

User /u/JekoJeko5 has recently posted on /r/anime [his observation that the
term "forced drama" is almost exclusively used in discussions of
anime](https://www.reddit.com/r/anime/comments/3grik3/til_anime_fans_are_the_only_people_who_use_the/).
It is difficult to give a concrete description of what "forced drama" is, but
many users in the linked thread have offered their opinions on the matter. The
one that seems most "correct" (or at least, most pithy) to me is [this one by
/u/OverKillv7](https://www.reddit.com/r/anime/comments/3grik3/til_anime_fans_are_the_only_people_who_use_the/cu0weci):

> Forced drama is every idolmaster-like show that has the stupid sprain-the-
> ankle-before-the-big-show thing... every time for no reason other than they
> need something to happen.

In retrospect (now that the topic has been brought up), I do notice that the
term really isn't used in non-anime circles. I find it interesting that the
English-speaking anime community has developed this term, presumably to
describe a particular kind of frustrating storytelling that is common in
anime.

What I would like to know is this: **how did the term originate and gain
cachet in discussions of anime?** (Basically, I'm looking for something
analogous to my earlier answers about
["waifu"](https://anime.stackexchange.com/a/4756/) and ["best
girl"](https://anime.stackexchange.com/a/19736/).)

As with many internet neologisms, I suspect this one originated on 4chan,
though I'm not sure whether we can pin this on /a/ specifically. Snowclones of
the term are reasonably popular on 4chan; for example, "forced fun" on /v/ and
"forced animation" on /a/ (both of these examples are mostly used
parodically). The /a/ archiver returns [results going all the way back to
February
2008](https://archive.moe/a/search/text/%22forced%20drama%22/order/asc/), when
archival began, which gives us an upper bound on how late the term could have
been coined. I'm not sure how to proceed for getting to the root of "forced
drama", though - and that's where you come in, dear answerers.


CC BY-SA 3.0
2015-08-13T05:04:25.197
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2015-08-28T20:31:25.887
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question
terminology
On the origins of the term "forced drama" as it is used in discourse about anime


Unfortunately, my research skills weren't up to the task of finding out how
the term "forced drama" first appeared in the anime fandom, so all I can is
speculate. I hope that someone else can contribute an answer which sheds more
light on that particular aspect of the question. However, I did find some
interesting information on the origins of the term, which can be found long
ago and outside of anime. It seems that this phrase was actually in use among
film, theater, and art critics before anime or 4chan, although it wasn't
particularly common.

Here's a screenshot of Google N-Gram viewer for the phrase "forced drama":

[![Google NGram
viewer](https://i.stack.imgur.com/NJVg5.png)](https://i.stack.imgur.com/NJVg5.png)

We can see that the first appearances of the phrase are shortly after 1900.
One of the earliest I found was a theater review of the play "Dr. Wakes'
Patient" from a 1905 issue of [Illustrated London
News](https://books.google.com/books?id=gV84AQAAMAAJ&dq=%22forced%20drama%22&pg=PA455#v=onepage&q=%22forced%20drama%22&f=false):

> The real play, it must be admitted, only begins at almost the close of the
> third of its four acts, when the old farmer rounds (in true Adelphi fashion)
> on the scornful peer who is horrified by his "common"-ness. But then come
> tears and affecting if rather forced drama [...]

As in the [classical music
book](https://books.google.com/books?id=p27gT7VcuNUC&lpg=PA75&ots=ySnWVJ8uAW&dq=%22forced%20drama%22%20-anime%20-manga&pg=PA75#v=onepage&q=%22forced%20drama%22%20-anime%20-manga&f=false)
from 2003, this usage seems to be just a nonce coinage, not a discrete lexical
item like the question describes.

I dove into the results from the years 1926-1952, but most of those usages,
again, seemed to mean something slightly different from what the OP describes.
Many of them seemed to refer to uses of color (in art) or pageantry and
costume (on the stage) that the writer found overblown or unnecessary. E.g.
[this Art Magazine issue from
1947](https://books.google.com/books?id=aX_rAAAAMAAJ&q=%22forced+drama%22&dq=%22forced+drama%22&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0CDMQ6AEwBWoVChMIp7SriYenxwIVAhoeCh3HpguL).

However, the years 1954-1997 proved more fruitful. Italian director Vittorio
de Sica seems to use the phrase with more or less the same meaning as that
understood by anime fans. In an interview, De Sica and the interviewer are
discussing his film _Two Women_ , which was based on a novel that the
interviewer seems to feel de Sica may have adapted too faithfully:

> S [the interviewer]: Don't you find it [the novel _Two Women_ was based on]
> melodramatic? Can you believe that the young girl, after being raped, would
> turn so quickly to sexual license?
>
> DS [de Sica]: That's the way it is in the novel.
>
> S: It seems opposite to the kind of truth I find in _The Children are
> Watching Us_ and _Umberto_.
>
> DS: Yes, it is **forced drama**

This interview was published in 1972 in the book [_Encountering
Directors_](https://books.google.com/books?id=Cn9ZAAAAMAAJ&q=%22forced+drama%22&dq=%22forced+drama%22&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0CDEQ6AEwBGoVChMI7d_8uY2nxwIVgpseCh1TawfJ).
You can read more of the interview in the 2000 anthology [_Vittorio de Sica:
Contemporary
Perspectives_](https://books.google.com/books?id=gj2qbAsmHK4C&pg=PA43&dq=%22forced+drama%22&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0CB4Q6AEwAGoVChMIzOz6-IenxwIVAhoeCh3HpguL#v=onepage&q=%22forced%20drama%22&f=false),
where it is included as the first chapter, _De Sica on de Sica_.

In [Two Women (novel)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two_Women_%28novel%29) on
Wikipedia, the girl that de Sica and the interviewer are discussing, Rosetta,
is described as "a naive teenager of beauty and devout faith." However, during
the novel:

> On their way home, the pair [mother Cesira and daughter Rosetta, returning
> to Rome after it is taken by Allied forces during World War II] are attacked
> and Rosetta brutally raped by a group of Goumiers (Moroccan allied soldiers
> serving in the French Army). This act of violence so embitters Rosetta that
> she falls numbly into a life of prostitution.

De Sica and the interviewer find this event unrealistic. They have a hard time
believing that a "teenager of beauty and devout faith" would immediately
become a prostitute upon being brutally raped, and imply that this only
happened because the writers wanted to make the situation more dramatic. This
appears to be nearly the exact meaning that the anime fandom generally assigns
to the term: an event is "forced drama" if it is improbable or feels contrived
with the sole purpose of creating drama that would not arise naturally from
the situation.

The 1986 fiction book _Hollywood Heroes_ [also seems to use this
phrase](https://books.google.com/books?id=Qb_zeGvLfowC&q=%22forced+drama%22&dq=%22forced+drama%22&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0CDoQ6AEwBmoVChMIyvD8voinxwIVSSseCh2MQg-s)
in the same way as anime fans:

> "Yeah, you know, soap operas aren't what they used to be. I mean, they used
> to be a joke. **Forced drama** and organ music. [...]"

The stereotypical image of soap operas in the US is also in keeping with the
anime fandom's usage of "forced drama"; conniving ex-girlfriends and evil twin
brothers are constantly coming out of the woodwork to throw a wrench in the
heroes' and heroines' plans at happiness.

In my initial searches, I found several uses of "forced drama" in modern film,
television, and theater reviews, including [this review of the film
_Confessions of a Teenage Drama
Queen_](http://www.boston.com/ae/movies/articles/2004/02/20/forced_drama_hurts_insincere_confessions/)
and [this review of the film _A Little
Help_](http://www.sfgate.com/movies/article/A-Little-Help-review-Fine-star-
but-forced-drama-2352875.php). Both of these articles use the term in ways
that seem consistent with Vittorio de Sica's usage, which I have argued is
very closely related with the usage in the anime fandom.

My own research did, however, suggest that the term is much more common in
discussions of anime than in discussions of other types of media, as presented
in the question. I have only speculations for why this is. "Forced drama",
across all the usages I've found, is a broad, subjective term which
consistently describes dramatic events which are implausible and written
without subtlety. Anime, by its very nature, does not lend much plausibility
to the events which occur. Though there are anime which are subtly written,
the norm for anime writing, especially in the genres most commonly seen in
Western countries, is not subtlety.

Since there are many anime containing events which could be reasonably
described as implausible and unsubtle, it makes sense that a term describing
such events would become common among anime fans. However, as I mentioned at
the outset, I wasn't able to find out exactly when the term entered the anime
fandom, and I have no proof to support my hypotheses about how it gained
popularity. I hope that another answer can fill in these gaps.


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answer