Forum - View topicREVIEW: Junjō Romantica DVD 1-3
|
Goto page 1, 2, 3 Next Note: this is the discussion thread for this article |
| Author | Message | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
ayashe
 Posts: 123 |
|
|||||
|
Junjou Romantica (particularly the second season) is one the most romantic yaoi out there. And Usagi and Misaki are the best thing about it, Egoist and Terrorist are completely ridiculous an annoying pairings.
|
||||||
|
||||||
kyokun703
 Posts: 2505 Location: Orgrimmar |
|
|||||
|
Really? I didn't particularly care for the Usami/Misaki pairing. I did like Usami's obsession with cute things though.
Egoist was my favorite, as they are both older mature men of roughly the same age. I'm not into the whole barely legal/rape-but-not-really deal. |
||||||
|
||||||
|
momogoldfish
Posts: 135 Location: New Zealand |
|
|||||
Same here, and cheesy though it is, you have to admit that some of the lines are heart meltingly sweet. The rape issues only gets addressed in season 2, along with the anime veering slightly from the manga and had less deus sex machina. Its not really nearly enough but probably slightly better than most. Can't seem to recall Kazuhiko Inoue in Gravitation, now if you say Kakashi in Naruto and Klaus from Maiden Rose I am sure more people can make the connection. |
||||||
|
||||||
CCSYueh
 Posts: 2707 Location: San Diego, CA |
|
|||||
I guess he reminds me of Yuri Shibuya/Kyo Kara Maoh in this role that I never really saw it as contrary to type. Yuri gets flustered a lot.
I can't change the fact I'm reading the manga so maybe it makes more sense to me, but my memory is the jumbled format is the manga format. I also watched this when it was released on dvd a couple months ago...I swear I remember thinking they brought more of the stuff we learned later into the Misaki/Usami relationship. I hate the egoist part of Junjyo Egoist & Junjyo Terrorist is just a fricken brat boy. Since you mention Gravitation, I'll assume you've seen it & thus are familiar with the damaged seme which Usami very much is.
Remove the statutory rape bit (isn't Misaki in college? Going to have to check Vol 1) & isn't that ALL romance? I'm looking forward to that new show they're advertising on Discovery ID "What the (Beep) Did I Marry?" Hell, any number of those murder tales common to that channel make it seem as though half the people in the US aren't who they claim to be. It's not like we don't hear about everyone from celebrities (Tiger Woods?) to local news telling tales of affairs gone wrong/murders/blackmail/whatever. Usami's a mess. However the Misaki/Usami relationship is, for my money, the most rewarding of the series. Frankly if it were a normal, mundane, everyday romance, what would be the point of watching? Sorry, I don't see the interest in reality tv. I get enough reality everyday. I always thought escaping from the day-to-day grind was one of the reason for entertainment existing. As for the rape scenario-yeah, it's a crutch we moved past in the West, but when I was a teen, that rape scenario was a staple of romance stories. It was a way to move the romance along. There's also the whole "good girls don't enjoy sex" line gals were fed a few decades back--that only girls of ill-repute-"loose women""floozies"- enjoyed sex & it was something women were supposed to tolerate, but not enjoy in marriage. Since I'm not Japanese, I can't say this is necessarily where it's coming from in yaoi, but God knows I heard more than a few of those supermarket potboilers of the 1970's described as "rape fantasy". I can't say what I've read of the state of sexual relations in Japan that they're any further along than we were 30 years ago. Obviously the manga has way more to it, but I was impressed the anime did as well as it did with the story. |
||||||
|
||||||
SpikesGrrl
 Subscriber Posts: 153 Location: The Bebop with Spike |
|
|||||
He played Eiri Yuki in Gravatation. I may be in the minority but I like the Misaki/Akihiko pairing because Misaki is so naive. Then Hiroki/Nowaki, I find Shinobu annoying |
||||||
|
||||||
|
momogoldfish
Posts: 135 Location: New Zealand |
|
|||||
|
My bad...I always thought Eiri was played by someone else due to something I read at TVtropes (which just show you can never 100% trust the internet)
|
||||||
|
||||||
sunflower
 Posts: 1080 |
|
|||||
|
This is why ANN has become largely irrelevant to me. What's the point of having someone who hasn't a clue about a genre review one of its titles? Why not bring in anime-hating moms to review the other titles here for other moms who hate anime? Or better yet, to show their bias against said anime fans? Because that's how this review reads to me, dismissive and divisive about a segment of the anime fandom that the reviewer doesn't agree with or understand.
|
||||||
|
||||||
CreisSema
 Posts: 4 |
|
|||||
i totally agree! i can still remember when this anime first came out : the first yaoi tv series, not OVA, and it went on for another series! Yay!!! Of course, everyone has the right to his/her own opinion... good or bad, but the fact remains that Junjou Romantica is a long-standing favorite for a lot of people who would definitely give it more than a "C", who supported the anime throughout two seasons and the manga throughout 13 volumes! That should say something about the overall quality of this series...at least for some of us. After all his is not the first review about anime in morally gray areas that get underrated... |
||||||
|
||||||
neocloud9
 Posts: 1178 Location: Atlanta, GA |
|
|||||
|
Echoing what others have said, the show does break genre norms by directly addressing its rape-ish beginnings later on in season two and becomes much more rewarding for having done so.
Seriously, aside from one instance in the first half of the first episode, there isn't any non-consensual sex in this series... And most Junjo fans really begrudge that early scene. But like I said, it does get addressed rather well in season two (why they waited so long to do so, I'll never know) and one of the best things about this series is seeing it evolve past its yaoi one-shot cliches as the show progresses. I do wonder why Hope got assigned this, though... Isn't that kinda like having Zac review a moe title? |
||||||
|
||||||
Myaow
 Posts: 1068 |
|
|||||
|
Huh? I thought that the review made it very clear that Chapman is familiar with the yaoi genre and its trappings and is able to view Junjo Romantica in its proper context. I mean, look: she spent a lot of time in the review pointing out the ways that the show follows the yaoi stereotypes and deviates from them!
I haven't seen this show, but I think the review does a fine job of letting readers know if they want to check it out (which I presumed was the point of these reviews.) It states clearly why some people would enjoy this toon and also states why others would want to avoid it. |
||||||
|
||||||
|
neocloud9
Posts: 1178 Location: Atlanta, GA |
|
|||||
|
Well, hopefully Hope can pop in the forums to speak for herself soon, but I'd always been under the impression that she really disliked yaoi. And describing the series thusly:
...It's not hard to see why I might think so. Believe me, this show is certainly not without its flaws, especially in the beginning. And several out-and-out yaoi fans would be able to tear into its writing, pacing, etc... But it is in no way a glorification of destructive relationships. None of the relationships in this series are destructive or deceit-based, and the only reason I can think of for why someone might think so is if they automatically assume the worst from any yaoi title and don't bother to see how the show itself overcomes the more negative tropes of its genre. Some of Hope's tweets from right before she began watching certainly showed a negatively biased expectation going into it, but like I said, I'd much rather she come into the forums to better explain her position herself. I've always respected her insight and fairness, so I'd really like to hear from her on this matter in particular. |
||||||
|
||||||
vashfanatic
 Posts: 3495 Location: Back stateside |
|
|||||
|
So when you talk about how episodic this is and how it's made up of three stories, can you just skip the relationship that starts with rape and go on to the other stories? They sound a bit more interesting as sort of melodramatic romances.
And yeah, I stand on the "rape is not okay just because it's supposedly part of the genre" side of any debate. It's just... not, okay? If this were a man and a woman I don't think it would even be an issue, why should it be different if we're talking about two men? You can have a dominant/submissive relationship that's still consensual, but no means no and rape is rape. |
||||||
|
||||||
glitteringloke
 Posts: 160 |
|
|||||
as someone said before, he was Yuki. and in this he just makes miyagi ♥ (and about a plethora of other semes on bl drama cds, but that's something else completely  )
Sakurai plays spazzy characters almost every time i hear him, how was this different? it's more like his non-spazzy Kanda types are out of norm. Most people I know that like junjou are fans of either egoist and/or terrorist (me, being one of those few that put terrorist higher but that's probably because i relate to a lot of it in my sad little life). It's been a while since i watched it, but I don't remember a lot of resistance past that first scene and if i remember right, in that first scene, misaki didn't really fight back or say no - his mental thoughts were along the lines of not going to let this guys hands 'affect' me. *does bad job at keeping things vague* |
||||||
|
||||||
rabrek
 Posts: 188 |
|
|||||
Did we read the same review? Hope analyzed the characters, their relationships, and the plotlines as characters and as relationships and as stories. This is why ANN remains relevant to me - they support the outrageously radical notion of allowing a genre project the dignity of being critiqued on the quality and novelty of its characters and stories, rather than gushing with fanchild glee because we're in a familiar sandbox. I found Hope's review measured, informed, and entertaining. Did it make me want to check out Junjou Romantica? No. But I read all the reviews on ANN because reviewers frequently do get me interested in a title that I wouldn't have looked at twice otherwise. ANN reviews are aimed at the general ANN reader, not the sub-genre fen (who can find all the in-group validation they like elsewhere at genre-specific forums). Perhaps in this case, the JR fans should have stopped reading after "As yaoi titles go, this is a prime specimen." The balance of the review really was written to inform the non-yaoi audience. |
||||||
|
||||||
PrettyKitty$$$$$
 Posts: 119 |
|
|||||
|
I think the problem that people are having with the review is that the review spends just as much time critiquing the potential audience than on the show itself. It's a little condecending. It's especially annoying when the review admits that she "doesn't usually watch these things" (direct quote) on her twitter.
Now, I haven't seen the show, and I've only read one volume of the manga. It was entertaining but I know it's no masterpiece. The err "rape scene" people (and the reviewer) are hung up about in episode one? I'm pretty sure we're talking about the handjob scene, yes? I'm not sure I'd classify that as a rape, because despite a token protest, he makes no effort to get away and pretty much passively sits there (and gets off). It's more like a "forced seduction" scene like in those old bodice rippers from the 80's. Most people at least familiar with romance tropes wouldn't find that offensive. Now, based on the review, I still have no idea whether or not the show is worth picking up, because the reviewer spent half the word count regurgitating stereotypes about Boy's Love and it's fans. |
||||||
|
||||||
 |
All times are GMT - 5 Hours |
|
|
|
Powered by phpBB © 2001, 2005 phpBB Group