We give Japanese cartoons a hard time for recycling the same episode premises in every show, but if you think about it, not only do North American cartoons do the same thing, our stock episode premises are weird as hell.
Like:
Japanese cartoons have beach episodes.
American cartoons have that episode where the protagonist accidentally creates a whole bunch of duplicates of himself, all of whom later die horribly, with the last one standing giving the protagonist some valuable bit of life advice just before expiring.
Japanese cartoons have tournament episodes.
American cartoons have that episode where the focus character misuses time travel and accidentally erases herself, then goes on a tour of a world where she never existed and discovers that everything is terrible, because apparently her presence was literally the only thing holding back the Apocalypse.
Some Japanese cartoons have that episode where they parody Alice in Wonderland
American cartoons have that incredibly weird trope where something inside of them that shouldn’t be there, so their friends shrink down and go into their body to get it out and inevitably get attacked by the immune system
Also the freaky Friday mindswap for America.
America also has The Competition featuring the Undefeated Champion who, if he has not cheated his way to victory thusfar, will Turn to Cheating in the second or third act to stop the hero from winning The Competition, and is usually a huge trash-talking jerk that Everyone Loves.
Okay but like the American premises are usually just parodies of various movies.
Premise 2 is It’s A Wonderful Life, Premise 3 is Fantastic Voyage, you literally namedropped Freaky Friday, and then Premise 4 is 75% of sports movies.