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Since the dawn of the internet, anime fans have had more access to creators, their favorite shows, and their community than ever before. Gone are the days of having to physically meet an anime fan to discuss top-tier anime; now anime fans simply need a computer and an internet connection.
This has led to a large portion of anime fans, reactors, video essayists, and memers having plenty of styles to connect with others. Though all of this openness has led to a wide lexicon of terms being used, many are being misused. Whether out of genuine ignorance or malice, terms like "filler," "woke," and "edgy," among others, have been adopted into anime fans' vocabulary and are misused all the time.
Disclaimer: This article may contain spoilers for the anime discussed within. All opinions are exclusive to the author.
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Filler, Cringe, and 8 other terms anime fans misuse constantly
1) "Filler"
The term "filler" refers to the idea of anime-original content when adapting a manga and isn't bad on principle. The infamous Endless Eight from Haruhi Suzumiya is an example of filler; the episode where Goku and Piccolo learn to drive in Dragon Ball Z is another; Bleach's Bount arc; and the Doom Tree arc in the original Sailor Moon anime are all filler.
These types of episodes were used to give anime fans something to watch while the manga caught up, due to anime adaptations usually adapting the manga quickly. With the progression of technology, season breaks, and tighter writing, filler episodes are a rare occurrence in the age of newer anime like Jujutsu Kaisen or Demon Slayer.
The problem with the way anime fans use this term is two-fold. The first problem is that anything that doesn't relate to the main plot, or the "good parts," so to speak, is mislabeled filler. Some fans labeled the first 50-odd chapters of Bleach filler or the first two parts of Jojo's Bizarre Adventure as filler. These are important introductions to characters that matter throughout the story in the former and concepts and important characters in the latter.
The second problem with that misuse is that it robs stories of downtime to relax and let the audience and characters breathe, and give time for character development. Cutting out anything strictly not plot-related makes stories feel hollow and doesn't give the audience proper time to get attached. The concept of time wasting that people hate already has a term for it: padding.
2) 'Woke"
A favorite thought-terminating cliche of a section of the internet, the term "woke" is a product of African American Vernacular English (AAVE for short). The term means to stay aware and alert to racial prejudice and discrimination and has been used by African American activists since the 1930s.
The term gained mainstream attention and use during the mid-2010s, following the rise of the Black Lives Matter anti-discrimination movement. Across X, the phrase "always be woke" or simply "stay woke" became a rallying cry and call to action to stay aware of racial discrimination when it happened, especially as police violence against African Americans gained more attention in the United States.
As the protests continued, so too did the backlash against them. The term "woke" became a dog whistle for conservatives, especially conservative anime fans. The term replaced "politically correct" and "SJW" as the catch-all for any kind of progressive writing or choice.
Anything that doesn't fit a conservative anime fan's worldview is considered "woke," from having LGBT+ people existing to female characters with short hair or dark-skinned people being protagonists. It's a disturbing hijacking of a term with meaning to a minority group and isn't the only one.
3) "Queerbaiting"
Another term that's been misappropriated by anime fans is the concept of queerbaiting. In essence, queerbaiting is a marketing technique for a series used by creators, wherein they will hint at but never deliver LGBT+ characters or romances. The concept dates back to the 1970s, when LGBT+ people were gaining prominence in media like movies and television.
Some examples of this are more obvious than others, with LBGT+ fans pointing to Sherlock Holmes and John Watson in Sherlock or Dean and Castiel from Supernatural as examples. It's important to remember that there needs to be something explicit or implied for examples to be legitimate, something that if a heterosexual couple did, the fans would latch onto as romantic right away.
This complicates matters considerably when talking about the hows and whys anime fans misuse this term. In essence, the misuse of the term boils down to either legit LGBT+ characters getting hit with the term because they didn't kiss or they did, but it took too long for anime fans' liking.
The other problem presents itself in how LGBT+ characters are always viewed in romantic terms and not how they develop as characters. Yuri on Ice got accused of queerbaiting, likewise Mobile Suit Gundam: The Witch From Mercury and RWBY, despite having multiple LGBT+ characters, either because the romantic interactions were not "standard," aka they didn't kiss, or because they "felt rushed," despite having plenty of buildup.
4) "Edgy"
The term "Edgy" has three definitions: to be nervous or irritable, to have a sharp or biting edge, or to be daring, provocative, or trend-setting. The term has been used to describe departures from convention or being unusual in ways that may be exciting or thrilling.
Naturally, this means any departure from whatever is considered "normal" will be branded with this. South Park was considered "edgy" for a long time due to its casual uses of obscenity and vulgarity, for example. Anime fans have many instances of using the term likewise, from Neon Genesis Evangelion to Higurashi to Future Diary, Blue Gender, and others.
Anime fans misuse the term constantly. When "edgy" is typically thought of, it's something trying too hard to be provocative: too much swearing, glorifying ultraviolence, and anti-heroic, if not villainous, protagonists who are always in the right. Sometimes "edgy" is used to cover up bigotry or other offensive language, but with anime fans, it's usually the former definition.
Berserk was called "edgy" at one point, despite never glorifying the violence it depicts or justifying Griffith's villainous actions during the Eclipse. Goblin Slayer got called edgy for its first episode, justifiably, but the rest of the series never went as far as the first episode did, yet most consigned it to the garbage anyway.
5) "Censorship"
Censorship is described as the suppression of speech, public communication, or information that is considered objectionable, harmful, sensitive, or offensive. This is usually found in governments, private institutions, and other controlling bodies and is done for reasons ranging from information and populace control to directly stopping any opposition to a particular ideology.
In mass media, censorship often comes in the form of a work being considered "banned" from being sold or distributed. There are plenty of anime banned in different countries. There are plenty of instances of censorship in localizing anime, which older English dub fans of Sailor Moon, Dragon Ball Z, and others can attest to: guns erased, blood lessened or missing, entire episodes not being aired, etc.
Whenever a show airs on television or is supposed to be pushed for mass consumption, they usually run afoul of Standards & Practices (S&P for short) that govern what can or can't air on their network. Fanservice is targeted for censorship when certain body parts, like the chest or hips, are flashed but covered up with bars of light, only to be uncut on Blu-ray releases.
That being said, anime fans often cry censorship for things that don't count or are part of the editing process when adapting a manga. Sometimes, like in Undead Unluck, a scene in episode 19 where Fuko visited Shueisha and pointed a gun at an aide to allow her to meet the original author of To You, From Me in the manga was changed to Andy intimidating her in the anime. While there's no official word as to why, many speculate that the Kyoto Animation arson attack and other such terror attacks prompted the change.
6) "Normalization"
Another sociological term is Normalization. Normalization is a sociological process wherein ideas or actions are taken as the natural way of things, or, for lack of a better term, "normal." It tends to refer to how certain actions or attitudes progress, like acceptance of minority groups or bigoted attitudes.
Anime fans tend to use the term in very unorthodox ways. The most common refrain in criticism is the idea that a series, through its content, can normalize an attitude or a behavior. Fanservice anime, harem anime, etc. are usually given this type of criticism, saying that it normalizes misogyny or misogynistic attitudes.
This type of criticism tends to deal with 1-to-1 aspects of sociology, such as the idea that people are easily influenced by the media they view. When applied to propaganda, this has legs to stand on, as propaganda is made for that purpose. When applied to the media at large, however, that's where problems come in.
While it's true that some attitudes sprang up in the wake of certain media releases, like Jaws, causing an uptick in people fearing shark attacks and shark hunting, that fear was already there and wasn't attributed to Jaws. Media like anime expect viewers to have a good sense of separation between fiction and reality and morality. There has been a turnabout of anime fans using it correctly, however, in saying that seeing more LGBT+ anime helps to normalize LGBT+ relationships in media.
7) "Retcon"
The term retcon is short for retroactive continuity, a literary device in which the facts of a fictional work are changed, supplemented, ignored, or contradicted by any subsequent work that can recontextualize those events. One of the earliest examples is when Arthur Conan Doyle brought Sherlock Holmes back to life in the Return of Sherlock Holmes anthology after his final battle against James Moriarty.
The term has been used to describe several famous incidents and plot twists throughout anime, video games, comic books, and other fiction. Where anime fans misuse it is mixing it up with reveals, plot twists, and backfilling unfilled backstories. The Dragon Ball franchise gets hit with cries of retcons all the time when, much like Superman's expanded roster, these are backfilling unfilled backstories like Goku's Saiyan heritage.
RWBY is usually a popular target for incorrect "retcon" complaints. Many of these criticisms suggest that antagonists Adam Taurus and James Ironwood were retconned into being an abusive lover and a fanatical terrorist in volume 3 and beyond for the former and a military dictator in volumes 7 and 8 for the latter.
These are debunked by The Black Trailer showing Adam being willing to blow up a train he and Blake were robbing, scoffing at the idea of workers getting hurt, and Volume 2's ending where he tells the main villains he'll round up more support that will answer to him despite many dying. For Ironwood, Volumes 2 and 4 show him willing to throw his military at any problem, heedless of the cost, letting allies take the fall when plans fail, and threatening people who don't fall in line.
8) "Cringe"
"Cringe" has gained quite a lot of use in modern slang and lexicons, particularly with reviewers, reactors, gamers, and anime fans. The term has several meanings: to recoil in terror or fear from someone, or the physical expression of embarrassment or awkward discomfort.
During the early 2000s, cringe referred to the empathic second-hand embarrassment people felt for others doing something embarrassing. The problem with the wide spread of the term is how much it's used to describe things that aren't embarrassing but awkward or bad, like a slip of the tongue or bad acting or dancing, and used as an insult.
"Cringe" as an insult is a particularly annoying facet of the modern internet space and anime fandom. Cringe has been turned into a hostile term to mock people's hobbies like cosplaying, fanfiction writing, roleplaying as characters, and any other harmless things anime fans do or engage in.
Excitement or hype over new anime is labeled cringy, and screaming or squeals of delight aren't considered good anymore. Cringe is used as a cudgel to stop people from expressing outward joy or excitement, or as fodder for TikTok and YouTube compilations.
9) "Morally Gray"
The term morally gray means being morally ambiguous, someone who isn't entirely good but not fully evil either. It encompasses the anti-heroes, the people with attitudes that don't neatly fit into boxes that are in nearly every facet of media. Consider Walter White at the start of Breaking Bad, some iterations of DC's Batman, or Dorian Gray from The Picture of Dorian Gray as examples.
The term has been thrown around in many circles, from comic book fans to anime fans, to describe characters like the examples listed above. A key conundrum and controversy surrounding the usage of the term, however, is that fans tend to go overboard when describing characters that are mainly villains or villain-aligned.
Some fans try to describe villains like Homelander or Stormfront from The Boys as morally gray, despite them being sadistic villains. Some anime fans twist this word to try to argue that the villains are good, as in Naruto with Pain/Nagato, or to just excuse any criticism of their actions or come to terms with liking villains.
Some of the worst examples are obvious in this regard, as some people have tried to twist Star Wars villains Count Dooku, Darth Vader, Baylan Skoll, and the Galactic Empire as a whole, among other obvious villains, into more complex characters by denigrating the heroes' actions. As a result of this, the term "morally gray" has lost most of its meaning for many fans.
10) "Deconstruction"
Of the many sociological and psychological terms on this list, "Deconstruction" tends to be tossed at anything that seems to parody or satirize an already existing genre of anime. In truth, the term was first coined in the 1960s by French philosopher Jacques Derrida to describe the fluidity of meaning in language and how there is no one quintessential example of anything.
In layman's terms, and for an easier example for anime fans to follow, Neon Genesis Evangelion is seen as a deconstruction of the mecha genre and the fact that children are often in the pilot's seat. Shinji Ikari never truly evolves into the super soldier and/or stoic awesome person that many anime fans wanted him to be, but neither did Amuro Ray in the original Mobile Suit Gundam.
These two examples subvert typical shonen tropes and lay the groundwork for others: the hero isn't some awesome, stoic child of destiny; they face problems and real anxieties and situations one would realistically face. These can be seen as deconstructions of shonen tropes and the mecha genre. This is also seen in such anime as Revolutionary Girl Utena, among others like Bokurano.
The problem with the way it's used is that people think that anything that may push the boundaries or otherwise make fun of things is deconstructing them when it isn't. Omni-Man and Homelander aren't deconstructions of Superman; they are only examples of "Evil Superman" that date further back than them, for instance.
Final Thoughts
This list of 10 terms that anime fans misuse all the time is non-exhaustive, as there are many other terms people misuse like "incel" or "fanservice" all the time. Anime fans encompass many people who use language and terms differently or interchangeably, regardless of context or meaning.
Thus, casting disapproval on anime fans for misuse of language isn't encouragable. Everyone says things differently and has their own opinions on what counts or doesn't count as "deconstruction" or "morally gray," for example. Not everyone has the same experiences or knowledge, anime fans or otherwise.
Even though anime fans' lexicons continue to grow, it's worth taking time to step back and figure out if a word is being used correctly or without malice. While this often leads to free speech debates about the sanitization of language, anime fans may find that conversation worth having, especially if words are being twisted to malicious ends.
Related Links:
Decoding the popularity: Why Neon Genesis Evangelion anime is a cult-classic
10 most cringe anime shows of all time
15 anime that got banned from different countries and why
Bleach filler episodes: Full list of every episode you can skip
