in which i have more to say about a fictional relationship than the meiji restoration
Recently started rewatching Junjou with strawberrymello because it is our diabolical plan to find out if her roommate likes BL ufufu~ (And actually, during the episode where Hiro and Nowaki have sex in the library, she was totally in the room and didn't seem particularly bothered that we were literally watching--with speakers no less--two guys have sex.)
We came to a sudden realization, however: THE ROMANTICA ARC SERIOUSLY HAS ISSUES. REALLY. BAD. ISSUES. AND ARE THESE ISSUES EVER ADDRESSED? NO. (The arc would be like, ten times better if they did address more than one of the issues for more than two seconds, but THEY DON'T and play it off to be "twu wuv." JUST. NO.) So, from this day forward, this entry shall be known as:
THE JUNJOU RANTICA
Firstly, stop means stop. But does Usagi ever listen to Misaki? NO. I mean holy crap. I can sort of forgive the first episode when Misaki barges in and starts accusing Usagi of being a pervert and taking advantage of Takahiro or whatever because Usagi was trying to make a point. But after that? HOLY SHIT USAGI NEVER FUCKING LISTENS. STOP MEANS STOP. NO MEANS NO. But for some reason, Usagi has it in his head that Misaki wants him, which may be true, but holy shit not by the second or third episode. I think Usagi is taking Misaki's arousal to mean "I am perfectly okay with this and am completely in love with you, so you can keep groping me, Usagi-san." WHICH IT DOESN'T. I mean, shit, they have sex because Usagi just doesn't listen when Misaki tells him to stop. Then again, Misaki doesn't exactly protest more than that, but Jesus, come on. If you "love" someone that much, STOP WHEN THEY SAY STOP. Also, during the 10 years before Usagi and Misaki had a relationship, Usagi never took advantage of Takahiro, who is INFINITELY MORE AIRHEADED AND OBLIVIOUS THAN MISAKI. So why the hell does he take advantage of Misaki, who actually UNDERSTANDS WHAT'S GOING ON? Because he understands what's going on and therefore won't fight back because he's actually aroused by it? I DON'T EVEN. STOP STILL MEANS STOP.
Secondly, and this one they do address for like two seconds canonly, but Misaki is a replacement for Takahiro. I don't care if Usagi says he's in love with Misaki, or that Misaki realizes he's a replacement, gets angry, but ultimately makes up with Usagi because Usagi assures him he's fallen in love with Misaki. Why? BECAUSE YOU CANNOT GET OVER 10 YEARS OF UNREQUITED LOVE THAT FAST. I mean, the Egoist arc really pushes this whole idea too: Hiro had sex with Usagi, who was really only having sex with Hiro because he couldn't have Takahiro. Hiro realizes doesn't want to be a replacement, that Usagi will never love him for who he is, says FUCK THIS, and moves on with his life. Misaki realizes he might be a replacement, confronts Usagi, who then sexes up Misaki, and then everything is okay. WHAT. NO. It bugs me so much that Usagi's solution to the problem is sex. If you don't want Misaki to feel like a replacement, if you want to show him you actually love him, you don't have to prove it with your penis. Especially since Misaki IS CLEARLY UNCOMFORTABLE WITH EVERYTHING THEIR RELATIONSHIP IS AT THIS POINT. I mean, it takes Misaki fucking forever to figure out he's "in love" with Usagi (and since Romantica is the main arc, that's a fuckton more episodes than it took with Egoist or Terrorist), which brings me to my third and final point:
STOCKHOLM SYNDROME. It feels like Usagi is forcing Misaki to fall in love with him. Usagi gets ridiculously jealous, to the point where he doesn't even want Misaki to have a social life. And since he spends pretty much all his time ever with Usagi, generally being groped and/or having sex with him, why wouldn't he feel like he was "falling in love"? HE LITERALLY HAS NO OTHER FRIENDS (besides Sumi, who is a dickweed anyway), and he's so socially inept that making friends is difficult. I mean, even when he was living with Takahiro he had no friends, because I don't think he really knows how to make friends. So when he does make friends with Sumi (even though Sumi's only using him to get to Usagi, but that's a different matter entirely), Usagi gets jealous and tells Misaki he can't have dinner with Sumi because they promised to always have dinner together. But then when Usagi has to go have dinner with his editor, IT'S A-OKAY. Seriously, that is not how it works. You can't impose some ultimatum and then not follow through with it. Also, it really feels like Usagi is using Misaki to get over Takahiro; if Usagi can get Misaki to love him, it will feel like Takahiro loves him, which IS NOT THE BASIS OF A HEALTHY RELATIONSHIP. To make it worse, after Sumi turns out to be a dickweed, Misaki never makes any other friends, so he only has Usagi, which, by that point, Misaki is okay with I guess, but still, their relationship seems so forced, and in a bad way. I mean, honestly, I feel like Misaki doesn't want to be gay, but since he's always around Usagi and Usagi makes him ~*~feel good~*~, he just kind of... goes with it and ends up at the conclusion that he does love Usagi, when really I think the only reason he comes to this conclusion is to delude himself from thinking that maybe the relationship he has with Usagi is, you know, REALLY AWFUL AND UNHEALTHY. "Oh, it's love, so that makes everything okay!" No. Just. No.
Also keep in mind, this is all based off of the first three episodes of the Romantica arc. That's... kind of really bad. And we were just so put off by all of it, that we couldn't continue and instead just watched the Egoist, Minimum, and Terrorist episodes. I have seen the rest of the series including the second season, however, and Romantica really didn't get any better in my opinion. Although if we're ever feeling particularly masochistic, we might go back and watch more of Romantica, but ugh. I honestly didn't think rewatching it would make me dislike it as much as I do now. I thought I might like it more than I did the first time, which was basically indifference, but yeah... no.
I feel like I had more to say (MORE? I KNOW THERE'S SO MUCH TL;DR ALREADY) but I think I got out most of what really bothered me. It's kind of sad I can write so much about a fictional relationship in such a short period of time when it takes me hours to write this much for assigned essays. OTL FOREVER.
We came to a sudden realization, however: THE ROMANTICA ARC SERIOUSLY HAS ISSUES. REALLY. BAD. ISSUES. AND ARE THESE ISSUES EVER ADDRESSED? NO. (The arc would be like, ten times better if they did address more than one of the issues for more than two seconds, but THEY DON'T and play it off to be "twu wuv." JUST. NO.) So, from this day forward, this entry shall be known as:
THE JUNJOU RANTICA
Firstly, stop means stop. But does Usagi ever listen to Misaki? NO. I mean holy crap. I can sort of forgive the first episode when Misaki barges in and starts accusing Usagi of being a pervert and taking advantage of Takahiro or whatever because Usagi was trying to make a point. But after that? HOLY SHIT USAGI NEVER FUCKING LISTENS. STOP MEANS STOP. NO MEANS NO. But for some reason, Usagi has it in his head that Misaki wants him, which may be true, but holy shit not by the second or third episode. I think Usagi is taking Misaki's arousal to mean "I am perfectly okay with this and am completely in love with you, so you can keep groping me, Usagi-san." WHICH IT DOESN'T. I mean, shit, they have sex because Usagi just doesn't listen when Misaki tells him to stop. Then again, Misaki doesn't exactly protest more than that, but Jesus, come on. If you "love" someone that much, STOP WHEN THEY SAY STOP. Also, during the 10 years before Usagi and Misaki had a relationship, Usagi never took advantage of Takahiro, who is INFINITELY MORE AIRHEADED AND OBLIVIOUS THAN MISAKI. So why the hell does he take advantage of Misaki, who actually UNDERSTANDS WHAT'S GOING ON? Because he understands what's going on and therefore won't fight back because he's actually aroused by it? I DON'T EVEN. STOP STILL MEANS STOP.
Secondly, and this one they do address for like two seconds canonly, but Misaki is a replacement for Takahiro. I don't care if Usagi says he's in love with Misaki, or that Misaki realizes he's a replacement, gets angry, but ultimately makes up with Usagi because Usagi assures him he's fallen in love with Misaki. Why? BECAUSE YOU CANNOT GET OVER 10 YEARS OF UNREQUITED LOVE THAT FAST. I mean, the Egoist arc really pushes this whole idea too: Hiro had sex with Usagi, who was really only having sex with Hiro because he couldn't have Takahiro. Hiro realizes doesn't want to be a replacement, that Usagi will never love him for who he is, says FUCK THIS, and moves on with his life. Misaki realizes he might be a replacement, confronts Usagi, who then sexes up Misaki, and then everything is okay. WHAT. NO. It bugs me so much that Usagi's solution to the problem is sex. If you don't want Misaki to feel like a replacement, if you want to show him you actually love him, you don't have to prove it with your penis. Especially since Misaki IS CLEARLY UNCOMFORTABLE WITH EVERYTHING THEIR RELATIONSHIP IS AT THIS POINT. I mean, it takes Misaki fucking forever to figure out he's "in love" with Usagi (and since Romantica is the main arc, that's a fuckton more episodes than it took with Egoist or Terrorist), which brings me to my third and final point:
STOCKHOLM SYNDROME. It feels like Usagi is forcing Misaki to fall in love with him. Usagi gets ridiculously jealous, to the point where he doesn't even want Misaki to have a social life. And since he spends pretty much all his time ever with Usagi, generally being groped and/or having sex with him, why wouldn't he feel like he was "falling in love"? HE LITERALLY HAS NO OTHER FRIENDS (besides Sumi, who is a dickweed anyway), and he's so socially inept that making friends is difficult. I mean, even when he was living with Takahiro he had no friends, because I don't think he really knows how to make friends. So when he does make friends with Sumi (even though Sumi's only using him to get to Usagi, but that's a different matter entirely), Usagi gets jealous and tells Misaki he can't have dinner with Sumi because they promised to always have dinner together. But then when Usagi has to go have dinner with his editor, IT'S A-OKAY. Seriously, that is not how it works. You can't impose some ultimatum and then not follow through with it. Also, it really feels like Usagi is using Misaki to get over Takahiro; if Usagi can get Misaki to love him, it will feel like Takahiro loves him, which IS NOT THE BASIS OF A HEALTHY RELATIONSHIP. To make it worse, after Sumi turns out to be a dickweed, Misaki never makes any other friends, so he only has Usagi, which, by that point, Misaki is okay with I guess, but still, their relationship seems so forced, and in a bad way. I mean, honestly, I feel like Misaki doesn't want to be gay, but since he's always around Usagi and Usagi makes him ~*~feel good~*~, he just kind of... goes with it and ends up at the conclusion that he does love Usagi, when really I think the only reason he comes to this conclusion is to delude himself from thinking that maybe the relationship he has with Usagi is, you know, REALLY AWFUL AND UNHEALTHY. "Oh, it's love, so that makes everything okay!" No. Just. No.
Also keep in mind, this is all based off of the first three episodes of the Romantica arc. That's... kind of really bad. And we were just so put off by all of it, that we couldn't continue and instead just watched the Egoist, Minimum, and Terrorist episodes. I have seen the rest of the series including the second season, however, and Romantica really didn't get any better in my opinion. Although if we're ever feeling particularly masochistic, we might go back and watch more of Romantica, but ugh. I honestly didn't think rewatching it would make me dislike it as much as I do now. I thought I might like it more than I did the first time, which was basically indifference, but yeah... no.
I feel like I had more to say (MORE? I KNOW THERE'S SO MUCH TL;DR ALREADY) but I think I got out most of what really bothered me. It's kind of sad I can write so much about a fictional relationship in such a short period of time when it takes me hours to write this much for assigned essays. OTL FOREVER.