Cerebus Rollercoaster: Difference between revisions
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{{trope}}
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There are many reasons why the tone of a story may change. Sometimes [[Cerebus Syndrome|a happy, joke-based, show goes into a much more serious and darker direction]]. Sometimes [[Reverse Cerebus Syndrome|a once dark and deadly serious series turns into a comedy]]. Sometimes the work [[Genre Shift|completely changes its genre]]. Sometimes [[Jump the Shark|writers run out of ideas and just try to put out anything they can]] or the exact opposite - [[Growing the Beard|they find what they really want to do]]. Sometimes [[Executive Meddling]] or [[Creator Breakdown]] takes the story in a new direction and turns it into something completely unrecognizable from its source material.
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And sometimes all of it happens at the same time.
'''Cerebus Rollercoaster''' is what happens when [[Cerebus Syndrome]] gets [[Zig-Zagging Trope|Zig Zagged]] - the series goes back and forth through different tones, jumps from genre to genre or dances on the [[Sliding Scale of Idealism vs. Cynicism]]. If this ends well, the series can end up [[Growing the Beard]] by absorbing the best elements of all the phases it went through. If not, it may end up [[Jumped the Shark|jumping the shark]].
This may occur for different reasons. Sometimes creators just plain don't know exactly what tone they want to give their work. Maybe the story went too far into [[Cerebus Syndrome]], and the writer is tired and horrified of the [[Crapsack World]] it has become, but while trying to reverse the process, he finds out that new, [[Darker and Edgier]] settings have a lot of fans, so he desperately tries to balance drama and comedy to keep both fanbases happy. Sometimes the new writer decides to take the series in a new direction, then into another direction and so on, until fans who have grown to be writers themselves [[Running the Asylum|take the series back to its original roots]]. Some people may just [[Follow the Leader]] too much, and when the leader changes, so too does the direction of their story. And sometimes they just don't want to stick to one setting and are forced to discard all story ideas which are too dark or too light for basic settings. [[Tropes Are Not Bad]] - when played right, it may give a series a unique, recognizable style and keep it fresh. If done badly, however, this will pretty much turn the story into a train wreck.
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*** Tomino himself has this as applied to his whole body of work; Its been a common observation of his fans that Tomino tends to alternate between [[Lighter and Softer|lighter works]] and [[Darker and Edgier|depressing character dramas]]. ''[[Space Runaway Ideon|Be Invoked]],'' for instance, was directly followed by ''[[Xabungle]],'' which was then followed by ''[[Aura Battler Dunbine]].'' The tonal shift between Zeta and ZZ is pretty much a continuation of Tomino's established pattern, as ZZ was made directly after Zeta.
* ''[[Yu Yu Hakusho]]'' plays this trope to the hilt. Beginning at first as bit of a [[Black Comedy]] about a dead teenager hilariously doing anything to come back to life,''anything''. Then he gets ressurrected and has to hunt down criminals like a detective and the whole thing escalates with the Toguro Brothers and Yukina. Then comes the second season which although does have development,mostly is just shonen-style fighting,...then Genkai dies and it just keeps getting darker. It doesn't really stop again until Yusuke proposes a tournament for the the Three Kings.
* ''[[Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann]]'' in a way mirrors the rollercoaster ride taken by the entire mecha anime genre through its history. Episodes one to eight are very optimistic and often outright comedic, taking a lot from classic 70's [[Super Robot]] anime like ''[[Mazinger Z]]'' or ''[[Getter Robo]]''. The next episodes contain their share of angst and dark themes, and villains, while still evil, gain some depth. It mirrors the effect ''[[Mobile Suit Gundam]]'' had on the genre. Later episodes are post ''[[Neon Genesis Evangelion]]'' era, being much darker than before, with varying moral values. Yet in both parts the anime remains pretty captivating and the last part takes the awesomeness [[Up to Eleven]], mirroring the effects ''[[GaoGaiGar]]'' and other [[
* ''[[Dragon Ball]]'' started as an parody of ''[[Journey to the West]]''. Then King Piccolo became its [[Knight of Cerebus]] and comedic elements started fading away. Stronger and crueler villains started to pop out and each next saga was darker than the previous one. And then the Buu Saga came, bringing back lot of silly and combining original humor with later epic fights and darkness, creating such situations like people being killed by being turned into chocolate candy and eaten. The anime version has also ''[[Dragon Ball GT]]'', which swapped from a goofy humour-based [[Adventure Towns|Adventure Planets]] first half, to dark ultimate evil after ultimate evil second half.
* ''[[Code Geass]]'' varied wildly in tone, influenced by a lot of [[Executive Meddling]] and behind the scenes stuff.
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== [[Live Action TV]] ==
* ''[[Scrubs]]''. Holy mother of God ''Scrubs''. The show itself is best described as a collision between a medical drama and a slapstick comedy with great big dollops of tragedy, [[Gallows Humor]], surrealism and [[Lemony Narrator]] thrown in for good measure, and it's a complete toss-up as to what each episode will give the viewer. And it's not just across the show or across seasons, it can be across a single episode: one storyline might be a [[Zany Scheme]] filled with sex jokes, pratfalls, and wacky shenanigans, while another storyline might be a gut-wrenching, savagely dark tragedy about the death of patients and the psychological fallout from one or more of the doctors, while the camera merrily [[Whip Pan
* ''[[Power Rangers]]'' always has been, and always will be, a franchise nobody can take without a lot of [[Willing Suspension of Disbelief]]. It's campy and [[Crazy Awesome]] in its own way, but the tone of each season varies. Lord Zedd was its [[Knight of Cerebus]] and set a much more epic arc than the original Rita arc. Both ''[[Power Rangers Zeo]]'' and ''[[Power Rangers Turbo]]'' were a step down from serious towards lighter tones, only for the series to turn into epic space opera during ''[[Power Rangers in Space]]'' and ''[[Power Rangers Lost Galaxy]]''. The tone of the series can vary from dark, like ''[[Power Rangers Time Force]]'', to completely comedic, like ''[[Power Rangers Ninja Storm]]''. Even checking out the source ''[[Super Sentai]]'' material isn't any indication of which route the next series will take, as proven by the darkest series of all, ''[[Power Rangers RPM]]'', which was based on a ''[[Engine Sentai Go-onger|self-parody]]'' of ''Super Sentai''
** The same holds true for ''[[Power Rangers]]''' source material, ''[[Super Sentai]]''. Compare the dark and serious ''[[Chouriki Sentai Ohranger]]'' (which almost got the franchise cancelled) to the frenetic and comical ''[[Gekisou Sentai Carranger]]''. For a specific series example, ''[[Kaizoku Sentai Gokaiger]]'' flip-flops a lot, especially thanks to its tributes to previous Sentai teams.
* [[Kamen Rider]] as a franchise also alternates a lot between silly and serious. You have darker series like ''[[Kamen Rider Amazon|Amazon]]'', ''[[Kamen Rider Faiz|Faiz]]'', and ''[[Kamen Rider Blade|Blade]]'', and less serious ones like ''[[Kamen Rider Black RX|Black RX]]'' and ''[[Kamen Rider Den-O|Den-O]]''. Within each series, most start as being comedic and episodic, and then eventually focusing around mid-season into something more serious, while still having several gags and enemies like [[Kamen Rider X|Starfish Hitler]] and [[Kamen Rider OOO|a muay-thai boxing chicken who constantly dances in the background]].
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