Forum - View topicREVIEW: Super Lovers Seasons 1 & 2 Streaming
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solosorca
 Posts: 12 |
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Quick correction: Junko Minagawa is a woman, not a man. |
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JacobC
ANN Contributor
 Posts: 3728 Location: SoCal |
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Thanks for the correction, it's been fixed. |
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rahzel rose
 Subscriber Posts: 831 |
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What happened to Super Lovers the anime just makes me sad. I love the manga so much, and was quite excited to see that it was getting adapted. But when that first episode came out and the internet basically exploded in disgust and disparaging remarks, I could only shake my head and sigh. Terrible first impressions, etc.
Now of course I'm not saying that people don't have the right to feel upset by the series or to not like it. It is nice, however, to see someone give it a chance and give the series a decent review. Did it get high marks? No, but I think a C is a decent grade. The animation was crap and the cutting and pasting of the story was terrible. But that time was taken to point out the good with the bad is appreciated. Basically I'm just happy to see something that's not "this is terrible and you're terrible for watching/liking it." |
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rizuchan
 Posts: 980 Location: Kansas |
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So, I'm a huge sucker for the large age gap romances that Rebecca alludes to in the beginning of the review, so I gave the first season of Super Lovers a cautious try.
Is the part where I disagree. While it's obvious (nay, the whole premise) that Ren loves Haru, I never got the feeling he really had sexual desire for him outside of normal teenage sexual confusion. Ren's too naive to be manipulative, and Haru falls too much into the stereotypical Seme role of "if I hug him and love him and kiss him (and have sex with him) enough he'll fall for me eventually!" The consent issues involved with this stereotype are well documented, though I've always thought it left some plausible deniability for an uncomfortable reader to justify it in their heads ("Uke is an adult, if he didn't really like it, he wouldn't keep going to Seme's house every night,") which is completely lost when suddenly the uke is a child. Plus, I was really weirdly bothered by the fact that everyone saw what was going on and was totally OK with it. I kind of understand the idea of wanting to live in a fantasy world where love is love, but... doesn't most of the excitement of a story like this come from the taboo? And besides, if the entire world is totally cool with an adult man diddling his adopted brother, why's Haru so worried about it?
Granted, I didn't watch the second season since the first left such a bad taste in my mouth, but sounds like they did try to make it not so rapey, so that's something. |
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TaylahAlterleo
Posts: 3 |
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My main issue with this series is not that it's a taboo subject.
My main issue is how characters are handled. Watching the second season was horribly painful because it romanticized an abusive relationship in which Haru never acts like a proper adult and psychologically manipulates Ren into feeling guilty for things that HARU did to Ren. And the scene where Haru esentially calls Ren a slut and wonders 'Oh gee i wonder why he looked like he was going to cry? ' HEY A****** YOU MADE HIM DO THAT, by constantly forcing yourself unto him and then complaining that when he wants to actually have sex because you've groomed a kid into having sexual interest in you, and now that you've seen what you've done you don't want to follow through it because SOME reason. And then haru pseudo kicks ren out of the house. Gee. the kid who has had deep psychological issues and no sense of belonging for years will CERTAINLY appreciate that. My point is this series makes no sense. And is consistently disgusting in its treatment of the trans characters and Ren. |
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CrowLia
 Posts: 5528 Location: Mexico |
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I feel Rebecca was too lenient on this show. Regardless of the taboo subject, as a romance it was dreadfully boring. There was no drama whatsoever, with even the smallest inklings of it, like the introduction of Natsuo or Haruko wanting to take Ren to Switzerland, are quickly dealt with and there's no real emotional payoff. It didn't feel like their relationship even changed that much over the course of the series.
I also agree with both of these points. Although Ren is usually the more aggressive in pursuing their relationship, given how much the show emphasizes his immaturity and how he spends all of season 2 trying to get anyone to actually explain sex to him, I never read the part of him not knowing how to masturbate as "manipulation", but genuine ignorance, which makes Haru's assistance even creepier. And certainly, Haru's hesitation feels half hypocritical since he makes a lot of sexual advances on Ren, and half absurd given how every single person seems to know what's going on -with Aki and Shima repeatedly catching Haru and Ren on the act- and treating it like it's completely normal. To me this show was a complete failure from beginning to end. Even leaving aside the creepy aspect of the relationship -which isn't easy given how much the infantilize Ren- there's nothing that makes it interesting, every possibility for drama is quickly discarded and the relationship is completely stale by the end of it. |
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Cetais
Posts: 507 |
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I honestly thought it was quite disgusting.
... The whole "incest" thing (Oh god I felt like vomiting when they were doing things and haru was like "I'll stop only if you call me brother" ) and the pedophilia, AND the whole relationship about power... Ugh. It had it's moment, but I honestly felt like Ren was really badly written. His personality didn't feel like it was fixed, he did lots of things that he shouldn't had if the writer kept his personality. The worse was near the end of the first season. Most characters were simple clichés, the drama was so frigging forced EVERYTIME. I was just so sick of the second season where Haru and Ren could have resolved their conflict in a matter of seconds, instead of making it like 4 episodes. Like, come on, just tell what's wrong and fuckin' stop blaming Ren for everything. I also don't get why nobody stops them from doing those things. I mean, there's signs everywhere about how this is an abusive relationship. Haru just felt way too manipulative in the second season, I found it quite disgusting. The whole "I consider myself straight, but Ren's the exception" was a real let down. I know, that's a common trope with yaoi, but it still felt unneeded, and it just further proves that mainstream yaoi is fetishization of gay people. |
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Alexis.Anagram
 Posts: 278 Location: Mishopshno |
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Whenever I hear about this show I get a morbid sense of curiosity surrounding it, but that's always dashed by just how boring it sounds more than anything else. I do see the value in examining these kinds of narratives: for all the alarms it set off when it was first coming out overseas, Loveless was critical if somewhat-secret reading for me in my early teen years (yes, still waiting); and the dynamic of posing Ren as the pursuer has potential to dig into something emotionally and psychologically relevant in theory, but then Haru always comes across as a typical yaoi spoiler obstructing any possible effort at reconciling this story with how real people feel and behave. Snore.
And yeah the way Kiyoka is written sounds especially disappointing. I feel like the only reason a show like this might exist is to at least take a stab at being subversive; what's with all these domineering genre cliches? |
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ChibiKangaroo
 Posts: 2941 |
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Another anime that relies heavily on calculated and contrived set ups to achieve fetish material. It's a dishonest narrative. That's what irks me the most about shows like this. They can't just tell a story, they need to manipulate everything to have these very specific fetish scenes and/or fetish dialogue that doesn't seem to make sense in any normal context.
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