The Immaturity Of Romance Anime

Isn’t it weird how so many romcoms end on the confession? If we’re lucky,we might even get a *gasp* time skip to show them with a happy family. What is it with the obsession of mangakas with the chase part of romance but borderline disinterest in developing things PAST the confession?

Today, let’s talk about that.

Credit to @Rosel_d on Twitter.

Man, I wish I had a consistent schedule like GMM.

Anyways, back to the topic. Think of all the romcoms you watch, and name three shows that actually have a confession by the halfway point and started the relationship of the two leads for real. Off the top of your head. Go on, I’ll wait.

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Waiting’s over. You probably got one or two off the top of your head, but that third one probably took a bit more spelunking in the old memory caves. This time, I’m gonna help you and myself out by adding this link to MAL of the most popular romance anime. This might be a bit spoilery, and I haven’t seen ALL of the shows on the list, but I HAVE seen the majority. Let’s see how many shows in the top 100 have confessions mid-show instead of the climax. I also asked friends who had watched the shows that I personally haven’t.

Of the 100 shows (I count different seasons as part of the one show), I found that only 17 of them had relationships start before the show got even close to ending.

• Sword Art Online
• Chuunibyou
• Clannad
• Darling in the Franxx
• Spice and Wolf
• Rascal Does Not Dream Of A Really Long Name For An Anime
• Ore Monogatari
• Tsurezure Children
• Kuzu no Honkai
• The World God Only Knows
• Kokoro Connect
• Akagami no Shirayuki-hime
• Lovely Complex
• Nagi no Asukara
• Tsuki ga Kirei
• Bakuman
• Monogatari series

Coincidentally, most of my top 10 favorite romance anime (in bold) are on this list. These shows are are near and dear to my heart for basically showing us what people do the chasing for.

If the romance is only a part of a larger narrative, I usually have no problem with it taking a while to start. There’s more important things going on, so hormones can wait. Fantasy anime such as Konosuba and Fate/Stay Night have their other genres to keep things interesting. In these cases, I don’t mind having the relationship take a while before starting.

However, romance anime have no demons lords to kill, or a holy grails to find and be disappointed by. Sure, there’s a cute gimmick like a club or whatever, but you know the selling point is the romance. How do you artificially lengthen the episodes when just talking should solve every single problem in the show?

Immaturity Of Characters

It’s strange how much focus is put on the pre-relationship part. The prelationship, if you will. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I sorta get why it’s so popular. Conventional though it may be, it is cute to see two people flirting, then getting embarrassed when somebody points that out. It’s the stunning image of youthful romance.

The Japanese seem to have this weird, idealized view of what love should be. It’s really cutesy, fun, but also extremely immature. Granted, the characters are usually young, and being young leaves you open to a lot of drama. It DOES get grating very fast though.

Misunderstandings

BRING OUT THE CHARTS!

Gamers! is both a satire AND victim of this trope. On the one hand, the main relationship ACTUALLY does happen by the midway point; Most of the cast is already paired with their significant other and are loyal. However, the entire crux of the show is being a near parody of the misunderstandings in all romcoms. The mental gymnastics and conveniently inappropriate situations these characters find themselves in make me believe these people got isekai’d to world where misunderstandings are the new normal.

Unfortunately for us, most romcoms play this trope straight. It’s insane how many episodes are dedicated to the same thing over and over again. All because the guy doesn’t get why the girl is upset, and the girl won’t come out and tell the guy why.

Pic unrelated.

It’s a lazy and contrived way to make sure the status quo remains unbroken, and is usually one of the biggest detriments to the romcom genre as a whole. There’s plenty of ways to have a romcom not revolve around melodrama. Either parody it, or don’t have it at all.

Interrupting Confessions

Sometimes, a show thinks it’s funny and gives me hope that it’s gonna be a good show. They do this amazing buildup. The female character strengthens their resolve and goes out with MC to the festival/event/whatever. They have a good time, and are for ALL INTENTS AND PURPOSES, on a date. It’s nearing midnight, and she’s ready for it. This is it, I’m gonna be the main gir-

O

NO!

Bad anime. Go to your room.

For SOME reason, even though they already said the thing, they magically lose all their mettle and say some schmultz like “It’s okay for things to be the way they are” and not say the thing they’ve been getting ready THE WHOLE NIGHT to say.

My god, it’s just three words and three whole syllables. You are an idealized representation of what a Japanese teenager wants in girls, so why is not even ONE of them being straightforward?

And of course, the most useful trope of all for the hack writer-

No, that’s not nearly dense enough.

The Dense MC

There we go.

How any person can be so dense that they are unable to comprehend the attraction of girls towards them, despite said girls quite literally throwing themselves at their feet, is something I will never understand. I’m an idiot that can’t read signals, but even I can see signals like this.

I talk about this species of human in even more depth here.

Conclusion

Thankfully, in more modern times, these tropes have slowly fallen by the wayside. Writers are now realizing that hey, maybe there’s more to romance than people not talking about their feelings. What if we actually made them talk about it normally and not like it’s some taboo subject?

This revelation has caused many modern manga to adapt much stronger female characters. Gotoubun no Hanayome is fantastic harem manga because it does its absolute best to avoid every single harem trope in existence. It goes out of its way to develop its characters and their reasons for liking our MC. So far, it hasn’t once fell into the old trappings of your average harem manga.

Edit: I am a goddamn fool, do not listen to past me, GoToubun is pain

Plenty of manga are also making an effort to make both male and female characters more assertive and confident without the need to make them extroverts. Everybody has their own way of admitting their feelings, and it’s good to see mangakas realize that fact.

Here’s a few romance anime and manga I’ve seen recently that are of note:

• Gotoubun No Hanayome
• Kaguya: Love Is War
• Ijinaraide, Nagatoro-san
• That Girl is Not Just Cute
• Horimiya
• Karakai Jouzo no Takagi-san
• High Score Girl

Thanks for reading, and until next time!