

Several anime, and s couple this season, have a trope where the protagonist
lives in an apartment full of literal trash. Trash bags, bottles, cans, etc.
Sometimes the trope only shows up during a move or as part of a cleaning
montage, and sometimes it's not the protagonist, but a plot device for an
ancillary character or structure.

What is the name of this trope, and why is this a trope? Does this reflect
reality in Japan for some reason? Or is it an urban myth?

Does it have anything to do with the strange and strict trash pickup schedule
in Japanese cities? Several anime have touched on this, where certain things
need to be processed a certain way, and will only be picked up on certain
days, and landlords get very fussy about breaking those rules.

I did a few DDG searches, but search has been declining for years, and all I
got was commentary/opinion on how all anime was trash. Searching this stack
exchange also yielded no results.


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2023-07-16T14:20:05.913
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2023-07-17T10:18:12.560
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tropes
What and why is there a trope about apartments being full of trash?


It's a real thing called
[汚部屋](https://www.google.com/search?q=%E6%B1%9A%E9%83%A8%E5%B1%8B&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8)
( _obeya_ , literally _dirty room_ ). I guess the reason it appears in anime
is that it is mildly associated with _hikikomori_ (those who never go out of
their room), which is again mildly associated with _otaku_.

The following contains a list of related anime characters:

  * [汚部屋](https://dic.pixiv.net/a/%E6%B1%9A%E9%83%A8%E5%B1%8B#h3_1)


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