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I was trying to talk about films and (marvel) comics the other day, and
stumbled upon " **[evil
twin](http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/EvilTwin)** ". Sure, I can
translate it verbatim, but that usually works badly for such fixed
expressions.

And then when I was trying to explain it, I couldn't think of a good word for
" **trope** " too. Apparently, neither can [jisho.org](http://jisho.org/).
There are a few for [cliche](http://jisho.org/words?eng=cliche), but none of
these have example sentences that relate remotely to the meaning I am looking
for.

Can anyone help me or send me in the right direction? (A Japanese tvtropes.org
perhaps?)

Other Japanese trope names (e.g. つんでれ) are welcome.
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words
Evil twins and other tropes
Isn't "Doppelgänger" (`ドッペルゲンガー`) commonly used to denote "evil twin"? Well,
at least an evil version of someone.
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The word "trope" didn't originally apply to stock characters/plot elements in
the way that it is now used in TV Tropes; this is a relatively new (as in past
50 years) usage of the word. This may be why dictionaries come up short: even
some English dictionaries I checked didn't cover this meaning.

There is a Japanese wikipedia page for TV tropes, which uses the word トロープ,
but this doesn't seem to be a widely used term and the writer of the article
felt the need to explain it rather than just giving simple translation:

> 創作物に見られる様々な慣例や趣向
>
> Various conventions and ideas seen in works of fiction.

So I don't think you will find a single word to cover this. お決まり (and お定まり?)
may work for "cliche" in some situations (お決まりの台詞, お決まりのパターン) although they're
not limited to fiction. Wikipedia uses 類型 for categorising some things, e.g.
ストーリー類型, but again this appears to be a phrase coined for convenience and not
widely used in general discussion.

There are some words that will cover some of the things covered by "trope".
One (relatively recently coined and probably more an internet slang term than
something for academic discussion) is フラグ. I'll quote from wiki again as I
think this covers it:

> 伏線（ふくせん）と同義であるものの、フラグは比較的単純で定型化された「お決まりのパターン」の含意があるとされる。
>
> Although it has the same meaning as 'foreshadowing', 'flag' implies a
> relatively simple, fixed, "stereotypical pattern".

There are various types of flag (e.g. "death flag", 死亡フラグ). For more
description of this term, check dic.nicovideo.jp/ for フラグ and other terms.
This site also probably functions as the closest thing to tvtropes in that
although it wasn't created for that purpose, if you look up various
manga/anime you will find often find links to character types/phrases/story
genres associated with that work.

Another useful word is from 落語 originally and is 落ち (when dealing with
manga/anime, normally written オチ). There were various set ways of ending a
story. A classic one is まわり落ち (ending by returning to the beginning of the
story), and 夢オチ is the Japanese name for the "and then he realised it had all
been a dream" ending.

The last one is 定番, often in the form (genre name/series)の定番. These are both
2ch examples:

> やめてほしいアニメの定番 ("anime staples you want to stop")
>
> ＲＰＧの定番モンスターの名前を貼っていくスレ ("thread where we post names of typical RPG
> monsters")

Not necessarily negative, it can also be used to refer to
classic/staple/standard examples of a genre, e.g. 定番のクリスマスソング (typical
Christmas songs).
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I just found another one, which is exactly what I was looking for:

**べた - hackneyed, cliched [1]**

It's marked as "slang", though, and it might be just a version of べたべた.
"Sticky" is quite close in connotation.

[1]http://jisho.org/words?jap=beta&eng=&dict=edict
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