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REVIEW: Junjō Romantica DVD 1-3

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'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.

PrettyKitty20034 wrote:

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).

Yeah, it's still rape. The arguments that a woman got off or that she didn't physically fight off an assailant were standard ones brought against victims of rape back in the bad old days. They completely ignore that involuntary physical responses do not signal consent, or that rapists are often stronger than their victims who believe that they can't fend them off physically and so they don't try for fear of being hurt even more.

Besides, don't forget about date rape or any of the other ways that women have been pressured into sex that they don't want. There shouldn't be a bleeping double standard in this!

Quote:

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.

Unless they find those tropes offensive as well. Which I personally do. A LOT. Forced sex is rape. Period.

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.

and, such is yaoi, one another

My sincerest apologies for squashing some readers' hopes for a climactic six-way. You know who you are.

As long as I have that specific audience's attention, however, pages upon pages of character analysis and art description won't tell you much about whether this anime adaptation is worth your attention, so I'll cut to the chase. All six boys are incredibly cute in their own ways and all are milked for cutesy humor. They are also all milked for other things, resulting in a pretty strict average of one and a half non-pornographic sex scenes per episode. (The “half” is a sudden makeout or a liaison we only see the start of.)

Honestly, what is everyone else supposed to think?

They aren't here to perform for the paddle-bearers

Production-wise, it's more than serviceable, emotions are depicted well, and for the shonen-ai crowd, the “interactions” are plenty scrumptious from hugs n' kisses on up. (Or is that down?) One thing's for sure: this is not a boring series.

The quarrel of the day could nearly be drawn from a hat and assigned to any couple and tweaked for character quirks. “You moved away without telling me!” “There's someone else!” “I don't want to admit I'm gay!” Never fear, for all shall be healed with hugs, kisses, and hopefully an exotic place to make love. Like most yaoi accounts, and this is one place Romantica does not attempt to deviate from the norm, all these problems really could have been solved with simple communication...often one honest sentence

I think there's a core issue that people aren't addressing with
all of these complaints: Junjo Romantica is a show like Naruto
or Dragon Ball Z. If you say anything critical of the show, the fans
are going to raise a s**t-storm of exponential proportions. I
would know, because I've done this for the latter of the
aforementioned shonen hits.

As for the review itself, I think that it was very well-written, and
broke down just about every aspect of the show. I honestly believe
that an uninformed individual could stumble upon this review and make an educated decision on whether or not they wanted to
watch this show. As a writer, I don't really see any bias
here. It's a piece of writing expressing a certain person's views
and opinions, and should be treated as such.

I think there's a core issue that people aren't addressing with all of these complaints: Junjo Romantica is a show like Naruto or Dragon Ball Z. If you say anything critical of the show, the fans are going to raise a s**t-storm of exponential proportions. I would know, because I've done this for the latter of the aforementioned shonen hits.

I really appreciated the effort put into the anime to make it more accessible to people who hadn't read the manga.
My problem is I usually like longer stories (4 volumes is good. 30 & I'll be looking for an end please). Most yaoi is 1-3 volumes so it's really pretty light reading for me. Every once in awhile one hits an incredible one-shot, but overall, I see yaoi as artbooks with words.

I didn't really warm up to JR until about the 6th volume because it was scattered between 3 titles & thus we didn't get to the meat of the issues until later than usual. When we see Usami has all these issues with his family & we see Misaki examining his life to re-adjust his mental image of who he is the story became more interesting.
I frankly don't care if she likes it or not. I DO care that she seems to spend more time reviewing the genre & fans. It's like a review of Naruto that feels the need to talk about the narutards every other paragraph. Would you honestly respect such a review?
It seems pretty apparent the reviewer has issues with the rape fantasy format.
I don't condone slavery. I do think it's stupid a country that espoused "men are created equal" allowed slavery & I'm glad we came to our senses. I am not one to look down on our past because we did something pretty much every culture did in the past. I do not buy the idea Tom Sawyer or Huck Finn need to be removed from libraries because they were written in a different era than now any more than I'm going to damn the Japanese authors who apparently haven't gotten the memo rape isn't sex. I assume they'll figure it out, but I do recall earlier this decade seeing reports about sexual harassment still being widely accepted in Japan & recognize they have a LONG way to go on some of these issues.
God knows, the US has more than enough issues we need to work on

I mean I can't fathom what your opinion of Mike Toole's review of Kizuna would be
http://www.animejump.com/index.php?module=prodreviews&func=showcontent&id=123

Tuesday, October 14, 2003

Putting the "dumb" in anime fandom since 1998

Ok, you've finally been able to put into words what's been ticking me off about some of the replies in this thread. Many posters seem to be ticked off at Hope for not reviewing the entire universe of Junjo Romantica

The reviewer should also not be reviewing something according to "how the Japanese feel about it."

A Japanese fan might read this review for fun but I'm not sure I'd expect a Japanese fan to accept Hope's views anymore than I think Hope, or any other non-Japanese viewers, need to accept Japanese views on some of these subjects. I'm not sure I'd even pay attention to a review that came from the point of view that one should just accept things in it as OK just because "that's how it is where the show is set."

Plus, this is fiction - it is very likely this isn't how really is in Japan. I've actually read enough other materials to know same sex relationships between men is not realistically portrayed in Yaoi/BL and Japanese readers know that going in. It's non Japanese fans that don't seem to realize this is what is going on (btw, more on the subject of "accepting" below).

Bara (薔薇?, "rose"), also known as the wasei-eigo construction "Mens' Love" (メンズラブ, menzu rabu?) or ML, is a Japanese jargon term for a genre of art and fictional media that focuses on male same-sex love and desire, usually created by and for gay men.

Hope, you're going to have to come in and answer that one yourself. I will say the fact you're personal feelings on the subject are fairly well known online probably didn't help out here but to be fair I also don't think dragging in your twitter comments was fair either. The review doesn't point to Hope's twitter account so while it is insightful in a way, it also wasn't meant to be directly related to the end review IMO. However, it does show how hard it is not to mix person and private in the age of the Internet (in the old days Yaoi/slash fans could just go off and ignore those who didn't like it and vice verse but the internet doesn't make that very workable anymore ).

Now back to accepting things - CCSYueh, while the discussion on female Romance fiction and how females view the genre is a interesting discussion in light of this review, it not directly on topic.

I don't remember Hope going that direction in the review (but she could have - it's a Monday and I could have missed it ).

Now, if you're trying to tie in the idea that Romance and how it fits into each story as a metaphor for all Romance stories is a interesting idea for a extended discussion in the thread.

So, since you brought it up I have something to say about it. Not all women accept female Romance fiction mores as "correct" or right" - never have and never will. Be they feminist who dislike demeaning factors in the fiction to those who have problems with certain aspects of the genre based on morals, there are people who don't agree with it

In this case, "Rape Fantasy" is just one aspect of Romance fiction and I know I do not accept "rape fantasy," be it straight or slash, as "romantic" even though other women do.

Life's a lot more complicated on subjects like this IMO.

Even in a black and white interpretation of the world, one doesn't have to accept "rape fantasy" as part of "Romance fiction" because it is just one aspect. Romance fiction publishers also don't expect readers to accept every Romance genre/sub genre to be accept either. Most publishers have more than one line with some catering to stuff like "rape fantasy" and other not doing that.

IIRC, Harlequin (the big name in North America often used for this subject (Romance fiction novels)),

So I'm rather bothered by your assumption that everyone should "just accept" this is how Romance fiction is, because I don't think I, or anyone else for that matter, just has to accept something "just because" (because that seems to be you're reasoning here CCS - just accept' just because' your female and it's Romance fiction )

Like most yaoi accounts, and this is one place Romantica does not attempt to deviate from the norm, all these problems really could have been solved with simple communication...often one honest sentence.