I've taken the habit of skimming over everything else and putting extra attention on bio and appearance because I tend to work with a lot of people who are new to roleplaying, so they think one thing is OK when it most definitely is not. Such as the "OMGOD 2tragic4u" backstory and the "I'm such an anime character I bleed instant ramen and japanese honorifics" appearance. I also try to look for details in my own applications to see if people can tell that I've got my own seperate universe for this character, mostly because I know having a random power or idea in a character that doesn't fit the setting disturbs the immersion.

Whilst I generally have no trouble with the japanification of characters, it all depends on the setting. If you're roleplaying some sort of dark fantasy set in a distant time-frame where all things revolve around war, and everyone's brittish, you can't just have Mr. Hiroshi Kiyo walk about cooking ramen for all the buff super amazing brits around him.

I've taken the habit of skimming over everything else and putting extra attention on bio and appearance because I tend to work with a lot of people who are new to roleplaying, so they think one thing is OK when it most definitely is not. Such as the "OMGOD 2tragic4u" backstory and the "I'm such an anime character I bleed instant ramen and japanese honorifics" appearance. I also try to look for details in my own applications to see if people can tell that I've got my own seperate universe for this character, mostly because I know having a random power or idea in a character that doesn't fit the setting disturbs the immersion.

Ah, that Anime curse, where the demographics of every school in America is roughly fifty percent Japanese.

I've taken the habit of skimming over everything else and putting extra attention on bio and appearance because I tend to work with a lot of people who are new to roleplaying, so they think one thing is OK when it most definitely is not. Such as the "OMGOD 2tragic4u" backstory and the "I'm such an anime character I bleed instant ramen and japanese honorifics" appearance. I also try to look for details in my own applications to see if people can tell that I've got my own seperate universe for this character, mostly because I know having a random power or idea in a character that doesn't fit the setting disturbs the immersion.

Yeah, that was my first ever character to a tee.

Mr. “Parents get murdered by yakuza and he kills all of them using only the katana that his dad made”

And so the GM replied to me with a single word, “approved”

I should really put more faith in my writing skills.

I hold my players to a certain standard. Tearing people new assholes isn't part of that. It's completely the prerogative of a GM to dictate what s/he wants for their RP, but being a tosser about it isn't. If someone doesn't meet the standards a GM sets out they should approach that person and attempt to constructively discuss it. Some people want to assure themselves of a certain quality of writing. Some put frequent posting ahead of quality and some demand a mix of both.

Tl;dr GMs have every right to impose standards but really should be nice about it.