Trope Idea Sounding Board

Hullo. A while back I intended to create a page for the term "Black Company" as a Useful Notes in order to avoid edit wars. But after a rough write up, I wonder if it'd be better as a regular tropes page. Thing is I have some difficulty thinking of non-anime and manga examples, though I'm sure they must exist.

Black Company

A Japanese term for an exploitative, sometimes outright abusive business organisation. The terms used are ブラック企業 (burakku kigyō) and ブラック会社 (burakku gaisha), meaning "black corporation" or "black business/ black company" respectively. The Other Wiki succinctly sums it up as a sweatshop-like environment, only associated with office work instead of textile manufacturing.

The term "black company" was coined in the early 2000s by young IT workers but has since come to be applied to various industries, including sales, the service industry (e.g. restaurants) and entertainment. It's also sometimes used to refer to companies that are from outside Japan. A 2009 short film titled ブラック会社に勤めてるんだが、もう俺は限界かもしれない ^note Burakkugaisha ni tsutometerundaga, mou ore wa genkai kamo shirenai roughly meaning "I work for a black company, but I may be at my limit" helped bring the concept of "black companies" into the cultural zeitgeist, particularly the depicted company's ruthless and unethical work environment. This was made worse by how the film was Based on a True Story, its genesis being a 2ch thread by an office worker about the black company he worked at.

While specifics may vary from workplace to workplace and company to company, a typical practice at a black company is to hire a large number of young employees and then force them to work large amounts of overtime without overtime pay. Conditions are poor, and workers are subjected to verbal abuse and "power harassment" (bullying) by their superiors. In order to make the employees stay, superiors of black companies would often threaten young employees with disrepute if they chose to quit.

In 2014, a lawyer named Yoshiyuki Iwasa created a checklist for a website called Business Media to help identify whether a company is "black" or "not black." There are thirty items on the list and if none of them apply to the company, it is pure white. If 1-9 items are applicable, it is considered gray. 10-14 is dark gray. 30 out of 30 is pitch black.

(checklist)

Note that in fiction, Black Companies are not necessarily related to Evil, Inc. (and in fact, many examples of Evil, Inc. are actually better places to work at than Black Companies). A typical MegaCorp may be a Black Company, especially in a Cyberpunk setting.

Edited by WM-R on Mar 20th 2024 at 2:58:31 AM

As Useful Notes it can probably work. As a trope, it probably needs to be generalized into Abusive Workplace, because in terms of story plots these aren't exclusive to Japan. When this was brought up last time, I've said that a version of Soul-Crushing Desk Job where workers are treated as literal disposable slaves can work.

Edited by Amonimus on Mar 20th 2024 at 10:09:16 PM

TroperWall / WikiMagic Cleanup

Oh! That's an idea. I could complete the above as a Useful Note for the specific Japanese term "black company", and then try launching the trope Abusive Workplace which would be more general. Thank you for the suggestion!

Edited by WM-R on Mar 21st 2024 at 3:48:18 AM

• Minion Expy: Character that is based on the Minions.

@Amonimus Pragmatism Dilemma sounds good, although I can't think of any examples off hand. Maybe the conclusion to Fallout New Vegas?

A few (hopefully new) ideas I have:

• The Grim Reaper tends to be shown "peeking" through something prior to doing his job, e.g. if there's a portal to the underworld, he'll peek through the hole and make sure the coast is clear before reaping. That said I wonder if the idea should be expanded to a more general "underworld portal peeking" trope.
• The Scrooge has a tendency to be associated with The Old Country, or at least a country that's obviously big on scope of ancestry^note thanks to mythology despite the mystery of it, in a way where the viewers can tell that they're an anomaly with Hidden Depths. Their assimilated nephews/grandsons/kids are shown to be oblivious of any connection, however, even if they're the Scrooge in question.

• Bee-sting gags tend to be much more common among Bumbling Dads, usually to demonstrate their inability to know how to deal with insects properly.

Edited by Coachpill on Mar 20th 2024 at 11:16:20 AM

Silver and gold, silver and gold

Currently there's a ban on new Expy tropes.

That reminds me, do we have a full list of banned trope subjects?

TroperWall / WikiMagic Cleanup

Not to mention I don't know if there would be many examples, and most of the ones I could imagine would fit another trope (like Kid-Appeal Character or Servant Race) and/or invite a lot of complaining.

I do some cleanup and then I enjoy shows you probably think are cringe.

That sounds like a fun FG idea.

Closest thing I can think of is Tropes That Will Never Happen.

Silver and gold, silver and gold

That works. No New Stock Phrases should probably also be mentioned there and maybe that page is worth pinning here.

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• Metaphorical Battle: Character overcoming an obstacle is represented as them fighting personifications of these. Stylized for the Viewer but the character sees it too.

TroperWall / WikiMagic Cleanup

Seems like The Same, but More Specific when framed that way, but I think a broader "cheapskate immigrant" is tropeworthy.

Would "eating a normally taboo animal in a situation of desperate hunger" be considered tropeworthy, as a kind of sister trope to No Party Like a Donner Party? It could extend to religious taboos as well as cultural ones, such as a Jewish or Muslim character reluctantly eating a pig to avoid starving to death.

And before you ask, no, that's not what Eat The Dog is; that's about deliberately keeping an animal around with the intent of using it as emergency rations if needed. It's going through a rename in TRS to make the meaning clear.

Too Desperate to Be Picky?

Currently Working On: Incorruptible Pure Pureness

So, I know Fashion Show, The Fashionista, and Fashion-Shop Fashion Show are already tropes, but what about fashion themed episodes? Like, the plot of an episode centers around an upcoming fashion show, a character becoming a model, or a character trying to keep up with fashion trends.

Examples include:

"The Fashion Fascist" from "Brandy & Mr. Whiskers"

"Supermodel Tom" from "Talking Tom and Friends"

"Fab Abyo" from "Pucca"

and "Victim of Fashion" from "My Life as a Teenage Robot" just to name a few.

I don't know if there are enough episodes like this to justify a trope page, but if you guys have any more examples, I'd love to hear it.

My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic has at least one episode about it. "Dressed For Success" and "Green Isn't Your Color" are some prime examples; in the first one Rarity gets busy making dresses for her friends and has a fashion show for them, and in the other one Fluttershy accidentally becomes a model when Rarity wanted to be it.

So I've had an idea for a trope that's somewhere inbetween Ungrateful Bastard and The Farmer and the Viper, but not quite like either. Basically someone helps or tries to help a character, but instead of backstabbing the savior or simply not appreciating the help, that character sees no reason to view it as helpful (such as a lack of understanding or outright not wanting it) and reacts with fear, aggression, hatred or similar. I could possibly see it become a subtrope of Ungrateful Bastard even. Here's some comparisons:

• Ungrateful Bastard: Alice saves Bob from a Bottomless Pit. Rather than thank her, Bob blames her for his mistake and doesn't acknowledge that she saved his life.
• The Farmer and the Viper: Alice saves Bob from a Bottomless Pit. When Alice turns her back on him, Bob stabs and kills her.
• This trope: Alice saves Bob from a Bottomless Pit. But Alice is his enemy or is associated with something bad, or Bob doesn't believe she just saved him; he repeatedly insults her and even tries to attack her because he truly has no reason to behave otherwise.

Edited by Eggy0 on Mar 22nd 2024 at 8:51:25 PM

I was looking through Multiple Head Case — which has a sort of longstading issue where it's nominally intended to be "Individual with multiple heads, each with distinct personalities" but gets used more generally as just "polycephaly" — and noted that one of the trends that crops up and is mentioned in the description is this bit here:

And I was wondering if a sort of "unique power per head" thing may be viable. Although perhaps it might be worth holding off onto until MHC can go to the repair shop...?

Edited by Theriocephalus on Mar 22nd 2024 at 1:55:21 PM

Thanks for the feedback, and I hope you have success with your trope. Are there any live-action or anime examples you guys have for me? I wanna be sure to cover all the bases.

I'm writing up a draft for a trope page, and this is what I have so far:

I of course have the list of examples I want to include:

And so far, I've drafted two entries:

• OK K.O.! Let's Be Heroes:

In "Project Ray Way, Raymond starts a line of designer clothes, much to Rad’s shagrin. So Rad, along with K.O. and Enid, teams up with Lakewood’s resident fashionista Drupe to start an empire of their own at the plaza. Raymond catches wind and retaliates using the mind control tags on his shirts to steal Drupe’s designs.

• Talking Tom and Friends
  • Season 4’s “Supermodel Tom” sees Tom becoming a model after being discovered by Autumn Summers during Fashion Week. But the fun doesn't last when his friends start treating him like an idiot.
  Tom: What is going on?
  Angela: Oh, he's confused. Tom, we're in a diner.
  Ben: Don't worry about thinking, Tom. Just stay pretty.
  
  • Later, his fellow models warn him that he's fallen victim to “The Model’s Curse”:
  Reece: Once you're a model, people think you're a mirror-loving fool. Who only cares about teeth whiteners.
  

I want to have some more examples before I take it to the launchpad. So again, any and all suggestions are welcome.

Edited by StraightPanick1031 on Mar 26th 2024 at 7:32:06 AM

Determining Question: character is dared to answer some sort of (usually metaphoric) question by other guy in order to understand his motivation/goal/identity/etc.

• Tales of Berseria: Artorius keeps asking Velvet and Laphicet why birds fly to challenge their worldview. Laphicet answers "because they have to fly," to justify becoming a sacrifice for Innominat before he dies to disease. Velvet answers "because they want to fly," implying that people shouldn't have to live by cold logic and reason. Artorius's own answer is "because it is inherently within their nature", since he has given up all hope of mankind overcoming the emotions that cause malevolence.

I think it's common enough to be a trope, but i don't have more examples.

@ Theriocephalus I think that probably should wait until a repair shop, but I agree it's a valid concept. Right now it's been absorbed into the amalgamation concept of Multiple Head Case.

YMMV / Essay Magnet: A work has a large amount of reviews analyzing the work's themes or writing.

Inspired by The Simpsons S8 E23 "Homer's Enemy", which lists a lot of interpretations of what the episode was even about or who was responisble, and that's nowhere close to amount of takes I've heard.

Death Note, Citizen Kane, Umineko: When They Cry, The Dark Knight, Five Nights at Freddy's, Undertale are also often cited as easy entry points for literary studies because everyone sees something different.

I don't think it's Alternate Aesop Interpretation or Broken Base.

TroperWall / WikiMagic Cleanup

^ I really like Essay Magnet but I think I'd be an uphill fight in TLP.

If you do go for it probably could mention inclusion in academia and school curriculums.

Edited by IronAnimation on Mar 26th 2024 at 12:11:35 PM

The closest we have to Essay Magnet would be Epileptic Trees, which is more for crazy fan theories and doesn't really cover academic analysis.

I wonder…would it be okay if I created a trope that's all about good guys with deep voices? It could overlap with Baritone of Strength and Authority Sounds Deep, with the latter fitting for heroic authority figures. It would seems that there are lot of heroes with deep voices, and I could add a index with types of heroes with deep voices, such as The Big Guy or Gentle Giant, The Lancer (as a foil to The Hero on their tones of voice), Mentor Archetype, Reasonable Authority Figure, Knight in Shining Armor and several heroes who are Big Goods. Likewise, some of these heroes have the Voice of the Legion, as Dark Is Not Evil is in play. Compare to both Innocent Soprano and Tenor Boy, who are heroic characters with high singing voices.

P.S. Baritone of Strength is used for characters with not only deep voices, but with powerful traits as well. The trope I’m guessing is about deep-voiced characters that are on the heroic side.

Edited by AlexHoskins on Mar 26th 2024 at 3:33:02 AM

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