It may not be a full fledged cliche yet, but I've seen it more than a couple times lately: The unattended smart phone.

Our hero or heroine (or a friend of theirs) leaves his/her smartphone out where anybody can get to it. Then the bad guy, usually a backstabbing co-worker sees it and either doctors some pictures and puts them out on the web, or sends an incriminating e-mail that looks like it was sent by our hero.

So, next time you leave your smartphone around for anybody to see, make sure you delete those pictures of you coming out of the love hotel first.

Edit: While re-watching "Tentai Kanzoku" I discovered this cliche goes back to at least 2002. Manami Konishi picks up Odagiri Joe's phone, starts to read the message, then stops. Hadn't realized it had been around this long.

When the wife/girlfriend is walking down a street, calls husband/boyfriend on her cell but the husband/boyfriend says he's too busy at work, or in a meeting, or some other lame excuse and can't talk right now and hangs up.

After the wife/girlfriend hangs up her phone, she looks across the street and there's the husband/boyfriend walking down the other side of the street with some other woman. Or maybe they're in a taxi going by, or sitting in a restaurant right next to the window.

Lesson to husbands/boyfriends: If you're going to cheat, and go to a restaurant, DON'T get a table next to a window.

Someone gets done giving a speech. Dead silence. Then one person starts clapping. Next thing you know, everyone's applauding like they just heard the Gettysburg Address.

I think I saw this the first time in "Yume no California", but it seems to pop up every so often: Salaryman loses his job but can't bear to tell his family. So, every morning, he puts on his suit and tie, takes his briefcase just like he's going to work and then spends the day in the park feeding pigeons.

Of course, he eventually is found out. Usually by one of his kids.

I dunno when it started, but it seems like now every time a character has an elderly parent, either in a nursing home or not, they have dementia/Alzheimers. Whatever happened to the good old days when people had cancer or heart problems?

Dunno if this qualifies as a cliche. Just finished "10 no Himitsu" and it must have set some kind of record for the most scenes of somebody walking, but they show it in slow motion, you only see their feet, and all you hear are the persons steps.

Edit: Starting watching "Gisou Furin". Sure enough, in episode 2, Yukie walks out of an elevator in slow motion, so I guess it is a cliche. Or maybe its just for Yukie Nakama dramas.