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. 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'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 "hate this" is just wrong. 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'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. I am not attacking you? And I am not even trying to say this thing is bad. Calm down. EDIT: To those saying I'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's very negative. That's why the title was changed as well, sooooo oops. You're valid on that point.
You didn't come off as negative at all. Your just talking about something that you love and are close with, things always change especially media. It's very telling when ppl put words in your mouth like some of these commenters have. They need to stop and think about why they are reacting so emotionally to this, and why it causes them to become so frustrated. Sadly, I've been an on and off anime fan for a bit longer then you ( mostly Horror, thriller, adventure ) and the amount of aggression and misplaced anger among fans has skyrocketed. It really speaks to the emotional maturity of the average anime fan now.
@@Veilure Fanservice is what makes anime stand out. While so many western franchises spit on their fanbase, anime doubles down on their consumer base and finds ways to appeal to them without limiting themselves by petty moral panics because this is fiction.
@@bunnyshade6112 This reaction comes from how much western consumers are trying to make anime change into a politically correct mess, specially with the scandals of terrible translations at the hands of localizers who look down on the source material and anime fans as a whole, or the amount of content creators making political discourses around anime as justification for censorship... Specially when it comes to fanservice, or anime exploring taboo elements in a way that the West would never dare today. Considering that many anime fans used to love western franchises that were ruined today like Star Wars and Lord of the Rings, it makes perfect sense to take things personally and get defensive over anime... It's the last piece of nerdy media that still hasn't joined the trend of sanitized narratives, and that serves as an escapism from the current state of society for many lonely and disenfranchised young men.
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's life, the last time they were free to be themselves.
@@fearedjames Does the west love college settings? I can barely think of 3 mainstream college-set western shows/movies, but I could list a hundred high school settings.
@@basketman2517 It's been changing over time, since college is increasingly becoming unaffordable, but in the 90s, college was as frequently the setting for coming-of-age stories as were any of the compulsory education years. Also, the high school settings in western stories tend to depict people who act 5, and look anywhere from 5 to 15, years older than they actually are, mostly because animation is way less popular in the west and so the actors, who are all basically by necessity older than their characters, never fit right. And western animation about high school usually gets the appearances right (not always, though; comics and their adaptations usually give the characters the proportions of fully grown adults) but the mental ages are all over the place. This wasn't a problem for western stories about college students, though, since they're all technically adults, and in fact, stories about sexual encounters and stuff weren't perceived as being in poor taste if the characters were all college-aged. Just some food for thought.
@@fearedjames That's because they just treat college like "high school plus" going all the way back to Animal House, Porky's and Revenge of the Nerds. College was barely a thing and it was more so just adults doing crazy mess since they didn't have jobs yet.
this comment sec is filled up with ppl who think a lot but have no weight whatsoever and hating on fan service or ecchi is just crazi to me like bruh there's no difference between ppl who likes shoujo you are just as horny for emotions like others are for skin..... stop being delulu that you somehow are better lol
@@Typhonnyx that’s the funny thing to me man ngl. I feel like the only people who have the right to say cringey loser fantasy stuff is bad in normal presentable media should be the ones who don’t look for ANY fantasy in their normal intake of media. Including fantasies of other kinds. I always find it silly when someone says male loser fan service is bad…and then they intake female loser fan service or some other kind. And tbh I don’t see why so many people push for fantasy material in normal media like regular shows so much when acc literal pornographic stuff exists for whatever they want or other sites for non sexual fixes.
so heres the funny thing about sexual coersion, at least in anime catered to women: its about suppressed sexuality. Sometimes the assailant will be a character the audience is supposed to be repulsed by, but what I'm talking about is when its by a love interest. The general theory I've heard tossed around is that culturally, women are taught to suppress their sexuality, you know, purity culture and virginity, blah blah blah. The female body is sexualized all the time, but male bodies are not. It's not taken seriously, it's almost a joke, the idea that someone could be attracted to the male body. So, to a female audience that doesn't have a lot of experience with their sexuality, its intimidating to openly express /pursue that carnal desire. (this isn't even mentioning the madonna/whore complex) Sexual coersion is how you get around this. By taking away the autonomy of the audience stand-in, you take away the guilt for pursuing this desire. And now I'm realizing that none of this has to do with romance.
@read4039 "And now I'm realizing that none of this has to do with romance." Doesn't it though? Even wanting to date at all is a sign that you're a loose woman in a super repressed society. Cause obviously you shouldn't even think about dating until you're an adult and ready to get married. /s It's also an excuse to have romance with "bad boy" characters. Guys who are exciting. Obviously a pure innocent girl can't date a guy who gasp, _skips school!_ Or _goes to parties!_ Or is willing to *sleep with girls before marriage!* Buuuut, if he's not taking No for an answer.... She doesn't have to feel bad, it's not her fault.
@@freshbread4039 There's a reason this is practically universal around the world. Lets look at a tribal women, the scene for most of human evolution. Women have a 9 month gestation period followed by years of childcare, they need to be extremely picky who they get impregnated by. If the guy is disloyal, violent towards you or the child, has genetic disorders, refuses to provide or take care of you while pregnant, etc. You're screwed. That's thousands of years of evolution telling women to be extremely critical of whom she sleeps with. Men on the other hand don't have a gestation period. They can impregnate a new woman every 30 minutes or so. It's a quality versus quantity issue. For men, quantity is the best way to make their mark on evolution, for women it's quality. I'm not saying women should wait for marriage or anything, we have contraception now. It's human nature adapting to a new reality, not a conspiracy to suppress women's sexuality.
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.
interestingly, to me, Kaguya's little excursions to help Ishigami always kind of felt like they were a foil to Miyuki and Chika's arrangement. in both cases, you'd never guess at the extent to which the two know each other... but Chika and Miyuki are both overachievers. and whenever Miyuki has a gap that he's struggling to fill in with sheer hard work, Chika finds it excruciating. as someone who is proficient in many of these areas, it pains her to see how bad Miyuki is, and letting him stay that way is like an itch she can't scratch. and as if that isn't enough, she also empathizes too hard to let him fail, even if it's a huge hassle for her. she's a hard worker too, and she'll also put in the effort if it gets her the result she wants. on the flip side, Ishigami and Kaguya both know what it's like to have their reputation dictate the conditions of their lives... but in kind of opposite ways. Ishigami is recovering from having a really poor reputation, while Kaguya is suffering under the strain of maintaining a good reputation. and both of them worry that their respective behavior leaves them cut off from other people, especially "normies" who they might actually want to get to know better. when Kaguya sees Ishigami languishing the way he does, it's like she sees him more clear than most people would. this is the exact sort of thing that she would be devastated about if it happened to her. she can't stand to see him stay that way. but I also think that Kaguya's POV gets boosted by little things like the council of Kaguyas that we see inside her head sometimes, or her various talks with Hayasaka. Miyuki has talks with Ishigami, and eventually Maki... but they're much more like casual friend talks, where Hayasaka is as close as a sister to Kaguya, and their conversations go a lot deeper and more introspective. it's also interesting that, in Hayasaka, Kaguya has someone who fully knows about her crush on Miyuki. she can talk to Hayasaka, and bounce ideas off her to get a different perspective, whereas Miyuki does most of his thinking about Kaguya on his own. even so, I think some of this is splitting hairs a little. in general, I'm just glad that the series splits it's time so close to evenly, that it's hard to tell who gets the most focus. and especially because Kaguya and Miyuki themselves have such equal and opposite issues. both suffer under the expectations of wealthy elitism, but Kaguya was born into it, and Miyuki had to work his way into it. they both have to maintain their position, but for Kaguya this means never setting a foot out of line, and for Miyuki it means maintaining a crazy level of work ethic. their anxieties make perfect sense, and these very things are what cause the blockage that keeps them from entering a relationship. Kaguya feels the isolating pressure of maintaining perfection, while Miyuki does the exhausting work of attaining perfection. their struggle, as teens who feel trapped in that demand, is to realize that neither one has to be perfect in order to have each other's admiration or affection... vulnerability is the most important ingredient in love.
I realized watching this that in the Komi-san manga, the POV seems to shift as the narrative goes on. At the start we pretty much exclusively follow Tadano. Yet in the later stages of the narrative we get some more scenes following Komi, and get told her inner thoughts without Tadano translation. We even see Tadano outright through her eyes at a couple points, really strongly shifting the embodiment to her.
well on the title, it IS "kaguya-sama wants to be confessed to" so clearly not miyuki pov but an omniscient narrator's. i do agree with the slight, unintentional focus on miyuki's pov in the actual animanga, which doesn't come as a surprise at all considering the author is (and with a certain level of offense: very obviously) a man
@@buchelaruzit To me it felt like the opposite,The show clearly shows more of kaguya's pov. I think that Kaguya's POV gets boosted by little things like the council of Kaguyas that we see inside her head sometimes, or her various talks with Hayasaka. Miyuki has talks with Ishigami, and eventually Maki... but they're much more like casual friend talks, where Hayasaka is as close as a sister to Kaguya, and their conversations go a lot deeper and more introspective. it's also interesting that, in Hayasaka, Kaguya has someone who fully knows about her crush on Miyuki. she can talk to Hayasaka, and bounce ideas off her to get a different perspective, whereas Miyuki does most of his thinking about Kaguya on his own. You seem to be biased if you cant see the fact that the show focuses more on kaguya,if not you can at the very least say that its pretty much 50/50
@@ShouryaRathore I do agree with you actually. And I failed to say it in my comment but I do think kaguya is the “real” protagonist, even if it’s simultaneously a double protagonists story. And such the story does have a preference for her pov. But at the same time, as contradictory as it may sound, it does feel to me sometimes like the show “focuses” more on miyuki. “focus” isn’t the perfect word but i hope you know what I mean, which is like I said in my original comment, that it feels like the writer simply subconsciously identifying with the male protagonist more. I have to say that kaguya-sama, despite its problems, is strongly on the “great” side for having good female characters with actual agency and who are written like people, with bought put into their psychology etc, but I still get the impression this natural tendency towards mizuki’s pov seeps through. I don’t remember the specifics of the animanga enough to give examples tho
This is a good point, but it's hard to do anything about it because most corps just looking to make money so the biggest audience is the target. Mixing genre has proven to work so far. You lose some because it may lean more heavily one way.
@@andrewgoehring9108 if its so hard then why do they repeat the same mistakes people dont like alot? Like fanservice? I dont think making a romcom without tits and boobs in every 2nd scene is that difficult
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. 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't matter what hobbies or ambitions characters have, they would still be in the same class. Sure, college romance exist, but college is when you're passions and interest start separating you from other people. It's easier to make an art kid, a cheerleader and a class president part of the same social group because they're in the same class, it'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. Besides, not everyone goes to college. Everybody goes to school at som point. 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'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'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. TLDR: While it'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.
I never thought about it but it makes so much sense after you said it. The school setting does serve that purpose. One other reason for the school setting is how in Japanese society the school is the place of endless possibilities and for some the peak of life, work env being so bad over there. It would be great if more shows would use the '3rd place' theory to bring diverse characters together , like cafes , bars , sport clubs etc. (like sit coms ).
It’d kinda just be cool in general to see more of the less conventional types of relationships (childfree, GNC, queer, deciding to adopt children, mixed-race), not even really just for the diversity stuff, but also just to have something different that doesn’t feel like the “usual” type of media relationship
@@jomaq9233 They're trying that in the west and it's flopping hard imo. Most people don't want to see super awkward hodgepodges of human connections that are amalgamations of some diversity quota checklist. A good story written by someone who loves the world they're building >>>>> being odd and quirky to fit a quota and attract odd people.
@@jomaq9233 I think especially couples without children are like nowhere in fiction. And if they exist they usually either get together or fall apart. Where are the stories with couples who stay couples throughout the whole story? They exist in family settings but not childless.
I also think that the odd/terrible decisions or conclusions that characters have in a show set in HS is far more understandable than if the characters are adults. You can get away with a bit if they are in college but after that it’s a bit more odd to have the characters act immature. I strongly disliked the Hina character from Domestic GF, not b/c she was a predator but b/c she was more immature at times than the two highschoolers imo.
Sdude: "Kaguya and Miyuki are both very dense characters" Me: "Oh yeah, that's I relate to them so much" Friend: "Not that kind of dense, he means actually high density as in complex" My dense ass: 👁👄👁
When you call a person dense, it means stupid. Never have I heard "a dense person" mean "a highly complex person", unless they said like "the show is dense with character details" or has "dense writing"... but even that's stretching it
I think this video makes so many good points, but it's worth pointing out since it causes a lot of confusion - shonen/seinen/josei/shojo are not genres, they're demographics. The genres featured in these shows would be rom coms, but their target demographics vary.
It's been exhausting not really seeing any high quality anime target at women for so many years. As you said those stories can't rely on flashy animation so they make it on great character writing which I love. This season there's a few good ones but up until now it's been cheep reverse harems or the occasional teenager pines after immortal older man. Finally a solid one this season with "7th Time Loop: The Villainess Enjoys a Carefree Life Married to Her Worst Enemy!" Here's hoping it stays good. :)
@@igorpniak8308 I wouldn't call that anime straight up romance though. As for the rest, yeah, 7th time loop, I absolutely love Rishe. And her interactions with Arnold are tons of fun.
Another thing to why is rom-com more boy-oriented is that girls are more okay with watching "boy stuff" than boys are okay with watching "girl stuff" (at least I do beleive through my expirience and observation). 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. Even when I hear guys talking about "girl stuff" they enjoy, I hear them talking about it either like: "It's fire man!" or if not this hyped then in a more grounded way like: "It is truly a great show." Where as for girls, they are action hyped when talking about action shonen and talking all cute hyped when talking about cute romance shoujo. 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.
This. Because femininity is looked down upon and derided, so when men engage with something that is considered "feminine" they in turn are treated as inferior or lesser. Meanwhile, sometimes the only way for a woman to be properly respected (not as a woman but an equal) is to engage in more "masculine" activities or to act in a way that is considered "masculine". It really sucks, because there is nothing wrong with femininity, and there is nothing wrong with liking things that are made for a primarily female audience.
@@Gladissims Ugh. Why do you all always have to make everything about "Woman is seen as less/inferior"? I could easily say that the explanation to why there is such a big difference nowadays between Shoujo and Shonen is just because of how men just have a harder time engaging in a relationship or even wanting to do it, which means that the only way to satisfy that need of "love" and "romance" is to watch romcoms. Anime is literally the place where Japanese people can experience all the things they can't in real life. Girls and boys have rainbow hair but in Japan that is just weird to see, specially on highschool, and the same goes for how "open" are a lot of characters, because of how Japan's society works. If there are so much romcoms aimed for men, that could actually mean that men have a romance-related problem and therefore "need" more that kind of shows Also, maybe Im just the weird one here, but since when is "strange" for boys to like romcoms in the "same way" as girls, getting "cute hyped" about how adorable x character is, how funny other one is, etc etc? I've never saw any anime watcher reject those kind of feelings of reactions just because he was a man and shit like that.
I see your point, personally I wish that I had more female led anime that didn't center around romance, respected all of the characters without regard to their gender, and still allowed her to be somewhat girly. Not saying that such shows aren't out there but it is still a rarity. I stomach male shows better than my brother but thats because female shows often lean young or romantic and neither my brother nor I care for such. I do think it is funny how crime filled murder mystery type shows end up attracting many women though. Anyway it is only because women are forced to and at some point made to that we 'better stomach' male media.
One of my favourite rom-coms, alongside Kaguya-Sama, is Wotakoi: Love is Hard for Otaku. This is at least in part because it addresses one of your concerns. The two leads, while childhood friends, are office workers. The series explicitly frames adult romances. As an observation, and possibly why so many of these things take place in high school, the adult chargers are somewhat less awkward - at least about getting together - so the series focuses far more on their ongoing romantic relationship.
Now that you've said it, i realize that not being high school students and therefore at least _somewhat_ able to communicate with each other and still have meaningful lives that aren't just focused on some hyper-romanticised future "after we graduate," is a lot of why i liked that show. I wish there were more of these and fewer about 15 year olds with problems so shallow and immature that literally anyone saying "Hey, you seem upset, what's on your mind?" would end the show immediately.
I think its impossible to talk about this as gentrification steering away from "romance's roots" when urusei yatsura (written by a woman) practically invented all the shonen romance tropes back in the 1980s. It's a pretty direct parallel to Dress Up Darling since that one is also written by a woman. Trends just come and go but it is a shame that more shoujo romances aren't getting picked up to be adapted.
@@MALICEM12 It's not odd at all. Women are capable of recognizing what their target audience will like and respond to. Their success shows that they correctly assessed what would appeal to boys, teenage boys, and men. Target demographics exist. Nothing is made for absolutely everyone because people are different and like different things.
internalised sexism is a thing. and also kapitalism. sex sells. so its not surprising that u can also find woman who draw/write stuff like this@@MALICEM12
internalized misogyny. Many women win in the world by trampling on other women and catering to men, because we live in a patriarchy they are highly rewarded. @@MALICEM12
Oh also, kind of shocked you didn't mention Girl's Montly Nozaki-kun, even in passing! Definitely more comedy than romance, but firmly rooted in the shoujo genre with plenty of jokes and reference to tropes and staples of said genre. There's an anime and a longer 4koma manga. HUGELY recommend for literal lough out loud jokes.
I’m also shocked that it’s technically shonen because it gives off SUCH shojo vibes. I’m so sad that I don’t think we’re getting a second season, but I’m hopeful it’s just taking its time.
The mangaka is literally one of my favorites. She's very self aware of the shoujo genre (since that's where her other stories began), and she has a tendency to create nearly every character as a lovable idiot with weird but clear motivations for their life choices. She tends to play with extreme absurdity and comedic misunderstandings while also gradually developing the relationships. But I'm not sure if this one is a romantic comedy or just a comedy about romantic tropes so maybe that's the hard part of comparing it? It's almost like a romantic comedy made for aromantics?? If that makes sense loll. But it uniquely tends to shift the perspective of male and female characters, even though the main main character is a girl. Even still the main pairs are not 100% confirmed in the manga, except mayyyybe one, but it's still ongoing and a lot of fun, poking at shoujo tropes. And I trust the writer will help us reach the conclusion properly. But I appreciate the lack of fanservice and sexual tension, and the whole main cast is made up of pairs who clearly like each other but are *too frickin stupid to realize it* and have their own clumsy attempts at understanding each other. Some of the main girls are actually more boyish and socially rude (even main girl who is very feminine and cute sometimes says whatever is on her mind and would probably sell someone for cheesecake), and a handful of the boys are the tsunderes and have way more "girly" moments. The most risque jokes had been at the expense of the boys actually, in the beach episode Funnily enough another story of hers I love - Oresama Teacher - IS a shoujo, but it acts like a shounen. Like how Monthly Girls' Nozaki-kun is a shounen that acts like a shoujo. The shoujo story lacks romance, but has a lovable main character (homegirl was always number one on fan popularity polls!) and a lot of male side characters, and I loved that story because of how much I related to the main character was even though she was very comedic and dumb. She values friendship deeply, to protect what she values, is excitable and weird (to where her first friend at the new school tries to actively avoid her but he's too wholesome to keep it up), struggles to befriend other girls because she finds them angelic, stuff like that. Even in large casts, this mangaka doesn't let any character fall flat. They all have their own quirks and are enjoyable in their own ways, which sometimes... these male POV romances don't do, since they don't want to make the girls anything other than shy/hot/or head over heels for the boy and the boys as an everyman. Make your characters weird, goofy as heck, lovable idiots, etc if you're gonna make a romantic COMEDY!
Regarding Marin "flip-flopping" between being overtly sexual/flirty and then getting embarrassed, I think it's pretty realistic. When I was a teenager and hadn'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'd be flustered as all hell. Not sure what the psychology behind it is, but at the very least, I can relate to that
its because before they flirt back means its safe to do so without the expectation of any follow through. once they flirt back it opens the door for more to happen
Exactly, I think this guy needs to be comfortable with the way people from different sexes interact, it's natural, we're made to be attracted to each other.
The only bad think I don't like about shojo (or specifically fruits basket) is A) lack of communication and B) it was so Looooong and slow. Shojo is very good at telling us what the people feel... which makes more frustrating when they don't talk. I like romances where they go straight and ask (yes, this is mainly when adults do the romance).
@@icarue993 that’s wonderful, but there’s a reason for that. It’s something that all romance anime regardless of target demographic kinda HAVE to do If they confess/communicate right away, what do you think the other like 10-20 episodes are going to be full of?? I think there’s ways to make it so they communicate, but you kinda can’t make the two characters too straightforward if you want a serious series Some anime are more annoying about it tho. I don’t remember how annoying fruits basket was
@@Milkythefawn I understand that there's need to be conflict. Even in the anime where they confess right away, they are not super communicative either. No couple is. I just don't want 40 episodes of "will they wont they" because they refuse to communicate (Kaguya sama being the exception as they refusing to communicate is part of the premise)
@BeelzebubsBread My Love Story (Oremonogatari) has a love confession very early on. The mishaps that occur are less due to poor communication between the couple and more due to farcical elements, such as the building getting caught on fire or the two of them getting lost in the mountains overnight.
@@icarue993 There are many shoujo that don't do that, and many male gaze romance that do that, weird ass generalization to have cuz you clearly don't read a lot of shoujo
I find it very odd that, when asking how Marin could possibly have a crush on Gojo, you focus on his looks rather than the fact that he listens and engages with her hobbies sincerely, pushing himself to the point of exhaustion just to make her happy. Her regular friends aren't interested in anime, but Gojo is. He'll listen to Marin gush about some niche hentai game for hours and even play it himself, not just for references, but because he wants to know how important it is to her. He even gains an interest in photography because of the cosplay shoots he participates in! Gojo is not an empty character at all. I don't want to be mean, but it feels like you just didn't like it because of the fanservice. Which is fine! It can certainly make or break a lot of shows for people. But I don't like how you willfully ignored everyone's personalities and downplayed the actual romance in favor of criticizing the fanservice. There are PLENTY of garbage "romcoms" out there that would serve your point better than Dress Up Darling.
I can see how you came to this conclusion from what's in the video, that's on me. What I mean to say by "What is it that Marin falls for?" is what are the particulars of Gojo that she loves more than say, any other person on the street. Kaguya is a good example of what I mean here: Shirogane has some pretty negative personality traits, and she doesn't jive with all of them, but she does with SOME of them. Like his constant glare and his self-destructive work ethic; things others give him flak for, but she actually loves about him. For Gojo, you are correct that he LISTENS to Marin, which is definitely a positive, to feel validated, but when I was watching this show, the primary trait I got from Gojo is that he's... nice. He's just nice. And to me, that spoke to the stand-in nature of Gojo, because it's like, "man, if I was just nice to a girl, she would absolutely fall head over heels for me!" Both he and the other cosplayer are smitten with him because of his good-nature, and like, sure, but is that REALLY all there is to it? I already felt like Gojo was an empty character by the time episode 9 rolled around, so it was just more confirmation, in my eyes. I've seen LOADS of people have very different takes on both Gojo and Marin, and it's certainly given me more to appreciate in the original work that I didn't see. But, I still stand by what I saw, because... well, isn't any review colored by your personal tastes? Nothing's objective about this, I think I made that clear. "You do you."
@@superdude10000 That's completely fair. If you don't like it, you don't like it. I just disagree with the "nice" part. In my opinion, he's way more than just nice. When I think of stand-in MCs, I think of the dude from MonMusume, or Rent a Girlfriend, where niceness is basically all they have to offer. Like I said in my other comment, Gojo doesn't just listen. He engages too. No random person on the street would go to the lengths Gojo does. He runs himself ragged making the Shizuku cosplay. He watches the magical girl anime with Marin and gets emotionally invested alongside her. He gets excited taking pictures of her because she embodies the characters so well. He cries because his perfectionism and low self esteem gets in the way of his desire to connect with people. To me, this relationship goes both ways. Marin gives Gojo the opportunity to hone his craft and experience new things. Gojo gives Marin a safe space where she can be weird and passionate about her favorite things, even if they might be unconventional, and share that passion with someone else.
@@melody6874 ironically what you say about MDD's mc perfectly applies as well to Rent a GF's mc. he isn't just "nice" nor a "stand in". he sacrifices and works hard. he literally gains an interest in managing and immerses himself in the world and industry the female mc is interested in. he constantly admires and gets inspired/encouraged when seeing how hard the female mc works at her dreams. he runs himself ragged making the female mc's indie movie. he gets excited because she embodies what he wants, to be something and someone that would work tirelessly for their dreams, since he doesn't have any himself. him being a "boring insert character that's only nice" is integral to his character and growth. from being a loser with no dreams to someone that wants to make his beloved's dreams come true. the only frustrating thing about it is that it takes like 120+ chapters for the female mc to finally kiss the mc, only for their relationship to revert back instead of progressing. plus, it's pretty demoralizing that "empty" people with little "dreams", "aspirations", or "goals" get constantly shit on by everyone. i am one of those people. the type of person that can never answer any "where do you see yourself in 1, 5, 10 years?" questions. i just want to live and experience mundane things. in a culture where everyone has to "be" something, it's stifling and places too much pressure to perform, and for what? because of what other people thing i should be a certain way? so it's refreshing and validating to have main characters that aren't liked because they're amazing. that it's possible (in fiction) to be loved so much that you are loved by multiple people, just for being nice. us normals, npcs, no dreams, are worthy of being loved by amazing people. those "self insert characters" arent for people with personalities to self insert into, it's for us people with no personalities to insert into, to watch us be loved despite us being empty and aspirationless. most people aren't "amazing", most people are "average", forgettable, just another face you'll never see again when you walk down a street. the people like bella swan with her harem of hot dudes and large group of hot and interesting friends, or like the mc's of harem anime. we're all so tired of the expectations of society, and so our counter-cultural response to stand-out-of-the-crowd individualism, is to rebel by being normal, average. it's always the outsiders that don't particularly like the media that sees the mc as empty slate self inserts, but i'd argue that most fans relate to those characters.
@@ippanpedrozo1162 The Movie Arc was definitely exception and the point at which RAG should've ended. Kazuya was at his peak, sadly the author milked it. Kazuya could've been a character with substance but I think it just got watered down as the story went on.
Fan service exhausts me. It alienates me from so much of the anime fandom that insists there's little to nothing inherently wrong with it. Thanks for being open and straightforward about your take, it's encouraging to feel seen.
Yeah...its vapid/ its a big black hole of nothing....I remember when Ecchi/ fanservis anime was funny and fun....now its only "horny" and not funny....most of the time it looks more like a "gRAPE" scene that a funny Ecchi scene..... The old good days...... are gone...
@@runespar Yeah, I get you Fanservice literally ruined Fairy Tail for me I'm not joking : I already had problems with it, but then in the arc of the Magic Games or something they had a fight between Mirajane and another female character, and since they were both models the fight turned into a bikini beauty contest, then every other female character joined and... I just couldn't, it was the last straw
The social cues and the thought of "what others might think/say" is a cultural thing in most parts of the world. You not understanding is not *just* because you are on the spectrum, but also the difference in culture.
Yeah, that part got me scratching my head since anime comes from Japan, *the* country and culture that's notorious for how much they enforce cultural norms. China and Korea also have a lot of this. As a reflection, this is a common trope in a lot of romance doramas. Even if western societies have societal norms to be adhered to and enforced, the culture is more individualistic. Eventually people in the west find their own group of fellow "weirdos" or make their own. Over there in Japan, the policy of "the nail that stands out" is more prevalent, especially because the person standing out has a mindset of "not bothering others" or being a nuisance, two things I can relate to a lot.
Yeah there is the cultural difference but also the fact that Gojo has social anxiety from his trauma as a child and lack of social interaction. It's mild in comparison to someone like Bocchi but in the video he calls Gojo a nervous wreck and asks him to just be normal. What is a nervous wreck if not anxious? And what is he anxious about in the show? Social interactions. Just be normal and don't have this mental disorder and cultural background. I'm not saying this to dunk on the creator but to help them understand. Lots of people want autistic people to "just be normal" and they end up masking and having social anxiety because of it. This trope exists because it reflects reality; real people struggling with these issues.Then you add on the wish fulfillment of a hot girl helping them break out of their shell (this is exposure therapy through the social interactions in the show) and falling in love.
Thank you. I always hear this kind of stuff spouted by people and I'm like "Is this ethnocentrism, or is this autism?" The fact that he comes out and says that this sort of thing isn't natural for him to understand is actually really remarkable.
Yea I'm american and do this all the time. Even watching this video on a bus I had the brightness low as possible just because it's anime, let alone knowing fanservice would be a topic.
I mean, in the measuring scene of Dress Up Darling, the reason Marin suddenly gets shy is because Gojo accidentally touches her in a sensitive spot and she's suddenly reminded that she's nearly naked and there's a cute boy closely looking at her body and she's not as ready for that as she thought. As for other scenes that happen later, such as the love hotel photoshoot, I tend to read it as less "lets undercut this with a joke" and more "these are too teenagers who haven't quite gotten comfortable enough for the level of intimacy they're pretending to have, suddenly being reminded of how intimate the situations they are in are, which causes them to panic and retreat back into shy awkwardness.
I love dress up darling so much it's one of my favorites but the fanservice in the first season is crazy, the scenes are fine, I honestly think it's normal for teenagers to act like they do but the closeup of her boobs and stuff like that is not okay imo. Thankfully it got pretty much better in the next volumes tho
ig it's bc this youtuber is autistic that he doesn't understand that feelings and thoughts aren't logical, least of all teenagers, the most horny and irrational people ever. the thing is, HE EVEN MENTIONED KAGUYA BOTH WANTING AND GETTING EMBARASSED ABOUT BEING CLOSE AND PHYSICAL WITH HER CRUSH AS "NUANCED". the gojo measuring scene is LITERALLY THE SAME THING. feeling good about being looked at and confident, but also getting embarassed about being seen in certain ways.
@@aikoppp and most of the audience that it was aimed at did think it was okay in their opinion, what's your point? should the ecchi anime be changed to fit your specific preferences? or the preferences of who the author wanted to cater to? imagine a guy coming into the bts standom and thinking it's not okay the the boyband isn't muscly and manly but instead effeminate and catered towards young teen girls. how DARE bts not be accommodating to what ALL people want!
@@ippanpedrozo1162 I didn't say they should change it. I get it and I get that it was aimed for a certain audience, I still watch it and have bought every volume available and as I said it's one of my favorite animes, I just expressed my opinion about minors being sexualized and I do not think it's okay (bc well they're minors) but I don't recall saying they should change it just because I don't like it. Though the scenes are mostly unnecessary it gives them a possibility to make the anime/manga both male and female centered, but in my opinion (again, this doesn't mean everyone has to think like me and dislike it or change the anime) I think they should've went with adults instead of minors if they wanted to add these type of scenes as it feels pretty weird to be looking at a 15/16 yo girl's body in that specific context buttt if you're a weirdo and you like it alrighttt it's not like I can change it to fit my preferences
Same here. I’m inwardly squealing every week. It’s so cute. I also really like how there’s not really any fan service (so far). It’s like it’s more built up with love, rather than lust.
Its refreshing to see a deaf female protagonist and the love interest isn't toxic and he actually puts effort into communicating with her. Actually read a bit of the manga but mannn, it got so boring. But regardless, I'm glad its getting hype.
Cruft was such a good choice of word for fanservice in anime. Like you I love romance in anime and will always look out for another good love story, but you really gotta dig through quite a lot of fan service before I can find something I enjoy. And even after that, like you said, there still may be some amount of coming to terms with the existing fan service if you still enjoy the story. And once you check out a community subreddit for a particular series or look up merchandise, it's pretty obvious to see why so much of it exists, regardless if it is even remotely in service to the story.
Exactly, I wish it wasn't made to be the standard! It's not just an issue for women, maybe not all men want an anime constantly trying to sexually arouse them! I wish that fanservice was reserved for the ecchi genre rather than being a common aspect of shounen anime!
Here's the thing. Most of the time I am not even aroused. And most of my friends and I have talked about this as we have all gotten older. I mostly feel uncomfortable. On one end I understand how sexual tension can be used as an element of the story telling between the characters, on the other, I see so many of these characters who are literally children sexualized so obscenely on the subreddits. I don't even think fanservice being on ecchi or shounen anime is even the issue. But rather mostly these authors thinking this is ok, or worse, essential to some idea of freedom of expression (see love hina's author) and that idea being disseminated to the larger fanbase and being taught that it is ok. @@Naoto-kun1085
@@lumpenada977 I'm the same, as an adult I feel extremely uncomfortable with fanservice, especially of minors. Even if the audience is technically kids, A. Why do we want to show sexual content to kids? And B. A large portion of shounen's viewership is adults anyways. And I agree, freedom of expression is important but it shouldn't be an excuse to justify fanservice like this. Sure it's just an anime, but the entertainment young men watch teaches them how to behave, and do we really want to teach young men that sexual tension is the most important part of a relationship? Or that they should view all women as sexual?
I'm sure someone else probably said this already, but just to clarify: that scene were Gojo measures Marin's leg and she suddenly gets super flustered out of nowhere, it's not just some not-so-subtle swapping of the dynamic, it happens because Gojo (unknowingly) bumped a certain part of her body while pulling the measuring tape up.
Yes, this is something I straight-up did not notice, and is a failing of the video. What's funny is there are OTHER solid examples, but the ONE I USED has a better explanation that I simply missed. Oh well, can't win 'em all.
I just have to fangirl about Dress Up Darling for a bit here, please forgive me. I love the way the show frames love. I love how Marin wholeheartedly enjoys love and being in love instead of denying her feelings for no reason. I always frustrated me when they make a character hate having a crush. As someone who has had many crushes i can confidently say that love is fun, its a beautiful feeling and i am happy that is being shown in a healthy way through her.
I was desperately searching for another person who appreciates my dress up darling, I love it so much. Marin is KNOWN for opening loving the things she loves. She’s an otaku! She loves her fandoms openly and gushes about them so why would it be any different from her love of gojo? This video was great and I understand not loving fan service but that was an incorrect criticism in my opinion. Of course Marin is gonna gush over gojo just like how she gushes about everything she loves!
@@alicialimon9103 Exactly! Omg you worded it perfectly! Love is beautiful and the way she enjoys loving her hobbies, friends, and her goofy boy of a crush is so endearing and admirable. I'm a Marin fangirl til the day I die 🥰
another thing I would say is in the scene she was being measured I think Gojo accidentally touched her "there" and that's what she was freaking out about. She doesn't see her body as a big deal. When Gojo went to her house she didn't freak out cause he saw her in lounge clothes that exposed her body. She freaked out cause she didn't have her hair and make up how she wanted. She takes pride in how she presents herself, not her body itself. She's casual and open about her body to the point she didn't realize the sexualized cosplay that was basically just a strap over her tits was too far till Gojo clearly said so. I mean the girl openly talks about playing H-games. Another time she freaked out I think was during the succubus cosplay. She had no problem straddling him for the right camera angle and he was going with the flow getting really into it so he most likely didn't notice. She most likely felt that he was hard. You can look at each and every time she freaks out and yeah it makes perfect sense also her making a joke sticking out her tongue. Think about it. Regardless of how much you like someone staring into someone's eyes causes tension and can become uncomfortable. She's not the kind to meekly look away Gojo may be an obsessive shell of a person but yeah. He's depressed and has been for years. His obsession and accepting how he perceives things as being how they have to be is a very real thing. Marin is slowly drawing him away from that and ******spoilers for the manga****** in the manga he's going through an emotional conflict that directly challenges his worldview. At least that's what I'm hoping will happen. It's what it feels like it's leading up to. He's the one that pushed for the last cosplay they did and it made him feel selfish after it was done. The manga hasn't yet fully opened the box of the emotions he felt but he's bottling it up and for sure it's filled with regret. I may not be interested in hina dolls but there's a lot about Gojo that I understand. That depression and anxiety shut him down and stopped him from being a social functioning person. That's something that is very real
@@tomraineofmagigor3499 You worded it perfectly! I thought something very similar but didn't know how to word it. I should really read the manga since the anime will take a while.
There was never a "shift", it's just that male centric RomComs have moved away from the classical harem slapstick model ala Love Hina, which allowed the "Rom" part of RomCom to take a bigger focus due to people realizing "Oh men do enjoy romance even if it is not drowned in comedy" The most recent "shift" is not recent at all and spans over a decade especially due to the time most of these RomComs have been conceptualized and written long before the anime industry started to pick them up.
yeah but a decade is recent when you know how the industry works, as you do. i have noticed a slow and subtle shift in the romance market being filled with shounen titles instead of shoujo ones. in general, shounen is always more mainstream and popular, so it makes sense to try to make it in that market. i think the shift hes talking about isnt one in the number of stories being made, but rather which ones are popular. which ones people think of when you say "romance anime". because im pretty sure no ones top answer would be monster musume ever lmao but there was a day when ohshc would. either way its not like either has gone extinct or anything, its just a slight tilt of the scales in the past decade with ever changing trends.
A lot of people in the West(?) don't realize that the genres (shounen, shoujo, seinen, josei, GL, BL) are often split into two categories in Japan: "Dansei-muke" (For Males) and "Josei-muke" (For Females), and bookstores likewise shelve books into genres near each other based on these two categories. You will then see women comfortably shopping in all sections, but men rarely feeling comfortable shopping in the Josei-muke sections. This is likely just social pressure rather than problems with interest in each genre, as great stories from Josei-muke genres do occasionally get broader audiences outside their target women despite not targeting men (happy accidents). Light novels and manga that do happen to draw in a broader audience (usually due to anime adaptions) are often placed where anyone can reach them without seeming creepy or effeminate, like end caps toward the middle of the store, or displays on the ground floors, etc. The result of this is that Josei-muke series more often do not get easy word-of-mouth among broader demographics, and thus, they are considered riskier ventures to adapt into anime. Fruits Basket and Kimi ni Todoke are both notable in that they actually have a track record of rating very high on the rare "shoujo manga that guys like" rankings some magazines and websites post by their audiences. Despite both having been out of the market loop for a while, they still hold those spots today, meaning they are safer bets for remakes and sequels than most other shoujo manga. For those who have lost hope about Ouran Host Club getting a sequel, it just so happens to be pretty high on the list (usually right behind FuruBa and KimiTodo) as well, so if Kimi ni Todoke is successful, you can keep hoping! Regardless, this might be shifting a bit. I'm not sure if it's changing dramatically yet, but young people in Japan are slowly growing weary of gender stereotypes, gender roles forced on both genders, and even gendered clothing. One of my friends is also married to a guy who has zero problem talking openly at work about the shoujo manga his wife has introduced him to, and recommending them to his guy friends. I'm a weird case. Shoujo and josei are still my favorite genre by far, but I'm a lesbian who writes and draws pretty Dansei-muke kink erotic art. I'm a vanilla person irl, but I don't like drawing vanilla stuff. Thus, I watch a lot of otaku-centered romance anime, play otaku-targeted mobage, and read male-centered isekai novels, sticking mostly to reading shoujo/josei manga (including a lot of female-targeted ero manga), all the while talking about my waifus and husbandos with my guy and gal friends. Tentacles are fun! Give me monstrous orcs! It's not too serious, but it does feel lonely until you find out a good chunk of the best artists in the ero-manga and ero-illust industries are women, and a lot of women silently enjoy these works (or indulge in them by cosplaying for fun). I imagine it will be a while before I see a significant increase in men who like more "girly" stories, but I eagerly await the day when no one in Japan feels like they have to hide what they like and can enjoy everything without gendered categories or the shame that comes with them.
I feel like I've read a (highly condensed) academic paper on Japanese Sociology and their publishing industries, this was a great read! Can't say I'm a tentacle person, but it's nice to know more about everything you've mentioned
@@scylla1772 - Oh, I'm just a regular person making simple observations and inferences based on my experience as a book nerd, discussions with friends (the LGBTQ+ community in Japan is very well-acquainted with topics of gender and sexuality compared to the rest of the populace... er, well, duh), and understanding of marketing and such. Also sorry for the TMI. I am a bit too loose-lipped for my own good. Lol
@@sebaschan-uwu - To be quite fair, it is just as rare to see men read romance fiction in the US. In fact, I'm no comic nerd, but from my understanding, monthly American Comics very, very rarely publish female-targeted audience works. The most you'll find are youth romance graphic novels in the youth fiction section, but again, it's hard to imagine many men reading them. Maybe that'll change in time, too.
@Junosensei it may be rare, but I don't think most men in the US would be embarrassed to be seen enjoying a romance book or watching a movie/show that's heavy on romance. Including anime. Many don't, but I don't see why a significant amount of men would be against watching a romance movie or at least a movie heavy on romance if it was good. Most of them aren't good though, I've heard. It's definitely not a social taboo or something. And superhero comics (it's impossible to talk about american comics without mentioning superheroes) are most of the time not specifically designed to appeal to males like shonen anime is. Women just generally aren't as interested in them as men are.
*I normally don't like ecchi animes, but something about "My Dress Up Darling" was different.* I don't know if I'm explaining it well but I'll try, it felt honest. What an honest teenager would feel like being near a hot person you have a crush on, especially if said hot person is unaware about that aspect of themselves and unintentionally crosses some boundaries. In most ecchi anime, one person or the other knows how attractive they are and sort of plays into this teasing nature. While I believe Marin is aware of her innate beauty, I don't think she believes Gojo is attracted to her the way most people are physically attracted to her. She genuinely believes her crush on him is one-sided, and there's something very relatable about that. While Gojo is offered a lot of fan service from Marin, he's very respectful when approaching it, and I really liked this aspect of his character. You don't often see men in ecchi shows genuinely trying not to fall into inappropriate circumstances with their crush, or a lot of them will pretend to be innocent until they can get away with it, while he was genuinely just very innocent. And I liked this sort of push-and-pull relationship they had going on, when one person got confident the other got flustered and vice versa. Of course, a lot of the ecchi is played for comedy, which is nothing new, but it never felt out of place for Marin as she was very self-assured, and never cared about how she be preserved by others. (and as a bisexual.......I get it Gojo......) Also, I liked how she really liked him, even if he was very simple and plain. Most of the time in the romance anime I watched this is flipped, and the girl is plain one and the boy is the hot overachiever, and whilst I love those this was very refreshing for me. It made me like both Gojo and Marin more. How she simped for the most white toast of people but it was endearing because she cared about him, and Gojo how introverted he is (like me) he uses his lack of charisma or social performativity to observe and actually listen to people, and care about people on a fundamental basis, and not just a socially accepted basis. If you personally don't like the ecchi element in this anime, I understand, most of the time that's me also. But I just wanted to point out how this felt different for me than most stereotypical ecchi anime. ^^
The scene where Gojo says she's beautiful as he's falling asleep made my heart JUMP! OMG it was so cute, you could see how it finally hit her that he may actually like her more than a friend. Everything you've said is SO on point! UGH! I just LOVE this show!!
I couldn't have said this better myself. 100% my sentiments when it comes to "My Dress Up Darling" and how it handled its romance between Gojo and Marin.
@@nevermoreever2 Right!! I've watched this anime so many times and I still get flustered in that scene......thank you for taking the time to read my l o n g comment tehe ^^
Love this breakdown! Something I think a lot of western anime fans don't realize is that "shounen" and "shoujo" don't just mean "action" and "romance" respectively, there's a lot more nuance to it than that and a lot of current popular romance anime are in fact shounen. I do think this isn't as much of a new thing as you're portraying it - male-oriented romcoms have been around forever in anime and manga. Ranma 1/2, Oh My Goddess, Chobits, Toradora, to name a few off the top of my head. Something DOES feel different about the current zeitgeist of shounen romance, though - I've never read or watched much of the genre myself, so I could be totally off base here, but it feels like recently there are more series that take the heroine's perspective at least partially, as well as more male protagonists who have a presence of their own and aren't intended to simply be a blank-slate viewer insert. It's a great development imo, I have no issue with the wish-fulfillment type anime existing but especially as a queer woman I love to see more character-driven stories with broader appeal beyond the heterosexual self-insert (male OR female!) I DO also think we're seeing fewer shoujo romance adaptations go mainstream these days. I'm not sure why that is either, or if it's even an accurate perception - maybe there's some hidden gems out there flying under my radar? But I would love to see more of both - good character writing can be enjoyed by anyone regardless of gender or orientation, and I'd love to see some modern Ourans or Fruits Baskets getting made. (Well, okay, they did literally make a modern Fruits Basket, but aside from remakes lol)
Well, if you're looking for some good feminine stuff, A Sign of Affection is currently coming out, and is pretty good. Though it's still releasing, so we'll see if it sticks the landing.
@@superdude10000 would u be able to make a video maybe possibly on why there's less popular shojo? Colleen made a video on it but I do think it has something to do with Shojo simply not appealing to a male demographic one way or another at least to some extent. Which in all honesty I don't think is a bad thing, genres panders to their specific audiences is not a bad thing and I for one don't like it when people say it is
Agreed, Japan knows its demographics. The idea that "romance is for girls" is pretty obsolete over there, they'll just keep making fun of the boys that do enjoy it... Probably with the girls being the ones making fun of them, calling them virgins.
@@crystellik It's not really an issue of shoujo not appealing to the male demographic (we keep seeing shoujo tropes infiltrate shounen titles and even some of the layout and drawing styles), it's that women will buy shounen without any issue but men will not buy shoujo, so you make more money marketing shounen titles. I honestly wonder if the demographics were removed and we actually did just focus on genre if it would equalize more.
@@kuraichyan first of all what are some Shoujo tropes in found in Shonen? Second of all women by Shonen because a lot of women like Shonen where as not a lot of guys buy Shoujo because they don’t like Shoujo. Why don’t guys like Shoujo? Multiple reasons. Art style I think is a reason a lot of people tend to overlook I’m not that big a fan of Yumi Tamura’s art style, and a lot of Shoujo has at least a somewhat similar art style as well, yes I know it’s not all of them but a lot of them do. Another reason being is the genres. Shoujo is often stereotyped to be the romance genre and anything outside of that isn’t Shoujo. Even on this video here the majority of the shoujos are romance. While Shoujo fans will say Shoujo isn’t only romance, that is true, the VAST majority of the most popular Shoujo series are romance, the amount of popular Shoujo series that don’t have romance as a big part of the plot can be counted on one hand. Before Shoujo series become popular with a male demographic shoujo’s outside of what’s been stereotyped to be shoujo need to get popular with it’s own target audience. If male fans start to see that there are a ton of really good shoujo that could appeal to them it’ll start to grow as a genre
It's kind of funny because I genuinely love dress up darling, as someone who's non-binary/bi I can see myself in both of the characters. Being the dorky guy who enjoys making dolls but also loves pretty women, and then the pretty woman who is secretly a nerd and doesn't want people to think that she's off-putting or unapproachable, I just really enjoy it
oh man... I love Ouran so much, I'm glad you spoke of it so highly. Haruhi's attitude toward gender was really my first big identification with a character who felt the way that I did about my gender. and I also think Ouran does something kinda special with the boys, by making them so completely down with being seen through this campy lens of male beauty. it kind of felt like it was evening the playing field between girls and boys to me... like, these boys are relating to beauty standards in a way that you mostly see applied to girls, while one of the central traits of our main "girl" is how ambivalent she is toward how people perceive her. the guys literally have to step in and apply their own techniques for beautification, in order for her to more eloquently pass... as a guy. as someone who has literally been in Haruhi's shoes when it comes to cluelessness over how to be anything other than a scruffy nerd, it's actually kind of comforting to see someone like Tamaki get passionate about his own styling, but also think that Haruhi is genuinely cute no matter how she's styled. the standards are different for Haruhi in his mind because, well... he just really likes her. also, I really really agree with that little paragraph about FMA Brotherhood... tbh, I'm grateful that my first exposure to the story was through the manga. I feel like I can appreciate what all the various components of the two adaptations are doing (and not begrudge their flaws too heavily) a lot easier, because I know how the story was originally intended to go. as for the split between male vs. female target audience in romance... I love the way you defined it a lot. like, the idea of the girl being the POV character vs. the guy being the POV character, is such a great way to qualify it. because like... if, say, the woman was the POV character, and the series had a ton of stupid sexy fanservice that still serviced her POV, then it'd still feel like a romance with a female target audience. not that a ton of those exist... but there's an argument to be made for the idea that they should. because for as much of a problem as it can be, that fanservice targeting straight men has oversaturated anime as a medium... the inverse lack of fanservice that targets a female audience becomes conspicuous once you notice it. and my stance on fanservice is that like... it's fine, with a couple of asterisks. as much as I liked certain parts of Dressup Darling, that part where Gojo walked in on Juju was super uncomfortable. Gojo himself didn't intend for this to happen, so I'm not feeling too icky about him as a character, but the writing is conspiring to create a fanservice scene that Juju isn't consenting to. in fact... neither character is into it. so like... ick! who is that even for?? and as a side note, just in general... it's not always one character textually displaying disrespect to another character that qualifies as fanservice being disrespectful. the writing can be disrespectful by conspiring like this, even if zero characters are behaving disrespectfully at all. and in general, it's impossible to be respectful to an underdeveloped or poorly written character, who was clearly only dropped into the plot to be a fanservice sock puppet. so a lot of harem shows that underdevelop the waifus are still in hot water with me, because these girls are just bodies at this point. their personalities only barely exist to further the primary function of their creation, which is to get looked at by a male audience. and then there's the age thing... which I completely agree about. a lot of these characters didn't need to be in high school. and in cases like Dressup Darling... if you do the narrative situational equivalent of blurring your eyes just a bit, you can almost forget that the show said that, and pretend they're in college. it clears up a ton of stuff immediately! like, why is Marin, as a teenager, so into erotic visual novels? ostensibly, she has no experience with sex, so her laissez-faire attitude toward it as a concept is kind of weird if we actually think she's that young. this attitude in and of itself would fit more into the characterization of a 20-something. and I feel like this is why anime has to be taken on a case by case basis with this sort of thing. in cases like Dressup Darling, it feels reasonable to just mentally age the characters up in your head, because the high school premise feels like such a check on a marketing list, rather than an integral part of the characters' lives. in stuff like Kaguya-sama, the sexuality actually does feel kinda teenagery... as in, this is how teens kind of are, whether we like it or not. and the horny parts mostly stay conceptual, rather than explicit. the one time in Kaguya-sama that we get confirmation that two characters have actually done it, it's Kashiwagi talking about something that she and her boyfriend did, long after the fact. it's not gratuitously showing us what they did on screen... it's Kashiwagi, as a friend, talking to Kaguya about an experience she's had. it's awkward, and embarrassing, but in a way where you really believe that it's a facet of the characters' lives that they're trying to deal with. it's just part of the uneven road that different people take in different ways on the way to adulthood. but then, most anime just exist in this sort of la la land, where teens being portrayed as hyper sexual is just kinda... hand waved? the elements of sexuality are as unrealistic as the pink hair and the magic system. at that point, it's as weird as the show wants to make it. some shows just divorce themselves so heavily from reality that you're just like "questioning this is the least of my worries tbh" while others will stake their whole premise on like, an age gap romance with a teacher or something, and you're like "hang on, I'm not having fun, I think I need to leave" and that's where I typically draw the line. but yeah, I would love for anime with sexual overtones to just, please, be about adults! the adults in the audience would feel immense relief, and actually really enjoy themselves, if that condition could just be met. and then, within that, please... for the love of god. please, please, please _also_ sexualize men. because there's nothing wrong with being an adult who is horny on main for other happily consenting adults, but it feels uneven when women are the only subjects that see this sort of treatment. this is why I love Golden Kamuy tbh... it's one of the few shows that, in a very good natured way, can take a bunch of buff adult men with cute personalities, and give the audience a bunch of casual fanservice of them. and still maintain a strong plot with cohesive themes... the fanservice doesn't detract in the slightest. it never misses a beat. chad type way to handle fanservice. more shows should aspire to the level of comfortable sexuality that Golden Kamuy achieves. my main qualm is, why is this unique? and also, why can't women be the subject of fanservice that still respects their character? so often, fanservice scenes will be applied like a template to female characters, with no regard to her characterization. like, she's strongly written right up until it's time for her to get walked in on while she's bathing, and then we skyrocket to unprecedented levels of "she would not fucking say that" and like... why?? it'd be so easy to just make her a normal person with her own unique relationship to her sexuality. give us fanservice that's in character! use it as a tool for characterization even! idk, I just think that there are fine ways to do fanservice in shows that have decided that that's part of what they're about. but the poor execution, and improper application of fanservice in ill-fitting places, is what's really spitting in my cereal.
For starters I wanna say that this is a really well written and thought out comment. however, I disagree with one point you make, that men should be sexualized in anime more. The way I see it, men are sexualized in anime a ton, it's just not as visually obvious in most cases. Lets take one piece as an example, it has loads of fanservice with scenes and designs of it's female characters, I don't think I need to elaborate on that, but the same goes for it's male characters. Take Zoro for starters, Zoro is super buff and his six pack is often shown off in fights and when he's training, and while both of those scenes also have story and character purpose they are also definitely intentional opportunities to ogle at his abs. For a second example there's Sanji, So much of his design hits just right for a lot of female viewers, along with many aspects of his personality(passion for cooking, being a hopeless romantic, being violently over defensive about people he cares about, being kind of pathetic sometimes) are designed to appeal to the same type of people who would find his design attractive. As well, One Piece is famous for having ludicrous body proportions/sizes for it's male characters(Mr.1, urouge, Pica, Blackbeard, Whitebeard, Doflamingo, etc) I assure you most prominent male characters in one piece cater to some specific taste and I could go on, but if you need more evidence go watch Melon Tee's character analysis videos, she is very horny for these characters and they're well made videos. I'd say the problem is not that men are undersexualized, but that so much of female sexualization is a single specific kind idealizing a specific taste and figure, while most things outside of that are considered fetish material or are fairly rare. there is too little variety in how Female characters are sexualized when compared to male characters, or at least too much focus on one specific method of sexualization(Large boobs and thin figures, if that wasn't clear), and that makes it all far more noticeable and egregious.
@@heek8964 I do think you're hitting on a very appropriate gray area for discussion... but I think the distinction I'd like to make is that, often times, the type of sexualization that women are subject to is a lot more evocative, and also runs the risk of creating a lot more genuine writing flaws. to begin describing this, I want to separate things a little. on one hand, we have the positive examples of fanservice where the sexualization of the characters isn't a hindrance, and in the case of a romance that involves sexuality, it can even be a boon to the writing. on the flip side, we have the negative examples of fanservice, where it genuinely gets in the way of plot, characterization, character autonomy, basic respect, etc. and I mention this because it's often way easier to see the difference between how men and women are sexualized in the negative examples. the negative examples aren't what I mean to ask for when I say men should be subject to more explicit fanservice, but when I give examples of how men and women are sexualized differently, I may have to mention negative examples, and I don't want that to be misunderstood. anyway, I think what I mean by "evocative" is that, when women are sexualized, it's not just "their boobs are out" because that can be portrayed in a neutral way. anime doesn't often opt to do this, but it could be purely locker room rules where just because you can see something, that doesn't mean it's being specifically fetishized. that's how I see the abs in One Piece most of the time... especially because of the cartoony art style. if people happen to find the characters physically attractive anyway, that's probably more due to the trend of show protagonists having some level of idealized beautification applied to them as a rule across the board. almost everyone in every anime has this, not just men, not just women, and not just One Piece. in fact, I'd say One Piece is unique for giving us some main character designs like Franky, Brook, or Chopper, which can get really out there. but then for the women, there's almost only one body type... and I'm not sure if it's supposed to be a stylized exaggeration or not. but we all know why they have it. more to the point though... I think what would need to change for me to qualify the presentation of men as fanservicey, is the scenario. with women, there's often a sensual element. so like, if there's an accidental boob grab, the emphasis is on how soft the texture is, or if there's a slow panning shot up a woman's body, you can see where her clothes dig into her skin, or where the folds caress certain features, or if there's an upskirt shot, on the really detailed ones, you'll straight up see an outline of the shape of her whole vagina. it can get really crazy, like, it's not just that the woman has boobs and exists. and One Piece is actually a great example too... if Nami is wandering around in just a bikini top, I think she can be viewed mostly neutrally if other stuff is going on, and the show isn't doing anything in particular with the camera or other characters to sexualize her. but if she were to like, trip, and her halter top came undone, and she got all flustered about whether or not anybody saw anything, that's what I'd qualify more as direct sexualization. because then you're being invited to think about what you could've seen... that sort of thing. but the men aren't really touched by anyone in a sexual way. there's no slow panning camera, over the details of how their clothes cling to their bodies. there's no particular attention lavished onto the depiction of a crotch bulge, or emphasis placed on the texture you might feel if you were to put your hands on him. the show doesn't conspire to set him up with gratuitous wardrobe malfunctions, nor does it show him particularly more undressed than he usually is, and depict his demeanor as embarrassed about it, in a way that's cute, and implies a sort of demure potential for more that he's just kind of bashful about. the show doesn't baseline have them wearing outfits that feel scanty and revealing... which is tough to imagine on men, given that they can be shirtless and people treat it as neutral, but to that point I'd say look at something like Fairy Ranmaru. granted, Fairy Ranmaru is not a show I've watched, but I've seen the outfits. when the boys magically transform, some of them are literally wearing skimpy underwear and thigh highs, or they have little cutouts at the hips to show some skin, or any of a million other little decisions that you would usually see applied to women when their designs alone are supposed to be horny. (I also think that many of those outfit designs are kinda ugly, but that's beside the point... this is just about the only example I can think of where the brainlessly sexy impractical fashion choices go this hard on the men.) but basically... just the existence of a sexy person is usually not enough. most anime characters are designed to be attractive. so my criteria has other qualifiers. take Bleach for example... Orihime and Rangiku both exist. I don't consider their mere existence to be fanservice, even though we all know why they both have massive boobs. but it is fanservice when there's a huge chapter title page illustration of only the girls, at the beach, with Rangiku, Yoruichi, and Orihime front and center, boobs on prominent display in their tiny bikinis, and nary a man in sight (unless you count the idea that it's really a guy's eye view that the camera is taking). contrast that with the fact that yes, Ichigo is sexy, and in some of his outfits, he has this deep V neck thing, and well fitted top, which shows off his figure quite nicely. but he's also mostly covered, capable of feeling intimidating in a fight, and capable of being taken seriously in a conversation. nobody is gonna be getting ludicrous nosebleeds over his cleavage in the story itself, and when the series has a beach illustration that actually includes him, he's wearing a shirt, even though the illustration could've portrayed him shirtless, and still conceivably come off as sexually neutral. he's still hot, but I don't feel like the other characters are lusting after him, and that's a huge part of it too. it all hits different when the creators of this media _know_ that this is a character people are intended to have sexual feelings about. for the guys, rule of cool often comes first, and anyone else's attraction to them is only incidental, or is at least secondary. and I picked Bleach here as just a random example. another of the big 3. but all of them have this kind of thing to some degree. and they're treated so casually by the general anime watching community. everyone sees them as standard... genre staples. old classics by now. but when you look at how the women are treated in these series, vs. how far afield you have to go to find men being treated the same way (Fairy Ranmaru is nobody's genre staple) the difference is clear. my stance is that, in the areas where fanservice is crappy (when it mischaracterizes, derails the plot, etc.) I wouldn't wish it on anyone. but in the areas where it _does_ work as a positive element for the people in the audience who feel attraction to the characters, men deserve more focus.
@@heek8964 also, I forgot to say, but I completely 100% agree with your last paragraph. I honestly think that increasing the variety we see in fanservice across the board, in terms of who we see in the spotlight role, would be a huge improvement in terms of both men and women.
@@IDKLOL-qj7sl I know your comments are long but I'm completely engrossed. Thank you for voicing this opinion because it's how I feel too! There's a few points in your paragraphs that I really, really resonate with but didn't know how to describe so knowing someone else feels the same is a bit cathartic. Thanks for that! I feel like your asterisks on fanservice hit the nail on the head for me. Especially the point between fanservice from a girl's perspective and a guy. I think Blue Lock is a good example of "locker room" fanservice and what most guys imagine fanservice for women is. The players are almost never unclothed and always in their tight-fitting compression clothing and jerseys, and the artstyle (mainly in the anime) isn't bashful with their natural physique and muscles. It's not inherently evocative or sexual at all, but that doesn't stop people like me and others from saying lewd and vulgar things lol. Fanservice for guys is wayyy more sensual, like you said the _"accidental boob grab, the emphasis is on how soft the texture is, or if there's a slow panning shot up a woman's body, you can see where her clothes dig into her skin, or where the folds caress certain features, or if there's an upskirt shot, on the really detailed ones, you'll straight up see an outline of the shape of her whole vagina."_ I've never seen an anime that can fulfill the same for a women's POV in a sexualization way (might watch Golden Kamuy for this, ha!). There's a huge untapped potential in sexy scenarios that are just as exciting for the female adience. A man in grey sweats has the potential to be just as a hot as the shirtless guy in the right scenarios and imagination. It just takes a bit more creativity and insight. There's definitely going to be things that guys do which are universally exciting when left up to horniness hormones. Fanservice for women is more romantic wish-fulfillment than sexual. Shoujo and reverse harem define those qualities, the most evocative scenario in them is heavy breathing or pinning the girl to a wall all dominantly (that I know of). A guy's POV fanservice scene is a cut panning to a cute girl taking a bath, her breasts in the water or soap on her closed thighs, and the imagation is "This is what it would be like if I were in the bath with her" and so. It would be nice to see the same directed for a female audience. As in, the girl's equivalent would be a naturally bashful and shy guy lazily removing his boxers, his grip on the bath's edge, untensing and heaving a deep sigh. So, the imagination is "I wonder what it looks like or how his grip on my hips would feel". Both are kinda sensual and leave lewdness to the imagination, and I wish there was more for the latter in anime.
As a guy who avoided romcoms like the plague growing up, but in the last few years ended up watching at least a bit of every show you talked about here, you touched on so many things I agree with! This was a great retrospective on this content. Your editing was also clean and crisp! Keep it up!
32:13 Because being an adult in Japan stereotypically means spending the majority of your waking hours as a depressed wage slave. So high school ends up being remembered overly fondly, as that one time in your life when you aren't really a kid anymore, but you also don't have to bear the full share of adult responsibilities yet, which maximizes the amount of fun you can have. Or something.
I though this video was going to go through the historical way romance had evolve in anime, but no. The earliest work you can see here is Ouran High School Host Club a show that even the author of the video categorize it as a "parody" and "Reverse Harem", what do you think its satirizing? Most of the girls I know grew up with Inuyasha/Ranma 1/2 which are older than OHSHC and are shounen romances, would that mean for them anime hasn't change? Also, there is a really weird assumption of assigning everything "Sexual" to boys but that part is a more complicated subject.
It’s kinda like that in general yeah people think men = lust and women = love and romance with the former usually not being seen in a positive light at all I find.
I would love to go through history of philosophy to check when the switch happened, because classical philosophers were rather describing different landscape - it was masculine to be romantic and logical, and it was feminine to be sex-oriented. And it was rather not-hypocritical, the cultures would literally have some sort of "Sex-obsessed male" phrase as a slur.
I think you misinterpret the switching in Darling. I've always read the measuring scene as Gojo getting a little too close or even brushing her bits because he's tired and a moron not just a pointless switch up. Similar to the hotel scene. She's open to contact but still learning comfort in those scenarios. But I'm heavily bias by partner and I watched it as it came out and we started dating and we both loved it.
Thanks for this analysis, I feel alienated as a woman who likes anime sometimes. So much of the community and culture revolves around the normalization of fan service, particularly of minors, and it’s really uncomfortable. I also hate when people who haven’t seen anime think it’s all sexual - there is so much good anime out there. Sexy is fun when it’s consenting adults anyways! I truly believe there’s an anime for everyone, it just sucks when you feel alone in the community. (Before someone tells me “they’re not real!” you’re not a criminal or anything for liking it. But you’re still a creep. With the variety of porn that exists, why do you want to get off to high school girls in particular?)
I'd be fascinated to see you talk about romance web-manhwa. No one really talks about it critically, and I think that's a damn shame. Plenty of the stories share a lot of similarities (isekai/transmigration and marriages of convenience are hugely popular in the space right now), but that doesn't mean they're IDENTICAL, and I think it's a shame how many pass over the genre entirely with an air of 'that's just chit lit, for DUMB GIRLS'. And as a bonus, I find it's WAY easier to find manhwa focused on adults than it is to find manga with the same focus. There's still... trope Choices in many, but the greater prominence of adults is always appreciated, lmao.
that last point is exactly why I think I prefer reading romance manhwa over manga now as an adult, manhwa often have college or office settings as opposed to high school which felt like such a fresh breath of air honestly, though the tropes about your hot, rich ceo boss falling in love with you, an average working class woman, still has all of the unrealistic wish-fullfilment aspects about it that I don't typically enjoy
manga focused on adults is everywhere, it's just not licensed that often And then anime is like 30 picks out of thousands of manga once a season manhwa are subject to an insane monopoly that make them piss easy to bring over to the west and have low bars for adaptation If you wanna find more manga, look up the magazines of manga you enjoyed then check what other manga they've got in them.
@@meggieclaire1486 THIS!! Same, I hope there'll be more anime adaptations of fantasy romance manhwa and hopefully they'll choose various stories and adapt them well. Like, imagine a good adaptation of "Your throne" with two so different, but equally interesting female leads and not only with romance, but about their friendship too.
I think manwhas are gaining an expanding audience because Japan's animes are stuck using the same tropes over and over. I love donhua romances, and ones like Link Click, although without romance, is good writing because the writing focuses on the story and there's not a hint of fan service in there. All 3 main chars in that show are capable and yet still have more room for char development is incredible.
as someone who likes shojo, personally, the gentrification of romance has pushed me out of anime. It feels like young girls are losing 'their' genres to boys, girls are being pushed out of spaces that used to be designed for them, and that makes me sad. It's the same with how the magical girl genre has been getting darker and darker - the occasional dark magical girl anime is GREAT but also a little girl deserves more space to watch girls be awesome and fight and be the powerful, strong ones who save the day without having to sacrifice their femininity or being reduced to a sex object. It just makes me _sad_ yk? and i'm all for young boys and men enjoying traditionally female orientated genres but I wish that that didn't come at the expense of them being FOR girls.
I grew up when girl centered anime was VERY popular and after learning about the history of shoujo and what it was originally for I started to realize they just don’t make ANYTHING FOR girls or even women anymore. I think girls willingness to watch media for both men and women being a target audience came back to bite us. Now because of this media for men and boys automatically becomes more profitable then something targeted for us because most men will not do the same. I mean not even anime but even just western cartoons, movies even, nothing is really given for us in the same way. Mabye some webtoons/manhwa and some games are an exception but most media geared for us is basically gone which I have a great problem with. I never expected anime to take this route though. But especially with anime where things that are supposed to be geared for men make me somewhat just turned off and uncomfortable. I want story, I want good characters, romance, emotions explored. I realize with anime I will not find that. I have also basically just given up on anime but there are some really good old ones out there that I love! Also manhwas and novels! Also they won’t even try anymore with making a show for women that already are popular and have a fanbase (pushing otome game to show content, idol games ect) its like japan just decided we ain’t that important anymore
@@Riu-bw4bl It makes me sad for me because it feels like I dont have a space in an artform that I used to love, but above all I mourn for the little girls who won't get to see themself as powerful and strong and *good* because of their femininity and not in spite of it. They deserve better. WE deserve better.
The Madoka effect is sad for sure. Though there are still a lot of older magical girl series to enjoy. So many! Also, the shoujo and jousei stories moved to the j dramas which are more popular with women and girls. It seems women and girls prefer live action over anime. A shame for all of us who stayed in the anime space and prefer to have the stories adapted to anime. I do suspect there’s more to it than women and girls just prefer live action. That the move is in response to anime no longer caring to cater to women. Shoujo is returning to anime in recent years. Fruits Basket got a remake and Kimi ni Todoke s3 is on the way. There are a couple new shoujo stories that have come out as well. Like A Sign of Affection.
@@Riu-bw4blOtome are for girls though, aren’t they? Pretty sure they are targeted at women. They could be adding in appeal for men when adapting to anime to market towards both demographics, but the original otome stories are for girls.
@@FullmoonPhantom-dn2sr I'm UK based so it's really hard to find lots of older magical girl series, and if shoujo does make it big it takes a long time to get to us - I check every manga section of every book store for example and they tend to only stock newer releases - so shounen and seinen.
Well this helped me realize why a very small number of romances I like and why I dislike the rest. I’m not the intended audience. Like duh, but that makes more sense now. Ty!
What i hate about fanservice is that it's often non consensual. Like a guy falling on a girl's boobs, or peeking at her skirt, or entering a room while she's changing. And when a girl notices she's being watched she hides, like lowering her skirt or hiding her boobs, she clearly doesn't want the guy to look, but so much fanservice is that and it's just not a good thing
This was a very roundabout way of pointing out that there are anime that are made for different demographics. There are still plenty of shojo anime of various quality being made.
I'm personally a fan of MDD, but can totally respect your take on this. I will however make the point that there is a reason for Marin's "switch" from outgoing and oblivious to being shy. For her, what happens before that point does not cause feelings, it's just casual. But then something happens, either physical or emotional, that makes her feel excited. And that excitement is what makes her shy. In the first instance it's him bumping into her nethers that causes it. Later on it's the way he grabs on to her waist. In other moments it's just being confronted with her own affection. It's funny, cause I know this depiction of her might be more aimed at men, but I (a woman that uses her partner's youtube from time to time) really related to her. Either way, lovely video regardless. Really enjoyed hearing you gush over some of the other titles.
To add, Marin being comfortable being in a bikini and having her chest measured but embarrassed when he gets close to her crotch is very realistic. A woman's crotch is often much more private than our chest and we're often very used to being in a bikini to go swimming and such. She did show slight embarrassment when he tried to measure her chest but due to his reaction and him being incapable of doing it it becomes more humorous than embarrassing for her. Meanwhile, by the time he gets to measuring her inseam, he's calmed down a lot and is a lot more serious. Marin no longer has something to divert her embarrassment to as he's no longer having silly reactions. The scene also shows Marin that Gojo can be trusted and thereby becomes a lot more comfortable with showing him swimwear and she wants to wear things he likes. It also helps her convince other girls that he is trustworthy and can actually help them in their cosplay goals. Gojo has proven to Marin, a girl who is seen as incredibly attractive, that he's not going to be creepy and ogle her or other girls and that he values them past their bodies. I thought MDD was a great portrayal of learning attraction and how to deal with it and how falling in love feels like. It's the little things that we don't think about rather than grand gestures, the show of respect for another and valuing their interests, wants and needs.
the scene when he grabs her waist she was straddling him at the time to get the camera angle and honestly I thought it was cause he was hard and she felt that. It's interesting to see how a guy and a girl came to different conclusions about that scene. I think the best scene that shows how little she really cares about her body being seen is when Gojo came to her house. He was embarrassed cause she was dressed in such a revealing way while she was embarrassed cause she didn't have her makeup and hair how she liked. Just how I see it but I'm assuming it's cause she's the kind of person that never had to really put effort into having a good body but she puts effort into her hair and makeup so that's what she cares about? I'd like to get a woman's perspective on that take Also when the creator talked about Gojo's character. The obsession and the worldview he has very much lines up with people who have both depression and anxiety. Gojo is a very real character as yeah defining moments stick out while most the rest of life feels gray or foggy. You can't get hurt of you accept things as "this is how it's supposed to go". You only get hurt when that worldview gets challenged *****spoilers for the manga***** how things are currently going in the manga it looks like that worldview is going to be challenged in a major way in the new arc coming up
Regarding the scene where she is upset over her makeup and hair, from a woman’s perspective - even if you are a voluptuous woman who grows up being told you’re attractive you often don’t see yourself that way - certainly not your body. You can understand how men may find you attractive but you lack seeing it in such a sexual way because, well, it’s your body you see it every day and those bits that are attractive to some can be cumbersome to the owner and they may be useful when flirting but overall it’s not like it gives you meteoric confidence… so I’m sure Marin is flustered because she feels more comfortable and more attractive with her makeup and hair done. She doesn’t rely on her body alone to make her feel attractive.
You missed some really obvious stuff when watching My DUD. In the fireworks scene, you were so distracted by the romantic moment being cut off by a cute gag that you just missed that the romantic moment happened in the first place. It happened, then the plot moved on. They couldn't just stand there forever. And in the measuring scene, Marin didn't crack at some random moment, she did it because Gojo touched her somewhere he shouldn't have. Because he's so used to working with dolls! He was tired, so he started going through the motions, and he accidentally did something that you want to avoid with an actual human.
I spent a lot of time before this video came out belaboring what to call it, because I knew it would be an easy thing to get wrong, and it turns out I still did! The original title was "The Gentrification of Anime Romance," which I felt was a solid choice, because gentrification refers to an original group being pushed out by a changing economic landscape making it no longer feasible for their presence. The 2000s era shoujo romance is very rare nowadays, and instead we have more romances that cater to men, which take up oxygen that used to go to the shoujo romances. That seems like a gentrification to me. Issue is, gentrification is a negative term, which caused people to assume I think this is a bad thing, and I super don't. I love Kaguya-sama, I like Komi Can't Communicate, and I like The Dangers in My Heart, though I also make space for the more feminine romances like Skip and Loafer, and Sign of Affection. I love all of them (just not really the pandery ones). So yeah, the title needs to change to be more neutral towards this shift, as the video is meant to be received. Though I do knock Dress-Up's representation here, it's certainly not special in its problems, and there are a lot of shows that are FAR worse. 4/7 ain't a bad score. So hopefully this goes some way towards explaining the reasoning for the original title. Hope you understand my meaning. EDIT: I changed it back, lol. Hopefully this pinned comment is enough of an explanation. EDIT 2: Also hijacking my own comment to say: SOOO many people are leaving huge comments, and I think that's great. I can see that compared to the video game sphere, anime people are way more likely to discuss the topic, and that's great to see! LOADS of people disagree with my assessment, and leaving such detailed, thoughtful, and importantly not rude comments is a delight. Love reading them, even if they're full of perspectives that run counter to mine. I genuinely never met a single woman who liked Dress Up Darling before this, and the DD fans are REPRESENTING in the comments! Love to see it. The world's a big place.
"feminine romances like Skip and Loafer" so taking the time to develop flaw and realistic dynamics yet interesting, mature and romantic -while avoiding sexualization and objectification- is femenine only? okay... I want to think there's more to that statement, but we write things for a reason.
@@Dan_Jado I call Skip and Loafer feminine cause it's writing style and tropes are more in keeping with the shoujo romance style of those past works. It's a seinen, but it is in keeping with those "feminine" works. And the "avoiding sexualization part" is important! It's the difference between male gaze and female gaze; I can't think of any point in S&L where the camera oggles a character... except maybe Egashira, but that's done more to visually represent how critical she is of her appearance, both positively (great interest in fashion) and negative (spoilies). Yes, there are definitely feminine romances that are more sexual, but what the camera chooses to look at is important. Marin is sexualized in Dress-Up, Darling, sure. Why not Gojo as well? (I know it's not in character for him, I'm just saying equal opportunity fan service would be cooler, imo) Though I don't mention it in the video, Ouran does have a lot of male-body fan service throughout, and while some of it is gross (the twins), it's not... I dunno, lurid? And it's made for kids at the age I watched it (15), so it's not as weird as some other examples found in the video. As I said, nothing's set in stone. It's a complicated issue.
@@superdude10000 Bless this video, and thank you for making it. God, I love hopeless romantics and all their perspectives. Thank you!! And yes, there _are_ women who like Dress Up Darling, I do! Marin is one of my favorite characters! She's passionate about her hobbies, kind, empathetic and is unapologetically feminine and loves cute things. She loves hair, makeup, and fashion but also has days where she wears sweats and doesn't care as much. I fangirl over the cute and heated moments because I can see myself in her reactions and language. She's the girl I want to be and would love to be besties with. It's not too different from how some people can't stand female shoujo protagonists in anime like Fruits Basket (especially Tohru who receives the most flack for this) or Kamisama Kiss because their fatal flaw feels one-dimensional, that they are "too kind and shy". But I can deeply empathize with these girls. Tohru loves unconditionally, unapologetically, and faithfully. But she can't see how much the love, care, and attention she has for people touches their lives, and constantly downplays the impact she has. Her heart is open and wide to nurture and love, but it is also a labyrinth of walls to hide her insecurity, deepset loneliness, and low esteem. She's observant and empathetic to other's pain because she is painfully aware of her own but doesn't want to trouble people. Throughout the course of the manga and anime, she learns to be bolder and assertive and stick up for herself. I _know_ , for most people, that's an annoying and surface-level lesson because asserting yourself should be as nonchalant as breathing. But for those like me who were instilled with the one of the most twisted kinds of shame, the shame of sticking up for yourself, it is unbearably relatable.
how did i not realize you’re the same guy who made “how games portray work”. your stuff is so good my dude!! and this topic is super interesting, i’m excited to see the rest of the essay c:
You would probably enjoy a sign of affection coming out this season (winter 2024). Personally I really enjoy it as an autistic person, as it really puts a focus on intentional communication between the romantic pair. And a big plus the main cast is all college students rather than highschoolers.
I feel like you'll like the dress up darling manga more than continuing the anime. A lot of what you said resonated strongly with my opinion on fanservice. The key difference to me is the pacing of the fanservice. If its manga, you skip 3 panels of fanservice in a millisecond. If the anime decides to strech the 3 panels to 30 seconds, you are sitting there for 30 seconds ... also it probably helps i never knew it was supposed to be a romance. It feels a lot like a "activity series" (like sports or music. Or that one fashion anime) with comedy and romance flavour to me. Maybe i feel like that because I stop to appreciate the cosplay sections longer than the romance (Btw I read manga first, then dropped the anime)
I really liked the video for the analysis of a genre that i see a lot in anime. As a person who just accepts stuff in media and just recently started analyzing things, it was such an eye-opener to see it from your perspective. Being exposed to sexual things in media at a young age actually led to desensitization to these things. So i would like to thank you for your perspective and would actively try to search for mindless Fanservice.
Japan have way too much sexualisation honestly, if a young boy want to enjoy some fantasy he will swarmed by isekai full of fan service. Animes and manga in the past were better.
@@kagetsuki23Well that's what happens when you deny men sex en masse. They seek to fulfill those desires in other ways. Guess you guys have a lot of work to do convincing Japanese women to fuck Japanese men more if you want less fanservice in your anime, because that's the only way you're going to get it!
It's weird that I haven't seen anyoje say this, but there is a very clear reason for why Marin gets flustered during the measuring out of nowhere. Gojo accidentally bumps into her crotch, and yes, it is shown in the anime, and not that hard to miss if you pay attention.
20:03 i mean, from what i can gather, men these days are becoming increasingly lonely, so it's not really a surprise that they'd resort to escapism to fill that void 29:45 i'm not sure whether the downbad meaning or the lore meaning came first, but my initial exposure to the term "fanservice" most certainly was the downbad meaning, and it's my predominant understanding of the term at this point. which leads to a bit of confusion when i see it being used in the lore sense 30:33 it's funny, i think my parents are pretty much the exact same way. except i was so fed up with their nannying that i installed a locking doorknob on my door and basically haven't had any issues with their nannying since 32:13 again, media like anime is about escapism. once you make the characters adults, you have to delve into adult topics. nobody wants to be reminded about their taxes and bills. nobody wants to be reminded of their unbearable 9 to 5. sometimes, you just want to forget about your responsibilities and go back to when you were a carefree child. making the characters minors fulfills that fantasy + these are fictional characters. you're free to feel uncomfortable about that, but there's no real reason that it's an issue. no real reason that can't also be extended to other objectionable content [violence, crime, corruption, etc.] at any rate 34:16 lol 35:59 i thought that was pretty heavily implied to be bc he accidentally poked her in the crotch?...
This is spot on. Most of the issue with western anime reviewer tend to overlooked is that this show is aim at Japan first. Given the stress situation there and men mostly forced to do all the company work, its quite understandable why Escapism is the most preferred genre. The last thing an overstressed salary man needs is more negative reality drama to watch.
Komi is not autistic, she has selective mutism. I've had a student like that, it's an anxiety disorder that they usually grow out of. Komi has an extreme version given that she doesn't speak to absolutely anyone, and still has it in highschool.
She displays so much more than selective mutism so that's not a very good case. The author has also spoken on how she's loosely based off of their own experiences and the author recently received an official diagnoses for autism meaning Komi was an expression of their life as an undiagnosed autistic person. Don't be reductive towards others experiences just bc you don't bother to make an effort to understand
@@acedwards819 the entire Komi-san manga is reductive to the point where literally every character's name is a pun and they are all static, one-note characters except for exactly Komi, Manbagi, and Tadano, and even then, they're barely dynamic characters and they're more two- or three-note characters. To chide someone for being reductive when talking about that manga is like chiding someone for failing to do in-depth literary analysis when talking about The Very Hungry Caterpillar. The characters in that story are literally all stereotypes in service of a joke, sometimes the joke being that they don't actually fit their stereotype. "So-and-so does this, so-and-so looks like this, so-and-so looks like they would be like this but actually they're not, etc." You literally cannot avoid being reductive when talking about that story, so don't scold people for doing so. If anything, you can do what I'm doing and point out that it's such a shallow mess that trying to apply any real-life experiences to it is futile, but even then, like, who cares.
@@drewbabe I said don't be reductive about other people's experiences, not the manga. The manga is made for gags and outside of the first 50ish chapters it hasn't had anything of relevance to say. Great job reading tho
@@acedwards819 Referring to a character known primarily for their selective mutism as autistic implies that their mutism is autism, which it isn't. We don't even know if she even is autistic. She is an anime character, not an actual person, and only loosely based off a person who only recently got diagnosed with autism.
In a positive way, I feel very "seen" by you in this video. 😅 I'm also a man and would definitely describe myself as a romantic (even if that doesn't always show to others, due to what is probably some kind of ASD). Ouran is my sister's favorite show, and her love of it got me to watch it on my own and really enjoy my time with it. The way anime fanservice sexualizes women in general, especially minors, leaves me quite uncomfortable, and I share in your frustration with "romance" stories scared by their own sincerity. I really need to get around to watching Komi and Kaguya! I just haven't watched anything by myself for while. This vid also got me thinking about my own writing endeavors too. I just finished a draft for a fantasy romance story, and hearing your feelings on romance makes me feel quite vindicated in my implicit writing goals. I made the female lead its POV character, like shoujo stories do, because omitting the male lead's POV helps him seem mysterious (and hopefully, alluring)--and kinda related, because I don't want to ever objectify the female lead with male-focused wish-fulfillment, like you saw with Marin's lack of inner monologue outside of being head-over-heels for Gojo. I think I made these decisions to avoid appealing to ONLY men, but maybe I'm just influenced by my own shoujo history. 😂 I want more stories like you talked about with Komi, where romantic attraction/tension develops out of the time they spend together--like real people I know, rather than being an instant infatuation. Hopefully, I can succeed in making one of those stories. Thanks for sharing your thoughts, man! I'm looking forward to checking out several of your other videos, especially that Fire Emblem one.
Another video talking about the shoujo romance vs shounen romance, yay!!! I'm so glad this topic is getting more and more traction as it's so near to my heart. It's interesting hearing thoughts about this from a male perspective as I'm a woman myself. I've found myself struggling a lot with romance anime since like you said.... it's shifted to a male perspective. In itself that doesn't bother me at all as I'm a shounen girlie however, I feel like most shounen romance doesn't hit the same way. You put it exactly into words with the romance vs comedy balance and the romantic payoff. I used the be one of those people who watched ecchi for the plot and because I wanted a couple to form. Shounen romance often feels the same to me and lacks the sincerity I need as I'm also a hopeless romantic. For this reason I haven't tried any of the new romance anime of the past years, including all of those you mentioned here. This video convinced me on watching kaguya sama though! I know shounen romance has its own merits and right to exist, I just wish it didn’t mean it pushes shoujo romance away, as romance was pretty much the last thing shoujo had and now its fully vanished from the anime world (not manga, though). Gentrification words it perfectly.
Do try Dangers in My heart.. It starts a bit cringe/rough but after 3 episodes it gets good, then it exponentially gets better. I think it is THE best shounen romance out there. Kaguya is great too, but it's way more focused on comedy, whereas dangers if more focused on romance / the main character evolving
It does suck that anime is in its 'romance and wish fulfillment' era and despite Shoujo getting stereotyped as just romance, it still doesn't get to be adapted.
Agreed, but im a shoujou and josei and seinen girlie. I felt very alienated even with shows like komi san, because its very very from the gaze of a bystander that "fetishises" lack of a better term komi's condition and the juxtaposition of her popularity and her being approachable as proxy for the audience to do so. Although theres a romance to it, its less romance like in seinen like kaguya more "romance" as in owning an idea and a person you "love" as escapism esp as proxy for the audience.
@@bobi200samatar6RIGHT! tbf its capitalism, so like of course they wld adapt something that has more "fans" also since theres more female fans of shounen than there are male fans of shoujo and the anime space is very male dominated mostly, josei and seinen are more "niche" compared to shounen
My read on Marin had been that, as a model, and with many of her interests often being ecchi or even hentai, she's very blasé about the display of her body and sexuality, but the moment it becomes genuinely intimate is when she freaks out. She doesn't think anything of Gojo having an opportunity to ogle her in a swimsuit: it's not exactly dissimilar to her job as a model, and she seems to genuinely have an enjoyment of ogling the female form in the media she consumes. It's the point at which the measurements take on that greater degree of intimacy (either because Gojo accidentally touched her inner thigh directly or with the tape measure, or just her sudden awareness of his closeness to that area) that she starts to feel uncomfortable. All of her teasing is about looking, but not about touching.
I love my Dress Up Darling so much as a big fan, I want to say your review was very fair! Marin's very impulsive and free . There is no guilt in expressing her sexuality or her body and she inst demonized at all for it. I feel like a provocative popular and rebellious girl like her would easily be put to be some sort of antagonist in a regular anime. Also Gojo being the exact opposite and fully aware of the societal view and customs and norms and how things look is just funny. Culturally I dont know much about the average girl in Japan but Marin felt like the girls I made friends with in high school. And the fanservice uhh. well... I think about those years in high school. I mean it was an awakening period for everyone so its not inaccurate but I understand anyone who feels a bit much. Heck i agree it does get EGREGIOUS in that anime. anyways Great video! Thanks for reminding me about Ouran.
I really liked this video. It felt like quite the sincere analysis on your view on the genre. The sincerity cut with comedy actually reminds me of a presentation on metamodernism at GDC and I do think regardless of whether its Rick and Morty or romantic comedy anime, both employ a form of ironic detachment from shifting between genres. It's a great point of comparison to draw. To share my own preferences, in terms of romantic comedy, on that has stood out to me in the past is Mousou Telepathy. It's a manga only, but it uses its format very well, particularly its use of color. The story centers around a girl with telepathic powers and a stoic guy, who is often unable to express himself. Like Komi, but genderswapped in a way, the guy is often fawned over for being stoic and good-looking, but since she can read his mind, she knows his more immature aspects too in a way others don't too. A more recent addition is You and I Are Polar Opposites. This one is again a quiet guy but with a girl that is very forward and outgoing. I have difficulty expressing why I like this one so much other than it just has very naturalistic dialogue. It also builds its cast very evenly, like a whole ensemble of friends. It's still an ongoing series.
Great video! I'm a 29-year-old man who probably more consistently enjoys a good anime romance (Kaguya and Toradora are two of my favorite anime of all time), and what I will say about the part of the manga that hasn't been animated yet (the whole second half of the story) is that throughout all of it Kaguya remains the central character and focal point of the whole story even as other characters have their own well-developed arcs. One of my favorite things about the shows depiction of male-female relationships is Aka's use of male-female friendships. He jokes about the possibility of Kaguya x Ishigami, but never actually hints at that so the story is developing their friendship and Kaguya becoming more of a mentor to him. Ditto for Miyuki's relationships with Chika and Miko. They always stay as just friends so the story focuses on developing their important friendship relationships and becoming a support system as just that. There's also another friendship Miyuki develops with another female character (it's been hinted at in the anime but gets expanded later) that leads to some great moments of self-development for both characters. There's also a passage written by Aka in one of the later volumes addressed to people who might be disappointed that the story progressed in a more serious and less comedic direction. His response is to basically apologize and say that there are comedic moments coming up, but taking the story in an overall more serious/sentimental direction felt like the right direction for the story to go. Also if you dislike fanservice in anime there is a part involving a school trip a few volumes after the Christmas arc that basically takes an anime fanservice trope, doesn't give it to you (so you don't actually see anything), makes fun of/deconstructs the trope, throws it in the garbage and then moves on with the main plot. It's actually brilliant. Good stuff, man.
I think the point is more that it's a shift from harem anime to more one-on-one romance. The female oriented romance anime are still around and arguably stronger than ever with stuff like Lv. 999 with Yamada-kun, Signs of Affection and the seasonal villainess anime like 7th Loop.The male-oriented romances were always around but stuff like Maison Ikkoku, Tenchi Muyo, Ranma 1/2 and Love Hina leaned more on the comedy angle with sillier conceits and then variety of girls by the late 90s and 00s. The mid 2010s was basically the end of the harem genre as the king of (male) romance. Like we still get Quintuplets after this point but aside from that, it's the start of Kaguya, Takagi, Nagatoro and Uzaki. All of these center around this sort of mythical girl that pulls herself into a loser (protagonist)'s life and then reshapes that loser's life around her, less-so for Kaguya-sama where both sides are equally vying for the lead in abstract ways but from Takagi and Nagatoro, it's a clear path to kinds like Komi-san(though this touches on a separate trend with socially anxiety in protagonists) and Dress-Up Darling and Call of the Night. You can even find this trend with Rascal does not Dream series though that is a slightly different take on the sort of unrecognized savant protagonist that can resolve the mystery for each girl seen in like Bakemonogatari
It’s weird, it’s like people want men to go back to only making and watching harem shows (which people will still criticize) because they think single-focused romance shows for men is somehow pushing out female fans of romance, when the concept of romance isn’t even a gendered thing, and there has always been romance anime for both genders even to today but men are most anime fans anyways. Not that people would be happy anyways if men only did make harem shows, as long as the media appeals to men, I’m sure people will have a problem with it for appealing to “male fantasy / male gaze” while demanding that you only apeal to women or else your pushing them out of their genre that wasn’t necessarly their’s in the first place.
19:49 I wish there were more aromantic protagonists who are being themselves and having a good time. Also, i hate that trope of "fixing someone" that is clearly aromantic and minding their business, as if love was something missing in their lifes. (Sorry for getting personal) Like, F* you man. Im totally fine not being in a relationship and replaying Bioshock, that game rules.
Honestly, I wish I could stand up for all the aromantic folk who are treated poorly. Y'all are not broken, you're human. Your experience as human is different, and I hope y'all can enjoy your lives, one way or another!
From my personal aro experience, sometimes it's just too damn hard for people to realise that I don't give a big f about being in a romantic relationship. I'm saying this as a person who seems to be attractive to people, so I constantly have to reject all of them and try to explain why it won't work out. I completely understand why it may be hard for them to accept it right off the bat, but I'm just tired of hearing "you're immature and horni" or "you've just never met the right person".
'Bloom into you' has a male side character that seems to be aro (based on a clip i saw) He enjoys seeing people getting into relationships but don't wanna be part of the dating life
Heres the thing, I like this essay and I think you make a lot of good points, but I take one serious issue with some parts of this video. Love is War is not "equal," at all. This anime is definitely "more" equal and accessible to a female audience than most shounen romance by a long shot, but it is in no way *intended* for a female audience at all. This is just a shounen romance that doesn't overplay fan service, and doesn't focus on either character's individual perspective because it's actually told from more of a third person view than either of the two mains. Most importantly, its the only shounen that's not wish fulfillment. I also take issue with the idea that whose perspective the anime comes from matters for figuring out the intended audience. Now, what the gender of the perspective character is can matter... *If* it is wish fulfillment. If the main character is supposed to be a self insert in any capacity, then their gender will make it obvious who the audience is. But there are examples of anime strictly aimed at a female audiences that have a male perspective (Yuri on Ice) and many many male aimed anime that have female perspectives. See the anime you used in this video, Kill la Kill. Sometimes these animes might not have *any* characters of the gender they are aimed at, because it doesn't matter if its not wish fulfillment (like moe, or BL). This being said, the most obvious way to determine who the audience is supposed to be is to pay attention to what the *camera* looks at, because that is supposed to be the audience's POV no matter what kind of anime you're watching. So going back to Love is War, there are several scenes of the camera focusing on Kaguya's boobs and panning up to her face or panning up her body for... No reason, obviously, and there are *none* sexualizing Miyuki or presenting him in an "appealing way" to the *audience* at all throughout the entire anime. This is because its squarely a shounen romance and it is aimed at boys. The camera is supposed to be a (straight) boy, so of course it wont look at Miyuki that way at all. Don't get me wrong, I love it, and it's so "not in your face" that you can easily mistake it as being neutral, and obviously the intended audience doesnt mean that women can't also enjoy it. The amount of scenes that do this is tolerable enough that even with my very low threshold for fanservice nowadays, I didnt really care at all. But it isn't *equal*, and I do think that's important to just objectively acknowledge as a true fact. This is, solidly, a shounen romance, even if it feels tame by comparison to how aggressively "male aimed" many of the others are. The most important aspect, I think, is it's the only one on this list that doesn't really have any elements of wish fulfillment, as you pointed out, besides Ouran. Miyuki is his own character through and through, and the story still holds when it isnt being told from his perspective because of that. Miyuki is a character in a romance story aimed at boys, not a stand in for the male audience. That's the difference. That is probably a really big factor as to why this anime, out of all of them, feels like it is more substantial. Rather than learning about an abstractly hot girl that a kind of average and bland guy could conceivably get under very specific circumstances, it is a story about two distinct characters falling in love. Allowing the focus to be on the story rather than the vague idea of getting a hot girl leaves room for the characters and their connection to be far more fleshed out and deeper (which is... You know, what romance is) than if you try to use any sort of self insert fantasy which often forces the story to cheapen the love interest as well as the main character's.... Character, to make it make sense. The more wish fulfillment, the more egregious and obvious this becomes and the harder it is to disguise. Like you said, there is *more* wish fulfillment in Dress Up, and it makes the romance and connection between the characters themselves feel slightly cheaper than Komi-san, which has far less of these wish fulfillment traits. If you want romance and not a power fantasy, then wish fulfillment is going to make it feel shallow and cheap no matter how well you try to disguise it. That's what, I think, your actual problem is with these animes is rather than anything about it being a shounen in particular. I agree with the other things a lot though, particular about how they use comedy to undercut the romance, cheapening a lot of the serious moments. Btw if you've never watched it, its an oldie, but Lovely Complex is probably my favorite shoujo anime ever. Hopefully it aged well, I haven't seen it in a minute.
Ok so about dress up darling 27:35 as a girl, I can say that marin's internal dialogue was pretty much on point when it comes to someone we like doing something cute. It's kinda wierd but I have noticed that with myself, and also some friends of mine that just discribe becoming "wierdly obssessive over" every little action the person they like does. And marin actually does remind me of some friends I've had, the more courageous ones, that can jokingly flirt and stuff. I do agree with the things you said about fanservice from 29:00 on. Girls absolutely don't act like girls in anime, especially marin. She's smart but becomes so dumb whenever fanservice is envolved and she's like "I cannot see oops hehe". Also thanks for speaking about how the fanservice in beastars was absolutely well used, i really liked how smart they were there And dont even get me started with the p*do problem. Anime fans refuse to accept, but most of the community see no issue, or even like to see minors sexualixed m, and use the "oh actually it's not a real person" argument. And then they get angry if anyone calls them out. You can't even ask them why do they like someone underage, and that resembles a kid and they get all pissed. Like this is so frustrating
Your Rick and morty rom com comparison is brilliant it explains why I like Rick and morty despite my dislike of the adult shock content I love seeing characters deal with sincerity
This is a topic that I've been talking about with my friends for YEARS now. There's been a severe lack of shojo-based romance that I feel like these shonen-based romances are all that we can get nowadays. Thank you for framing it as a gentrification, because that is precisely what is happening in the realm of romance. And personally, I couldn't get into Komi Can't Communicate because of the slow start and lack of engagement from Komi as a character. I absolutely loved My Dress Up Darling though. I personally think the ecchi works in the show because of how confident Marin is with herself. There are rarely times in the show that she's sexualized and looking all shy - like no - this girl is owning it and wants to appear that way. I look at her character thinking "I wish I was more like her at my age," which I feel is something that people would be able to relate to. Also, I would just like to point out that Marin isn't just acting out like that randomly at 35:57 It's more visually implied in the manga, but she's acting that way because she feels flustered that Gojo had accidentally grazed her hooha while taking her measurements and is unaware that he had done that
I'm sorry, but that's not confidence. It's attention-seeking behavior. Who makes a cosplay to NOT get validation from others? Who makes a cosplay and not show it to other people and only wear it in their room? Barely anyone. They want compliments for their work and validation from others. Like playing with your boobs or Marin playing with her boobloaf is only something I do for my bf, I don't do that for other guys or friends or otherwise that's disrespectful to your body. The reason you don't do this in real life is because you know it implies to the public that you're basically advertising your assets for everybody and anybody. Now if Gojo and Marin were an official couple, that be different. This whole "empowerment" by being sexually provocative in public is just a veil over attention-seeking behavior and is pretty self-destructive in other ways unless you WANT the attention/validation
The reason why so many characters in anime are worried about the appearance of things in social situations is because a lot of how their society is structured differently from ours. Things we might do as westerners or in the US at least that are normal might not land the same over there, even if they could be understood within that culture. So it makes sense so many anime focus on that aspect of things. As for the end of My Dress Up Darling with the tongue out thing, I read that less as a joke and more as Marin distancing herself or breaking the tension. For some reason she doesn't realize why he is looking at her, she doesn't really get what's going on between the two of them or how to get things to where she wants them to be and the moment doesn't come off as funny, it comes off as her reaction to being looked at almost like she is guarded, maybe in a way she doesn't even understand. When Shounen anime got really big after the explosion that was DBZ and companies here learned that they could get boys into all of these shows and make a killing, it feels like in some ways it almost killed female centric anime in a way and it is kind of sad because you don't really get it anymore like you used to and it feels kind of like a problem that arose from westerners getting into anime an companies here refusing to do anything girl centric.
Even though I have not watched the whole video yet I just have to say, your content is great superdude! I look forward to every upload and you never fail to disappoint!
Big fan of how this analysis was less, let's say, "accusatory" than others. I don't really think there is anything wrong with these developments honestly, there are still plenty of Shojo series being made. Anyone mad about this just doesn't leave the Anglocentric sphere they like to stroll around in. Especially in Manga, most of what I see visiting Japanese bookstores in places like Akiba feels like it's 80% shojo series, especially of the BL variety for all of the giga-committed fujoshi types. It's part of why I like to visit certain stores. Those works are also usually from female writers, which I love to support. All that being said though, it's important to just remember that these are effectively different genres. As you eluded to, the classic Shojo romance series were rarely anywhere near as comedic and when they were it still mainly served the doki doki aspect of it all, meanwhile these new shows are self-declared rom-coms. It's like comparing Romeo and Juliet to Love Actually. How can you even draw a fair comparison when those things are not on the same playing field? So I don't really like how a lot of this discussion is framed as an either-or situation, meaning one must disappear to make way for the other. In that scenario it's obviously sad losing out on certain series in favor of others, which ever way around it is. But we wouldn't be having this discussion right now if it was any other genre. Nobody would make statements like "Oh, these new Shonen series are making all of the good battle fantasy series be less popular. My Hero Academia is why we don't have more series like Berserk." Like no, those have no correlation whatsoever. The advent of one, like it or not, does not influence the popularity of the latter. If anything there is always a counter movement to a series getting too popular that leads to the opposite type of series being pushed a lot more. It might also just be classic TH-cam clickbait outrage moves, but even in an overall not super negative video, putting "this is a problem" into the thumbnail to talk about this shift just feels so insanely disingenuous.
A lot of the arguments made in this video are straight up strawmen arguments. Americans cherry pick data and scenes from anime, make an anti-men argument, and then it is hailed as the next coming of the messiah. As you mentioned, a lot of things in this video is simply grasping at straws and making shitty jumping arguments with no connection at all. My relationship started out quite like one of these "male centered anime", which is to say, it isn't unrealistic in the least. Women like that exist, and this is simply pandering.
If you want to talk about romcoms, start with these: "Class President is a Maid!" "His and Hers Circumstances" "Golden Time" I'm surprised he didn't mention these classics!
I mean, how Kaichou wa Maid Sama is a classic? It was alright at best. Wasn't, I don't know, Yamada and Seven Witches better at romance? For me, it's Clannad. I have never felt better balance within comedy, beautiful relationship that flourishes to love and slice of life.
always felt that golden time was kind of aimed at boys. male protag + written by the woman who did toradora which is also aimed at boys. but i can see recommending both shows to women because they werent made for lonely men to self insert, and thus are good romances for either gender. also, the guy above me is completely wrong. maid sama is def not a classic but its sure as hell a lot better than the overrated mid that is clannad. im so glad we are out of the early 2010s where this incredibly boring and mediocre series gets brought up in every anime discussion.
On a completely unrelated note to the discussion about romance, but I think Golden Time isn't great because of how it tries to shoehorn in a specific plot point fairly along into the story that just really ruins it for me. Without spoiling, just imagine if you took a completely sensible plot device and then shoehorn in a second stupid plot device to "spice up" the sensible plot device, but essentially makes the whole plot stupid as a result.
For an example of fanservice being done well: Ghost in the shell, stand alone complex. You see the major in amazing shots, but they didn't break the flow, and don't linger uncomfortably long, plus the major is a character who wouldn't mind being found sexy.
Awesome video! Ever since I was a kid shojo romcoms were my bread and butter in the anime fandom and romance in general is still my favorite part of a show. I think you hit the nail on the head with the more masculine shows and their audiences feeling embarrassed to show heartfelt emotions too much. So many of the guys(and girls) Ive known through life who vehemently opposed to liking or watching romance anime seemed more like the shows embarrassed them rather than them thinking the show was bad or unentertaining. I can see how anime fans like this, over time dictated how many jokes are put in romance shows geared towards guys.
I feel like the video game people are also pretty mean, so i'm somewhat acclimated. Though certainly more people are coming up to bat on this video than the others. There's even a response video (which I won't watch for mental health), so it's a great first foray into anitube lol.
I really agree with your point of view. Since I started watching anime, one of the first that I watched was "Toradora!", wich got me really into romance anime. One of my favorites are "Horimiya", "The angel next door spoils me rotten" and the two you put in the video: "Kaguya-sama" and "Komi-san". One aspect that I think they shine on is, specifically, the LACK of fanservice. Kaguya-sama is, of this list, the one who has the most fanservice (specially in the manga, but that part is really relevant for the overall plot). I agree that Komi-san is really slow, specially at the start, but once you get to the more recente chapters (starting at the New-York trip imo) it really focuses more on the romance aspect, wich I think is great. There are a lot of romance anime that I think would be good, but I stop watching most of them because of the loads of fanservice, and that really is a shame. Most romance anime have way too much ecchi, wich makes a bunch of them way worse. When I first heard of "My dress up darling", I really wanted to watch it, but, because of the fanservice, I didn't even bother. Fanservice is a really big turnoff for me, mostly because I watch anime close to my family and scenes with lots of tits aren't the best thing for me to be seen watching in such place. Anyways, that's just my thoughts on this and forgive me for my bad english, I am not a native speaker.
Great video! Love the points you brought up. I feel like an anime like Rent-a-Girlfriend is also emblematic of the male-oriented male gazey romance anime. The characters just run in circles with little development, there's no emotional payoff, the romance never progresses, and there's random fanservice thrown in for the male audience.
Right, also i think its a franchise where the mc works as a camera proxy for the audience who just roots for their favourite type of girl and hopes he ends up with her for them. Rather than a plot with clear characters, its just whoever works well and whoever the creator/director or fans like and can capitalise off of. Like those photobooks of idols but if it were an anime. Off topic but i hate how the only things of shoujo and josei that are adapted are shit like fanservicey stuff that companies think will sell when in reality most of those audience dont even like it enough to dedicate their money to it like fans of similar media aimed at men do since the media space for men and women (masc and femme) in anime isnt the same, and usually the average female fan isnt used to being "catered to" so they tend to like the actual meat rather than the dressings compared to some male fans
Honestly, I wouldn't have such a problem with a little bit of fanservice if the characters targeted for said fan service weren't minors. I don't like fanservice at all but it makes me feel icky when it's a character who's underaged
Am a guy, and yeah shows like that stopped appealing to me once I entered my twenties and had a real relationship. With the exception of Chained Soldier. That show was designed to strike my specific degen chord. I take back everything I said about fans of Twilight, I get it.
It's more of a trend that comes and goes in terms of how big it is overall. There was a lot of it back in the day, including many of the biggest titles of the time - Urusei Yatsura, Maison Ikkoku, Aa!Megami-sama and Kimigure Orange Road were all immensely popular titles way back when. It never really went away, it just would get found more as b-plots in other genres, but still a-plot in many slice-of-life series and video games, so it became easier to miss if you didn't cast a wide enough net... and of course, there's trends in what gets turned into anime series that really have more to do with how easily they figure they'll be able to sell merch, so just a lot of YMMV based on where your radar is pointed. Now as to protagonist ages in Japanese media, without getting into the romance (and related media) specific issues, it can raise... one thing to remember is that for a lot of Japanese people, the best time in their lives, the time when they felt he most free an unpressured, was their teen years. Exam prep hell is a years-long nightmare, especially as many of those exams are life-determining and brutally dependant on rote memorization, then you transition into the soul-crushing reality of the Japanese workforce. A lot of Japanese people, if asked to describe their idealized fantasy self image, it'd be as a teen. There's a word, "seishun" you'll see get used a lot - it can be translated in context to something like "the springtime of youth" and it's used heavily in reference to nostalgia to things like awkard young love and the other wild emotional highs and lows of teen life, typically said wistfully as they are briefly reminded what it was like to really feel things before adult responsibilities burned them out and made them dead inside.
TBF I did not watch the entire analysis, just specfically the "My Dress Up Darling" section, as I very much enjoyed that show. However, at 35:59, I think you missed a very subtle, but important, event during that section. It wasn't simply that Gojo was measuring her leg that caused her to get flustered. It's that he touched Marin's... down there... without noticing. Anyone, regardless of gender, would have a somewhat insecure reaction if someone touched their private parts unexpectedly. But, it also points out something about Marin. In the anime and manga, she is very flirty and outgoing, while being inappropriately attracted to sexually provocative characters in media. But, she doesn't have any actual experience with the physical act of sex. So most of her scenes where she is flustered or shy is when she is either: A.) trying to suppress how attracted she is to Gojo, or B.) when the situation turns physical. To highlight the point, the next significant time we see her get flustered is during the love hotel photoshoot scene. It went from playful to sexually tense in a heartbeat as Gojo, followed by Marin, realize how much physical contact and the position they were in. So while the ecchi moments can be a bit much, it actually is an important part of Marin's character that shows up multiple times as the manga progresses.
It's nice to hear your conclusion on fanservice in anime, even if I greatly disagree with your actual opinions. Like, yeah, this is a normal and popular part of anime and the culture around it. And it's a product of Japanese culture and media, not American, so it's not our place to enforce our puritanical cultural views onto others. I think the part that frustrates me in your opinion is that you don't particularly seem puritanical, yet you still hold those views. I understand if fanservice is superfluous and grating, as they can detract from the plot. But it is weird that you seem tolerant of SOME fanservice, but not others. Dress Up Darling is ecchi, so it's definitely more shameless and open with its use of fanservice. But all of the anime you mentioned, including Kaguya, Sgt. Frog, and Komi, all have LOADS of gratuitous fanservice too. They're just more tasteful and tame with it. Is it less that the fanservice exists, and more how bold it is? Or do you accept the fanservice in all those other anime because you "push through it," which seems strange considering your broader opinion on the fanservice in the medium. Not sure, it just seems to be a tenuous position to hold. Also, Onimai is definitely fanservice heavy, so you probably wouldn't like it. Brilliant and wholesome with stellar animation. Would recommend.
It IS a tenuous position. That's the thing with fanservice in anime, it's different from show to show, moment to moment, and some of it is completely okay, some of it is abjectly gross, but MOST of it is on the spectrum of needing to figure out what's okay and what isn't for yourself. I am definitely somewhere near puritanical, I think I made that clear in the video. My upbringing has warped my perception, and I said as much. Basically everything I was saying in "The problem with fanservice" (for a significant portion of the audience and myself), is the sexualizing and objectifying of minors, and then some of the framings I use to... push past it? Like Kill la Kill is an ecchi with GREAT plotting with fanservice that folds into the themes of clothing, sexuality, gender, our perceptions of our and each other's bodies, it really is an excellent example of what I'd WANT from an ecchi anime... but Ryuko is 16, with means in a black/white world, that's bad, right? But is it? IS IT?! (no) I know my position is odd, because it's not black and white. Either you're completely fine with all forms of fanservice (in which case, there are some genuinely terrible shows out there that this point would essentially be defending), or you think the whole crock is for pedophiles and perverts, in which case you throw the baby out with the bathwater. I am in the middle, definitely more puritan that the average, but I don't think fanservice is awful. As I said in the video, "but that's... me. If you like your anime hot and sweaty, you do you."
I’m a little surprised Toradora didn’t make it into this video. If you haven’t watched it I think you’d enjoy it. Part of the show is actually exploring the teenage emotional landscape around love. So it’s not just “oh let’s have a romcom, how old should we make our characters?”. There is a bit of titillation in a couple of episodes, but there’s reason for it beyond “hey look, boobs”. Just wanted to add, great video. I’m definitely going to check out your other content. Keep up the awesome work.
Ouran is hilariously funny, I love it. Edit; Also, the fact that you call fan service a "me problem" rather then a technical one or some such, respect bro. I like it depending on the context. And yeah, I prefer the smexy to be linked to progressing the story, then a damn bath scene out of nowhere. On the reverse, I hate it being completely shunned too when it would make complete sense for it to exist in a given scene. But I don't like being told it's wrong for me to like it. And I can totally respect others not liking it at all, as long as them not liking doesn't cause them to attack me for liking it.
Based, mutual respect is the route. Don't like fanservice, ok, don't whine too hard about it tho, talking about the sense on it is alright I guess; Like fanservice, also ok! As long as not being a creepo about it bc 💀
@@belalugosisdead4444 I don't think it is a problem for teens (characters) being depicted on mildly suggestive situations (as long as they are relatable/normal) or nudging on things (horimiya handled this kinda well for example, or beastars, who did it incredibly well), as long as the general thing is handled in the perspective to not objectify it, but merely portray as part of the story, or even make it relatable. There is a weird fluctuation on what is portraying and what is objectifying, but it all comes to how you utilize the context for storytelling. Obviously, when is handled as a subject, it should have appropriate age tags, or else its kinda shocking. And at no means, a teen should be portrayed with an adult, ever. That is sus territory, nope, never.
@@VOlDNOVA it's always more than mildly suggestive and no they shouldn't. Japan has a pedophilia problem and what they consider legal isn't legal everywhere else. Just a teen taking a picture covering a naked body part with a hand is considered child porn. Don't justify that shit. Either you're a teenager or a freak
You know what's funny to me? That specific example you brought up for Dress-Up Darling's undercutting of the romance made me go "oh yeah i guess that happened???" I watched all of Dress-Up, but haven't yet watched Kaguya (I know, I know, listen i've kinda fallen off of watching anime and TV in general and only ever watch it with friends, and Dress-Up was more recent when I got together with them that time) and when you were describing the finale with the fireworks and how Kaguya just stared at Shirogane instead, I went "Ah wow I remember Dress Up did the exact same thing, it was such a beautiful and heartfelt moment I wonder what it is that Superdude feels is an 'unfair comparison'???", and then you described the Dress Up ending, and played the images and I felt the emotions coming back and how sweet and sincere it was - and then you showed how they cut the music to show Marin's blue tongue and I was fucking stunlocked. I genuinely didn't remember that. But when you showed it, it came back to me, but the emotion associated with that memory was *still* that same sincerity from the preceding moments. I think in my mind, that joke didn't undercut the romance, it... climaxed it. It felt like a genuine moment to me, just as sincere as all the preceding drama. It didn't even register in my mind as a separate thing, so much that I forgot it happened. Does that make any sense? As I think about it some more now, I think it's like a capstone on the moment. Usually with "traditional" romance, those moments linger for a while, and some kinda just leave you to stew in them. But the way Dress-Up pulled it off, to me, was like sealing that emotion in that moment. Not in a bad way, like repressing it or hiding it, but just giving it finality. Those anime-like moments of romance I've experienced irl felt similar. There was that sincerity, that vulnerability, that complete encompassing love, but a moment always ends, and they're more special for it. And usually they end in laughter - one of us makes a joke out of pocket, or a friend shows up and interrupts, and me and her laugh together and I look into her eyes while she laughs and just... Idk. It's beautiful. I think it works the same in Dress-Up, because that silly joke feels so genuine from Marin's character, as well as Gojo's reaction. Also, kind of unrelated, that thing you pointed out when they were measuring each other, and it turned out that Marin "swapped roles" with Gojo at the end for no particular reason - two notes. First, I'm pretty sure there was a reason, and I think it's pretty clear - Gojo's hand suddenly went very close to, *ahem* and extremely intimate area... You could argue that in that case she should've had the same reaction for any number of other spots she made him measure without a care, and I wouldn't necessarily disagree, but I also don't have difficulty believing that it took until that moment, with Gojo's shift in attitude coupled with the specific area, for her to "break", seemingly at random. It doesn't have to be some specific character/backstory related thing that makes her embarrassed about that in specific, she just randomly (or as I suggested, not so randomly) realized what situation she's in, and felt the weight of it hit her at once, making her "role swap" perfectly believable to me. Which brings me to my second note; Second, and again this relates to my own experience, it's quite realistic I think? As in, I remember when we were watching that scene, I literally shot a look at my gf, who was already wearing the "omg i'm getting called out..." face, and she just flipped me off lol. Which is to say, it seems very normal, realistic, and sincere to me, to have this girl suddenly realize the position she's in despite feeling completely shameless up until that point, seemingly at random. That moment of vulnerability and understanding between the two of them felt real to me. It was a fanservice joke when it was just Marin being so excited and casual that she made Gojo suffer in sexual frustration hell without realising it, until she too felt embarassed, and it turned into a tender moment of vulnerability between them. You can see it in the framing of the scene, it's all tiddies in your face, and bright colours and fanservice while she's being careless and Gojo is stressing out for laughs, but the moment she feels embarrassed too, the moment in which that mutual understanding forms, it becomes softer, it hides the intimate parts of her body, it has a different feel Lastly, you mention that to you, fanservice is fine when it's plot relevant, and i totally agree - i hate tasteless intrusive fanservice that undermines the story and characters, dropped some shows mid-scene because of it. But I feel like, in many cases (leaving a huuuuge asterisk there because anime is famously known for not handling certain things well, such as sexual assault, and i'm sure i could think of many other examples if i really thoguht about it..) fanservice in romance is kinda... inherently justified? I mean, there's a real danger of objectification when there's more fanservice than actual character development, but at the end of the day, sexual attraction is an inherent part of romantic attraction to most people (shoutout to our ace brethren who don't give a shit lol) and I usually don't find it particularly intrusive when a character is the object of fanservice in the context of a romance. Like, yeah, of course Gojo would fixate on that tiny little flicker of butt poking out of Marin's skirt when she's walking away, he's totally smitten and, as far as we know, not asexual. And of course the show would draw attention to her figure, and her smitten lovey-dovey internal dialogue, when it's trying to get the audience just as invested in her as Gojo is. And I don't mean to sound like one of those "BuT wHaT ABoUt FanSerViCE fOR GirLs?" people, because that usually gets brought up to deflect from that awful intrusive fanservice that I also hate, but... really, shows like Ouran and other traditional Shoujo female-prespective romance are absolutely FILLED with fanservice - it's just not obvious and sexual in nature like it is for male gaze fanservice because, as media audiences, there are fundamentally different things that appeal to men and women. I mean, honestly, coming from a bi dude who's watched a fair bit of shoujo, and whose gf and a good number of female friends are not shy about discussing their favourite romances... I might even venture to say shoujo has far more egregious fanservice than most shounen, it's just more subtle to men lmao. Hell, i recently saw a video on how a scene from JUJUTSU KAISEN when the dude in a suit and glasses is interrogating some evil guy (i dont watch jjk sorry) and pulls him off the ground by his hair and gets all up in his face was getting a lot of women going lol. This to say that, Komi and Dress-up's fanservice is nothing new to the "malefied" romances, just its form. Ultimately, I do agree with the overall point, that romance anime is seemingly getting male-gentrified so to speak, and that the shows that appeal to men are far heavier on the humour and fanservice and a little less on the sincere emotion, and as someone who also loves a good old straight up romance (Horimiya, my beloved) I share your feelings of "I like this new stuff too, but there's stuff the old ones did better". But i also think that a lot of that humour and fanservice can feel inherently sincere and emotional depending on individual taste and execution. Like, there's no doubt in my mind Marin was scientifically crafted to be the perfect anime waifu, and that Gojo is very much an audience surrogate, but to me that never detracted from the actual romance and even non-romantic emotional beats of the show. And Komi-san's MUUUUCH heavier reliance on humour, to me, just makes the emotional beats hit like an absolute truck. I mean, when i was reading the manga, that moment at the very end of the play (no spoilers but IYKYK) had me absolutely shaking. Hell, to go beyond the scope of romance, I feel like most "comedy" series end up feeling the most sincere out of all of them. I have never cried harder than at the end of the Assassination Classroom mange. Just typing that sentence made me tear up. I'm serious, i literally got tears in my eyes just saying "the ending of Assassination Classroom". Fuck. They're my babies, man, all of them. I hope they all turned out okay. Edit: ayo got a heart from superdude, thanks my man. Hijacking my own comment to capitalize on the last point about comedy in general having the best heartfelt moments, to tell everyone to go watch Space Dandy if you haven't already. It presents itself as low brow tiddies-in-your-face dumbass humour, but ive ended most episodes staring at my ceiling feeling some kind of emotion. Short series too. Go check it out.
I can't get over the design of the boy Tadano with the little flower in his hair in 'Komi Can't Communicate'. I really want to reach my hand out and pluck it off his head. lol.
Your video inspired me to watch Kaguya-sama: Love is War! Thanks! It's a great anime! As a girl watching, I LOVED getting the ML's perspective. You mentioned that you thought Shirogane's inner turmoil was treated more like a joke than Kaguya's inner turmoil, but from my perspective, I don't think so. At least, they're not portrayed any more as a joke than Kaguya's. But I suppose that is also determined by how seriously an individual is willing to take the characters and interpret the scenes. Maybe there's a nuance that I can't see because I'm not relating to Shirogane as a male viewer... But perhaps a solid portion of the male audience are victims of being squeamish about the intense feelings that Shirogane finds himself in, so they lean into talking about the scenes as jokes?
I started to get into anime days before the pandemic hit. I didn't know what to start on so one day in class I asked the guy next me if he had any anime recommendations and he suggested to watch Dr. Stone. I've only seen the first episode and it's pretty interesting. When the pandemic finally started, I came across a youtube video made by Dylan Is In Trouble and he made his own introduction/crash-course to anime, which lead me to watch Death Note. While discovering what I like romance had a special place because of the genuine desire for love. One of my faves is Your Lie in April. I just adore the connection the characters have with one another, it's super relatable romance wise (falling for your friend and all lol) and made me more excited when the piano was an important factor. I used to play piano as a kid and performed and it was so amazing! I personally feel like romance anime that are actually about love and not heavily about fan service and mind games are so much better.
A major point that enticed me to watch this episode, despite the fact that I would've watched it anyway, was seeing Host Club in the thumbnail. It was a really great watch and was one of the shows that first led me down the anime rabbit hole, so im glad to see it getting the love it deserves. Great video, and I hope to continue seeing more of such amazing quality!
i was gonna write something along the lines of "oh they're just drawings so its fine" then i actually read into it, and danm im literally the product of this problem in the anime scene as a whole good video, made me ask my entire point of view
Princess Tutu is a good romance/shojo anime i think it does a good job tackling its subject matter with little to no fanservice (unless you count ballet outfits) I dont wanna give a plot syono[isis cause i think it might spoil it but I really enjoyed it.
Fantastic video. I watched a decent few episodes of Komi before giving up on it due to the increasing fanservice and annoying yandere character and never tried Dress up Darling because I believed it was just wish fulfilment and fanservice from the beginning. I really like Kaguya but there are definitely episodes/parts I wish didn't exist. The Kaguya OVA pool scene was unwatchable so we switched it off very quickly, I wasn't going to leave that on my TV. I think it's interesting how massive anime in the west can actually be largely glossed over in Japan. I happened to be in Japan as Chainsaw man and Mob Psycho S3 were airing, and I had to go quite far out of my way to find anything Mob related, but CSM and Spy family S2 were unavoidable. My hope is that western numbers can push for more anime with less male gaze as the genre becomes more accepted worldwide. I would also add Spy Family to your romcom spectrum. The set up presents the couple as equal partners, but the episodes had so little time given to Yor besides wish fulfilment fanservice that I gave up just after the start of S2. A spy, an assassin and a telepath child is a great setup, but A spy, a telepath child and a cardboard cutout housewife isn't. She remains oblivious and for all intents and purposes gives up her assassin career, I can't even remember her killing anyone after episode 1 or 2. Yor's brother had more character development than Yor did in the time I was watching, and that's just shit. And it's such a shame because secret lives are decent set up for both romance and comedy, but it's so one-sided with him getting to go do adventures and her doing nothing on screen and not even suspecting anything.
I never saw the Kaguya pool stuff, but it sounds like that's a good thing. I have seen Spy Family, and you're so spot on with your read on Yor. There are a lot of characters bouncing around in Spy Family, and I think the show's just a bit too slow to really explore what's going on with everyone. Watching Spy Family beside Frieren did it NO favors.
OVA’s don’t air on TV I believe so it was just made for the people who like that kind of stuff. One thing that sticks out to me about Kaguya is the lack of fanservice (in a positive way) which is where the show rises above the rest and resists throwing all the female characters in swimsuits 6 episodes in, making it an even more enjoyable watch. Also the manga is great and I can’t wait for the next season.
Thank you for talking about this!!! I'm a highly s3ggsual woman and I love nsfw, but ecchi has has always bothered me, specially when talking about minors that look like minors, reason why I never watched Kaguya-sama but would after your review (also why I don't watch anime nowadays, I want to see more adults!! like on the 80's for ex. ). A good ex on how Ecchi is treated well from the perspective of a girl, it's the manga Tedama ni Toritai Kurokiya-san, wich is one of my fav recent manga. But I agree with the people that say that there's not good enough Anime for a femenine audience rn, there are such amazing gems on Manga and nothing gets picked up, which it's not by coincidence, I saw somewhere that A LOT of Manga gets sold as Shonen/Seinen because they are "pushing feminity out of the media", to say it blantly, even Precure it's being sold as anything but a Magical Girl genre 🥲 But to quote master Miyazaki: "Anime was a mistake"
It's honestly very nice and relieving to finish this video without seeing or hearing the Twitter-level Ranting that is usually expected from video titles like this, and I wish everyone is just as calm and reasonable and approachable as this one. Personally, like him, I had some disagreements with some of what he said, and those disagreements are based on my personal tastes that I know some people share and some don't. Mainly his issue with High School Romance X Fanservice. Although I very much agree that we should have at least more ecchi romance animes with adult characters in them, in general, I don't really mind high school romances and ecchiness going side by side and honestly, I want more of both. Because when watching animes, I don't really obsess myself with stuffs like "Omfg, what gender or age is he/she?" since I only watch animes to be entertained and sometimes, of course, be horny as well. Its also because many animes' stories might be inspired from what the author experienced or wanted to experience in real life, and I view anime sometimes as something I wish happened to me. Take high school romance for example, which throughout my life and still now, I have never experienced before despite big efforts to make myself more appealing. Those kinds of animes serve as an escape, which is why I learned and continue to learn drawing anime, so I could make sketches or possibly mangas with fantasy stories related to what I wanted to experience as a student. The comedy and ecchi parts, I just treat them as bonuses or some form of reward and I see no issue with those two genres. Overall, I love animes in general, no matter the genre so long as the story or the characters are good. From very long fantasy animes like InuYasha and Yu Yu Hakusho, to general Isekai animes like In Another World With My Smartphone, to patriotic military-themed animes like GATE or Legacy of Tanya the Evil. Hell, my favorite anime and game is Azur Lane (my pfp and waifu is IJN Taihou) which is an anime about WWII warships turned into anime girls fighting creatures from the beyond, and the game has A DOZEN of fanservice, most notably the Twitter drama about Kashino's honkers triggering puritans. So long as the anime is interesting in itself, I'll watch that and there's a very good chance I'll love it. I just don't want some people shoving their ideals, politics and personal beliefs in my mouth and labeling me as a bigot for not liking it, while telling me I'm a weirdo misogynistic p3d0 for liking animes that I like. We all have our own likes and if you don't like something, just simply scroll away. I love this video in general and I hope to see more good quality stuffs like this one. It's nice to see somebody else's perspective on anime without them being openly hostile for once, and I mostly agree with many of his takes. Most especially the free anime recommendations I got from this video lmao
This was a great video, whether or not you've even some of the shows! One of my favorite things about Komi-san is that I find it places a lot of significance on friendship. Komi and Tadano are love interests, but first and foremost are friends! This is something I've always wished to see more of and strengthens my interest in the relationships between characters. Personally, I'm okay with the long wait, even happy with it (and yes, I've read the 400+ chapters of the manga). (Also Aro mention???!)
Well, you kinda answered yourself in the title, why do some people (lets call them "gentrificators" just for fun) move to a cheaper neighborhood/country? Why do local businesses start to implement strategies to attract more of them? Why the local government does nothing to prevent those situations? Let's just say that shounen has a broader possible audience than shoujo, yeah there are some men who like shoujo/josei, but there are even more women who like shounen/seinen. And a bigger audience usually means more... money.
Very refreshing and nuanced views I never expected to hear from an anime video essay. I lean toward your values on taste and the role of sex in media but I can feel how much effort went into you presenting your ideas in the most non-antagonistic way possible and I respect that and think you did it well
![F.HERO Ft. JSPKK x ลำไย ไหทองคำ x M-PEE - ไม่สนิทบิดหมด (Thai Riders Anthem) [Official MV]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/kPJZ0UihBfk/mqdefault.jpg)
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.
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'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 "hate this" is just wrong.
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'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.
I am not attacking you? And I am not even trying to say this thing is bad. Calm down.
EDIT: To those saying I'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's very negative. That's why the title was changed as well, sooooo oops. You're valid on that point.
that’s crazy that people are picking fights 😭
please, go off on fanservice. it represents everything wrong about anime 😭
You didn't come off as negative at all. Your just talking about something that you love and are close with, things always change especially media. It's very telling when ppl put words in your mouth like some of these commenters have. They need to stop and think about why they are reacting so emotionally to this, and why it causes them to become so frustrated. Sadly, I've been an on and off anime fan for a bit longer then you ( mostly Horror, thriller, adventure ) and the amount of aggression and misplaced anger among fans has skyrocketed. It really speaks to the emotional maturity of the average anime fan now.
@@Veilure Fanservice is what makes anime stand out. While so many western franchises spit on their fanbase, anime doubles down on their consumer base and finds ways to appeal to them without limiting themselves by petty moral panics because this is fiction.
@@bunnyshade6112 This reaction comes from how much western consumers are trying to make anime change into a politically correct mess, specially with the scandals of terrible translations at the hands of localizers who look down on the source material and anime fans as a whole, or the amount of content creators making political discourses around anime as justification for censorship... Specially when it comes to fanservice, or anime exploring taboo elements in a way that the West would never dare today.
Considering that many anime fans used to love western franchises that were ruined today like Star Wars and Lord of the Rings, it makes perfect sense to take things personally and get defensive over anime... It's the last piece of nerdy media that still hasn't joined the trend of sanitized narratives, and that serves as an escapism from the current state of society for many lonely and disenfranchised young men.
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's life, the last time they were free to be themselves.
Yeah, exact same reason the west loves college settings.
@@fearedjames Does the west love college settings? I can barely think of 3 mainstream college-set western shows/movies, but I could list a hundred high school settings.
@@basketman2517 It's been changing over time, since college is increasingly becoming unaffordable, but in the 90s, college was as frequently the setting for coming-of-age stories as were any of the compulsory education years. Also, the high school settings in western stories tend to depict people who act 5, and look anywhere from 5 to 15, years older than they actually are, mostly because animation is way less popular in the west and so the actors, who are all basically by necessity older than their characters, never fit right. And western animation about high school usually gets the appearances right (not always, though; comics and their adaptations usually give the characters the proportions of fully grown adults) but the mental ages are all over the place. This wasn't a problem for western stories about college students, though, since they're all technically adults, and in fact, stories about sexual encounters and stuff weren't perceived as being in poor taste if the characters were all college-aged. Just some food for thought.
Also most of the people who watch anime are school-age, so it's relatable for them.
@@fearedjames That's because they just treat college like "high school plus" going all the way back to Animal House, Porky's and Revenge of the Nerds. College was barely a thing and it was more so just adults doing crazy mess since they didn't have jobs yet.
Whatever you do do not watch Rent-a-girlfriend
Rent a shit
Oh? I had that in my Crunchyroll watchlist 😂
@@theoriginalbunnygirl i mean, if you find the manga interesting, you may as well check out the anime
Genuinely, or is this reverse psychology?
@@dogryme6 Genuinely don't watch it. One of the worst romance anime out there if you can even call it that.
"Guys and girls are made of the same shit. Just be normal dammit!" Describes exactly how I feel like 99% of the time as an autistic guy.
this comment sec is filled up with ppl who think a lot but have no weight whatsoever and hating on fan service or ecchi is just crazi to me like bruh there's no difference between ppl who likes shoujo you are just as horny for emotions like others are for skin..... stop being delulu that you somehow are better lol
The thing is, most normal guys dont know that girls are just people. Imagine manga creators
@@Typhonnyx that’s the funny thing to me man ngl.
I feel like the only people who have the right to say cringey loser fantasy stuff is bad in normal presentable media should be the ones who don’t look for ANY fantasy in their normal intake of media. Including fantasies of other kinds. I always find it silly when someone says male loser fan service is bad…and then they intake female loser fan service or some other kind.
And tbh I don’t see why so many people push for fantasy material in normal media like regular shows so much when acc literal pornographic stuff exists for whatever they want or other sites for non sexual fixes.
@@shawerful5209source: trust me bro
@@shawerful5209also manga creators aren’t normal guys lmao? Unless I’m misreading your tone or missed something in your comment
"Remember kids there's nothing romantic about sexual coercion"
*stares awkwardly at "50 Shades" still being the most sold book in the US.*
so heres the funny thing about sexual coersion, at least in anime catered to women: its about suppressed sexuality. Sometimes the assailant will be a character the audience is supposed to be repulsed by, but what I'm talking about is when its by a love interest.
The general theory I've heard tossed around is that culturally, women are taught to suppress their sexuality, you know, purity culture and virginity, blah blah blah. The female body is sexualized all the time, but male bodies are not. It's not taken seriously, it's almost a joke, the idea that someone could be attracted to the male body. So, to a female audience that doesn't have a lot of experience with their sexuality, its intimidating to openly express /pursue that carnal desire. (this isn't even mentioning the madonna/whore complex)
Sexual coersion is how you get around this. By taking away the autonomy of the audience stand-in, you take away the guilt for pursuing this desire. And now I'm realizing that none of this has to do with romance.
@read4039 "And now I'm realizing that none of this has to do with romance."
Doesn't it though? Even wanting to date at all is a sign that you're a loose woman in a super repressed society.
Cause obviously you shouldn't even think about dating until you're an adult and ready to get married. /s
It's also an excuse to have romance with "bad boy" characters. Guys who are exciting.
Obviously a pure innocent girl can't date a guy who gasp, _skips school!_ Or _goes to parties!_ Or is willing to *sleep with girls before marriage!* Buuuut, if he's not taking No for an answer.... She doesn't have to feel bad, it's not her fault.
@MsLilly200 baby it's cold outside.
@@freshbread4039
There's a reason this is practically universal around the world. Lets look at a tribal women, the scene for most of human evolution. Women have a 9 month gestation period followed by years of childcare, they need to be extremely picky who they get impregnated by. If the guy is disloyal, violent towards you or the child, has genetic disorders, refuses to provide or take care of you while pregnant, etc. You're screwed. That's thousands of years of evolution telling women to be extremely critical of whom she sleeps with.
Men on the other hand don't have a gestation period. They can impregnate a new woman every 30 minutes or so. It's a quality versus quantity issue. For men, quantity is the best way to make their mark on evolution, for women it's quality.
I'm not saying women should wait for marriage or anything, we have contraception now. It's human nature adapting to a new reality, not a conspiracy to suppress women's sexuality.
@@freshbread4039 lmfao that last line is gold
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.
interestingly, to me, Kaguya's little excursions to help Ishigami always kind of felt like they were a foil to Miyuki and Chika's arrangement. in both cases, you'd never guess at the extent to which the two know each other... but Chika and Miyuki are both overachievers. and whenever Miyuki has a gap that he's struggling to fill in with sheer hard work, Chika finds it excruciating. as someone who is proficient in many of these areas, it pains her to see how bad Miyuki is, and letting him stay that way is like an itch she can't scratch. and as if that isn't enough, she also empathizes too hard to let him fail, even if it's a huge hassle for her. she's a hard worker too, and she'll also put in the effort if it gets her the result she wants.
on the flip side, Ishigami and Kaguya both know what it's like to have their reputation dictate the conditions of their lives... but in kind of opposite ways. Ishigami is recovering from having a really poor reputation, while Kaguya is suffering under the strain of maintaining a good reputation. and both of them worry that their respective behavior leaves them cut off from other people, especially "normies" who they might actually want to get to know better. when Kaguya sees Ishigami languishing the way he does, it's like she sees him more clear than most people would. this is the exact sort of thing that she would be devastated about if it happened to her. she can't stand to see him stay that way.
but I also think that Kaguya's POV gets boosted by little things like the council of Kaguyas that we see inside her head sometimes, or her various talks with Hayasaka. Miyuki has talks with Ishigami, and eventually Maki... but they're much more like casual friend talks, where Hayasaka is as close as a sister to Kaguya, and their conversations go a lot deeper and more introspective. it's also interesting that, in Hayasaka, Kaguya has someone who fully knows about her crush on Miyuki. she can talk to Hayasaka, and bounce ideas off her to get a different perspective, whereas Miyuki does most of his thinking about Kaguya on his own.
even so, I think some of this is splitting hairs a little. in general, I'm just glad that the series splits it's time so close to evenly, that it's hard to tell who gets the most focus. and especially because Kaguya and Miyuki themselves have such equal and opposite issues. both suffer under the expectations of wealthy elitism, but Kaguya was born into it, and Miyuki had to work his way into it. they both have to maintain their position, but for Kaguya this means never setting a foot out of line, and for Miyuki it means maintaining a crazy level of work ethic. their anxieties make perfect sense, and these very things are what cause the blockage that keeps them from entering a relationship. Kaguya feels the isolating pressure of maintaining perfection, while Miyuki does the exhausting work of attaining perfection. their struggle, as teens who feel trapped in that demand, is to realize that neither one has to be perfect in order to have each other's admiration or affection... vulnerability is the most important ingredient in love.
I realized watching this that in the Komi-san manga, the POV seems to shift as the narrative goes on. At the start we pretty much exclusively follow Tadano. Yet in the later stages of the narrative we get some more scenes following Komi, and get told her inner thoughts without Tadano translation. We even see Tadano outright through her eyes at a couple points, really strongly shifting the embodiment to her.
well on the title, it IS "kaguya-sama wants to be confessed to" so clearly not miyuki pov but an omniscient narrator's. i do agree with the slight, unintentional focus on miyuki's pov in the actual animanga, which doesn't come as a surprise at all considering the author is (and with a certain level of offense: very obviously) a man
@@buchelaruzit To me it felt like the opposite,The show clearly shows more of kaguya's pov. I think that Kaguya's POV gets boosted by little things like the council of Kaguyas that we see inside her head sometimes, or her various talks with Hayasaka. Miyuki has talks with Ishigami, and eventually Maki... but they're much more like casual friend talks, where Hayasaka is as close as a sister to Kaguya, and their conversations go a lot deeper and more introspective. it's also interesting that, in Hayasaka, Kaguya has someone who fully knows about her crush on Miyuki. she can talk to Hayasaka, and bounce ideas off her to get a different perspective, whereas Miyuki does most of his thinking about Kaguya on his own.
You seem to be biased if you cant see the fact that the show focuses more on kaguya,if not you can at the very least say that its pretty much 50/50
@@ShouryaRathore I do agree with you actually. And I failed to say it in my comment but I do think kaguya is the “real” protagonist, even if it’s simultaneously a double protagonists story. And such the story does have a preference for her pov.
But at the same time, as contradictory as it may sound, it does feel to me sometimes like the show “focuses” more on miyuki. “focus” isn’t the perfect word but i hope you know what I mean, which is like I said in my original comment, that it feels like the writer simply subconsciously identifying with the male protagonist more.
I have to say that kaguya-sama, despite its problems, is strongly on the “great” side for having good female characters with actual agency and who are written like people, with bought put into their psychology etc, but I still get the impression this natural tendency towards mizuki’s pov seeps through. I don’t remember the specifics of the animanga enough to give examples tho
your point about rom-coms either being afraid of the romance aspect or embracing it and possibly losing part of their audience is a really good point
This is a good point, but it's hard to do anything about it because most corps just looking to make money so the biggest audience is the target. Mixing genre has proven to work so far. You lose some because it may lean more heavily one way.
@@andrewgoehring9108 if its so hard then why do they repeat the same mistakes people dont like alot?
Like fanservice? I dont think making a romcom without tits and boobs in every 2nd scene is that difficult
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.
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't matter what hobbies or ambitions characters have, they would still be in the same class.
Sure, college romance exist, but college is when you're passions and interest start separating you from other people. It's easier to make an art kid, a cheerleader and a class president part of the same social group because they're in the same class, it'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.
Besides, not everyone goes to college. Everybody goes to school at som point.
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'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'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.
TLDR: While it'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.
I never thought about it but it makes so much sense after you said it. The school setting does serve that purpose. One other reason for the school setting is how in Japanese society the school is the place of endless possibilities and for some the peak of life, work env being so bad over there.
It would be great if more shows would use the '3rd place' theory to bring diverse characters together , like cafes , bars , sport clubs etc. (like sit coms ).
It’d kinda just be cool in general to see more of the less conventional types of relationships (childfree, GNC, queer, deciding to adopt children, mixed-race), not even really just for the diversity stuff, but also just to have something different that doesn’t feel like the “usual” type of media relationship
@@jomaq9233 They're trying that in the west and it's flopping hard imo. Most people don't want to see super awkward hodgepodges of human connections that are amalgamations of some diversity quota checklist. A good story written by someone who loves the world they're building >>>>> being odd and quirky to fit a quota and attract odd people.
@@jomaq9233 I think especially couples without children are like nowhere in fiction. And if they exist they usually either get together or fall apart. Where are the stories with couples who stay couples throughout the whole story? They exist in family settings but not childless.
I also think that the odd/terrible decisions or conclusions that characters have in a show set in HS is far more understandable than if the characters are adults.
You can get away with a bit if they are in college but after that it’s a bit more odd to have the characters act immature.
I strongly disliked the Hina character from Domestic GF, not b/c she was a predator but b/c she was more immature at times than the two highschoolers imo.
Sdude: "Kaguya and Miyuki are both very dense characters"
Me: "Oh yeah, that's I relate to them so much"
Friend: "Not that kind of dense, he means actually high density as in complex"
My dense ass:
👁👄👁
Wait that's actually what he meant?
damn ig I'm dense too
@@ronaldoalberto3510 i found my people
You're not dumb, this essay is just poorly written lol
When you call a person dense, it means stupid. Never have I heard "a dense person" mean "a highly complex person", unless they said like "the show is dense with character details" or has "dense writing"... but even that's stretching it
@@scylla1772 of course that's stretching it, he wants to sound fancy
I think this video makes so many good points, but it's worth pointing out since it causes a lot of confusion - shonen/seinen/josei/shojo are not genres, they're demographics. The genres featured in these shows would be rom coms, but their target demographics vary.
It's been exhausting not really seeing any high quality anime target at women for so many years. As you said those stories can't rely on flashy animation so they make it on great character writing which I love. This season there's a few good ones but up until now it's been cheep reverse harems or the occasional teenager pines after immortal older man. Finally a solid one this season with "7th Time Loop: The Villainess Enjoys a Carefree Life Married to Her Worst Enemy!" Here's hoping it stays good. :)
Love to see someone who likes 7th time loop. I got into the light novels a little over a year ago and it's an amazing series.
May I recommend you "Apothecaries Diaries" then? It's called seinen, but in reality it's very much josei anime, and definitely with high quality.
@@igorpniak8308 Second this recommendation, best anime this season imo
A sign of affection is also a very good shojo anime airing this season in my opinion
@@igorpniak8308 I wouldn't call that anime straight up romance though.
As for the rest, yeah, 7th time loop, I absolutely love Rishe. And her interactions with Arnold are tons of fun.
Another thing to why is rom-com more boy-oriented is that girls are more okay with watching "boy stuff" than boys are okay with watching "girl stuff" (at least I do beleive through my expirience and observation).
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.
Even when I hear guys talking about "girl stuff" they enjoy, I hear them talking about it either like: "It's fire man!" or if not this hyped then in a more grounded way like: "It is truly a great show." Where as for girls, they are action hyped when talking about action shonen and talking all cute hyped when talking about cute romance shoujo.
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.
This. Because femininity is looked down upon and derided, so when men engage with something that is considered "feminine" they in turn are treated as inferior or lesser. Meanwhile, sometimes the only way for a woman to be properly respected (not as a woman but an equal) is to engage in more "masculine" activities or to act in a way that is considered "masculine". It really sucks, because there is nothing wrong with femininity, and there is nothing wrong with liking things that are made for a primarily female audience.
@@Gladissims Ugh. Why do you all always have to make everything about "Woman is seen as less/inferior"? I could easily say that the explanation to why there is such a big difference nowadays between Shoujo and Shonen is just because of how men just have a harder time engaging in a relationship or even wanting to do it, which means that the only way to satisfy that need of "love" and "romance" is to watch romcoms. Anime is literally the place where Japanese people can experience all the things they can't in real life. Girls and boys have rainbow hair but in Japan that is just weird to see, specially on highschool, and the same goes for how "open" are a lot of characters, because of how Japan's society works. If there are so much romcoms aimed for men, that could actually mean that men have a romance-related problem and therefore "need" more that kind of shows
Also, maybe Im just the weird one here, but since when is "strange" for boys to like romcoms in the "same way" as girls, getting "cute hyped" about how adorable x character is, how funny other one is, etc etc? I've never saw any anime watcher reject those kind of feelings of reactions just because he was a man and shit like that.
@@rayzu4380 good point
I see your point, personally I wish that I had more female led anime that didn't center around romance, respected all of the characters without regard to their gender, and still allowed her to be somewhat girly. Not saying that such shows aren't out there but it is still a rarity. I stomach male shows better than my brother but thats because female shows often lean young or romantic and neither my brother nor I care for such. I do think it is funny how crime filled murder mystery type shows end up attracting many women though. Anyway it is only because women are forced to and at some point made to that we 'better stomach' male media.
You just described misogyny in entertainment. All things feminine and “girly” are “lesser than”.
One of my favourite rom-coms, alongside Kaguya-Sama, is Wotakoi: Love is Hard for Otaku. This is at least in part because it addresses one of your concerns.
The two leads, while childhood friends, are office workers. The series explicitly frames adult romances.
As an observation, and possibly why so many of these things take place in high school, the adult chargers are somewhat less awkward - at least about getting together - so the series focuses far more on their ongoing romantic relationship.
Now that you've said it, i realize that not being high school students and therefore at least _somewhat_ able to communicate with each other and still have meaningful lives that aren't just focused on some hyper-romanticised future "after we graduate," is a lot of why i liked that show. I wish there were more of these and fewer about 15 year olds with problems so shallow and immature that literally anyone saying "Hey, you seem upset, what's on your mind?" would end the show immediately.
I think its impossible to talk about this as gentrification steering away from "romance's roots" when urusei yatsura (written by a woman) practically invented all the shonen romance tropes back in the 1980s. It's a pretty direct parallel to Dress Up Darling since that one is also written by a woman. Trends just come and go but it is a shame that more shoujo romances aren't getting picked up to be adapted.
It is odd how a lot of the worse tropes in male aimed romance anime was made by women
@@MALICEM12 It's not odd at all. Women are capable of recognizing what their target audience will like and respond to. Their success shows that they correctly assessed what would appeal to boys, teenage boys, and men. Target demographics exist. Nothing is made for absolutely everyone because people are different and like different things.
internalised sexism is a thing. and also kapitalism. sex sells. so its not surprising that u can also find woman who draw/write stuff like this@@MALICEM12
internalized misogyny. Many women win in the world by trampling on other women and catering to men, because we live in a patriarchy they are highly rewarded. @@MALICEM12
Or do get adapted for one meager season before it gets dropped off. This is what happened with alot of them.
Oh also, kind of shocked you didn't mention Girl's Montly Nozaki-kun, even in passing! Definitely more comedy than romance, but firmly rooted in the shoujo genre with plenty of jokes and reference to tropes and staples of said genre. There's an anime and a longer 4koma manga. HUGELY recommend for literal lough out loud jokes.
Nozaki-kun is amazing. I wish it had a season 2 to introduce Nozaki's brother.
I’m also shocked that it’s technically shonen because it gives off SUCH shojo vibes. I’m so sad that I don’t think we’re getting a second season, but I’m hopeful it’s just taking its time.
One of my favorite anime of all time, highly recommended
The mangaka is literally one of my favorites. She's very self aware of the shoujo genre (since that's where her other stories began), and she has a tendency to create nearly every character as a lovable idiot with weird but clear motivations for their life choices. She tends to play with extreme absurdity and comedic misunderstandings while also gradually developing the relationships. But I'm not sure if this one is a romantic comedy or just a comedy about romantic tropes so maybe that's the hard part of comparing it? It's almost like a romantic comedy made for aromantics?? If that makes sense loll. But it uniquely tends to shift the perspective of male and female characters, even though the main main character is a girl.
Even still the main pairs are not 100% confirmed in the manga, except mayyyybe one, but it's still ongoing and a lot of fun, poking at shoujo tropes. And I trust the writer will help us reach the conclusion properly. But I appreciate the lack of fanservice and sexual tension, and the whole main cast is made up of pairs who clearly like each other but are *too frickin stupid to realize it* and have their own clumsy attempts at understanding each other.
Some of the main girls are actually more boyish and socially rude (even main girl who is very feminine and cute sometimes says whatever is on her mind and would probably sell someone for cheesecake), and a handful of the boys are the tsunderes and have way more "girly" moments. The most risque jokes had been at the expense of the boys actually, in the beach episode
Funnily enough another story of hers I love - Oresama Teacher - IS a shoujo, but it acts like a shounen. Like how Monthly Girls' Nozaki-kun is a shounen that acts like a shoujo.
The shoujo story lacks romance, but has a lovable main character (homegirl was always number one on fan popularity polls!) and a lot of male side characters, and I loved that story because of how much I related to the main character was even though she was very comedic and dumb. She values friendship deeply, to protect what she values, is excitable and weird (to where her first friend at the new school tries to actively avoid her but he's too wholesome to keep it up), struggles to befriend other girls because she finds them angelic, stuff like that.
Even in large casts, this mangaka doesn't let any character fall flat. They all have their own quirks and are enjoyable in their own ways, which sometimes... these male POV romances don't do, since they don't want to make the girls anything other than shy/hot/or head over heels for the boy and the boys as an everyman.
Make your characters weird, goofy as heck, lovable idiots, etc if you're gonna make a romantic COMEDY!
Ah I haven't read Nozaki in so long because it makes me laugh so loud that my family complains but now I really want to again
Regarding Marin "flip-flopping" between being overtly sexual/flirty and then getting embarrassed, I think it's pretty realistic. When I was a teenager and hadn'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'd be flustered as all hell. Not sure what the psychology behind it is, but at the very least, I can relate to that
its because before they flirt back means its safe to do so without the expectation of any follow through. once they flirt back it opens the door for more to happen
Exactly, I think this guy needs to be comfortable with the way people from different sexes interact, it's natural, we're made to be attracted to each other.
So there r girls who will say and act sexual but flirting is where u get embarrassed?
Like a newborn calf with shaky legs, you're just trying shit out
@@anonisnoone6125 they basically don't expect a response
A really good shojo Anime thats airing rn is A Sign of Affection! Its about a deaf fmc, and the art and animation is just stunning!
The only bad think I don't like about shojo (or specifically fruits basket) is A) lack of communication and B) it was so Looooong and slow. Shojo is very good at telling us what the people feel... which makes more frustrating when they don't talk. I like romances where they go straight and ask (yes, this is mainly when adults do the romance).
@@icarue993
that’s wonderful, but there’s a reason for that. It’s something that all romance anime regardless of target demographic kinda HAVE to do
If they confess/communicate right away, what do you think the other like 10-20 episodes are going to be full of??
I think there’s ways to make it so they communicate, but you kinda can’t make the two characters too straightforward if you want a serious series
Some anime are more annoying about it tho. I don’t remember how annoying fruits basket was
@@Milkythefawn I understand that there's need to be conflict. Even in the anime where they confess right away, they are not super communicative either. No couple is. I just don't want 40 episodes of "will they wont they" because they refuse to communicate (Kaguya sama being the exception as they refusing to communicate is part of the premise)
@BeelzebubsBread My Love Story (Oremonogatari) has a love confession very early on. The mishaps that occur are less due to poor communication between the couple and more due to farcical elements, such as the building getting caught on fire or the two of them getting lost in the mountains overnight.
@@icarue993 There are many shoujo that don't do that, and many male gaze romance that do that, weird ass generalization to have cuz you clearly don't read a lot of shoujo
love is war sounds like it's literally just the prisoner's dilemma as a romcom LMAO
I've always thought of it as Death Note but if that had been a BL.
@@daggern15whats bl?
@@markstewart4282 Boy Love AKA yaoi
@@daggern15 as if death note is not already a bl
@@LS-ct1tu I think Misa is intended to deflect those allegations. This would be completely uninhibited.
I find it very odd that, when asking how Marin could possibly have a crush on Gojo, you focus on his looks rather than the fact that he listens and engages with her hobbies sincerely, pushing himself to the point of exhaustion just to make her happy. Her regular friends aren't interested in anime, but Gojo is. He'll listen to Marin gush about some niche hentai game for hours and even play it himself, not just for references, but because he wants to know how important it is to her. He even gains an interest in photography because of the cosplay shoots he participates in! Gojo is not an empty character at all. I don't want to be mean, but it feels like you just didn't like it because of the fanservice. Which is fine! It can certainly make or break a lot of shows for people. But I don't like how you willfully ignored everyone's personalities and downplayed the actual romance in favor of criticizing the fanservice. There are PLENTY of garbage "romcoms" out there that would serve your point better than Dress Up Darling.
I can see how you came to this conclusion from what's in the video, that's on me.
What I mean to say by "What is it that Marin falls for?" is what are the particulars of Gojo that she loves more than say, any other person on the street. Kaguya is a good example of what I mean here: Shirogane has some pretty negative personality traits, and she doesn't jive with all of them, but she does with SOME of them. Like his constant glare and his self-destructive work ethic; things others give him flak for, but she actually loves about him.
For Gojo, you are correct that he LISTENS to Marin, which is definitely a positive, to feel validated, but when I was watching this show, the primary trait I got from Gojo is that he's... nice. He's just nice. And to me, that spoke to the stand-in nature of Gojo, because it's like, "man, if I was just nice to a girl, she would absolutely fall head over heels for me!" Both he and the other cosplayer are smitten with him because of his good-nature, and like, sure, but is that REALLY all there is to it?
I already felt like Gojo was an empty character by the time episode 9 rolled around, so it was just more confirmation, in my eyes. I've seen LOADS of people have very different takes on both Gojo and Marin, and it's certainly given me more to appreciate in the original work that I didn't see. But, I still stand by what I saw, because... well, isn't any review colored by your personal tastes? Nothing's objective about this, I think I made that clear. "You do you."
@@superdude10000 That's completely fair. If you don't like it, you don't like it. I just disagree with the "nice" part. In my opinion, he's way more than just nice. When I think of stand-in MCs, I think of the dude from MonMusume, or Rent a Girlfriend, where niceness is basically all they have to offer.
Like I said in my other comment, Gojo doesn't just listen. He engages too. No random person on the street would go to the lengths Gojo does. He runs himself ragged making the Shizuku cosplay. He watches the magical girl anime with Marin and gets emotionally invested alongside her. He gets excited taking pictures of her because she embodies the characters so well. He cries because his perfectionism and low self esteem gets in the way of his desire to connect with people.
To me, this relationship goes both ways. Marin gives Gojo the opportunity to hone his craft and experience new things. Gojo gives Marin a safe space where she can be weird and passionate about her favorite things, even if they might be unconventional, and share that passion with someone else.
Wow both of yalls replies are a textbook example of what a healthy disagreement and discourse should look like
@@melody6874 ironically what you say about MDD's mc perfectly applies as well to Rent a GF's mc. he isn't just "nice" nor a "stand in". he sacrifices and works hard. he literally gains an interest in managing and immerses himself in the world and industry the female mc is interested in. he constantly admires and gets inspired/encouraged when seeing how hard the female mc works at her dreams. he runs himself ragged making the female mc's indie movie. he gets excited because she embodies what he wants, to be something and someone that would work tirelessly for their dreams, since he doesn't have any himself. him being a "boring insert character that's only nice" is integral to his character and growth. from being a loser with no dreams to someone that wants to make his beloved's dreams come true. the only frustrating thing about it is that it takes like 120+ chapters for the female mc to finally kiss the mc, only for their relationship to revert back instead of progressing.
plus, it's pretty demoralizing that "empty" people with little "dreams", "aspirations", or "goals" get constantly shit on by everyone. i am one of those people. the type of person that can never answer any "where do you see yourself in 1, 5, 10 years?" questions. i just want to live and experience mundane things. in a culture where everyone has to "be" something, it's stifling and places too much pressure to perform, and for what? because of what other people thing i should be a certain way?
so it's refreshing and validating to have main characters that aren't liked because they're amazing. that it's possible (in fiction) to be loved so much that you are loved by multiple people, just for being nice. us normals, npcs, no dreams, are worthy of being loved by amazing people.
those "self insert characters" arent for people with personalities to self insert into, it's for us people with no personalities to insert into, to watch us be loved despite us being empty and aspirationless. most people aren't "amazing", most people are "average", forgettable, just another face you'll never see again when you walk down a street. the people like bella swan with her harem of hot dudes and large group of hot and interesting friends, or like the mc's of harem anime. we're all so tired of the expectations of society, and so our counter-cultural response to stand-out-of-the-crowd individualism, is to rebel by being normal, average. it's always the outsiders that don't particularly like the media that sees the mc as empty slate self inserts, but i'd argue that most fans relate to those characters.
@@ippanpedrozo1162 The Movie Arc was definitely exception and the point at which RAG should've ended. Kazuya was at his peak, sadly the author milked it. Kazuya could've been a character with substance but I think it just got watered down as the story went on.
Fan service exhausts me. It alienates me from so much of the anime fandom that insists there's little to nothing inherently wrong with it. Thanks for being open and straightforward about your take, it's encouraging to feel seen.
One of the many reasons why I love JJK
The man refuses to use fan service (apparently because his mom reads his manga)
Yeah...its vapid/ its a big black hole of nothing....I remember when Ecchi/ fanservis anime was funny and fun....now its only "horny" and not funny....most of the time it looks more like a "gRAPE" scene that a funny Ecchi scene.....
The old good days...... are gone...
@@arkenn3497Not a huge action shonen fan so I never finished JJK, but from what I've seen now that you mention it that's really admirable.
@@runespar Yeah, I get you
Fanservice literally ruined Fairy Tail for me
I'm not joking : I already had problems with it, but then in the arc of the Magic Games or something they had a fight between Mirajane and another female character, and since they were both models the fight turned into a bikini beauty contest, then every other female character joined and... I just couldn't, it was the last straw
@@arkenn3497 thats why Mappa uses all their budget to give us male fanservice instead
The social cues and the thought of "what others might think/say" is a cultural thing in most parts of the world. You not understanding is not *just* because you are on the spectrum, but also the difference in culture.
Yeah, that part got me scratching my head since anime comes from Japan, *the* country and culture that's notorious for how much they enforce cultural norms. China and Korea also have a lot of this. As a reflection, this is a common trope in a lot of romance doramas.
Even if western societies have societal norms to be adhered to and enforced, the culture is more individualistic. Eventually people in the west find their own group of fellow "weirdos" or make their own. Over there in Japan, the policy of "the nail that stands out" is more prevalent, especially because the person standing out has a mindset of "not bothering others" or being a nuisance, two things I can relate to a lot.
Yeah there is the cultural difference but also the fact that Gojo has social anxiety from his trauma as a child and lack of social interaction. It's mild in comparison to someone like Bocchi but in the video he calls Gojo a nervous wreck and asks him to just be normal. What is a nervous wreck if not anxious? And what is he anxious about in the show? Social interactions. Just be normal and don't have this mental disorder and cultural background. I'm not saying this to dunk on the creator but to help them understand. Lots of people want autistic people to "just be normal" and they end up masking and having social anxiety because of it. This trope exists because it reflects reality; real people struggling with these issues.Then you add on the wish fulfillment of a hot girl helping them break out of their shell (this is exposure therapy through the social interactions in the show) and falling in love.
Thank you. I always hear this kind of stuff spouted by people and I'm like "Is this ethnocentrism, or is this autism?" The fact that he comes out and says that this sort of thing isn't natural for him to understand is actually really remarkable.
Yea I'm american and do this all the time. Even watching this video on a bus I had the brightness low as possible just because it's anime, let alone knowing fanservice would be a topic.
I mean, in the measuring scene of Dress Up Darling, the reason Marin suddenly gets shy is because Gojo accidentally touches her in a sensitive spot and she's suddenly reminded that she's nearly naked and there's a cute boy closely looking at her body and she's not as ready for that as she thought. As for other scenes that happen later, such as the love hotel photoshoot, I tend to read it as less "lets undercut this with a joke" and more "these are too teenagers who haven't quite gotten comfortable enough for the level of intimacy they're pretending to have, suddenly being reminded of how intimate the situations they are in are, which causes them to panic and retreat back into shy awkwardness.
I love dress up darling so much it's one of my favorites but the fanservice in the first season is crazy, the scenes are fine, I honestly think it's normal for teenagers to act like they do but the closeup of her boobs and stuff like that is not okay imo. Thankfully it got pretty much better in the next volumes tho
You should send a letter to the writer of the series and tell HER to tone down all that male centered fan service.
ig it's bc this youtuber is autistic that he doesn't understand that feelings and thoughts aren't logical, least of all teenagers, the most horny and irrational people ever. the thing is, HE EVEN MENTIONED KAGUYA BOTH WANTING AND GETTING EMBARASSED ABOUT BEING CLOSE AND PHYSICAL WITH HER CRUSH AS "NUANCED". the gojo measuring scene is LITERALLY THE SAME THING. feeling good about being looked at and confident, but also getting embarassed about being seen in certain ways.
@@aikoppp and most of the audience that it was aimed at did think it was okay in their opinion, what's your point? should the ecchi anime be changed to fit your specific preferences? or the preferences of who the author wanted to cater to?
imagine a guy coming into the bts standom and thinking it's not okay the the boyband isn't muscly and manly but instead effeminate and catered towards young teen girls. how DARE bts not be accommodating to what ALL people want!
@@ippanpedrozo1162 I didn't say they should change it. I get it and I get that it was aimed for a certain audience, I still watch it and have bought every volume available and as I said it's one of my favorite animes, I just expressed my opinion about minors being sexualized and I do not think it's okay (bc well they're minors) but I don't recall saying they should change it just because I don't like it. Though the scenes are mostly unnecessary it gives them a possibility to make the anime/manga both male and female centered, but in my opinion (again, this doesn't mean everyone has to think like me and dislike it or change the anime) I think they should've went with adults instead of minors if they wanted to add these type of scenes as it feels pretty weird to be looking at a 15/16 yo girl's body in that specific context buttt if you're a weirdo and you like it alrighttt it's not like I can change it to fit my preferences
Are you watching Sign of Affection? It's been healing my heart this season
Same here. I’m inwardly squealing every week. It’s so cute. I also really like how there’s not really any fan service (so far). It’s like it’s more built up with love, rather than lust.
i did but didn't love it.
ITS SO GOOD I EVEN BINGED THE MANGA SERIES ALL LAST NIGHT WAITING FOR NEXT SATURDAY IM HAPPY YOU LIKE IT TOO
This is really my gem as a romance (in years)
Its refreshing to see a deaf female protagonist and the love interest isn't toxic and he actually puts effort into communicating with her. Actually read a bit of the manga but mannn, it got so boring. But regardless, I'm glad its getting hype.
Cruft was such a good choice of word for fanservice in anime. Like you I love romance in anime and will always look out for another good love story, but you really gotta dig through quite a lot of fan service before I can find something I enjoy. And even after that, like you said, there still may be some amount of coming to terms with the existing fan service if you still enjoy the story.
And once you check out a community subreddit for a particular series or look up merchandise, it's pretty obvious to see why so much of it exists, regardless if it is even remotely in service to the story.
Exactly, I wish it wasn't made to be the standard! It's not just an issue for women, maybe not all men want an anime constantly trying to sexually arouse them! I wish that fanservice was reserved for the ecchi genre rather than being a common aspect of shounen anime!
Here's the thing. Most of the time I am not even aroused. And most of my friends and I have talked about this as we have all gotten older. I mostly feel uncomfortable. On one end I understand how sexual tension can be used as an element of the story telling between the characters, on the other, I see so many of these characters who are literally children sexualized so obscenely on the subreddits. I don't even think fanservice being on ecchi or shounen anime is even the issue. But rather mostly these authors thinking this is ok, or worse, essential to some idea of freedom of expression (see love hina's author) and that idea being disseminated to the larger fanbase and being taught that it is ok. @@Naoto-kun1085
@@lumpenada977 I'm the same, as an adult I feel extremely uncomfortable with fanservice, especially of minors. Even if the audience is technically kids, A. Why do we want to show sexual content to kids? And B. A large portion of shounen's viewership is adults anyways. And I agree, freedom of expression is important but it shouldn't be an excuse to justify fanservice like this. Sure it's just an anime, but the entertainment young men watch teaches them how to behave, and do we really want to teach young men that sexual tension is the most important part of a relationship? Or that they should view all women as sexual?
I'm sure someone else probably said this already, but just to clarify: that scene were Gojo measures Marin's leg and she suddenly gets super flustered out of nowhere, it's not just some not-so-subtle swapping of the dynamic, it happens because Gojo (unknowingly) bumped a certain part of her body while pulling the measuring tape up.
Yes, this is something I straight-up did not notice, and is a failing of the video. What's funny is there are OTHER solid examples, but the ONE I USED has a better explanation that I simply missed.
Oh well, can't win 'em all.
@@superdude10000 Yeah, the show/manga isn’t for everyone but I do wish it was more serious.
I just have to fangirl about Dress Up Darling for a bit here, please forgive me.
I love the way the show frames love. I love how Marin wholeheartedly enjoys love and being in love instead of denying her feelings for no reason. I always frustrated me when they make a character hate having a crush. As someone who has had many crushes i can confidently say that love is fun, its a beautiful feeling and i am happy that is being shown in a healthy way through her.
I was desperately searching for another person who appreciates my dress up darling, I love it so much. Marin is KNOWN for opening loving the things she loves. She’s an otaku! She loves her fandoms openly and gushes about them so why would it be any different from her love of gojo? This video was great and I understand not loving fan service but that was an incorrect criticism in my opinion. Of course Marin is gonna gush over gojo just like how she gushes about everything she loves!
@@alicialimon9103 Exactly! Omg you worded it perfectly! Love is beautiful and the way she enjoys loving her hobbies, friends, and her goofy boy of a crush is so endearing and admirable. I'm a Marin fangirl til the day I die 🥰
yesss!!!
another thing I would say is in the scene she was being measured I think Gojo accidentally touched her "there" and that's what she was freaking out about. She doesn't see her body as a big deal. When Gojo went to her house she didn't freak out cause he saw her in lounge clothes that exposed her body. She freaked out cause she didn't have her hair and make up how she wanted. She takes pride in how she presents herself, not her body itself. She's casual and open about her body to the point she didn't realize the sexualized cosplay that was basically just a strap over her tits was too far till Gojo clearly said so. I mean the girl openly talks about playing H-games. Another time she freaked out I think was during the succubus cosplay. She had no problem straddling him for the right camera angle and he was going with the flow getting really into it so he most likely didn't notice. She most likely felt that he was hard. You can look at each and every time she freaks out and yeah it makes perfect sense
also her making a joke sticking out her tongue. Think about it. Regardless of how much you like someone staring into someone's eyes causes tension and can become uncomfortable. She's not the kind to meekly look away
Gojo may be an obsessive shell of a person but yeah. He's depressed and has been for years. His obsession and accepting how he perceives things as being how they have to be is a very real thing. Marin is slowly drawing him away from that and ******spoilers for the manga****** in the manga he's going through an emotional conflict that directly challenges his worldview. At least that's what I'm hoping will happen. It's what it feels like it's leading up to. He's the one that pushed for the last cosplay they did and it made him feel selfish after it was done. The manga hasn't yet fully opened the box of the emotions he felt but he's bottling it up and for sure it's filled with regret. I may not be interested in hina dolls but there's a lot about Gojo that I understand. That depression and anxiety shut him down and stopped him from being a social functioning person. That's something that is very real
@@tomraineofmagigor3499 You worded it perfectly! I thought something very similar but didn't know how to word it. I should really read the manga since the anime will take a while.
There was never a "shift", it's just that male centric RomComs have moved away from the classical harem slapstick model ala Love Hina, which allowed the "Rom" part of RomCom to take a bigger focus due to people realizing "Oh men do enjoy romance even if it is not drowned in comedy"
The most recent "shift" is not recent at all and spans over a decade especially due to the time most of these RomComs have been conceptualized and written long before the anime industry started to pick them up.
yeah but a decade is recent when you know how the industry works, as you do. i have noticed a slow and subtle shift in the romance market being filled with shounen titles instead of shoujo ones. in general, shounen is always more mainstream and popular, so it makes sense to try to make it in that market. i think the shift hes talking about isnt one in the number of stories being made, but rather which ones are popular. which ones people think of when you say "romance anime". because im pretty sure no ones top answer would be monster musume ever lmao but there was a day when ohshc would. either way its not like either has gone extinct or anything, its just a slight tilt of the scales in the past decade with ever changing trends.
A lot of people in the West(?) don't realize that the genres (shounen, shoujo, seinen, josei, GL, BL) are often split into two categories in Japan: "Dansei-muke" (For Males) and "Josei-muke" (For Females), and bookstores likewise shelve books into genres near each other based on these two categories. You will then see women comfortably shopping in all sections, but men rarely feeling comfortable shopping in the Josei-muke sections. This is likely just social pressure rather than problems with interest in each genre, as great stories from Josei-muke genres do occasionally get broader audiences outside their target women despite not targeting men (happy accidents). Light novels and manga that do happen to draw in a broader audience (usually due to anime adaptions) are often placed where anyone can reach them without seeming creepy or effeminate, like end caps toward the middle of the store, or displays on the ground floors, etc.
The result of this is that Josei-muke series more often do not get easy word-of-mouth among broader demographics, and thus, they are considered riskier ventures to adapt into anime. Fruits Basket and Kimi ni Todoke are both notable in that they actually have a track record of rating very high on the rare "shoujo manga that guys like" rankings some magazines and websites post by their audiences. Despite both having been out of the market loop for a while, they still hold those spots today, meaning they are safer bets for remakes and sequels than most other shoujo manga. For those who have lost hope about Ouran Host Club getting a sequel, it just so happens to be pretty high on the list (usually right behind FuruBa and KimiTodo) as well, so if Kimi ni Todoke is successful, you can keep hoping!
Regardless, this might be shifting a bit. I'm not sure if it's changing dramatically yet, but young people in Japan are slowly growing weary of gender stereotypes, gender roles forced on both genders, and even gendered clothing. One of my friends is also married to a guy who has zero problem talking openly at work about the shoujo manga his wife has introduced him to, and recommending them to his guy friends.
I'm a weird case. Shoujo and josei are still my favorite genre by far, but I'm a lesbian who writes and draws pretty Dansei-muke kink erotic art. I'm a vanilla person irl, but I don't like drawing vanilla stuff. Thus, I watch a lot of otaku-centered romance anime, play otaku-targeted mobage, and read male-centered isekai novels, sticking mostly to reading shoujo/josei manga (including a lot of female-targeted ero manga), all the while talking about my waifus and husbandos with my guy and gal friends. Tentacles are fun! Give me monstrous orcs! It's not too serious, but it does feel lonely until you find out a good chunk of the best artists in the ero-manga and ero-illust industries are women, and a lot of women silently enjoy these works (or indulge in them by cosplaying for fun). I imagine it will be a while before I see a significant increase in men who like more "girly" stories, but I eagerly await the day when no one in Japan feels like they have to hide what they like and can enjoy everything without gendered categories or the shame that comes with them.
I feel like I've read a (highly condensed) academic paper on Japanese Sociology and their publishing industries, this was a great read!
Can't say I'm a tentacle person, but it's nice to know more about everything you've mentioned
@@scylla1772 - Oh, I'm just a regular person making simple observations and inferences based on my experience as a book nerd, discussions with friends (the LGBTQ+ community in Japan is very well-acquainted with topics of gender and sexuality compared to the rest of the populace... er, well, duh), and understanding of marketing and such.
Also sorry for the TMI. I am a bit too loose-lipped for my own good. Lol
Yep, that's asia for you. As an american, I couldn't imagine dealing with all that.
@@sebaschan-uwu - To be quite fair, it is just as rare to see men read romance fiction in the US. In fact, I'm no comic nerd, but from my understanding, monthly American Comics very, very rarely publish female-targeted audience works. The most you'll find are youth romance graphic novels in the youth fiction section, but again, it's hard to imagine many men reading them. Maybe that'll change in time, too.
@Junosensei it may be rare, but I don't think most men in the US would be embarrassed to be seen enjoying a romance book or watching a movie/show that's heavy on romance. Including anime. Many don't, but I don't see why a significant amount of men would be against watching a romance movie or at least a movie heavy on romance if it was good. Most of them aren't good though, I've heard. It's definitely not a social taboo or something.
And superhero comics (it's impossible to talk about american comics without mentioning superheroes) are most of the time not specifically designed to appeal to males like shonen anime is. Women just generally aren't as interested in them as men are.
*I normally don't like ecchi animes, but something about "My Dress Up Darling" was different.* I don't know if I'm explaining it well but I'll try, it felt honest. What an honest teenager would feel like being near a hot person you have a crush on, especially if said hot person is unaware about that aspect of themselves and unintentionally crosses some boundaries. In most ecchi anime, one person or the other knows how attractive they are and sort of plays into this teasing nature. While I believe Marin is aware of her innate beauty, I don't think she believes Gojo is attracted to her the way most people are physically attracted to her. She genuinely believes her crush on him is one-sided, and there's something very relatable about that. While Gojo is offered a lot of fan service from Marin, he's very respectful when approaching it, and I really liked this aspect of his character. You don't often see men in ecchi shows genuinely trying not to fall into inappropriate circumstances with their crush, or a lot of them will pretend to be innocent until they can get away with it, while he was genuinely just very innocent. And I liked this sort of push-and-pull relationship they had going on, when one person got confident the other got flustered and vice versa. Of course, a lot of the ecchi is played for comedy, which is nothing new, but it never felt out of place for Marin as she was very self-assured, and never cared about how she be preserved by others. (and as a bisexual.......I get it Gojo......) Also, I liked how she really liked him, even if he was very simple and plain. Most of the time in the romance anime I watched this is flipped, and the girl is plain one and the boy is the hot overachiever, and whilst I love those this was very refreshing for me. It made me like both Gojo and Marin more. How she simped for the most white toast of people but it was endearing because she cared about him, and Gojo how introverted he is (like me) he uses his lack of charisma or social performativity to observe and actually listen to people, and care about people on a fundamental basis, and not just a socially accepted basis. If you personally don't like the ecchi element in this anime, I understand, most of the time that's me also. But I just wanted to point out how this felt different for me than most stereotypical ecchi anime. ^^
The scene where Gojo says she's beautiful as he's falling asleep made my heart JUMP! OMG it was so cute, you could see how it finally hit her that he may actually like her more than a friend. Everything you've said is SO on point! UGH! I just LOVE this show!!
I couldn't have said this better myself. 100% my sentiments when it comes to "My Dress Up Darling" and how it handled its romance between Gojo and Marin.
@@nevermoreever2 Right!! I've watched this anime so many times and I still get flustered in that scene......thank you for taking the time to read my l o n g comment tehe ^^
@@myocchi Ahhh thank youuu!!! And thanks for reading my comment.....ugh it's such a great show!!
I don't normally like ecchi animes, but the ending scene of Hatsu Inu makes me cry every time.
Love this breakdown! Something I think a lot of western anime fans don't realize is that "shounen" and "shoujo" don't just mean "action" and "romance" respectively, there's a lot more nuance to it than that and a lot of current popular romance anime are in fact shounen.
I do think this isn't as much of a new thing as you're portraying it - male-oriented romcoms have been around forever in anime and manga. Ranma 1/2, Oh My Goddess, Chobits, Toradora, to name a few off the top of my head. Something DOES feel different about the current zeitgeist of shounen romance, though - I've never read or watched much of the genre myself, so I could be totally off base here, but it feels like recently there are more series that take the heroine's perspective at least partially, as well as more male protagonists who have a presence of their own and aren't intended to simply be a blank-slate viewer insert. It's a great development imo, I have no issue with the wish-fulfillment type anime existing but especially as a queer woman I love to see more character-driven stories with broader appeal beyond the heterosexual self-insert (male OR female!)
I DO also think we're seeing fewer shoujo romance adaptations go mainstream these days. I'm not sure why that is either, or if it's even an accurate perception - maybe there's some hidden gems out there flying under my radar? But I would love to see more of both - good character writing can be enjoyed by anyone regardless of gender or orientation, and I'd love to see some modern Ourans or Fruits Baskets getting made. (Well, okay, they did literally make a modern Fruits Basket, but aside from remakes lol)
Well, if you're looking for some good feminine stuff, A Sign of Affection is currently coming out, and is pretty good. Though it's still releasing, so we'll see if it sticks the landing.
@@superdude10000 would u be able to make a video maybe possibly on why there's less popular shojo? Colleen made a video on it but I do think it has something to do with Shojo simply not appealing to a male demographic one way or another at least to some extent. Which in all honesty I don't think is a bad thing, genres panders to their specific audiences is not a bad thing and I for one don't like it when people say it is
Agreed, Japan knows its demographics. The idea that "romance is for girls" is pretty obsolete over there, they'll just keep making fun of the boys that do enjoy it... Probably with the girls being the ones making fun of them, calling them virgins.
@@crystellik It's not really an issue of shoujo not appealing to the male demographic (we keep seeing shoujo tropes infiltrate shounen titles and even some of the layout and drawing styles), it's that women will buy shounen without any issue but men will not buy shoujo, so you make more money marketing shounen titles. I honestly wonder if the demographics were removed and we actually did just focus on genre if it would equalize more.
@@kuraichyan first of all what are some Shoujo tropes in found in Shonen? Second of all women by Shonen because a lot of women like Shonen where as not a lot of guys buy Shoujo because they don’t like Shoujo.
Why don’t guys like Shoujo? Multiple reasons. Art style I think is a reason a lot of people tend to overlook I’m not that big a fan of Yumi Tamura’s art style, and a lot of Shoujo has at least a somewhat similar art style as well, yes I know it’s not all of them but a lot of them do.
Another reason being is the genres. Shoujo is often stereotyped to be the romance genre and anything outside of that isn’t Shoujo. Even on this video here the majority of the shoujos are romance. While Shoujo fans will say Shoujo isn’t only romance, that is true, the VAST majority of the most popular Shoujo series are romance, the amount of popular Shoujo series that don’t have romance as a big part of the plot can be counted on one hand. Before Shoujo series become popular with a male demographic shoujo’s outside of what’s been stereotyped to be shoujo need to get popular with it’s own target audience.
If male fans start to see that there are a ton of really good shoujo that could appeal to them it’ll start to grow as a genre
It's kind of funny because I genuinely love dress up darling, as someone who's non-binary/bi I can see myself in both of the characters. Being the dorky guy who enjoys making dolls but also loves pretty women, and then the pretty woman who is secretly a nerd and doesn't want people to think that she's off-putting or unapproachable, I just really enjoy it
oh man... I love Ouran so much, I'm glad you spoke of it so highly. Haruhi's attitude toward gender was really my first big identification with a character who felt the way that I did about my gender. and I also think Ouran does something kinda special with the boys, by making them so completely down with being seen through this campy lens of male beauty. it kind of felt like it was evening the playing field between girls and boys to me... like, these boys are relating to beauty standards in a way that you mostly see applied to girls, while one of the central traits of our main "girl" is how ambivalent she is toward how people perceive her. the guys literally have to step in and apply their own techniques for beautification, in order for her to more eloquently pass... as a guy. as someone who has literally been in Haruhi's shoes when it comes to cluelessness over how to be anything other than a scruffy nerd, it's actually kind of comforting to see someone like Tamaki get passionate about his own styling, but also think that Haruhi is genuinely cute no matter how she's styled. the standards are different for Haruhi in his mind because, well... he just really likes her.
also, I really really agree with that little paragraph about FMA Brotherhood... tbh, I'm grateful that my first exposure to the story was through the manga. I feel like I can appreciate what all the various components of the two adaptations are doing (and not begrudge their flaws too heavily) a lot easier, because I know how the story was originally intended to go.
as for the split between male vs. female target audience in romance... I love the way you defined it a lot. like, the idea of the girl being the POV character vs. the guy being the POV character, is such a great way to qualify it. because like... if, say, the woman was the POV character, and the series had a ton of stupid sexy fanservice that still serviced her POV, then it'd still feel like a romance with a female target audience. not that a ton of those exist... but there's an argument to be made for the idea that they should. because for as much of a problem as it can be, that fanservice targeting straight men has oversaturated anime as a medium... the inverse lack of fanservice that targets a female audience becomes conspicuous once you notice it.
and my stance on fanservice is that like... it's fine, with a couple of asterisks.
as much as I liked certain parts of Dressup Darling, that part where Gojo walked in on Juju was super uncomfortable. Gojo himself didn't intend for this to happen, so I'm not feeling too icky about him as a character, but the writing is conspiring to create a fanservice scene that Juju isn't consenting to. in fact... neither character is into it. so like... ick! who is that even for?? and as a side note, just in general... it's not always one character textually displaying disrespect to another character that qualifies as fanservice being disrespectful. the writing can be disrespectful by conspiring like this, even if zero characters are behaving disrespectfully at all. and in general, it's impossible to be respectful to an underdeveloped or poorly written character, who was clearly only dropped into the plot to be a fanservice sock puppet. so a lot of harem shows that underdevelop the waifus are still in hot water with me, because these girls are just bodies at this point. their personalities only barely exist to further the primary function of their creation, which is to get looked at by a male audience.
and then there's the age thing... which I completely agree about. a lot of these characters didn't need to be in high school. and in cases like Dressup Darling... if you do the narrative situational equivalent of blurring your eyes just a bit, you can almost forget that the show said that, and pretend they're in college. it clears up a ton of stuff immediately! like, why is Marin, as a teenager, so into erotic visual novels? ostensibly, she has no experience with sex, so her laissez-faire attitude toward it as a concept is kind of weird if we actually think she's that young. this attitude in and of itself would fit more into the characterization of a 20-something.
and I feel like this is why anime has to be taken on a case by case basis with this sort of thing. in cases like Dressup Darling, it feels reasonable to just mentally age the characters up in your head, because the high school premise feels like such a check on a marketing list, rather than an integral part of the characters' lives. in stuff like Kaguya-sama, the sexuality actually does feel kinda teenagery... as in, this is how teens kind of are, whether we like it or not. and the horny parts mostly stay conceptual, rather than explicit. the one time in Kaguya-sama that we get confirmation that two characters have actually done it, it's Kashiwagi talking about something that she and her boyfriend did, long after the fact. it's not gratuitously showing us what they did on screen... it's Kashiwagi, as a friend, talking to Kaguya about an experience she's had. it's awkward, and embarrassing, but in a way where you really believe that it's a facet of the characters' lives that they're trying to deal with. it's just part of the uneven road that different people take in different ways on the way to adulthood.
but then, most anime just exist in this sort of la la land, where teens being portrayed as hyper sexual is just kinda... hand waved? the elements of sexuality are as unrealistic as the pink hair and the magic system. at that point, it's as weird as the show wants to make it. some shows just divorce themselves so heavily from reality that you're just like "questioning this is the least of my worries tbh" while others will stake their whole premise on like, an age gap romance with a teacher or something, and you're like "hang on, I'm not having fun, I think I need to leave" and that's where I typically draw the line.
but yeah, I would love for anime with sexual overtones to just, please, be about adults! the adults in the audience would feel immense relief, and actually really enjoy themselves, if that condition could just be met. and then, within that, please... for the love of god. please, please, please _also_ sexualize men. because there's nothing wrong with being an adult who is horny on main for other happily consenting adults, but it feels uneven when women are the only subjects that see this sort of treatment. this is why I love Golden Kamuy tbh... it's one of the few shows that, in a very good natured way, can take a bunch of buff adult men with cute personalities, and give the audience a bunch of casual fanservice of them. and still maintain a strong plot with cohesive themes... the fanservice doesn't detract in the slightest. it never misses a beat. chad type way to handle fanservice. more shows should aspire to the level of comfortable sexuality that Golden Kamuy achieves.
my main qualm is, why is this unique? and also, why can't women be the subject of fanservice that still respects their character? so often, fanservice scenes will be applied like a template to female characters, with no regard to her characterization. like, she's strongly written right up until it's time for her to get walked in on while she's bathing, and then we skyrocket to unprecedented levels of "she would not fucking say that" and like... why?? it'd be so easy to just make her a normal person with her own unique relationship to her sexuality. give us fanservice that's in character! use it as a tool for characterization even!
idk, I just think that there are fine ways to do fanservice in shows that have decided that that's part of what they're about. but the poor execution, and improper application of fanservice in ill-fitting places, is what's really spitting in my cereal.
For starters I wanna say that this is a really well written and thought out comment.
however, I disagree with one point you make, that men should be sexualized in anime more. The way I see it, men are sexualized in anime a ton, it's just not as visually obvious in most cases. Lets take one piece as an example, it has loads of fanservice with scenes and designs of it's female characters, I don't think I need to elaborate on that, but the same goes for it's male characters. Take Zoro for starters, Zoro is super buff and his six pack is often shown off in fights and when he's training, and while both of those scenes also have story and character purpose they are also definitely intentional opportunities to ogle at his abs. For a second example there's Sanji, So much of his design hits just right for a lot of female viewers, along with many aspects of his personality(passion for cooking, being a hopeless romantic, being violently over defensive about people he cares about, being kind of pathetic sometimes) are designed to appeal to the same type of people who would find his design attractive. As well, One Piece is famous for having ludicrous body proportions/sizes for it's male characters(Mr.1, urouge, Pica, Blackbeard, Whitebeard, Doflamingo, etc) I assure you most prominent male characters in one piece cater to some specific taste and I could go on, but if you need more evidence go watch Melon Tee's character analysis videos, she is very horny for these characters and they're well made videos.
I'd say the problem is not that men are undersexualized, but that so much of female sexualization is a single specific kind idealizing a specific taste and figure, while most things outside of that are considered fetish material or are fairly rare. there is too little variety in how Female characters are sexualized when compared to male characters, or at least too much focus on one specific method of sexualization(Large boobs and thin figures, if that wasn't clear), and that makes it all far more noticeable and egregious.
@@heek8964 I do think you're hitting on a very appropriate gray area for discussion... but I think the distinction I'd like to make is that, often times, the type of sexualization that women are subject to is a lot more evocative, and also runs the risk of creating a lot more genuine writing flaws.
to begin describing this, I want to separate things a little. on one hand, we have the positive examples of fanservice where the sexualization of the characters isn't a hindrance, and in the case of a romance that involves sexuality, it can even be a boon to the writing.
on the flip side, we have the negative examples of fanservice, where it genuinely gets in the way of plot, characterization, character autonomy, basic respect, etc. and I mention this because it's often way easier to see the difference between how men and women are sexualized in the negative examples. the negative examples aren't what I mean to ask for when I say men should be subject to more explicit fanservice, but when I give examples of how men and women are sexualized differently, I may have to mention negative examples, and I don't want that to be misunderstood.
anyway, I think what I mean by "evocative" is that, when women are sexualized, it's not just "their boobs are out" because that can be portrayed in a neutral way. anime doesn't often opt to do this, but it could be purely locker room rules where just because you can see something, that doesn't mean it's being specifically fetishized. that's how I see the abs in One Piece most of the time... especially because of the cartoony art style. if people happen to find the characters physically attractive anyway, that's probably more due to the trend of show protagonists having some level of idealized beautification applied to them as a rule across the board. almost everyone in every anime has this, not just men, not just women, and not just One Piece. in fact, I'd say One Piece is unique for giving us some main character designs like Franky, Brook, or Chopper, which can get really out there. but then for the women, there's almost only one body type... and I'm not sure if it's supposed to be a stylized exaggeration or not. but we all know why they have it.
more to the point though... I think what would need to change for me to qualify the presentation of men as fanservicey, is the scenario. with women, there's often a sensual element. so like, if there's an accidental boob grab, the emphasis is on how soft the texture is, or if there's a slow panning shot up a woman's body, you can see where her clothes dig into her skin, or where the folds caress certain features, or if there's an upskirt shot, on the really detailed ones, you'll straight up see an outline of the shape of her whole vagina. it can get really crazy, like, it's not just that the woman has boobs and exists. and One Piece is actually a great example too... if Nami is wandering around in just a bikini top, I think she can be viewed mostly neutrally if other stuff is going on, and the show isn't doing anything in particular with the camera or other characters to sexualize her. but if she were to like, trip, and her halter top came undone, and she got all flustered about whether or not anybody saw anything, that's what I'd qualify more as direct sexualization. because then you're being invited to think about what you could've seen... that sort of thing.
but the men aren't really touched by anyone in a sexual way. there's no slow panning camera, over the details of how their clothes cling to their bodies. there's no particular attention lavished onto the depiction of a crotch bulge, or emphasis placed on the texture you might feel if you were to put your hands on him. the show doesn't conspire to set him up with gratuitous wardrobe malfunctions, nor does it show him particularly more undressed than he usually is, and depict his demeanor as embarrassed about it, in a way that's cute, and implies a sort of demure potential for more that he's just kind of bashful about. the show doesn't baseline have them wearing outfits that feel scanty and revealing... which is tough to imagine on men, given that they can be shirtless and people treat it as neutral, but to that point I'd say look at something like Fairy Ranmaru.
granted, Fairy Ranmaru is not a show I've watched, but I've seen the outfits. when the boys magically transform, some of them are literally wearing skimpy underwear and thigh highs, or they have little cutouts at the hips to show some skin, or any of a million other little decisions that you would usually see applied to women when their designs alone are supposed to be horny. (I also think that many of those outfit designs are kinda ugly, but that's beside the point... this is just about the only example I can think of where the brainlessly sexy impractical fashion choices go this hard on the men.)
but basically... just the existence of a sexy person is usually not enough. most anime characters are designed to be attractive. so my criteria has other qualifiers. take Bleach for example... Orihime and Rangiku both exist. I don't consider their mere existence to be fanservice, even though we all know why they both have massive boobs. but it is fanservice when there's a huge chapter title page illustration of only the girls, at the beach, with Rangiku, Yoruichi, and Orihime front and center, boobs on prominent display in their tiny bikinis, and nary a man in sight (unless you count the idea that it's really a guy's eye view that the camera is taking). contrast that with the fact that yes, Ichigo is sexy, and in some of his outfits, he has this deep V neck thing, and well fitted top, which shows off his figure quite nicely. but he's also mostly covered, capable of feeling intimidating in a fight, and capable of being taken seriously in a conversation. nobody is gonna be getting ludicrous nosebleeds over his cleavage in the story itself, and when the series has a beach illustration that actually includes him, he's wearing a shirt, even though the illustration could've portrayed him shirtless, and still conceivably come off as sexually neutral. he's still hot, but I don't feel like the other characters are lusting after him, and that's a huge part of it too. it all hits different when the creators of this media _know_ that this is a character people are intended to have sexual feelings about. for the guys, rule of cool often comes first, and anyone else's attraction to them is only incidental, or is at least secondary.
and I picked Bleach here as just a random example. another of the big 3. but all of them have this kind of thing to some degree. and they're treated so casually by the general anime watching community. everyone sees them as standard... genre staples. old classics by now. but when you look at how the women are treated in these series, vs. how far afield you have to go to find men being treated the same way (Fairy Ranmaru is nobody's genre staple) the difference is clear.
my stance is that, in the areas where fanservice is crappy (when it mischaracterizes, derails the plot, etc.) I wouldn't wish it on anyone. but in the areas where it _does_ work as a positive element for the people in the audience who feel attraction to the characters, men deserve more focus.
@@heek8964 also, I forgot to say, but I completely 100% agree with your last paragraph. I honestly think that increasing the variety we see in fanservice across the board, in terms of who we see in the spotlight role, would be a huge improvement in terms of both men and women.
@@IDKLOL-qj7sl I know your comments are long but I'm completely engrossed. Thank you for voicing this opinion because it's how I feel too! There's a few points in your paragraphs that I really, really resonate with but didn't know how to describe so knowing someone else feels the same is a bit cathartic. Thanks for that! I feel like your asterisks on fanservice hit the nail on the head for me.
Especially the point between fanservice from a girl's perspective and a guy. I think Blue Lock is a good example of "locker room" fanservice and what most guys imagine fanservice for women is. The players are almost never unclothed and always in their tight-fitting compression clothing and jerseys, and the artstyle (mainly in the anime) isn't bashful with their natural physique and muscles. It's not inherently evocative or sexual at all, but that doesn't stop people like me and others from saying lewd and vulgar things lol.
Fanservice for guys is wayyy more sensual, like you said the _"accidental boob grab, the emphasis is on how soft the texture is, or if there's a slow panning shot up a woman's body, you can see where her clothes dig into her skin, or where the folds caress certain features, or if there's an upskirt shot, on the really detailed ones, you'll straight up see an outline of the shape of her whole vagina."_ I've never seen an anime that can fulfill the same for a women's POV in a sexualization way (might watch Golden Kamuy for this, ha!). There's a huge untapped potential in sexy scenarios that are just as exciting for the female adience. A man in grey sweats has the potential to be just as a hot as the shirtless guy in the right scenarios and imagination. It just takes a bit more creativity and insight. There's definitely going to be things that guys do which are universally exciting when left up to horniness hormones.
Fanservice for women is more romantic wish-fulfillment than sexual. Shoujo and reverse harem define those qualities, the most evocative scenario in them is heavy breathing or pinning the girl to a wall all dominantly (that I know of). A guy's POV fanservice scene is a cut panning to a cute girl taking a bath, her breasts in the water or soap on her closed thighs, and the imagation is "This is what it would be like if I were in the bath with her" and so. It would be nice to see the same directed for a female audience. As in, the girl's equivalent would be a naturally bashful and shy guy lazily removing his boxers, his grip on the bath's edge, untensing and heaving a deep sigh. So, the imagination is "I wonder what it looks like or how his grip on my hips would feel". Both are kinda sensual and leave lewdness to the imagination, and I wish there was more for the latter in anime.
tl;dr, show me that hole.
As a guy who avoided romcoms like the plague growing up, but in the last few years ended up watching at least a bit of every show you talked about here, you touched on so many things I agree with! This was a great retrospective on this content. Your editing was also clean and crisp! Keep it up!
As a dude, the later in life you get, the more of a hopeless romantic you become
32:13 Because being an adult in Japan stereotypically means spending the majority of your waking hours as a depressed wage slave. So high school ends up being remembered overly fondly, as that one time in your life when you aren't really a kid anymore, but you also don't have to bear the full share of adult responsibilities yet, which maximizes the amount of fun you can have.
Or something.
I though this video was going to go through the historical way romance had evolve in anime, but no. The earliest work you can see here is Ouran High School Host Club a show that even the author of the video categorize it as a "parody" and "Reverse Harem", what do you think its satirizing? Most of the girls I know grew up with Inuyasha/Ranma 1/2 which are older than OHSHC and are shounen romances, would that mean for them anime hasn't change? Also, there is a really weird assumption of assigning everything "Sexual" to boys but that part is a more complicated subject.
It’s kinda like that in general yeah people think men = lust and women = love and romance with the former usually not being seen in a positive light at all I find.
I would love to go through history of philosophy to check when the switch happened, because classical philosophers were rather describing different landscape - it was masculine to be romantic and logical, and it was feminine to be sex-oriented. And it was rather not-hypocritical, the cultures would literally have some sort of "Sex-obsessed male" phrase as a slur.
I think you misinterpret the switching in Darling. I've always read the measuring scene as Gojo getting a little too close or even brushing her bits because he's tired and a moron not just a pointless switch up. Similar to the hotel scene. She's open to contact but still learning comfort in those scenarios. But I'm heavily bias by partner and I watched it as it came out and we started dating and we both loved it.
Thanks for this analysis, I feel alienated as a woman who likes anime sometimes. So much of the community and culture revolves around the normalization of fan service, particularly of minors, and it’s really uncomfortable.
I also hate when people who haven’t seen anime think it’s all sexual - there is so much good anime out there. Sexy is fun when it’s consenting adults anyways! I truly believe there’s an anime for everyone, it just sucks when you feel alone in the community.
(Before someone tells me “they’re not real!” you’re not a criminal or anything for liking it. But you’re still a creep. With the variety of porn that exists, why do you want to get off to high school girls in particular?)
I'd be fascinated to see you talk about romance web-manhwa. No one really talks about it critically, and I think that's a damn shame. Plenty of the stories share a lot of similarities (isekai/transmigration and marriages of convenience are hugely popular in the space right now), but that doesn't mean they're IDENTICAL, and I think it's a shame how many pass over the genre entirely with an air of 'that's just chit lit, for DUMB GIRLS'.
And as a bonus, I find it's WAY easier to find manhwa focused on adults than it is to find manga with the same focus. There's still... trope Choices in many, but the greater prominence of adults is always appreciated, lmao.
that last point is exactly why I think I prefer reading romance manhwa over manga now as an adult, manhwa often have college or office settings as opposed to high school which felt like such a fresh breath of air honestly, though the tropes about your hot, rich ceo boss falling in love with you, an average working class woman, still has all of the unrealistic wish-fullfilment aspects about it that I don't typically enjoy
manga focused on adults is everywhere, it's just not licensed that often
And then anime is like 30 picks out of thousands of manga once a season
manhwa are subject to an insane monopoly that make them piss easy to bring over to the west and have low bars for adaptation
If you wanna find more manga, look up the magazines of manga you enjoyed then check what other manga they've got in them.
@@meggieclaire1486 THIS!! Same, I hope there'll be more anime adaptations of fantasy romance manhwa and hopefully they'll choose various stories and adapt them well. Like, imagine a good adaptation of "Your throne" with two so different, but equally interesting female leads and not only with romance, but about their friendship too.
I think manwhas are gaining an expanding audience because Japan's animes are stuck using the same tropes over and over. I love donhua romances, and ones like Link Click, although without romance, is good writing because the writing focuses on the story and there's not a hint of fan service in there. All 3 main chars in that show are capable and yet still have more room for char development is incredible.
@@SwanPrncss link click was such a breath of fresh air
as someone who likes shojo, personally, the gentrification of romance has pushed me out of anime. It feels like young girls are losing 'their' genres to boys, girls are being pushed out of spaces that used to be designed for them, and that makes me sad. It's the same with how the magical girl genre has been getting darker and darker - the occasional dark magical girl anime is GREAT but also a little girl deserves more space to watch girls be awesome and fight and be the powerful, strong ones who save the day without having to sacrifice their femininity or being reduced to a sex object. It just makes me _sad_ yk? and i'm all for young boys and men enjoying traditionally female orientated genres but I wish that that didn't come at the expense of them being FOR girls.
I grew up when girl centered anime was VERY popular and after learning about the history of shoujo and what it was originally for I started to realize they just don’t make ANYTHING FOR girls or even women anymore. I think girls willingness to watch media for both men and women being a target audience came back to bite us. Now because of this media for men and boys automatically becomes more profitable then something targeted for us because most men will not do the same.
I mean not even anime but even just western cartoons, movies even, nothing is really given for us in the same way. Mabye some webtoons/manhwa and some games are an exception but most media geared for us is basically gone which I have a great problem with. I never expected anime to take this route though. But especially with anime where things that are supposed to be geared for men make me somewhat just turned off and uncomfortable. I want story, I want good characters, romance, emotions explored. I realize with anime I will not find that. I have also basically just given up on anime but there are some really good old ones out there that I love! Also manhwas and novels!
Also they won’t even try anymore with making a show for women that already are popular and have a fanbase (pushing otome game to show content, idol games ect) its like japan just decided we ain’t that important anymore
@@Riu-bw4bl It makes me sad for me because it feels like I dont have a space in an artform that I used to love, but above all I mourn for the little girls who won't get to see themself as powerful and strong and *good* because of their femininity and not in spite of it. They deserve better. WE deserve better.
The Madoka effect is sad for sure. Though there are still a lot of older magical girl series to enjoy. So many! Also, the shoujo and jousei stories moved to the j dramas which are more popular with women and girls. It seems women and girls prefer live action over anime. A shame for all of us who stayed in the anime space and prefer to have the stories adapted to anime. I do suspect there’s more to it than women and girls just prefer live action. That the move is in response to anime no longer caring to cater to women. Shoujo is returning to anime in recent years. Fruits Basket got a remake and Kimi ni Todoke s3 is on the way. There are a couple new shoujo stories that have come out as well. Like A Sign of Affection.
@@Riu-bw4blOtome are for girls though, aren’t they? Pretty sure they are targeted at women. They could be adding in appeal for men when adapting to anime to market towards both demographics, but the original otome stories are for girls.
@@FullmoonPhantom-dn2sr I'm UK based so it's really hard to find lots of older magical girl series, and if shoujo does make it big it takes a long time to get to us - I check every manga section of every book store for example and they tend to only stock newer releases - so shounen and seinen.
Well this helped me realize why a very small number of romances I like and why I dislike the rest. I’m not the intended audience. Like duh, but that makes more sense now. Ty!
What i hate about fanservice is that it's often non consensual. Like a guy falling on a girl's boobs, or peeking at her skirt, or entering a room while she's changing. And when a girl notices she's being watched she hides, like lowering her skirt or hiding her boobs, she clearly doesn't want the guy to look, but so much fanservice is that and it's just not a good thing
youtubers trying to explain something: "okay so imagine rick and morty"
This was a very roundabout way of pointing out that there are anime that are made for different demographics. There are still plenty of shojo anime of various quality being made.
I'm personally a fan of MDD, but can totally respect your take on this.
I will however make the point that there is a reason for Marin's "switch" from outgoing and oblivious to being shy. For her, what happens before that point does not cause feelings, it's just casual. But then something happens, either physical or emotional, that makes her feel excited. And that excitement is what makes her shy. In the first instance it's him bumping into her nethers that causes it. Later on it's the way he grabs on to her waist. In other moments it's just being confronted with her own affection. It's funny, cause I know this depiction of her might be more aimed at men, but I (a woman that uses her partner's youtube from time to time) really related to her.
Either way, lovely video regardless. Really enjoyed hearing you gush over some of the other titles.
To add, Marin being comfortable being in a bikini and having her chest measured but embarrassed when he gets close to her crotch is very realistic. A woman's crotch is often much more private than our chest and we're often very used to being in a bikini to go swimming and such. She did show slight embarrassment when he tried to measure her chest but due to his reaction and him being incapable of doing it it becomes more humorous than embarrassing for her. Meanwhile, by the time he gets to measuring her inseam, he's calmed down a lot and is a lot more serious. Marin no longer has something to divert her embarrassment to as he's no longer having silly reactions. The scene also shows Marin that Gojo can be trusted and thereby becomes a lot more comfortable with showing him swimwear and she wants to wear things he likes. It also helps her convince other girls that he is trustworthy and can actually help them in their cosplay goals. Gojo has proven to Marin, a girl who is seen as incredibly attractive, that he's not going to be creepy and ogle her or other girls and that he values them past their bodies.
I thought MDD was a great portrayal of learning attraction and how to deal with it and how falling in love feels like. It's the little things that we don't think about rather than grand gestures, the show of respect for another and valuing their interests, wants and needs.
the scene when he grabs her waist she was straddling him at the time to get the camera angle and honestly I thought it was cause he was hard and she felt that. It's interesting to see how a guy and a girl came to different conclusions about that scene. I think the best scene that shows how little she really cares about her body being seen is when Gojo came to her house. He was embarrassed cause she was dressed in such a revealing way while she was embarrassed cause she didn't have her makeup and hair how she liked. Just how I see it but I'm assuming it's cause she's the kind of person that never had to really put effort into having a good body but she puts effort into her hair and makeup so that's what she cares about? I'd like to get a woman's perspective on that take
Also when the creator talked about Gojo's character. The obsession and the worldview he has very much lines up with people who have both depression and anxiety. Gojo is a very real character as yeah defining moments stick out while most the rest of life feels gray or foggy. You can't get hurt of you accept things as "this is how it's supposed to go". You only get hurt when that worldview gets challenged *****spoilers for the manga***** how things are currently going in the manga it looks like that worldview is going to be challenged in a major way in the new arc coming up
Regarding the scene where she is upset over her makeup and hair, from a woman’s perspective - even if you are a voluptuous woman who grows up being told you’re attractive you often don’t see yourself that way - certainly not your body. You can understand how men may find you attractive but you lack seeing it in such a sexual way because, well, it’s your body you see it every day and those bits that are attractive to some can be cumbersome to the owner and they may be useful when flirting but overall it’s not like it gives you meteoric confidence… so I’m sure Marin is flustered because she feels more comfortable and more attractive with her makeup and hair done. She doesn’t rely on her body alone to make her feel attractive.
You missed some really obvious stuff when watching My DUD. In the fireworks scene, you were so distracted by the romantic moment being cut off by a cute gag that you just missed that the romantic moment happened in the first place. It happened, then the plot moved on. They couldn't just stand there forever. And in the measuring scene, Marin didn't crack at some random moment, she did it because Gojo touched her somewhere he shouldn't have. Because he's so used to working with dolls! He was tired, so he started going through the motions, and he accidentally did something that you want to avoid with an actual human.
I spent a lot of time before this video came out belaboring what to call it, because I knew it would be an easy thing to get wrong, and it turns out I still did!
The original title was "The Gentrification of Anime Romance," which I felt was a solid choice, because gentrification refers to an original group being pushed out by a changing economic landscape making it no longer feasible for their presence. The 2000s era shoujo romance is very rare nowadays, and instead we have more romances that cater to men, which take up oxygen that used to go to the shoujo romances. That seems like a gentrification to me.
Issue is, gentrification is a negative term, which caused people to assume I think this is a bad thing, and I super don't. I love Kaguya-sama, I like Komi Can't Communicate, and I like The Dangers in My Heart, though I also make space for the more feminine romances like Skip and Loafer, and Sign of Affection. I love all of them (just not really the pandery ones).
So yeah, the title needs to change to be more neutral towards this shift, as the video is meant to be received. Though I do knock Dress-Up's representation here, it's certainly not special in its problems, and there are a lot of shows that are FAR worse. 4/7 ain't a bad score. So hopefully this goes some way towards explaining the reasoning for the original title. Hope you understand my meaning.
EDIT: I changed it back, lol. Hopefully this pinned comment is enough of an explanation.
EDIT 2: Also hijacking my own comment to say: SOOO many people are leaving huge comments, and I think that's great. I can see that compared to the video game sphere, anime people are way more likely to discuss the topic, and that's great to see! LOADS of people disagree with my assessment, and leaving such detailed, thoughtful, and importantly not rude comments is a delight. Love reading them, even if they're full of perspectives that run counter to mine. I genuinely never met a single woman who liked Dress Up Darling before this, and the DD fans are REPRESENTING in the comments! Love to see it. The world's a big place.
I don't think she's Autistic. She simply has Social Anxiety.
I will say, getting a more in depth analysis of the different dynamics skip and Loafer and Dangers of my Heart from you would seem really interesting.
"feminine romances like Skip and Loafer" so taking the time to develop flaw and realistic dynamics yet interesting, mature and romantic -while avoiding sexualization and objectification- is femenine only? okay... I want to think there's more to that statement, but we write things for a reason.
@@Dan_Jado I call Skip and Loafer feminine cause it's writing style and tropes are more in keeping with the shoujo romance style of those past works. It's a seinen, but it is in keeping with those "feminine" works.
And the "avoiding sexualization part" is important! It's the difference between male gaze and female gaze; I can't think of any point in S&L where the camera oggles a character... except maybe Egashira, but that's done more to visually represent how critical she is of her appearance, both positively (great interest in fashion) and negative (spoilies). Yes, there are definitely feminine romances that are more sexual, but what the camera chooses to look at is important. Marin is sexualized in Dress-Up, Darling, sure. Why not Gojo as well? (I know it's not in character for him, I'm just saying equal opportunity fan service would be cooler, imo)
Though I don't mention it in the video, Ouran does have a lot of male-body fan service throughout, and while some of it is gross (the twins), it's not... I dunno, lurid? And it's made for kids at the age I watched it (15), so it's not as weird as some other examples found in the video. As I said, nothing's set in stone. It's a complicated issue.
@@superdude10000
Bless this video, and thank you for making it. God, I love hopeless romantics and all their perspectives. Thank you!!
And yes, there _are_ women who like Dress Up Darling, I do! Marin is one of my favorite characters! She's passionate about her hobbies, kind, empathetic and is unapologetically feminine and loves cute things. She loves hair, makeup, and fashion but also has days where she wears sweats and doesn't care as much. I fangirl over the cute and heated moments because I can see myself in her reactions and language. She's the girl I want to be and would love to be besties with.
It's not too different from how some people can't stand female shoujo protagonists in anime like Fruits Basket (especially Tohru who receives the most flack for this) or Kamisama Kiss because their fatal flaw feels one-dimensional, that they are "too kind and shy". But I can deeply empathize with these girls. Tohru loves unconditionally, unapologetically, and faithfully. But she can't see how much the love, care, and attention she has for people touches their lives, and constantly downplays the impact she has. Her heart is open and wide to nurture and love, but it is also a labyrinth of walls to hide her insecurity, deepset loneliness, and low esteem. She's observant and empathetic to other's pain because she is painfully aware of her own but doesn't want to trouble people. Throughout the course of the manga and anime, she learns to be bolder and assertive and stick up for herself. I _know_ , for most people, that's an annoying and surface-level lesson because asserting yourself should be as nonchalant as breathing. But for those like me who were instilled with the one of the most twisted kinds of shame, the shame of sticking up for yourself, it is unbearably relatable.
Superdude: What a hollow husk of a character
Me, basically a hollow husk of a character IRL: *pikachu face*
Ouran host club will stay my comfort show forever until the day I die the moment I watched it as a kid I fell Inlove
how did i not realize you’re the same guy who made “how games portray work”. your stuff is so good my dude!! and this topic is super interesting, i’m excited to see the rest of the essay c:
You would probably enjoy a sign of affection coming out this season (winter 2024). Personally I really enjoy it as an autistic person, as it really puts a focus on intentional communication between the romantic pair. And a big plus the main cast is all college students rather than highschoolers.
I feel like you'll like the dress up darling manga more than continuing the anime. A lot of what you said resonated strongly with my opinion on fanservice. The key difference to me is the pacing of the fanservice. If its manga, you skip 3 panels of fanservice in a millisecond. If the anime decides to strech the 3 panels to 30 seconds, you are sitting there for 30 seconds
... also it probably helps i never knew it was supposed to be a romance. It feels a lot like a "activity series" (like sports or music. Or that one fashion anime) with comedy and romance flavour to me. Maybe i feel like that because I stop to appreciate the cosplay sections longer than the romance
(Btw I read manga first, then dropped the anime)
I really liked the video for the analysis of a genre that i see a lot in anime. As a person who just accepts stuff in media and just recently started analyzing things, it was such an eye-opener to see it from your perspective. Being exposed to sexual things in media at a young age actually led to desensitization to these things. So i would like to thank you for your perspective and would actively try to search for mindless Fanservice.
what attracted me to my bf is that he hates fanservice in anime just like me :) But we still both love anime
Japan have way too much sexualisation honestly, if a young boy want to enjoy some fantasy he will swarmed by isekai full of fan service. Animes and manga in the past were better.
@@kagetsuki23Well that's what happens when you deny men sex en masse. They seek to fulfill those desires in other ways. Guess you guys have a lot of work to do convincing Japanese women to fuck Japanese men more if you want less fanservice in your anime, because that's the only way you're going to get it!
It's weird that I haven't seen anyoje say this, but there is a very clear reason for why Marin gets flustered during the measuring out of nowhere. Gojo accidentally bumps into her crotch, and yes, it is shown in the anime, and not that hard to miss if you pay attention.
In 5 minutes, you've already summarized my frustration with romantic comedies, I wish they were 100% sincere.
really watch insomniacs after school then
20:03 i mean, from what i can gather, men these days are becoming increasingly lonely, so it's not really a surprise that they'd resort to escapism to fill that void
29:45 i'm not sure whether the downbad meaning or the lore meaning came first, but my initial exposure to the term "fanservice" most certainly was the downbad meaning, and it's my predominant understanding of the term at this point. which leads to a bit of confusion when i see it being used in the lore sense
30:33 it's funny, i think my parents are pretty much the exact same way. except i was so fed up with their nannying that i installed a locking doorknob on my door and basically haven't had any issues with their nannying since
32:13 again, media like anime is about escapism. once you make the characters adults, you have to delve into adult topics. nobody wants to be reminded about their taxes and bills. nobody wants to be reminded of their unbearable 9 to 5. sometimes, you just want to forget about your responsibilities and go back to when you were a carefree child. making the characters minors fulfills that fantasy
+ these are fictional characters. you're free to feel uncomfortable about that, but there's no real reason that it's an issue. no real reason that can't also be extended to other objectionable content [violence, crime, corruption, etc.] at any rate
34:16 lol
35:59 i thought that was pretty heavily implied to be bc he accidentally poked her in the crotch?...
This is spot on. Most of the issue with western anime reviewer tend to overlooked is that this show is aim at Japan first. Given the stress situation there and men mostly forced to do all the company work, its quite understandable why Escapism is the most preferred genre. The last thing an overstressed salary man needs is more negative reality drama to watch.
Marin, Chika, and Komi-san are good representatives of this trend.
They're just normal, welcoming people. Which is what guys really like.
Komi is not autistic, she has selective mutism. I've had a student like that, it's an anxiety disorder that they usually grow out of. Komi has an extreme version given that she doesn't speak to absolutely anyone, and still has it in highschool.
Spoilers
she improved so much in the manga
She displays so much more than selective mutism so that's not a very good case. The author has also spoken on how she's loosely based off of their own experiences and the author recently received an official diagnoses for autism meaning Komi was an expression of their life as an undiagnosed autistic person. Don't be reductive towards others experiences just bc you don't bother to make an effort to understand
@@acedwards819 the entire Komi-san manga is reductive to the point where literally every character's name is a pun and they are all static, one-note characters except for exactly Komi, Manbagi, and Tadano, and even then, they're barely dynamic characters and they're more two- or three-note characters. To chide someone for being reductive when talking about that manga is like chiding someone for failing to do in-depth literary analysis when talking about The Very Hungry Caterpillar. The characters in that story are literally all stereotypes in service of a joke, sometimes the joke being that they don't actually fit their stereotype. "So-and-so does this, so-and-so looks like this, so-and-so looks like they would be like this but actually they're not, etc." You literally cannot avoid being reductive when talking about that story, so don't scold people for doing so. If anything, you can do what I'm doing and point out that it's such a shallow mess that trying to apply any real-life experiences to it is futile, but even then, like, who cares.
@@drewbabe I said don't be reductive about other people's experiences, not the manga. The manga is made for gags and outside of the first 50ish chapters it hasn't had anything of relevance to say. Great job reading tho
@@acedwards819 Referring to a character known primarily for their selective mutism as autistic implies that their mutism is autism, which it isn't. We don't even know if she even is autistic. She is an anime character, not an actual person, and only loosely based off a person who only recently got diagnosed with autism.
In a positive way, I feel very "seen" by you in this video. 😅 I'm also a man and would definitely describe myself as a romantic (even if that doesn't always show to others, due to what is probably some kind of ASD). Ouran is my sister's favorite show, and her love of it got me to watch it on my own and really enjoy my time with it. The way anime fanservice sexualizes women in general, especially minors, leaves me quite uncomfortable, and I share in your frustration with "romance" stories scared by their own sincerity. I really need to get around to watching Komi and Kaguya! I just haven't watched anything by myself for while.
This vid also got me thinking about my own writing endeavors too. I just finished a draft for a fantasy romance story, and hearing your feelings on romance makes me feel quite vindicated in my implicit writing goals. I made the female lead its POV character, like shoujo stories do, because omitting the male lead's POV helps him seem mysterious (and hopefully, alluring)--and kinda related, because I don't want to ever objectify the female lead with male-focused wish-fulfillment, like you saw with Marin's lack of inner monologue outside of being head-over-heels for Gojo. I think I made these decisions to avoid appealing to ONLY men, but maybe I'm just influenced by my own shoujo history. 😂 I want more stories like you talked about with Komi, where romantic attraction/tension develops out of the time they spend together--like real people I know, rather than being an instant infatuation. Hopefully, I can succeed in making one of those stories.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts, man! I'm looking forward to checking out several of your other videos, especially that Fire Emblem one.
Another video talking about the shoujo romance vs shounen romance, yay!!!
I'm so glad this topic is getting more and more traction as it's so near to my heart.
It's interesting hearing thoughts about this from a male perspective as I'm a woman myself. I've found myself struggling a lot with romance anime since like you said.... it's shifted to a male perspective. In itself that doesn't bother me at all as I'm a shounen girlie however, I feel like most shounen romance doesn't hit the same way. You put it exactly into words with the romance vs comedy balance and the romantic payoff.
I used the be one of those people who watched ecchi for the plot and because I wanted a couple to form. Shounen romance often feels the same to me and lacks the sincerity I need as I'm also a hopeless romantic. For this reason I haven't tried any of the new romance anime of the past years, including all of those you mentioned here.
This video convinced me on watching kaguya sama though! I know shounen romance has its own merits and right to exist, I just wish it didn’t mean it pushes shoujo romance away, as romance was pretty much the last thing shoujo had and now its fully vanished from the anime world (not manga, though). Gentrification words it perfectly.
Not sure if this matters at all, but Kaguya-sama is seinen, not shounen.
Do try Dangers in My heart.. It starts a bit cringe/rough but after 3 episodes it gets good, then it exponentially gets better. I think it is THE best shounen romance out there. Kaguya is great too, but it's way more focused on comedy, whereas dangers if more focused on romance / the main character evolving
It does suck that anime is in its 'romance and wish fulfillment' era and despite Shoujo getting stereotyped as just romance, it still doesn't get to be adapted.
Agreed, but im a shoujou and josei and seinen girlie. I felt very alienated even with shows like komi san, because its very very from the gaze of a bystander that "fetishises" lack of a better term komi's condition and the juxtaposition of her popularity and her being approachable as proxy for the audience to do so. Although theres a romance to it, its less romance like in seinen like kaguya more "romance" as in owning an idea and a person you "love" as escapism esp as proxy for the audience.
@@bobi200samatar6RIGHT! tbf its capitalism, so like of course they wld adapt something that has more "fans" also since theres more female fans of shounen than there are male fans of shoujo and the anime space is very male dominated mostly, josei and seinen are more "niche" compared to shounen
My read on Marin had been that, as a model, and with many of her interests often being ecchi or even hentai, she's very blasé about the display of her body and sexuality, but the moment it becomes genuinely intimate is when she freaks out. She doesn't think anything of Gojo having an opportunity to ogle her in a swimsuit: it's not exactly dissimilar to her job as a model, and she seems to genuinely have an enjoyment of ogling the female form in the media she consumes. It's the point at which the measurements take on that greater degree of intimacy (either because Gojo accidentally touched her inner thigh directly or with the tape measure, or just her sudden awareness of his closeness to that area) that she starts to feel uncomfortable. All of her teasing is about looking, but not about touching.
I love my Dress Up Darling so much as a big fan, I want to say your review was very fair!
Marin's very impulsive and free . There is no guilt in expressing her sexuality or her body and she inst demonized at all for it. I feel like a provocative popular and rebellious girl like her would easily be put to be some sort of antagonist in a regular anime.
Also Gojo being the exact opposite and fully aware of the societal view and customs and norms and how things look is just funny.
Culturally I dont know much about the average girl in Japan but Marin felt like the girls I made friends with in high school. And the fanservice uhh. well...
I think about those years in high school. I mean it was an awakening period for everyone so its not inaccurate but I understand anyone who feels a bit much.
Heck i agree it does get EGREGIOUS in that anime. anyways
Great video! Thanks for reminding me about Ouran.
I really liked this video. It felt like quite the sincere analysis on your view on the genre. The sincerity cut with comedy actually reminds me of a presentation on metamodernism at GDC and I do think regardless of whether its Rick and Morty or romantic comedy anime, both employ a form of ironic detachment from shifting between genres. It's a great point of comparison to draw.
To share my own preferences, in terms of romantic comedy, on that has stood out to me in the past is Mousou Telepathy. It's a manga only, but it uses its format very well, particularly its use of color. The story centers around a girl with telepathic powers and a stoic guy, who is often unable to express himself. Like Komi, but genderswapped in a way, the guy is often fawned over for being stoic and good-looking, but since she can read his mind, she knows his more immature aspects too in a way others don't too.
A more recent addition is You and I Are Polar Opposites. This one is again a quiet guy but with a girl that is very forward and outgoing. I have difficulty expressing why I like this one so much other than it just has very naturalistic dialogue. It also builds its cast very evenly, like a whole ensemble of friends. It's still an ongoing series.
Great video! I'm a 29-year-old man who probably more consistently enjoys a good anime romance (Kaguya and Toradora are two of my favorite anime of all time), and what I will say about the part of the manga that hasn't been animated yet (the whole second half of the story) is that throughout all of it Kaguya remains the central character and focal point of the whole story even as other characters have their own well-developed arcs. One of my favorite things about the shows depiction of male-female relationships is Aka's use of male-female friendships. He jokes about the possibility of Kaguya x Ishigami, but never actually hints at that so the story is developing their friendship and Kaguya becoming more of a mentor to him. Ditto for Miyuki's relationships with Chika and Miko. They always stay as just friends so the story focuses on developing their important friendship relationships and becoming a support system as just that. There's also another friendship Miyuki develops with another female character (it's been hinted at in the anime but gets expanded later) that leads to some great moments of self-development for both characters.
There's also a passage written by Aka in one of the later volumes addressed to people who might be disappointed that the story progressed in a more serious and less comedic direction. His response is to basically apologize and say that there are comedic moments coming up, but taking the story in an overall more serious/sentimental direction felt like the right direction for the story to go.
Also if you dislike fanservice in anime there is a part involving a school trip a few volumes after the Christmas arc that basically takes an anime fanservice trope, doesn't give it to you (so you don't actually see anything), makes fun of/deconstructs the trope, throws it in the garbage and then moves on with the main plot. It's actually brilliant.
Good stuff, man.
Oh yeah, the hair fanservice prt, i actually choked at that chapter
I think the point is more that it's a shift from harem anime to more one-on-one romance. The female oriented romance anime are still around and arguably stronger than ever with stuff like Lv. 999 with Yamada-kun, Signs of Affection and the seasonal villainess anime like 7th Loop.The male-oriented romances were always around but stuff like Maison Ikkoku, Tenchi Muyo, Ranma 1/2 and Love Hina leaned more on the comedy angle with sillier conceits and then variety of girls by the late 90s and 00s. The mid 2010s was basically the end of the harem genre as the king of (male) romance. Like we still get Quintuplets after this point but aside from that, it's the start of Kaguya, Takagi, Nagatoro and Uzaki. All of these center around this sort of mythical girl that pulls herself into a loser (protagonist)'s life and then reshapes that loser's life around her, less-so for Kaguya-sama where both sides are equally vying for the lead in abstract ways but from Takagi and Nagatoro, it's a clear path to kinds like Komi-san(though this touches on a separate trend with socially anxiety in protagonists) and Dress-Up Darling and Call of the Night. You can even find this trend with Rascal does not Dream series though that is a slightly different take on the sort of unrecognized savant protagonist that can resolve the mystery for each girl seen in like Bakemonogatari
It’s weird, it’s like people want men to go back to only making and watching harem shows (which people will still criticize) because they think single-focused romance shows for men is somehow pushing out female fans of romance, when the concept of romance isn’t even a gendered thing, and there has always been romance anime for both genders even to today but men are most anime fans anyways. Not that people would be happy anyways if men only did make harem shows, as long as the media appeals to men, I’m sure people will have a problem with it for appealing to “male fantasy / male gaze” while demanding that you only apeal to women or else your pushing them out of their genre that wasn’t necessarly their’s in the first place.
19:49 I wish there were more aromantic protagonists who are being themselves and having a good time.
Also, i hate that trope of "fixing someone" that is clearly aromantic and minding their business, as if love was something missing in their lifes. (Sorry for getting personal) Like, F* you man. Im totally fine not being in a relationship and replaying Bioshock, that game rules.
Honestly, I wish I could stand up for all the aromantic folk who are treated poorly. Y'all are not broken, you're human. Your experience as human is different, and I hope y'all can enjoy your lives, one way or another!
From my personal aro experience, sometimes it's just too damn hard for people to realise that I don't give a big f about being in a romantic relationship. I'm saying this as a person who seems to be attractive to people, so I constantly have to reject all of them and try to explain why it won't work out. I completely understand why it may be hard for them to accept it right off the bat, but I'm just tired of hearing "you're immature and horni" or "you've just never met the right person".
The country with a declining population promoting being alone and that being just fine?
Yeah, no, better look for western media if you want that lmao.
'Bloom into you' has a male side character that seems to be aro (based on a clip i saw)
He enjoys seeing people getting into relationships but don't wanna be part of the dating life
Heres the thing, I like this essay and I think you make a lot of good points, but I take one serious issue with some parts of this video. Love is War is not "equal," at all. This anime is definitely "more" equal and accessible to a female audience than most shounen romance by a long shot, but it is in no way *intended* for a female audience at all. This is just a shounen romance that doesn't overplay fan service, and doesn't focus on either character's individual perspective because it's actually told from more of a third person view than either of the two mains. Most importantly, its the only shounen that's not wish fulfillment.
I also take issue with the idea that whose perspective the anime comes from matters for figuring out the intended audience. Now, what the gender of the perspective character is can matter... *If* it is wish fulfillment. If the main character is supposed to be a self insert in any capacity, then their gender will make it obvious who the audience is. But there are examples of anime strictly aimed at a female audiences that have a male perspective (Yuri on Ice) and many many male aimed anime that have female perspectives. See the anime you used in this video, Kill la Kill. Sometimes these animes might not have *any* characters of the gender they are aimed at, because it doesn't matter if its not wish fulfillment (like moe, or BL). This being said, the most obvious way to determine who the audience is supposed to be is to pay attention to what the *camera* looks at, because that is supposed to be the audience's POV no matter what kind of anime you're watching.
So going back to Love is War, there are several scenes of the camera focusing on Kaguya's boobs and panning up to her face or panning up her body for... No reason, obviously, and there are *none* sexualizing Miyuki or presenting him in an "appealing way" to the *audience* at all throughout the entire anime. This is because its squarely a shounen romance and it is aimed at boys. The camera is supposed to be a (straight) boy, so of course it wont look at Miyuki that way at all.
Don't get me wrong, I love it, and it's so "not in your face" that you can easily mistake it as being neutral, and obviously the intended audience doesnt mean that women can't also enjoy it. The amount of scenes that do this is tolerable enough that even with my very low threshold for fanservice nowadays, I didnt really care at all. But it isn't *equal*, and I do think that's important to just objectively acknowledge as a true fact. This is, solidly, a shounen romance, even if it feels tame by comparison to how aggressively "male aimed" many of the others are. The most important aspect, I think, is it's the only one on this list that doesn't really have any elements of wish fulfillment, as you pointed out, besides Ouran. Miyuki is his own character through and through, and the story still holds when it isnt being told from his perspective because of that. Miyuki is a character in a romance story aimed at boys, not a stand in for the male audience. That's the difference.
That is probably a really big factor as to why this anime, out of all of them, feels like it is more substantial. Rather than learning about an abstractly hot girl that a kind of average and bland guy could conceivably get under very specific circumstances, it is a story about two distinct characters falling in love. Allowing the focus to be on the story rather than the vague idea of getting a hot girl leaves room for the characters and their connection to be far more fleshed out and deeper (which is... You know, what romance is) than if you try to use any sort of self insert fantasy which often forces the story to cheapen the love interest as well as the main character's.... Character, to make it make sense. The more wish fulfillment, the more egregious and obvious this becomes and the harder it is to disguise. Like you said, there is *more* wish fulfillment in Dress Up, and it makes the romance and connection between the characters themselves feel slightly cheaper than Komi-san, which has far less of these wish fulfillment traits.
If you want romance and not a power fantasy, then wish fulfillment is going to make it feel shallow and cheap no matter how well you try to disguise it. That's what, I think, your actual problem is with these animes is rather than anything about it being a shounen in particular. I agree with the other things a lot though, particular about how they use comedy to undercut the romance, cheapening a lot of the serious moments.
Btw if you've never watched it, its an oldie, but Lovely Complex is probably my favorite shoujo anime ever. Hopefully it aged well, I haven't seen it in a minute.
Ok so about dress up darling 27:35
as a girl, I can say that marin's internal dialogue was pretty much on point when it comes to someone we like doing something cute. It's kinda wierd but I have noticed that with myself, and also some friends of mine that just discribe becoming "wierdly obssessive over" every little action the person they like does. And marin actually does remind me of some friends I've had, the more courageous ones, that can jokingly flirt and stuff. I do agree with the things you said about fanservice from 29:00 on. Girls absolutely don't act like girls in anime, especially marin. She's smart but becomes so dumb whenever fanservice is envolved and she's like "I cannot see oops hehe". Also thanks for speaking about how the fanservice in beastars was absolutely well used, i really liked how smart they were there
And dont even get me started with the p*do problem. Anime fans refuse to accept, but most of the community see no issue, or even like to see minors sexualixed m, and use the "oh actually it's not a real person" argument. And then they get angry if anyone calls them out. You can't even ask them why do they like someone underage, and that resembles a kid and they get all pissed. Like this is so frustrating
Your Rick and morty rom com comparison is brilliant it explains why I like Rick and morty despite my dislike of the adult shock content I love seeing characters deal with sincerity
This is a topic that I've been talking about with my friends for YEARS now. There's been a severe lack of shojo-based romance that I feel like these shonen-based romances are all that we can get nowadays. Thank you for framing it as a gentrification, because that is precisely what is happening in the realm of romance.
And personally, I couldn't get into Komi Can't Communicate because of the slow start and lack of engagement from Komi as a character. I absolutely loved My Dress Up Darling though. I personally think the ecchi works in the show because of how confident Marin is with herself. There are rarely times in the show that she's sexualized and looking all shy - like no - this girl is owning it and wants to appear that way. I look at her character thinking "I wish I was more like her at my age," which I feel is something that people would be able to relate to. Also, I would just like to point out that Marin isn't just acting out like that randomly at 35:57 It's more visually implied in the manga, but she's acting that way because she feels flustered that Gojo had accidentally grazed her hooha while taking her measurements and is unaware that he had done that
I'm sorry, but that's not confidence. It's attention-seeking behavior. Who makes a cosplay to NOT get validation from others? Who makes a cosplay and not show it to other people and only wear it in their room? Barely anyone. They want compliments for their work and validation from others.
Like playing with your boobs or Marin playing with her boobloaf is only something I do for my bf, I don't do that for other guys or friends or otherwise that's disrespectful to your body. The reason you don't do this in real life is because you know it implies to the public that you're basically advertising your assets for everybody and anybody. Now if Gojo and Marin were an official couple, that be different. This whole "empowerment" by being sexually provocative in public is just a veil over attention-seeking behavior and is pretty self-destructive in other ways unless you WANT the attention/validation
The reason why so many characters in anime are worried about the appearance of things in social situations is because a lot of how their society is structured differently from ours. Things we might do as westerners or in the US at least that are normal might not land the same over there, even if they could be understood within that culture. So it makes sense so many anime focus on that aspect of things.
As for the end of My Dress Up Darling with the tongue out thing, I read that less as a joke and more as Marin distancing herself or breaking the tension. For some reason she doesn't realize why he is looking at her, she doesn't really get what's going on between the two of them or how to get things to where she wants them to be and the moment doesn't come off as funny, it comes off as her reaction to being looked at almost like she is guarded, maybe in a way she doesn't even understand.
When Shounen anime got really big after the explosion that was DBZ and companies here learned that they could get boys into all of these shows and make a killing, it feels like in some ways it almost killed female centric anime in a way and it is kind of sad because you don't really get it anymore like you used to and it feels kind of like a problem that arose from westerners getting into anime an companies here refusing to do anything girl centric.
Even though I have not watched the whole video yet I just have to say, your content is great superdude! I look forward to every upload and you never fail to disappoint!
Big fan of how this analysis was less, let's say, "accusatory" than others. I don't really think there is anything wrong with these developments honestly, there are still plenty of Shojo series being made. Anyone mad about this just doesn't leave the Anglocentric sphere they like to stroll around in.
Especially in Manga, most of what I see visiting Japanese bookstores in places like Akiba feels like it's 80% shojo series, especially of the BL variety for all of the giga-committed fujoshi types. It's part of why I like to visit certain stores. Those works are also usually from female writers, which I love to support.
All that being said though, it's important to just remember that these are effectively different genres. As you eluded to, the classic Shojo romance series were rarely anywhere near as comedic and when they were it still mainly served the doki doki aspect of it all, meanwhile these new shows are self-declared rom-coms. It's like comparing Romeo and Juliet to Love Actually. How can you even draw a fair comparison when those things are not on the same playing field?
So I don't really like how a lot of this discussion is framed as an either-or situation, meaning one must disappear to make way for the other. In that scenario it's obviously sad losing out on certain series in favor of others, which ever way around it is. But we wouldn't be having this discussion right now if it was any other genre. Nobody would make statements like "Oh, these new Shonen series are making all of the good battle fantasy series be less popular. My Hero Academia is why we don't have more series like Berserk." Like no, those have no correlation whatsoever. The advent of one, like it or not, does not influence the popularity of the latter.
If anything there is always a counter movement to a series getting too popular that leads to the opposite type of series being pushed a lot more.
It might also just be classic TH-cam clickbait outrage moves, but even in an overall not super negative video, putting "this is a problem" into the thumbnail to talk about this shift just feels so insanely disingenuous.
What the hell is "Anglocentric"?
@@IgnoreMeImWrong latin for "focused on English", you could have also just googled that though.
A lot of the arguments made in this video are straight up strawmen arguments. Americans cherry pick data and scenes from anime, make an anti-men argument, and then it is hailed as the next coming of the messiah.
As you mentioned, a lot of things in this video is simply grasping at straws and making shitty jumping arguments with no connection at all.
My relationship started out quite like one of these "male centered anime", which is to say, it isn't unrealistic in the least. Women like that exist, and this is simply pandering.
@@rice_frying_shrimpSince YT deleted my response. It's not from Latin. lol
@@IgnoreMeImWrongok buddy sure
If you want to talk about romcoms, start with these:
"Class President is a Maid!"
"His and Hers Circumstances"
"Golden Time"
I'm surprised he didn't mention these classics!
I mean, how Kaichou wa Maid Sama is a classic? It was alright at best. Wasn't, I don't know, Yamada and Seven Witches better at romance? For me, it's Clannad. I have never felt better balance within comedy, beautiful relationship that flourishes to love and slice of life.
always felt that golden time was kind of aimed at boys. male protag + written by the woman who did toradora which is also aimed at boys. but i can see recommending both shows to women because they werent made for lonely men to self insert, and thus are good romances for either gender. also, the guy above me is completely wrong. maid sama is def not a classic but its sure as hell a lot better than the overrated mid that is clannad. im so glad we are out of the early 2010s where this incredibly boring and mediocre series gets brought up in every anime discussion.
On a completely unrelated note to the discussion about romance, but I think Golden Time isn't great because of how it tries to shoehorn in a specific plot point fairly along into the story that just really ruins it for me. Without spoiling, just imagine if you took a completely sensible plot device and then shoehorn in a second stupid plot device to "spice up" the sensible plot device, but essentially makes the whole plot stupid as a result.
For an example of fanservice being done well: Ghost in the shell, stand alone complex. You see the major in amazing shots, but they didn't break the flow, and don't linger uncomfortably long, plus the major is a character who wouldn't mind being found sexy.
Awesome video! Ever since I was a kid shojo romcoms were my bread and butter in the anime fandom and romance in general is still my favorite part of a show. I think you hit the nail on the head with the more masculine shows and their audiences feeling embarrassed to show heartfelt emotions too much. So many of the guys(and girls) Ive known through life who vehemently opposed to liking or watching romance anime seemed more like the shows embarrassed them rather than them thinking the show was bad or unentertaining. I can see how anime fans like this, over time dictated how many jokes are put in romance shows geared towards guys.
Also, I wish you good luck with how brutal and relentlessly mean anitube is, the hate comments might come up a lot.
I feel like the video game people are also pretty mean, so i'm somewhat acclimated. Though certainly more people are coming up to bat on this video than the others. There's even a response video (which I won't watch for mental health), so it's a great first foray into anitube lol.
I really agree with your point of view. Since I started watching anime, one of the first that I watched was "Toradora!", wich got me really into romance anime. One of my favorites are "Horimiya", "The angel next door spoils me rotten" and the two you put in the video: "Kaguya-sama" and "Komi-san". One aspect that I think they shine on is, specifically, the LACK of fanservice. Kaguya-sama is, of this list, the one who has the most fanservice (specially in the manga, but that part is really relevant for the overall plot). I agree that Komi-san is really slow, specially at the start, but once you get to the more recente chapters (starting at the New-York trip imo) it really focuses more on the romance aspect, wich I think is great. There are a lot of romance anime that I think would be good, but I stop watching most of them because of the loads of fanservice, and that really is a shame. Most romance anime have way too much ecchi, wich makes a bunch of them way worse. When I first heard of "My dress up darling", I really wanted to watch it, but, because of the fanservice, I didn't even bother. Fanservice is a really big turnoff for me, mostly because I watch anime close to my family and scenes with lots of tits aren't the best thing for me to be seen watching in such place.
Anyways, that's just my thoughts on this and forgive me for my bad english, I am not a native speaker.
Great video! Love the points you brought up. I feel like an anime like Rent-a-Girlfriend is also emblematic of the male-oriented male gazey romance anime. The characters just run in circles with little development, there's no emotional payoff, the romance never progresses, and there's random fanservice thrown in for the male audience.
Right, also i think its a franchise where the mc works as a camera proxy for the audience who just roots for their favourite type of girl and hopes he ends up with her for them. Rather than a plot with clear characters, its just whoever works well and whoever the creator/director or fans like and can capitalise off of. Like those photobooks of idols but if it were an anime. Off topic but i hate how the only things of shoujo and josei that are adapted are shit like fanservicey stuff that companies think will sell when in reality most of those audience dont even like it enough to dedicate their money to it like fans of similar media aimed at men do since the media space for men and women (masc and femme) in anime isnt the same, and usually the average female fan isnt used to being "catered to" so they tend to like the actual meat rather than the dressings compared to some male fans
Honestly, I wouldn't have such a problem with a little bit of fanservice if the characters targeted for said fan service weren't minors. I don't like fanservice at all but it makes me feel icky when it's a character who's underaged
Am a guy, and yeah shows like that stopped appealing to me once I entered my twenties and had a real relationship.
With the exception of Chained Soldier. That show was designed to strike my specific degen chord. I take back everything I said about fans of Twilight, I get it.
36:15 She didn't just trade positions with Gojo for no reason. He "rang her doorbell" on accident and startled her.
It's more of a trend that comes and goes in terms of how big it is overall. There was a lot of it back in the day, including many of the biggest titles of the time - Urusei Yatsura, Maison Ikkoku, Aa!Megami-sama and Kimigure Orange Road were all immensely popular titles way back when. It never really went away, it just would get found more as b-plots in other genres, but still a-plot in many slice-of-life series and video games, so it became easier to miss if you didn't cast a wide enough net... and of course, there's trends in what gets turned into anime series that really have more to do with how easily they figure they'll be able to sell merch, so just a lot of YMMV based on where your radar is pointed.
Now as to protagonist ages in Japanese media, without getting into the romance (and related media) specific issues, it can raise... one thing to remember is that for a lot of Japanese people, the best time in their lives, the time when they felt he most free an unpressured, was their teen years. Exam prep hell is a years-long nightmare, especially as many of those exams are life-determining and brutally dependant on rote memorization, then you transition into the soul-crushing reality of the Japanese workforce. A lot of Japanese people, if asked to describe their idealized fantasy self image, it'd be as a teen.
There's a word, "seishun" you'll see get used a lot - it can be translated in context to something like "the springtime of youth" and it's used heavily in reference to nostalgia to things like awkard young love and the other wild emotional highs and lows of teen life, typically said wistfully as they are briefly reminded what it was like to really feel things before adult responsibilities burned them out and made them dead inside.
TBF I did not watch the entire analysis, just specfically the "My Dress Up Darling" section, as I very much enjoyed that show.
However, at 35:59, I think you missed a very subtle, but important, event during that section. It wasn't simply that Gojo was measuring her leg that caused her to get flustered. It's that he touched Marin's... down there... without noticing. Anyone, regardless of gender, would have a somewhat insecure reaction if someone touched their private parts unexpectedly.
But, it also points out something about Marin. In the anime and manga, she is very flirty and outgoing, while being inappropriately attracted to sexually provocative characters in media. But, she doesn't have any actual experience with the physical act of sex. So most of her scenes where she is flustered or shy is when she is either:
A.) trying to suppress how attracted she is to Gojo, or
B.) when the situation turns physical.
To highlight the point, the next significant time we see her get flustered is during the love hotel photoshoot scene. It went from playful to sexually tense in a heartbeat as Gojo, followed by Marin, realize how much physical contact and the position they were in.
So while the ecchi moments can be a bit much, it actually is an important part of Marin's character that shows up multiple times as the manga progresses.
It's nice to hear your conclusion on fanservice in anime, even if I greatly disagree with your actual opinions. Like, yeah, this is a normal and popular part of anime and the culture around it. And it's a product of Japanese culture and media, not American, so it's not our place to enforce our puritanical cultural views onto others.
I think the part that frustrates me in your opinion is that you don't particularly seem puritanical, yet you still hold those views. I understand if fanservice is superfluous and grating, as they can detract from the plot. But it is weird that you seem tolerant of SOME fanservice, but not others. Dress Up Darling is ecchi, so it's definitely more shameless and open with its use of fanservice. But all of the anime you mentioned, including Kaguya, Sgt. Frog, and Komi, all have LOADS of gratuitous fanservice too. They're just more tasteful and tame with it. Is it less that the fanservice exists, and more how bold it is? Or do you accept the fanservice in all those other anime because you "push through it," which seems strange considering your broader opinion on the fanservice in the medium. Not sure, it just seems to be a tenuous position to hold.
Also, Onimai is definitely fanservice heavy, so you probably wouldn't like it. Brilliant and wholesome with stellar animation. Would recommend.
It IS a tenuous position. That's the thing with fanservice in anime, it's different from show to show, moment to moment, and some of it is completely okay, some of it is abjectly gross, but MOST of it is on the spectrum of needing to figure out what's okay and what isn't for yourself.
I am definitely somewhere near puritanical, I think I made that clear in the video. My upbringing has warped my perception, and I said as much. Basically everything I was saying in "The problem with fanservice" (for a significant portion of the audience and myself), is the sexualizing and objectifying of minors, and then some of the framings I use to... push past it? Like Kill la Kill is an ecchi with GREAT plotting with fanservice that folds into the themes of clothing, sexuality, gender, our perceptions of our and each other's bodies, it really is an excellent example of what I'd WANT from an ecchi anime... but Ryuko is 16, with means in a black/white world, that's bad, right? But is it? IS IT?! (no)
I know my position is odd, because it's not black and white. Either you're completely fine with all forms of fanservice (in which case, there are some genuinely terrible shows out there that this point would essentially be defending), or you think the whole crock is for pedophiles and perverts, in which case you throw the baby out with the bathwater. I am in the middle, definitely more puritan that the average, but I don't think fanservice is awful. As I said in the video, "but that's... me. If you like your anime hot and sweaty, you do you."
I’m a little surprised Toradora didn’t make it into this video. If you haven’t watched it I think you’d enjoy it. Part of the show is actually exploring the teenage emotional landscape around love. So it’s not just “oh let’s have a romcom, how old should we make our characters?”. There is a bit of titillation in a couple of episodes, but there’s reason for it beyond “hey look, boobs”.
Just wanted to add, great video. I’m definitely going to check out your other content. Keep up the awesome work.
Ouran is hilariously funny, I love it.
Edit; Also, the fact that you call fan service a "me problem" rather then a technical one or some such, respect bro. I like it depending on the context. And yeah, I prefer the smexy to be linked to progressing the story, then a damn bath scene out of nowhere. On the reverse, I hate it being completely shunned too when it would make complete sense for it to exist in a given scene.
But I don't like being told it's wrong for me to like it. And I can totally respect others not liking it at all, as long as them not liking doesn't cause them to attack me for liking it.
I feel the same way
It's impossible to support when a lot of anime is centered around teenagers..............
Based, mutual respect is the route. Don't like fanservice, ok, don't whine too hard about it tho, talking about the sense on it is alright I guess; Like fanservice, also ok! As long as not being a creepo about it bc 💀
@@belalugosisdead4444 I don't think it is a problem for teens (characters) being depicted on mildly suggestive situations (as long as they are relatable/normal) or nudging on things (horimiya handled this kinda well for example, or beastars, who did it incredibly well), as long as the general thing is handled in the perspective to not objectify it, but merely portray as part of the story, or even make it relatable. There is a weird fluctuation on what is portraying and what is objectifying, but it all comes to how you utilize the context for storytelling.
Obviously, when is handled as a subject, it should have appropriate age tags, or else its kinda shocking.
And at no means, a teen should be portrayed with an adult, ever. That is sus territory, nope, never.
@@VOlDNOVA it's always more than mildly suggestive and no they shouldn't. Japan has a pedophilia problem and what they consider legal isn't legal everywhere else. Just a teen taking a picture covering a naked body part with a hand is considered child porn. Don't justify that shit. Either you're a teenager or a freak
You know what's funny to me? That specific example you brought up for Dress-Up Darling's undercutting of the romance made me go "oh yeah i guess that happened???"
I watched all of Dress-Up, but haven't yet watched Kaguya (I know, I know, listen i've kinda fallen off of watching anime and TV in general and only ever watch it with friends, and Dress-Up was more recent when I got together with them that time) and when you were describing the finale with the fireworks and how Kaguya just stared at Shirogane instead, I went "Ah wow I remember Dress Up did the exact same thing, it was such a beautiful and heartfelt moment I wonder what it is that Superdude feels is an 'unfair comparison'???", and then you described the Dress Up ending, and played the images and I felt the emotions coming back and how sweet and sincere it was - and then you showed how they cut the music to show Marin's blue tongue and I was fucking stunlocked. I genuinely didn't remember that. But when you showed it, it came back to me, but the emotion associated with that memory was *still* that same sincerity from the preceding moments.
I think in my mind, that joke didn't undercut the romance, it... climaxed it. It felt like a genuine moment to me, just as sincere as all the preceding drama. It didn't even register in my mind as a separate thing, so much that I forgot it happened. Does that make any sense? As I think about it some more now, I think it's like a capstone on the moment. Usually with "traditional" romance, those moments linger for a while, and some kinda just leave you to stew in them. But the way Dress-Up pulled it off, to me, was like sealing that emotion in that moment. Not in a bad way, like repressing it or hiding it, but just giving it finality. Those anime-like moments of romance I've experienced irl felt similar. There was that sincerity, that vulnerability, that complete encompassing love, but a moment always ends, and they're more special for it. And usually they end in laughter - one of us makes a joke out of pocket, or a friend shows up and interrupts, and me and her laugh together and I look into her eyes while she laughs and just... Idk. It's beautiful. I think it works the same in Dress-Up, because that silly joke feels so genuine from Marin's character, as well as Gojo's reaction.
Also, kind of unrelated, that thing you pointed out when they were measuring each other, and it turned out that Marin "swapped roles" with Gojo at the end for no particular reason - two notes.
First, I'm pretty sure there was a reason, and I think it's pretty clear - Gojo's hand suddenly went very close to, *ahem* and extremely intimate area... You could argue that in that case she should've had the same reaction for any number of other spots she made him measure without a care, and I wouldn't necessarily disagree, but I also don't have difficulty believing that it took until that moment, with Gojo's shift in attitude coupled with the specific area, for her to "break", seemingly at random. It doesn't have to be some specific character/backstory related thing that makes her embarrassed about that in specific, she just randomly (or as I suggested, not so randomly) realized what situation she's in, and felt the weight of it hit her at once, making her "role swap" perfectly believable to me. Which brings me to my second note;
Second, and again this relates to my own experience, it's quite realistic I think? As in, I remember when we were watching that scene, I literally shot a look at my gf, who was already wearing the "omg i'm getting called out..." face, and she just flipped me off lol. Which is to say, it seems very normal, realistic, and sincere to me, to have this girl suddenly realize the position she's in despite feeling completely shameless up until that point, seemingly at random. That moment of vulnerability and understanding between the two of them felt real to me. It was a fanservice joke when it was just Marin being so excited and casual that she made Gojo suffer in sexual frustration hell without realising it, until she too felt embarassed, and it turned into a tender moment of vulnerability between them. You can see it in the framing of the scene, it's all tiddies in your face, and bright colours and fanservice while she's being careless and Gojo is stressing out for laughs, but the moment she feels embarrassed too, the moment in which that mutual understanding forms, it becomes softer, it hides the intimate parts of her body, it has a different feel
Lastly, you mention that to you, fanservice is fine when it's plot relevant, and i totally agree - i hate tasteless intrusive fanservice that undermines the story and characters, dropped some shows mid-scene because of it. But I feel like, in many cases (leaving a huuuuge asterisk there because anime is famously known for not handling certain things well, such as sexual assault, and i'm sure i could think of many other examples if i really thoguht about it..) fanservice in romance is kinda... inherently justified? I mean, there's a real danger of objectification when there's more fanservice than actual character development, but at the end of the day, sexual attraction is an inherent part of romantic attraction to most people (shoutout to our ace brethren who don't give a shit lol) and I usually don't find it particularly intrusive when a character is the object of fanservice in the context of a romance. Like, yeah, of course Gojo would fixate on that tiny little flicker of butt poking out of Marin's skirt when she's walking away, he's totally smitten and, as far as we know, not asexual. And of course the show would draw attention to her figure, and her smitten lovey-dovey internal dialogue, when it's trying to get the audience just as invested in her as Gojo is. And I don't mean to sound like one of those "BuT wHaT ABoUt FanSerViCE fOR GirLs?" people, because that usually gets brought up to deflect from that awful intrusive fanservice that I also hate, but... really, shows like Ouran and other traditional Shoujo female-prespective romance are absolutely FILLED with fanservice - it's just not obvious and sexual in nature like it is for male gaze fanservice because, as media audiences, there are fundamentally different things that appeal to men and women. I mean, honestly, coming from a bi dude who's watched a fair bit of shoujo, and whose gf and a good number of female friends are not shy about discussing their favourite romances... I might even venture to say shoujo has far more egregious fanservice than most shounen, it's just more subtle to men lmao. Hell, i recently saw a video on how a scene from JUJUTSU KAISEN when the dude in a suit and glasses is interrogating some evil guy (i dont watch jjk sorry) and pulls him off the ground by his hair and gets all up in his face was getting a lot of women going lol. This to say that, Komi and Dress-up's fanservice is nothing new to the "malefied" romances, just its form.
Ultimately, I do agree with the overall point, that romance anime is seemingly getting male-gentrified so to speak, and that the shows that appeal to men are far heavier on the humour and fanservice and a little less on the sincere emotion, and as someone who also loves a good old straight up romance (Horimiya, my beloved) I share your feelings of "I like this new stuff too, but there's stuff the old ones did better". But i also think that a lot of that humour and fanservice can feel inherently sincere and emotional depending on individual taste and execution. Like, there's no doubt in my mind Marin was scientifically crafted to be the perfect anime waifu, and that Gojo is very much an audience surrogate, but to me that never detracted from the actual romance and even non-romantic emotional beats of the show. And Komi-san's MUUUUCH heavier reliance on humour, to me, just makes the emotional beats hit like an absolute truck. I mean, when i was reading the manga, that moment at the very end of the play (no spoilers but IYKYK) had me absolutely shaking. Hell, to go beyond the scope of romance, I feel like most "comedy" series end up feeling the most sincere out of all of them. I have never cried harder than at the end of the Assassination Classroom mange. Just typing that sentence made me tear up. I'm serious, i literally got tears in my eyes just saying "the ending of Assassination Classroom". Fuck. They're my babies, man, all of them. I hope they all turned out okay.
Edit: ayo got a heart from superdude, thanks my man. Hijacking my own comment to capitalize on the last point about comedy in general having the best heartfelt moments, to tell everyone to go watch Space Dandy if you haven't already. It presents itself as low brow tiddies-in-your-face dumbass humour, but ive ended most episodes staring at my ceiling feeling some kind of emotion. Short series too. Go check it out.
Goddamn
You should make a video about dress up darling. Great job!
bro actually wrote an entire expository essay
Bro just.
TAKE THIS 🍪🍩.
UR FUCKING AMAZING
nice opinion but i think my dress up darling is trash
I can't get over the design of the boy Tadano with the little flower in his hair in 'Komi Can't Communicate'. I really want to reach my hand out and pluck it off his head. lol.
wotakoi is a phenomenal series I will highly recommend.
Your video inspired me to watch Kaguya-sama: Love is War! Thanks! It's a great anime!
As a girl watching, I LOVED getting the ML's perspective. You mentioned that you thought Shirogane's inner turmoil was treated more like a joke than Kaguya's inner turmoil, but from my perspective, I don't think so. At least, they're not portrayed any more as a joke than Kaguya's. But I suppose that is also determined by how seriously an individual is willing to take the characters and interpret the scenes.
Maybe there's a nuance that I can't see because I'm not relating to Shirogane as a male viewer... But perhaps a solid portion of the male audience are victims of being squeamish about the intense feelings that Shirogane finds himself in, so they lean into talking about the scenes as jokes?
I started to get into anime days before the pandemic hit. I didn't know what to start on so one day in class I asked the guy next me if he had any anime recommendations and he suggested to watch Dr. Stone. I've only seen the first episode and it's pretty interesting. When the pandemic finally started, I came across a youtube video made by Dylan Is In Trouble and he made his own introduction/crash-course to anime, which lead me to watch Death Note. While discovering what I like romance had a special place because of the genuine desire for love. One of my faves is Your Lie in April. I just adore the connection the characters have with one another, it's super relatable romance wise (falling for your friend and all lol) and made me more excited when the piano was an important factor. I used to play piano as a kid and performed and it was so amazing! I personally feel like romance anime that are actually about love and not heavily about fan service and mind games are so much better.
The way you talk in this video essay is how I wish I sounded in my written essays 😊
A major point that enticed me to watch this episode, despite the fact that I would've watched it anyway, was seeing Host Club in the thumbnail. It was a really great watch and was one of the shows that first led me down the anime rabbit hole, so im glad to see it getting the love it deserves. Great video, and I hope to continue seeing more of such amazing quality!
i was gonna write something along the lines of "oh they're just drawings so its fine" then i actually read into it, and danm im literally the product of this problem in the anime scene as a whole
good video, made me ask my entire point of view
Princess Tutu is a good romance/shojo anime i think it does a good job tackling its subject matter with little to no fanservice (unless you count ballet outfits) I dont wanna give a plot syono[isis cause i think it might spoil it but I really enjoyed it.
Fantastic video. I watched a decent few episodes of Komi before giving up on it due to the increasing fanservice and annoying yandere character and never tried Dress up Darling because I believed it was just wish fulfilment and fanservice from the beginning. I really like Kaguya but there are definitely episodes/parts I wish didn't exist. The Kaguya OVA pool scene was unwatchable so we switched it off very quickly, I wasn't going to leave that on my TV. I think it's interesting how massive anime in the west can actually be largely glossed over in Japan. I happened to be in Japan as Chainsaw man and Mob Psycho S3 were airing, and I had to go quite far out of my way to find anything Mob related, but CSM and Spy family S2 were unavoidable. My hope is that western numbers can push for more anime with less male gaze as the genre becomes more accepted worldwide.
I would also add Spy Family to your romcom spectrum. The set up presents the couple as equal partners, but the episodes had so little time given to Yor besides wish fulfilment fanservice that I gave up just after the start of S2. A spy, an assassin and a telepath child is a great setup, but A spy, a telepath child and a cardboard cutout housewife isn't. She remains oblivious and for all intents and purposes gives up her assassin career, I can't even remember her killing anyone after episode 1 or 2. Yor's brother had more character development than Yor did in the time I was watching, and that's just shit. And it's such a shame because secret lives are decent set up for both romance and comedy, but it's so one-sided with him getting to go do adventures and her doing nothing on screen and not even suspecting anything.
I never saw the Kaguya pool stuff, but it sounds like that's a good thing.
I have seen Spy Family, and you're so spot on with your read on Yor. There are a lot of characters bouncing around in Spy Family, and I think the show's just a bit too slow to really explore what's going on with everyone. Watching Spy Family beside Frieren did it NO favors.
OVA’s don’t air on TV I believe so it was just made for the people who like that kind of stuff. One thing that sticks out to me about Kaguya is the lack of fanservice (in a positive way) which is where the show rises above the rest and resists throwing all the female characters in swimsuits 6 episodes in, making it an even more enjoyable watch. Also the manga is great and I can’t wait for the next season.
Thank you for talking about this!!! I'm a highly s3ggsual woman and I love nsfw, but ecchi has has always bothered me, specially when talking about minors that look like minors, reason why I never watched Kaguya-sama but would after your review (also why I don't watch anime nowadays, I want to see more adults!! like on the 80's for ex. ).
A good ex on how Ecchi is treated well from the perspective of a girl, it's the manga Tedama ni Toritai Kurokiya-san, wich is one of my fav recent manga.
But I agree with the people that say that there's not good enough Anime for a femenine audience rn, there are such amazing gems on Manga and nothing gets picked up, which it's not by coincidence, I saw somewhere that A LOT of Manga gets sold as Shonen/Seinen because they are "pushing feminity out of the media", to say it blantly, even Precure it's being sold as anything but a Magical Girl genre 🥲
But to quote master Miyazaki: "Anime was a mistake"
It's honestly very nice and relieving to finish this video without seeing or hearing the Twitter-level Ranting that is usually expected from video titles like this, and I wish everyone is just as calm and reasonable and approachable as this one.
Personally, like him, I had some disagreements with some of what he said, and those disagreements are based on my personal tastes that I know some people share and some don't. Mainly his issue with High School Romance X Fanservice. Although I very much agree that we should have at least more ecchi romance animes with adult characters in them, in general, I don't really mind high school romances and ecchiness going side by side and honestly, I want more of both. Because when watching animes, I don't really obsess myself with stuffs like "Omfg, what gender or age is he/she?" since I only watch animes to be entertained and sometimes, of course, be horny as well.
Its also because many animes' stories might be inspired from what the author experienced or wanted to experience in real life, and I view anime sometimes as something I wish happened to me. Take high school romance for example, which throughout my life and still now, I have never experienced before despite big efforts to make myself more appealing. Those kinds of animes serve as an escape, which is why I learned and continue to learn drawing anime, so I could make sketches or possibly mangas with fantasy stories related to what I wanted to experience as a student. The comedy and ecchi parts, I just treat them as bonuses or some form of reward and I see no issue with those two genres.
Overall, I love animes in general, no matter the genre so long as the story or the characters are good. From very long fantasy animes like InuYasha and Yu Yu Hakusho, to general Isekai animes like In Another World With My Smartphone, to patriotic military-themed animes like GATE or Legacy of Tanya the Evil. Hell, my favorite anime and game is Azur Lane (my pfp and waifu is IJN Taihou) which is an anime about WWII warships turned into anime girls fighting creatures from the beyond, and the game has A DOZEN of fanservice, most notably the Twitter drama about Kashino's honkers triggering puritans. So long as the anime is interesting in itself, I'll watch that and there's a very good chance I'll love it.
I just don't want some people shoving their ideals, politics and personal beliefs in my mouth and labeling me as a bigot for not liking it, while telling me I'm a weirdo misogynistic p3d0 for liking animes that I like. We all have our own likes and if you don't like something, just simply scroll away.
I love this video in general and I hope to see more good quality stuffs like this one. It's nice to see somebody else's perspective on anime without them being openly hostile for once, and I mostly agree with many of his takes. Most especially the free anime recommendations I got from this video lmao
This was a great video, whether or not you've even some of the shows! One of my favorite things about Komi-san is that I find it places a lot of significance on friendship. Komi and Tadano are love interests, but first and foremost are friends! This is something I've always wished to see more of and strengthens my interest in the relationships between characters. Personally, I'm okay with the long wait, even happy with it (and yes, I've read the 400+ chapters of the manga). (Also Aro mention???!)
Well, you kinda answered yourself in the title, why do some people (lets call them "gentrificators" just for fun) move to a cheaper neighborhood/country? Why do local businesses start to implement strategies to attract more of them? Why the local government does nothing to prevent those situations?
Let's just say that shounen has a broader possible audience than shoujo, yeah there are some men who like shoujo/josei, but there are even more women who like shounen/seinen. And a bigger audience usually means more... money.
Very refreshing and nuanced views I never expected to hear from an anime video essay. I lean toward your values on taste and the role of sex in media but I can feel how much effort went into you presenting your ideas in the most non-antagonistic way possible and I respect that and think you did it well
Genuinely happy that you made this video these things have been on my mind for a long time