelief is a stake when the clothing someone wears actively sucks in all attention to itself like a black hole. Another Anime-Cool-brand characteristic to threaten believability is the character's weapon. Because bigger is always better, the larger the sword the Fighter wields, the stronger it must be. And there's no such thing as somebody being strong and uncool at the same time. Once more, an observant audience member will question the practicality of a weapon three times longer than its owner is tall. Anything clocking in at such an unnecessary scale would realistically be much too burdensome for usage in combat. That is, of course, unless it's made of an exceptionally light material, in which case it's almost guaranteed to be too weak to land a good hit.

Anime Cool isn't limited to a person's appearance. It goes for abilities they own such as Elemental Kinesis, Feral Shapeshift (excluding always having animal-like body parts), and Super Strength. Having multiple high-tier superpowers at once as well has being capable of using them in extreme ways can lead to the character having Power Beyond Belief, therefore degrading them to an Extreme Extremity unfitting of their tier on the Epic Scale. The behaviorism of the central character can determine if they're Anime Cool. Keh Speech is a sure sign of someone being Anime Cool, as well as them adopting the role of Badass or Lone Wolf. An Anime Cool character can also be identified by their posture. If they sit with one leg resting on a platform, constantly cross their arms, or don't care for making eye contact, they're likely Anime Cool. A nearly sure sign of the creators trying to categorize someone as Anime Cool is by spiking them with insanity, which is typically reserved for antagonists or lead Villains despite them rarely showing any real signs of being insane.

UnRec
Anime Cool, as well as its cousin Anime Cute, is an UnTrash that ought to be employed sparingly and wisely if at all. Little points like a character acting callous or inattentive are forgivable as they can be seen in a person living in our world. However, moves that give somebody outlandish physical marks run the risk of removing them from the realism aspect of the franchise. While designing the members of your cast, it's crucial to ask yourself if you may be drawing them in a way that might be criticized as laughable overkill. If you make the Hero's hair pointy, make them heterochromatic, and slash a scar over their eye, then the answer will probably be yes. As usual, the reliable Loophole Rule of parody shields you from burning critique coming from your audience. As a matter of fact, it's one of the best ways to display awareness of the sickeningly abundant Utter Trash in fiction so as long as you don't hypocritically fall for the traps you once mocked. There's no problem with opting to imagine your Main Cast and Good Guys with subtle and mundane appearances. Characters are rarely ever called out for looking boring. It's important to keep in mind that Anime Cool is an extreme UnTrash that must be played mindfully if it is to appear in your story. Moderation is a helpful tool for retaining quality in your franchise.