Tropes you are most sick of in anime

[Rynjin]

It wasnt just regeneration. Suddenly naruto has super speed, strength, the ability to manifest giant red arms of chakra, and is slamming sasuke all over the valley like a rag doll until SASUKE develops his next level of power and goes super emo hand wing mode.

Not "suddenly". He used that same ability twice before. Once against Haku in the Waves arc, once against Neji during the Chuunin exams. More of a lowkey use in the second case, you can argue the "chakra arms" thing was new (it wasn't, but he never did much with them before), but it was not a new power-up, it was one he'd had since the first arc.

Sasuke's power-up WAS new, but it was also literally the result of the whole arc leading up to it (gaining the same power as the four people they murdered to get to him), so also not an example of this trope.

Neither was an asspull, because early Naruto was actually good.

And didnt naruto take a dive in that final clash of power? Like, he intentionally took the hit just to scratch sasukes headband, possibly instead of killing him, not sure.

No, his attack got deflected and ended up hitting Sasuke's headband by accident. He was HAPPY about it, mind you, since A.) He didn't really want to kill his friend and B.) It really pissed Sasuke off that he was wrong about Naruto not even being able to scratch his headband, but he didn't take a dive.

[Kitten Champion]

Traps, the character archetype of mistaken gender identity. Within the context of anime storytelling Traps mainly seem to exist to reinforce the gender binary through humor. Most Traps don't have much in the way of characterization, and when the majority of an archetype is used for nothing but gags, one tends to get suspicious.

But, when you call them "Traps" that's exactly the thing you're referring to. The comedic - or more usually erotic - instance of a male character evoking shock of some kind by having a misleadingly feminine appearance.

There are some rather compelling instances of trans and cross-dressing characters - though certainly few and far between in any media - but you wouldn't refer to them as "Traps" unless they're specifically going for that reaction.

[Rynjin]

There are some that kinda toe the line. Luka from Steins;Gate is sort of played for laughs, sort of for drama. Mostly drama after the first joke reaction.

[JoshL]

The world is filled with evil Widgets (ghosts, demons, people who turn into motorcycles, whatever) and only our hero, who is ALSO a Widget (or half-Widget) can stop them!

This usually goes on to say "see? Not all Widgets are bad!" and/or "there is the capacity for evil in us all!"

Not that these are necessarily bad themes to explore, but when you watch 10 series in a row that all use that exact same framework, it gets a little stale. No bonus points for a last-minute "oh! The hero has been part Widget this whole time!" reveals either.

[Legato Endless]

But, when you call them "Traps" that's exactly the thing you're referring to. The comedic - or more usually erotic - instance of a male character evoking shock of some kind by having a misleadingly feminine appearance.

There are some rather compelling instances of trans and cross-dressing characters - though certainly few and far between in any media - but you wouldn't refer to them as "Traps" unless they're specifically going for that reaction.

No, but other forms of media don't revel in the unsettling gender reveal like Anime does. Only here is the slur commonly accepted parlance as a whole reoccurring comedy gag. It's not just a transperson or crossdresser, it's someone who's whole shtick is creeping out our red-blooded protagonist. The listing of examples on the TVTropes article dwarfs every other media section combined if you take out video games produced by the same generalized industry.

Edit: Furthermore, it's not just in reference to transpeople or crossdressers. Anyone of sufficiently androgynous or feminine appearance regardless of their identity is part of the motif.

[Dienekes]

It's very rarely done without it being subversive in some other way though. Monologue interrupted by someone, or him giving "deep insights" into something...that turn out to be utterly, horribly wrong. Sometimes the subversion is that it IS being played straight somewhat and Genos is realizing something about Saitama's or his own character and actually developing as a a result (his reaction to how things play out after the asteroid, for example).

Unless your problem is just that Genos has something to do while Saitama fights the monster of the week instead of it just being focused on him? Because that's really all it is, keeping Genos in the scene and contributing to it in some fashion besides combat.

After the asteroid, if we're going to use that example, would have worked just as well, if not better just watching the scene happen. We don't need someone to say "Oh they're trying to turn the people against him because they're idiots who blame him for the loss of their homes."

We're literally seeing the Tank Tops doing that. Right in front of us. It is blatantly, painfully obvious. There is absolutely no reason to have someone say that to us.

The joke is that Saitama rarely thinks and barely verbalizes about anything of consequence, whereas Genos does little else. Much of what the Genos character exists for is to stand in comedic contrast to Saitama.

I explain jokes now, that's what I do.

I get the joke. It's not funny.

[Rynjin]

After the asteroid, if we're going to use that example, would have worked just as well, if not better just watching the scene happen. We don't need someone to say "Oh they're trying to turn the people against him because they're idiots who blame him for the loss of their homes."

We're literally seeing the Tank Tops doing that. Right in front of us. It is blatantly, painfully obvious. There is absolutely no reason to have someone say that to us.

That's the first part.

The second part is him wondering why Saitama is just taking all the abuse, why doesn't he just crush the Tanks under heel like he so easily could? That scene is a revelatory moment for Genos about what kind of a person Saitama is. His laid back attitude is not an act, it's a deep part of his personality. What IS an act for him is being a hero being a "hobby". He genuinely wants to help people, credit be damned, their opinions be damned. Going forward into the Sea King and Garou arcs, Genos has a different outlook, somewhat, and understands his mentor better. That scene is basically Genos' turning point, and the reason why his actions while fighting the Sea King are almost entirely with the people he's protecting in mind, not just testing his abilities or seeing if he's "strong enough" yet.

Genos before that? Would not have saved that kid. It wouldn't have even registered to him that that's what he should be doing until it was too late. Same way he would have killed a civilian fighting Lady Mosquito if that civilian hadn't been Saitama.

[Rodin]

Not "suddenly". He used that same ability twice before. Once against Haku in the Waves arc, once against Neji during the Chuunin exams. More of a lowkey use in the second case, you can argue the "chakra arms" thing was new (it wasn't, but he never did much with them before), but it was not a new power-up, it was one he'd had since the first arc.

Sasuke's power-up WAS new, but it was also literally the result of the whole arc leading up to it (gaining the same power as the four people they murdered to get to him), so also not an example of this trope.

Neither was an asspull, because early Naruto was actually good.

Meh, that fight was still pretty poorly done even considering, because while Naruto had high speed regeneration Sasuke had nothing of the kind and got smashed about like he was in a DBZ fight with no apparent injuries. Nothing about the curse seals suggest they improve hardiness (since the Sound 4 don't benefit), just raw power, and Sasuke wasn't in the level 2 form until right at the end of the fight.

The fights in Naruto were pretty good but went downhill fast when the tailed beasts got involved because the raw power they put out mucks up all the nuance of the ninja tricks. That turned the end of the show into the sort of power level arms race that gets tiresome in so many shonen shows.

[Frozen_Feet]

Tsunderes heavy on the tsun-tsun. AKA passive aggressive bwitches. Especially when they have annoying high-pitched voices and stretch out words. Especially especially when despite them being awful excuses of human(oid) beings, they are treated as One True Love interest for the spineless protagonist who never lifts a finger to stop the abuse.

Seriously. Kill them with fire. Along with all other protagonists with essential character of bratty teenage dramaqueens.

[Rynjin]

Tsunderes heavy on the tsun-tsun. AKA passive aggressive bwitches. Especially when they have annoying high-pitched voices and stretch out words. Especially especially when despite them being awful excuses of human(oid) beings, they are treated as One True Love interest for the spineless protagonist who never lifts a finger to stop the abuse.

Seriously. Kill them with fire. Along with all other protagonists with essential character of bratty teenage dramaqueens.

Looks like SOMEBODY watched Love Hina recently...

[Rysto]

Another terrible trope: when every setback a character undergoes is eventually revealed to actually be a part of their master plan. Sure, it may look like it's a bad thing being held in stasis for years while a powerful supernatural entity extracts plot-critical information from your brain and uses that to subvert the power of the best wizards in the world, but that's because you don't play 4-D chess like I do! Because clearly in the ensuing battle that entity will take terrible damage and then try to draw on my power to heal itself, and that's when I suddenly turn the tables and subvert his power, and now I'm the most powerful being on the planet! Everybody knows that being able to predict the actions of multiple people years in advance is a mark of genius, and not that I'm the writers' beloved Villain Sue.

[Dienekes]

That's the first part.

The second part is him wondering why Saitama is just taking all the abuse, why doesn't he just crush the Tanks under heel like he so easily could? That scene is a revelatory moment for Genos about what kind of a person Saitama is. His laid back attitude is not an act, it's a deep part of his personality. What IS an act for him is being a hero being a "hobby". He genuinely wants to help people, credit be damned, their opinions be damned. Going forward into the Sea King and Garou arcs, Genos has a different outlook, somewhat, and understands his mentor better. That scene is basically Genos' turning point, and the reason why his actions while fighting the Sea King are almost entirely with the people he's protecting in mind, not just testing his abilities or seeing if he's "strong enough" yet.

Genos before that? Would not have saved that kid. It wouldn't have even registered to him that that's what he should be doing until it was too late. Same way he would have killed a civilian fighting Lady Mosquito if that civilian hadn't been Saitama.

You know there are other ways of showing character development rather than turning to the camera and saying "Wow this has developed my character!"

[NecroDancer]

I honestly don't like the trope of the main character being "special", "the chosen one", or "destined for greatness" as it detaches the character from the veiwer and we lose intrest in them. This may also be the reason why I love Mob Psycho (I can't find anything wrong with it, super biased).

[golentan]

I'm most sick of the tropes Always Someone Stronger/Sorting Algorithm of Evil, as seen in almost every Shounen show involving superpower acquisition which goes multiple arcs.

In its most extreme example, I hate when a protagonist defeats the big bad who is so impossibly stronger than them by powering up, only for the author to reveal after a brief breather that there is actually some OTHER big bad who is even impossibly stronger than the last one, who everyone but the point-of-view idiot has conveniently known about but never mentioned or foreshadowed in any way, and now the protagonist must go even further beyond a Mary-Suesuper saiyan to stand a chance of defeating them.

What's wrong with building on surviving villains? Maybe some old minion can take up the mantle of the Villain's cause, grow in power and challenge the heroes with a resurgence of evil. Your protagonists can already fly and have a battle aura which aggressively relandscapes any garden they want, maybe there can be an upper limit on power creep so that allies and antagonists stay relevant, gods know that there's a limit to what the real-world human body can do even with steroids. Force the protagonists to adopt tactics more complex than "Punch them really, really hard," and if that fails "Use a transformation or training montage and punch them really, really harder." Maybe the hero can start to age, find their abilities decreasing from normal decay or lack of practice, and they must find a pupil and become the new Master to a new Chosen One student, close that circle and begin a new tale of adventure in the same universe.

[Hiro Protagonest]

As for my most hated trope? Deeefinitely the Tsundere character trope. Well, I take that back. It's the VIOLENT Tsundere. I don't mind he rare few that keep their hands to themselves for the most part (like Keiko from YuYu Hakusho) but most of them can just go die.

Honorable mention goes to "NANI!?!?!" and "BAKANAAAAAAA!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!1110ijojusnj" being shouted at every opportunity and their English equivalents, of course. English for the last even more, since they usually add even more words in.

Yes, the violent ones. I gave up on Toradora after three episodes for one reason: Taiga's violence. She didn't turn a new leaf fast enough for me to stick around past that.

Meanwhile, Hak from Akatsuki no Yona/Yona of the Dawn is a tsundere who is an actual warrior. He would never raise a hand against Yona, he actually has to deal with his own desire to shelter her.

I still hate love triangles more since there are plenty of good instances of "light tsundere," but that's actually not really an anime trope. The anime version is, of course, harems. So even worse.

You know there are other ways of showing character development rather than turning to the camera and saying "Wow this has developed my character!"

...And Genos is the parody character. He does things in a stereotypical way, while also gaining actual good character development when necessary.

[Kyberwulf]

Yeah. The whole thing of just ever increasing power levels. I mean like Naruto DragonBall bleach stuff. They just get so powerful. I don't know how much other people like filler episodes. I usually have fun with those.

[Lemmy]

By far it's the "Protagonist has a super-powerful evil side that he can't control". Argh... It's every-freaking-where! And it goes hand-in-hand with the also incredibly annoying "Getting a Deus Ex Machina power out of nowhere to defeat the final boss"!

Both are so goddman overused I can't help but roll my eyes and sigh every time I see it!

[Armok]

I think for me it's gotta be the "protagonist who treats sexually charged situations like mustard gas" cliche. You know the one. "Oh no, this girl is really close to me! She's getting closer and closer and... not good!"

Usually followed with spazzing out, running away from the situation, and treating the possibility of physical intimacy like it's radioactive. I don't get this trope. Not at all. What's funny about this? What's the appeal? It's not the way any real person would act in that situation ever. It's a tired, stale gag that gets used to tease the viewers with the possibility of intimacy, and then backs off to preserve the status quo of the protagonist and his would be love interests so everybody still has "a chance".

Just... why. Whyyyy. I just explained why this gets used and I still can't process why it keeps happening in every other anime I watch.

[khadgar567]

By far it's the "Protagonist has a super-powerful evil side that he can't control". Argh... It's every-freaking-where! And it goes hand-in-hand with the also incredibly annoying "Getting a Deus Ex Machina power out of nowhere to defeat the final boss"!

Both are so goddman overused I can't help but roll my eyes and sigh every time I see it!

yeah gets pretty boring pretty fast give me protagonist whos evil side is more competent then hero not powerful then him or if you gonna introduce fan service then introduce each and every episode not in few seconds of ova where 99% of it is crap until last 5 second of ending.

[Lemmy]

yeah gets pretty boring pretty fast give me protagonist whos evil side is more competent then hero not powerful then him or if you gonna introduce fan service then introduce each and every episode not in few seconds of ova where 99% of it is crap until last 5 second of ending.

So many "evil within" characters.... Oozaru Goku, Kyubi Naruto, Raizen-possessed Yusuke, Hollow Ichigo, Dark Saber... Even in games! We have Evil Ryu, Devil Jin, the whole Orochi bloodline in King of Fighters...

If the writer really wants to give their character a secret trump card power, they could at least do us the favor of spending more than two seconds thinking of a reason said trump card isn't used all the time, instead of going "uh... using the power makes he go cray-cray!".

[Kyberwulf]

I think it gets used because most animes envolve people who don't have a high degree in relationships. Usually tweens. I know it's not anise per se, but the Aang/Katara thing.

[Rodin]

I'm most sick of the tropes Always Someone Stronger/Sorting Algorithm of Evil, as seen in almost every Shounen show involving superpower acquisition which goes multiple arcs.

In its most extreme example, I hate when a protagonist defeats the big bad who is so impossibly stronger than them by powering up, only for the author to reveal after a brief breather that there is actually some OTHER big bad who is even impossibly stronger than the last one, who everyone but the point-of-view idiot has conveniently known about but never mentioned or foreshadowed in any way, and now the protagonist must go even further beyond a Mary-Suesuper saiyan to stand a chance of defeating them.

What's wrong with building on surviving villains? Maybe some old minion can take up the mantle of the Villain's cause, grow in power and challenge the heroes with a resurgence of evil. Your protagonists can already fly and have a battle aura which aggressively relandscapes any garden they want, maybe there can be an upper limit on power creep so that allies and antagonists stay relevant, gods know that there's a limit to what the real-world human body can do even with steroids. Force the protagonists to adopt tactics more complex than "Punch them really, really hard," and if that fails "Use a transformation or training montage and punch them really, really harder." Maybe the hero can start to age, find their abilities decreasing from normal decay or lack of practice, and they must find a pupil and become the new Master to a new Chosen One student, close that circle and begin a new tale of adventure in the same universe.

I think the opposite of this is even worse - where the villain is supremely powerful but never shows up until the end, because letting the hero much his way through your minions in a way that makes him stronger is such a good strategy. Aizen was particularly bad about this.

Or alternately, the villain keeps surviving and growing more powerful and just Will. Not. die. Naraku, I'm looking at you on this one.

Yeah. The whole thing of just ever increasing power levels. I mean like Naruto DragonBall bleach stuff. They just get so powerful. I don't know how much other people like filler episodes. I usually have fun with those.

I have two main issues with filler episodes.

The first is that they're typically not written by the original author, which makes the quality take a nosedive. They can be good, but they often come off as badly written fanfics or just plain lazy writing if the anime team is just trying to delay for a few episodes to either fill out the season or waiting for the manga to get a lead. The restrictions imposed on the plots don't help - can't change relationships in a significant way because source material, can't kill off any major characters, can't introduce any new concepts not in the original...etc. etc.

The second issue is that filler rarely has a budget. Anime is already done on a tight budget to begin with, and so they want to spend as little as possible on filler so they have money for the big budget end-of-season finale. This was most evident recently with the parallel universe plot in Naruto (technically one of Jiraiya's stories). They put together what I thought was a really good plot for it, one that was actually more compelling than the main story's plot at the time. And then there were the fight scenes...

Some were just poorly done, obviously minimizing the animation and rushed through to return to the (much cheaper) plot. Others just plain weren't shown at all. They set up a whole series of fights between people who never would have fought in the main story, which would have been awesome to see...and then glossed over them, because no budget.

So...it's frustrating. There's some great filler out there, but it's mostly buried in a pile of crap and the good filler rarely gets the budget it deserves.

[Fri]

One Punch Man, is specifically, a shonen fighting manga/superhero direct parody. I assume lots of what its doing is much less amusing if you're not familiar with the tropes it's specifically parodying.

Same with Mob Psycho 100 to a lesser degree. It's some sort of play, if not parody, of an urban-fantasy-supernatural-shonen manga.

[Anonymouswizard]

Tsunderes heavy on the tsun-tsun. AKA passive aggressive bwitches. Especially when they have annoying high-pitched voices and stretch out words. Especially especially when despite them being awful excuses of human(oid) beings, they are treated as One True Love interest for the spineless protagonist who never lifts a finger to stop the abuse.

This got me thinking about TSUNderes, and how I'm actually torn on them. While I love Rin Tohsaka and think she's a great character (although I'm not 100% sure I get why she's supposed to be attracted to Shiro it feels realistic enough for me to overlook it), but she's actually not particularly heavy on the tsun-tsun. It comes across as more of a defence mechanism, which makes a bit of sense as I remember she's been raised by someone who doesn't really care for her for 10 years (I think it's ten? I can't exactly remember the time skip between Zero and Stay Night).

I honestly don't like the trope of the main character being "special", "the chosen one", or "destined for greatness" as it detaches the character from the veiwer and we lose intrest in them. This may also be the reason why I love Mob Psycho (I can't find anything wrong with it, super biased).

You see I don't like this, but I also have a mild disliking for the 'everyman' or 'loser protagonist'. Sometimes I can enjoy it, I can't fault Neverwhere for starring 'that guy you'll meet at the pub', but I don't want to watch a series about somebody completely useless. If I could stomach Harem series (which I really should, I have nothing against polyamory, but the only one I like is the manga version of Rosario + Vampire).

...And Genos is the parody character. He does things in a stereotypical way, while also gaining actual good character development when necessary.

I think Genos's character development comes in two forms (bare in mind I haven't picked up volume 9 yet), we're told he's developed as a character, and then shown he's developed as a character. It's actually interesting and allows for larger jumps in his actions then you could normally never get away with (if Genos had saved the child two chapters after his introduction it would have felt out of place, but when it happened it felt in-character with how it's developed).

I'm going to jump on the 'random jumps in power' bandwagon, but I don't care if they're gained via training montages or rough beatings. Berserk has managed to go on and have stronger and stronger villains, and at the point I'm at Guts has only really gotten stronger during time skips or getting better equipment (and even then it's not always a massive boost), and even then not massively, and we still have a relatively early villain running about (erm, spoilers?). The fact it makes initial villains useless and/or comedic is just annoying, especially as they seem to be locked out of the same power boosts (or we get a case of two gods who can destroy a planet duking it out, which is okay if I signed up for that). My general rule is if I've been sold a story about a secondary school student who can see ghosts I don't want to see the battle against the main villain being a giant case of 'my power is over nine goggolplex!' while if I've been sold a story about a man going around and killing demons I can stomach a flashback where the man killing demons kills a lot of humans in the process of gaining the goal of killing all the demons (have I mentioned how much I like Berserk? Man, that flashback is long).

[Traab]

What I tend to hate about filler episodes is when they introduce skills abilities and character development.... that all goes away in a puff of smoke once the nonfiller starts back up again. Lets use naruto as an example. There is one arc where he and sakura are with jiraya, dealing with the fuma clan in sound. Naruto basically kicks all the ass. He is fighting jonin level opponents further boosted by orochimaru and winning. Sakura is seeing all this and for pretty much the first time is acknowledging that naruto really is a great fighter. And then all that development, all that improvement, goes away. Naruto is back to a multi shadow clone jutsu rasengan spamming idiot who has to overwhelm his opponent under sheer numbers and gets his butt kicked till he gets lucky while sakura is back to not realizing how good he is/can be.

Other examples include the fact that naruto by all rights should be an international hero, beloved by large portions of the world BEFORE the 4th ninja war. He rescues and inspires the rulers of like, half a dozen nations in filler arcs, then its never spoken of again. Vegetable, demon, snow, birds, the fuma clan in sound, the list goes on of influential people he has impressed. They may not be major villages, but still, his name should have been getting around long before the big battles at the end.

[golentan]

I think the opposite of this is even worse - where the villain is supremely powerful but never shows up until the end, because letting the hero much his way through your minions in a way that makes him stronger is such a good strategy. Aizen was particularly bad about this.

Or alternately, the villain keeps surviving and growing more powerful and just Will. Not. die. Naraku, I'm looking at you on this one.

I think you missed my point. The problem I have is not "the protagonist must struggle and develop their skills to take on a more powerful villain, fighting their way through enemies until they are ready to challenge the master." The problem is "The protagonist has defeated the powerful villain, now have an inexplicably MORE powerful villain for the next arc, there is no upper limit on this, we will milk this for as many arcs as we can."

Bleach is actually one of my worst offenders when I watched it, and a major part of why I stopped watching it. Oh, Ichigo has made it through some of the baddest MFs in the Gotei 13 and has reached the top of the power scale... LOLNOPE, Aizen chumps him with a finger and reveals the next arc villains will be impossibly stronger than soul society's elite, better go unlock your new transformation and struggle your way through more fights of challenging someone stronger than you and finding the power to win somehow.

Bleach, DBZ, too many shounen shows to count. What's the solution to being outmatched? Just power up some more, you'll get there.

[An Enemy Spy]

Dragon Ball Z is like those arguments you had as a kid over which of you were winning your imaginary playground battles.
"I'm an Oozaru now!"
"Oh yeah, well I have Kaio-Ken now!"
"Oh yeah, well now I'm transforming to my second form!"
"Oh yeah, well now I'm two Namekians in one body!"
"Oh yeah, well now I'm transforming to my third form! And now I'm transforming again!"
"Oh yeah, well now I'm a Super Saiyan!"
"Oh yeah, well now I'm at 100% power!"
"Oh yeah, well I'm from the future and I'm an even better Super Saiyan!"
"Oh yeah, well I can suck your energy!"
"Oh yeah, well I have unlimited energy!"
"Oh yeah, well I'm made of all of you put together!"
"Oh yeah, well I'm a Super Namekian now!"
"Oh yeah, well I'm Semi-Perfect now!"
"Oh yeah, well I'm Super Saiyan Grade 2 now!"
"Oh yeah, well I'm Perfect now!"
"Oh yeah, well I'm Super Sayain 2 now!"
"Oh yeah, well I'm Majin now!"
"Oh yeah, well I'm Super Saiyan 3 now!"
"Oh yeah, well I'm Super Buu now!"
"Oh yeah, well now we're fused!"
"Oh yeah, well I'm Mystic now!"
"Oh yeah, well I'm Kid Buu now!"
"Oh yeah, well I'm Golden Oozaru now!"
"Oh yeah, well I'm Super Saiyan 4 now!"
"Oh yeah, well I'm Super Saiyan God now and I have red hair!"
"Oh yeah, well I'm Super Saiyan God Super Saiyan now and I have blue hair!"
"Oh yeah, well I'm Golden Frieza now!"
"Oh yeah, well I'm Super Saiyan Rose now!"
And on and on...

[Anonymouswizard]

I think you missed my point. The problem I have is not "the protagonist must struggle and develop their skills to take on a more powerful villain, fighting their way through enemies until they are ready to challenge the master." The problem is "The protagonist has defeated the powerful villain, now have an inexplicably MORE powerful villain for the next arc, there is no upper limit on this, we will milk this for as many arcs as we can."

Bleach is actually one of my worst offenders when I watched it, and a major part of why I stopped watching it. Oh, Ichigo has made it through some of the baddest MFs in the Gotei 13 and has reached the top of the power scale... LOLNOPE, Aizen chumps him with a finger and reveals the next arc villains will be impossibly stronger than soul society's elite, better go unlock your new transformation and struggle your way through more fights of challenging someone stronger than you and finding the power to win somehow.

Bleach, DBZ, too many shounen shows to count. What's the solution to being outmatched? Just power up some more, you'll get there.

Ah, yes, I have to admit this is why I stopped watching shounen fighting anime until I came across JoJo, despite generally liking them, just one too many instances of 'and now I achieve a powerup that will be outclassed as soon as the next arc'. Although as I remember Soul Society arc Bleach introduced about 4 powerups (shikai, hollow form, bankai, and hollow form bankai) that served well enough for the rest of Aizen's villain term (although IIRC shikai slowly got replaced as the standard fighting form by bankai). Then when Aizen with his own stupid powerups is defeated we eventually get an even more powerful villain and I supect there would have been a 'bankai 2: electric boogaloo' if the series had been allowed to continue.

Thinking of the shounen I loved, we have Fullmetal Alchemist (where Al and Ed gain an upgrade about once each, but the villains remain the same), JoJo (where the cast is reset with each new part so villain power levels can fluctuate wildly), My Hero Academia (no power increases as far as I've got, although I've been told they happen in some way later), and stuff more like that. I've recently switched to mainly watching Sienen as they have the tendency to either avoid such powerups or have them not outclass the main villain of the story (although with Berserk Guts has become stronger than the villains of the previous arcs it's occurred rarely enough that I'm okay with it).

[Traab]

The times I can forgive the escalation are fairly specific. For example, in Shaman King, yes our protagonists are constantly powering up further, but iirc there isnt ever really a time where you think you are fighting the boss, only to defeat him and see the REAL big bad behind him. Only to defeat him and see, OMG! THERES ANOTHER MORE POWERFUL BIG BAD!!!! I think we learned fairly early on who the final boss was going to be, and the rest of the show was basically powering up through the tournament to reach that guy. I may be remembering it wrong though, it was a long time ago.

[Yora]

There's not a lot as I mostly watch the more highbrow stuff. But one thing that is just totally lame is the hero charging up a super powerful magic attack that vaporizes everything in it's path and then the dust clears and the villain is still completely untouched. It might have been surprising the first time, but now the amazed and horrified looks of the hero's friends just annoy me.