The Writing of Masculine Anime Romance

Comments · 4.1K

• SU

  @superdude10000 · 2 years ago (edited) · pinned

  Okay okay okay, new pinned comment. There are so many (what I have to assume are) men in the comments picking fights, so let me say something in some small attempt at quelling your rage. <br><br>Did I say that the shift in romcoms to the male perspective was bad? No I did not. I noted this shift in the anime I was watching and wanted to talk about their shift in writing techniques. Theres a decent chance given my 2000s shojo upbringing that I have an implicit bias here, which I&apos;m sorry for. But I did not intend to frame this shift as negative. It just is a thing that happened. I dont even really have any negative feelings about kaguya or Komi, so saying I &quot;hate this&quot; is just wrong. <br><br>Did I say that fanservice was bad? Not exactly. Fan service is fine, and I even said if you like it, I have nothing against you. It just ain&apos;t to my taste, and alsoooo I think its gross when fanservice is directed at minors, and I would like if that WASNT the case. There are plenty of fanservicey anime and even straight up ecchi that are great, EVEN WITHIN my more critical lens of it, such as Kill la Kill. <br><br>I am not attacking you? And I am not even trying to say this thing is bad. Calm down.<br><br>EDIT: To those saying I&apos;m being negative because I referred to it as a gentrification... oops. That is my bad, fr. I thought the term was more neutral, whereas pretty much everyone in the comments tells me it&apos;s very negative. That&apos;s why the title was changed as well, sooooo oops. You&apos;re valid on that point.

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• ZA

  @zappafranklin40 · 2 years ago

  Whatever you do do not watch Rent-a-girlfriend

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• PA

  @patterofheads256 · 2 years ago

  &quot;Remember kids there&apos;s nothing romantic about sexual coercion&quot;<br><b>stares awkwardly at &quot;50 Shades&quot; still being the most sold book in the US.</b>

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• J1

  @J1994M · 2 years ago

  It’s interesting that you find Kaguya-Sama: Love is War to have a POV that’s tilted towards Kaguya, because I’ve always read it as being the opposite: Miyuki and Kaguya are on ALMOST equal footing, but the narrative places slightly more emphasis on Miyuki’s POV. Yes, her name is in the title, but it has the honorific “sama” attached. That means we’re seeing her name as Miyuki sees it, and, therefore, we see HER as Miyuki does too: as above him/us, as (to be slightly regressive/reductive) the goal to be obtained. We follow Miyuki on “side quests” (his various lessons with Fujiwara to get better at volleyball/singing/rap) that Kaguya is not privy to. And, yes, the audience will occasionally see things that Miyuki doesn’t see involving Kaguya, but it always seemed to me like his was the arch that the narrative gave slightly more weight to.

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• KN

  @KnownAsSys · 2 years ago (edited)

  &quot;Guys and girls are made of the same shit. Just be normal dammit!&quot; Describes exactly how I feel like 99% of the time as an autistic guy.

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• GO

  @God_is_a_High_School_Girl · 2 years ago

  The explanation I heard that made the most sense for why so much anime is focused on high schoolers is timing. In Japan, high school is the one period in life where you are both old enough to be making autonomous life choices (like going to the beach or fighting giant robots) and young enough to do activities outside of working in an office 18 hours a day 7 days a week. Thus high school becomes the most nostalgic period in a person&apos;s life, the last time they were free to be themselves.

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• IO

  @Iore-fi · 2 years ago

  Fan service exhausts me. It alienates me from so much of the anime fandom that insists there&apos;s little to nothing inherently wrong with it. Thanks for being open and straightforward about your take, it&apos;s encouraging to feel seen.

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• JA

  @jansebek5971 · 2 years ago

  Another thing to why is rom-com more boy-oriented is that girls are more okay with watching &quot;boy stuff&quot; than boys are okay with watching &quot;girl stuff&quot; (at least I do beleive through my expirience and observation).<br>And not just with epical entertainment. It is said that it is easier for girls to get a stereotypicaly boy profession than the other way around.<br>Even when I hear guys talking about &quot;girl stuff&quot; they enjoy, I hear them talking about it either like: &quot;It&apos;s fire man!&quot; or if not this hyped then in a more grounded way like: &quot;It is truly a great show.&quot; Where as for girls, they are action hyped when talking about action shonen and talking all cute hyped when talking about cute romance shoujo.<br>And so I beleive that this is also a reason why there are more boy-oriented rom-coms. Because it catches more viewers than a girl-oriented one.

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• YA

  @yanrezu3029 · 2 years ago

  Regarding Marin &quot;flip-flopping&quot; between being overtly sexual/flirty and then getting embarrassed, I think it&apos;s pretty realistic. When I was a teenager and hadn&apos;t experienced any kind of love or sex, I was very flirty and sexual around everyone but when someone actually flirted back or a partner made an actual move, everything would shut off and I&apos;d be flustered as all hell. Not sure what the psychology behind it is, but at the very least, I can relate to that

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• BA

  @BasementMinions · 2 years ago

  It&apos;s been exhausting not really seeing any high quality anime target at women for so many years. As you said those stories can&apos;t rely on flashy animation so they make it on great character writing which I love. This season there&apos;s a few good ones but up until now it&apos;s been cheep reverse harems or the occasional teenager pines after immortal older man. Finally a solid one this season with &quot;7th Time Loop: The Villainess Enjoys a Carefree Life Married to Her Worst Enemy!&quot; Here&apos;s hoping it stays good. :)

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• AL

  @Almaskarell · 2 years ago

  One of the reasons, IMO, why so many non-fantasy anime stories are set in school is bcause it is the easiest storytelling way to bring a group of random/different people together.<br>In school, you get to interact with the same people every day, while still having enough free time to pursue hobbies or socialize outside school. It doesn&apos;t matter what hobbies or ambitions characters have, they would still be in the same class.<br>Sure, college romance exist, but college is when you&apos;re passions and interest start separating you from other people. It&apos;s easier to make an art kid, a cheerleader and a class president part of the same social group because they&apos;re in the same class, it&apos;s much harder to justify why a professional athlete, an aspiring mangaka and a business degree student would go to the same college, have similar timetable or hang out in the same social circle. Not impossible, but much harder. <br>Besides, not everyone goes to college. Everybody goes to school at som point.<br>And it gets even harder when you take full-grown, working adults. Office romance exists, and adult romance can be done really well, but most of the time you&apos;re much more limited in your roster of characters, as people who work in the same field are likely to have similar interests and ambitions. And romance itself becomes more pragmatic - there&apos;s no time to just enjoy being in love anymore, this is the time people start thinking more seriously about the future and starting a family.<br><br>TLDR: While it&apos;s not impossible to set the romance in more adult environments, school setting makes it easiest to justify why characters with diffrent passions, backgrounds and dreams would be in the same group, and help keep the romance more light-hearted.

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• KI

  @kitchen_gremlin · 2 years ago

  Sdude: &quot;Kaguya and Miyuki are both very dense characters&quot;<br>Me: &quot;Oh yeah, that&apos;s I relate to them so much&quot;<br>Friend: &quot;Not that kind of dense, he means actually high density as in complex&quot;<br><br>My dense ass: <br>👁👄👁

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