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Welcome back to Doki Doki Days! And welcome back to quality Romance anime! In the past few years, we’ve seen an uptick in shoujo anime that goes beyond the normal tropes and begins exploring romance through emotionally sensitive ways that explored all sides of a character as they sorted through their feelings. All things that were very common in shoujo manga from the beginning, but something that was lost in anime adaptions for a prolonged period of time. Today, we’re going to dive into this along with other things lost along the way.

Now, I’m going to preface the beginning of this post by saying that I’m not calling any shoujo/romance anime that have come out prior to this post are bad. Shoujo/romance anime has always been a popular genre that has flourished for many years. However, the anime industry has certainly robbed quality romances of their full potential. Since 2010, there have been quite a few romantic shoujo anime that were relatively popular. Say I love You; My Little Monster; Kiss Him, Not me; Blue Summer Ride — just to name a few. While all of these anime could be called good, they were so horribly incomplete. Nearly all of them were adapted from long-running manga that went far more in depth–which, y’know isn’t new for anime adaptions. However, because they fell victim to the era of the 12-episode one and done season anime, they all became shoujo anime that could have been so much more. Were the stories they told cute? Yes. But they weren’t as emotionally sensitive to romance and the feelings of the characters (both main and side) than they could’ve been. But this of course was a problem that started earlier than 2010’s. Even the classic and beloved romance shoujo anime like Fruits Basket or Ouran High School Host Club, had bandaids put over their original stories in order to create one season shows when they ran out of source material. In the case of Fruits Basket, this led the show to feel vastly incomplete (though the 2019 version corrected that), whereas Ouran High School Host Club was reduced down to a romcom through and through and skipped most of the emotional maturing of the characters alongside the drama. After some thought, some of this boiling down that tends to happen in shoujo anime can be simply to make the 12 episode run-time tell stories that are more digestible for the target audience of teenage girls.

Which meant that for a while…there were a lot of anime that, while good, were a letdown. Star herself mentioned the fatigue of the shoujo/romance genre being all very much the same, save for a few exceptions. And most importantly? A lot of these shoujo/romance anime only really spoke to their target audience–aka, girls. However, more recently we’ve been receiving more and more shoujo/romance anime focusing on different age groups and therefore telling different stories that actually fall more in line with older shoujo manga–even with a 12 episode runtime. Take for instance, A Sign of Affection –– a new anime from the past year that like many romance before, is an adaption from a manga. But what this show did right, along with actually a lot of shoujo these days–is create stories that are satisfying but leave room for second seasons while being about possibly emotionally sensitive things. For instance, A Sign of Affection, in its short runtime, really nails in the idea of it all being about communication. Not only that, but it portrays a more mature couple in a youthful and endearing way that feels very real to the audience. Furthermore, this show focuses on life both before and after the couple gets together–something that, again, is common in shoujo romance manga but has been relatively lost in most anime adaptions. This, in my humble opinion, creates much more compelling love stories. Is it fun and important to see characters get together? Yes. But there’s so much time invested in couples that the story almost truly begins once they are together. There are definitely exceptions to this–such as quality shoujo/romance stories such as Fruits Basket, where the drama is more compelling than the romance. But that is also likely due to the fact that the story is more about drama anyway. But where the romance is still very important. When the romantic storyline is the main selling point–well, that’s where I would just want MORE in an anime.

And the good news, is with some of the quality romance anime coming out, we also get a LOT of representation. Older couples beyond high school, disabled couples, same-sex couples, male leads who other men can actually see themselves in. All of these dynamics make shoujo more popular than ever. The male leads have flaws, get shy–do crazy things for the girls they are into just like how the girls are, go out of their way to be gentlemen, and even try to be open with their feelings. Its all very miraculous in my opinion. I love to see more and more people flock to romance anime. And I also love how some stories view love in different lenses now. I love how love is being portrayed as something that can change you in a positive way. It shows how the right kind of love and motivation can actually inspire you to do better for yourself (such as in Blue Box), it can inspire you to learn something new to be able to understand someone better (A Sign of Affection), it can do so much to help you become a better you. It’s truly amazing.

What do you think about romance anime coming out these days? Do you agree they are quality or do you think the oldies are still the goodies? Let us know in the comments below! And we’ll see you all tomorrow for day three of Doki Doki Days.

AishteLOVEru

xoxo

Luna