Jemini
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So, as the title suggests. We have all heard the concept of a "genre breakdown" which was a term that became very popularized in 2012 when Madoka Magica hit the shores of the US under it's English translation and Re:Zero and Kono-Suba were coming out in Japan. It became a new genre descriptor that suddenly EVERYONE wanted to be as some of the most popular titles of the first part of the decade were of the genre-breakdown variety.
Later on, earlier titles such as Neon Genesis Evangelion were added to the list of genre breakdown titles in much the same way that Alice in Wonderland was later added to the list of Isekai after that genre got it's solid footing under it. Honestly, it fits the definition of the genre completely. The only reason it wasn't considered one at the time is because the genre had not yet been well established.
Despite being such a highly used term in common parlance nearly a decade ago, this concept is not very well defined. (At the very least, I could not find any examples of dictionary definitions when I tried to search it. I couldn't even find it on wikipedia, not even by page searching the term in the wiki pages for the series that are considered breakdowns for their own genre.) However, the common use of the term when people talk about it usually has a few standard points to it.
1. It questions common tropes in the genre.
2. It takes those tropes and tries to apply a higher degree of realism to them than you usually see from most other examples of the genre.
3. By questioning these tropes, it causes the audience and other creators to suddenly see the entire genre in a whole new light, and a good genre breakdown will often force the entire genre to evolve in order to take the things a genre breakdown exposed into better consideration in future works.
Examples I can think of for genre breakdowns are as follows.
Magical girl genre
Card Captor Sakura: Questions the magical girl transformation trope and evil ruler in the shadows trope by simply getting rid of them and replacing them with things that make a little more sense. Instead of magical girl transformations, Sakura has a friend who's dad owns a costume shop and she keeps bringing costumes for her to change into. This is not done with a transformation, she just goes to a dressing room. The costume is, for the most part, different every episode. As for the evil ruler that is usually the source of all the monsters, instead we just have someone lost their magically imbuned cards and they have to be collected.
Princess Tutu: Barely qualifies as a genre breakdown, but sort of draws attention to and questions the trope of heavily involving the concept of emotions as the thing being targeted by the "evil" of the world. This is done by making the entire plot all about emotions. The objective is to recover the emotions of the main male love interest of the story. Meanwhile, it also questions the concept of the usually vague origin of the magical girl by instead basing the MC magical girl on Odette from Swan lake, and somehow at the same time making her tragically a side character in the greater drama unfolding which constantly becomes worse the more she tries to help. This is also the first inkling of the dark turn the magical girl genre was about to take with the next entry.
Puella Magi Madoka Magica: This is the famous one that made a HUGE splash and actually made the magical girl genre really edgy and cool somehow. It questions the entire plot of the standard magical girl genre starting with the little animal friend who gives the girls their powers, and adding several twists so hard that it would be major spoilers to explain much further. I will just say though that this 12 episode series gets DARK.
Mecha
Neon Genesis Evangelion: Questions the trope of having teenagers always being the pilots of the mechs and saving the day by way of 1. Coming up with an explanation of why it has to be teens to be the pilots. 2. Having the teens actually act like teens and not take well to all the fighting and killing, and otherwise just not liking the whole experience of being a mech pilot, and 3. Taking a glancing look at the abusive nature of having child soldiers, which is exactly what's going on here.
(Unfortunately, I am not familiar enough with the Mecha genre to really contribute much more to this list.)
Isekai
Re:Zero: Questions the concept of the OP protagonist by making the protagonist's one and only OP ability be that he can return to a pre-designated "save point" any time he dies. Other than this, he's no more capable than a common villager. It also questions the whole concept of the saintly bland protagonist character by instead making the MC a really dirty-minded and very selfish and childish person who does not take life seriously enough. Overall, he actually acts a lot like how you might imagine a real person would really act if suddenly thrust into a fantasy world like this. Of course, given the ability to revive after death, this series also becomes rather dark and tortures the MC quite a bit.
Kono-Suba: Also questions the same things as the above entry, but in different ways. In this case, the only high stat the MC has is his luck stat, and other than that he just goes about with one of the very most dysfunctional parties ever to exist. Really, the only reason these people don't just die is because this series takes a more comedic approach to the genre. It questions these tropes by lampooning them and making fun of the very concept of the usual isekai plot.
That was all rather low-hanging fruit and probably the series most people already knew about. Would love to see some other examples that all of you may push forward.
Later on, earlier titles such as Neon Genesis Evangelion were added to the list of genre breakdown titles in much the same way that Alice in Wonderland was later added to the list of Isekai after that genre got it's solid footing under it. Honestly, it fits the definition of the genre completely. The only reason it wasn't considered one at the time is because the genre had not yet been well established.
Despite being such a highly used term in common parlance nearly a decade ago, this concept is not very well defined. (At the very least, I could not find any examples of dictionary definitions when I tried to search it. I couldn't even find it on wikipedia, not even by page searching the term in the wiki pages for the series that are considered breakdowns for their own genre.) However, the common use of the term when people talk about it usually has a few standard points to it.
1. It questions common tropes in the genre.
2. It takes those tropes and tries to apply a higher degree of realism to them than you usually see from most other examples of the genre.
3. By questioning these tropes, it causes the audience and other creators to suddenly see the entire genre in a whole new light, and a good genre breakdown will often force the entire genre to evolve in order to take the things a genre breakdown exposed into better consideration in future works.
Examples I can think of for genre breakdowns are as follows.
Magical girl genre
Card Captor Sakura: Questions the magical girl transformation trope and evil ruler in the shadows trope by simply getting rid of them and replacing them with things that make a little more sense. Instead of magical girl transformations, Sakura has a friend who's dad owns a costume shop and she keeps bringing costumes for her to change into. This is not done with a transformation, she just goes to a dressing room. The costume is, for the most part, different every episode. As for the evil ruler that is usually the source of all the monsters, instead we just have someone lost their magically imbuned cards and they have to be collected.
Princess Tutu: Barely qualifies as a genre breakdown, but sort of draws attention to and questions the trope of heavily involving the concept of emotions as the thing being targeted by the "evil" of the world. This is done by making the entire plot all about emotions. The objective is to recover the emotions of the main male love interest of the story. Meanwhile, it also questions the concept of the usually vague origin of the magical girl by instead basing the MC magical girl on Odette from Swan lake, and somehow at the same time making her tragically a side character in the greater drama unfolding which constantly becomes worse the more she tries to help. This is also the first inkling of the dark turn the magical girl genre was about to take with the next entry.
Puella Magi Madoka Magica: This is the famous one that made a HUGE splash and actually made the magical girl genre really edgy and cool somehow. It questions the entire plot of the standard magical girl genre starting with the little animal friend who gives the girls their powers, and adding several twists so hard that it would be major spoilers to explain much further. I will just say though that this 12 episode series gets DARK.
Mecha
Neon Genesis Evangelion: Questions the trope of having teenagers always being the pilots of the mechs and saving the day by way of 1. Coming up with an explanation of why it has to be teens to be the pilots. 2. Having the teens actually act like teens and not take well to all the fighting and killing, and otherwise just not liking the whole experience of being a mech pilot, and 3. Taking a glancing look at the abusive nature of having child soldiers, which is exactly what's going on here.
(Unfortunately, I am not familiar enough with the Mecha genre to really contribute much more to this list.)
Isekai
Re:Zero: Questions the concept of the OP protagonist by making the protagonist's one and only OP ability be that he can return to a pre-designated "save point" any time he dies. Other than this, he's no more capable than a common villager. It also questions the whole concept of the saintly bland protagonist character by instead making the MC a really dirty-minded and very selfish and childish person who does not take life seriously enough. Overall, he actually acts a lot like how you might imagine a real person would really act if suddenly thrust into a fantasy world like this. Of course, given the ability to revive after death, this series also becomes rather dark and tortures the MC quite a bit.
Kono-Suba: Also questions the same things as the above entry, but in different ways. In this case, the only high stat the MC has is his luck stat, and other than that he just goes about with one of the very most dysfunctional parties ever to exist. Really, the only reason these people don't just die is because this series takes a more comedic approach to the genre. It questions these tropes by lampooning them and making fun of the very concept of the usual isekai plot.
That was all rather low-hanging fruit and probably the series most people already knew about. Would love to see some other examples that all of you may push forward.
