So I've been watching a lot of Rom-com anime shows lately. Some were full of generic Shojou (anime directed at teen girls mostly) tropes and lots had problematic elements, especially the older shows. I've seen quite a few and there were some that I liked more than others and I thought I'd take a minute to explore the shows I really liked as opposed to the shows I thought were just meh and what concepts and characters I liked more than others. So, starting off, I've narrowed the list down to shows that were both centrally focused on romance (eliminating shows such as SAO which had a romance in it without it being the defining element of the show) and shows that I felt were less rom-com and just general romantic drama (such as: Say I love you, Library Wars, Dusk Maiden of Amnesia, Sasaki and Miyano, Horimiya and Given). I've tried to keep it to shows that have one central romance, but included one harem show (The World God only Knows) because I just like the way it was done with that one. I also excluded comedies which had romance but it was less prevalent and not as important to the story (The Disastrous life of Saiki K) and shows I've started but not finished (Quintessential Quintuplets). Finally, keep in mind that some of these shows I watched years ago so I'm relying on my memory for certain details as I have lost access to some.
For shows I really enjoyed one of the common elements is good characters and/or dialog. Many of the shows feature rich casts of side characters whose antics are just as interesting (in some cases more so) as the main romance (Toradora and Kaguya-Sama Love is war are prime examples of this). All of the shows I picked have interesting concepts. Two are about a normie being forced to live amongst a bunch of oddballs (Pet Girl of Sakura Hall and Boku wa Minna Kawai-sou), a few are about learning to love or first love (My Love Story, Over the Moon for You, Love Chuunibyou and Other Delusions, Kaguya-Sama Love is War), and a few are about a couple of social outcasts finding love with each other (My Teen Romantic Comedy Snafu, Love is hard for an Otaku, and Komi can't Communicate). A lot of the ones I chose for my favorites list have the most adorable couples (I'm Being Harassed by the Sexiest man Alive, My Dress up Darling, My Love Story, Over the Moon for You, and Love is hard for an Otaku). The final two on my list both have interesting concepts. The World God only Knows is about a gamer who is so much of a nerd that he prefers 2D girls to actual female company and is the king of in-game conquests, but when he is forcibly recruited to extract demons who have latched onto the heart of various girls he needs to figure out a way to make real girls fall for him too or quite literally lose his head. So I can't Play H is about a reaper who feeds on the perverted energy of the guy she's paired with in order to fight. Toradora bends gender norms having the guy be the one who is domestic and pairing him with a girl who is not only a slob, but can't do much of anything domestic. My Dress up Darling also bends gender norms with the guy being a good cook and knowing how to sew while the girl is less handy with these things.
For the list of shows I liked but wasn't insanely into, most of them have simple characters that fit generic tropes. They are mostly all cute, some are very frustrating because of the long wait for any kind of romantic resolution and the many, many, misunderstandings that crop up along the way. Take, for example Lovely Complex. Most of the characters are pretty generic. Your main duo both have insecurities which cause them to be self-conscious, but everyone else is able to see how great a couple they'd make before either of them do. In Wolf Girl and the Black Prince you have the shared secret trope. In this case, the secret that they share is that the main female character is lying her ass off to fit in with her friend group. Mayo Chiki follows this same formula a little differently, as the main girl of this is cross-dressing and pretending to be a boy and is found out by the main male character. Kamisama Kiss has a pretty unique concept, but the characters are all very generic down to the tsundere male lead. A lot of the shows on this list also have problematic dynamics between the main duo (such as the petty violence in My Pet Monster, the Black Prince's sadistic side, or the joke treatment of a trans girl in Lovely Complex and the vast age difference in Kamisama Kiss). Some of them have male leads that are beyond clueless and therefore extremely frustrating (Monthly Girls Nozaki-kun and Lovely Complex) where even when the female lead directly confesses attraction the male lead misunderstands. The only one on this list that has somewhat interesting characters is I can't understand What my Husband is Saying, but because that show is just very short (three min an episode) I wasn't able to get enough of the characters to really fall in love with it.
So I guess the elements that make a rom-com good in my mind are: a rich cast of characters, an adorable couple that may or may not break gender norms, comedy that isn't a bunch of silly tropes and doesn't make fun of trans people, rich and engaging dialogue, and a unique story line that pulls me in.
*Edit, despite my combing of MAL to find all the shows I've seen in the past so that I included most, if not all the shows I truly enjoyed from the bottom of my heart, it seems that I left out one of the best. I was reminded of this by a Facebook post from Crunchyroll alerting me to the fact that this show has a second season. The show is called Science Fell in Love so I tried to Prove it! and both the comedy and the romance is everything I could ever wish from a rom-com. It is, along with Love is Hard for an Otaku, one of my personal favorites because the cast are all adults (which makes me feel less guilty thinking about them in compromising situations) and it doesn't really have a lot of problematic elements played off for comedic effect either.
No comments:
Post a Comment