Junjou Romantica: A sweet love story worth watching… unless you've got something against gays

Written by Little_Wolf-18 on February 11, 2012 at 12:40 PM

I will be including a review of this anime, but I have a few things to say first – thus, for my review, please click “read more”.

First:
This is not a Yaoi anime by definition, it’s shounen-ai. Shounen-ai means love between two male characters. Yaoi means the more explicit variant, i.e. basically porn. This is pure romance, no porn anime. Such, it’s not yaoi, but shounen-ai/BL/boys’ love/whatever-you-wanna-call-it.

Second:
-If you know you’re not going to like an anime, don’t watch it. There are synopsis to sum up the content, and if you still have your doubts, there’s Wikipedia. Don’t write reviews for anime you haven’t watched.
-Gay relationships happen. For god’s sake, people, we live in the 21st century and should at least be tolerant. I know homosexuality is forbidden in some countries, and the WHO even listed it as a disease, but that definition was taken down twenty whole years ago. Consider personal freedom: You don’t need to become homosexual; you don’t need to like homosexuals; you don’t need to watch this anime. If you watch this anime despite not liking its theme, it’s your fault for not reading the synopsis. Flaming an anime seems to have become common, but at least respect its creator, its viewers and lovers, and gays in general.
(Also: Dislike towards the idea of homosexuality is a reason to dislike this anime, but not really a rational one. Just saying.)

Third:
Shungiku Nakamura-sensei is a woman, and this anime is aimed at a female audience. Mature men with an open mind towards the rarer kind of relationships still may like this. However, if you, dear reader, happen to be of male gender, I would advise you to back out now. Or at least to be careful deciding whether you want to watch this or not.

Fourth, sorry to everyone who feels just as pissed off about the flamers as me and had to read half a page of what was already known. Fifth, my review.

Note: This review is for both the first and second season since I basically watched them in one go (as far as that went).

“Junjou Romantica” does contain homosexuality, but there’s nothing ‘taboo’ about it; this isn’t hardcore porn, but in fact a rather cute and sweet story with its focus on romance. IMO there is a beauty behind it not many can recognize and appreciate.

The plotline involves three love couples, each with their own story. At times, it seems like a plain cookie cutter contemporary fairy tale in its fluffiness, but the three stories are well thought-out and at the same time quite fresh and quite touching – an unexpected view. Part of it is just a heartwarming “feel good” story, but it involves realistic problems and shows the complicated side of love as well. Sometimes, it can seem a bit unrealistic (I do have gay friends, but I never thought there were so many gays out there! XD) but if you enjoy the anime in general, you get over that quickly. The story is well put together; however, since the three storylines are told next to each other and some characters look similar, you might have to think for a moment who exactly is who now, which I found slightly disturbing for the flow of the story. Since the storyline constantly switches, I also found myself losing track of the storylines (didn’t have much time so two episodes per day was the most I could watch -_-) However, I do like how the plots interact with each other. The end, since it’s pretty much open, is a tad disappointing, but – for anyone who likes this, there’s a second season. XD

Genre-wise, “Junjou Romantica” contains heaps of romance, drama, slice of life/psychological, and hilarious comedy. Heartrending and laughable at the same time, it provides quite an emotional roller coaster for the viewer, and that there are realistic problems depicted makes it in a weird way relatable.

The characters are individual and interesting with unique and well thought-out backgrounds. Character development ‘on the way to self-realisation’ is realistically and beautifully done. Sometimes, hilarity occurs simply because of the way the characters act. Their relationships are unique, dramatic, and the problems they face are relatable in a way that they can probably occur in any type of love relationship. Thus, the problems can seem clichéd, but well – clichés are clichés because they work… sometimes.

The characters show that love takes work and is worth that work, but also that love is possible no matter your personal flaws, your pride, or age difference between the lovers. Also, “Junjou Romantica” provides a small insight into the gay world; age, sexuality, or occupation never fail to question.

As a matter of critique, there could be more time between the characters’ meeting and their getting intimate (not like anything explicit was shown but well, you get it one way or the other :P) since it would add to the tension. On the other hand, the anime as it is in that point might be more realistic than that theoretic idea… I’m not a man, but I know a gay person who once said “the worst about being gay is your constant horniness”. Well. Who knows. XD

The dialogue is fine; some moments are superfluous, and the dialogue varies from sometimes overly blunt (though that might just be the characters themselves XD) to sometimes borderline-corny. However, it has quite a number of funny moments, and is probably very enjoyable to anyone with a romantic streak. (To clear that up: I am a woman but a die-hard tomboy…)

The animation is good, and the art, though not really high level, works with bright colours and is quite fresh and funny. The subs are really well-done, thanks to the subbing group there :3 The music is fine, too, though not always my style.

To anyone who has already watched and likes this, I recommend the second season – it’s a tad toned down but basically shows the culmination of relationships from the first season, and its end is definitely a clearer end than the one of this season. ^^
Overall, this is a funny and quite sweet show. If you are looking for a cute, humorous romance story and don’t mind male homosexuality, this is definitely worth a try.