純情ロマンチカ

JUNJOU ROMANTICA

ANIME

STATUS
COMPLETE
EPISODES
12
RELEASE
June 27, 2008
LENGTH
24 min

DESCRIPTION

Three very different couples caught up in a storm of pure romance!

Romantica: Misaki is struggling to prepare for his college entrance exams, so his brother arranges for a private tutor. But Misaki's nightmare is just beginning when his tutor, Usami, comes on to him! How will Misaki ever manage to pass his exam? And why does he feel so mysteriously drawn to Usami?

Egoist: Just when Kamijou's life is at its lowest, he has a chance meeting with a man who never lets anything hold him back: Nowaki. His name means "typhoon," and he's about to take Kamijou on a whirlwind ride that will turn everything upside-down.

Terrorist: Miyagi always seems to shrug off the cares of the world with a joke and a smile, but even he has problems, although he doesn't let them show. Foremost is Shinobu, a relentless young man who's adamant that they're destined to be together.

(Source: RightStuf)

CAST

Akihiko Usami
Hikaru Hanada
Misaki Takahashi
Takahiro Sakurai
Hiroki Kamijou
Kentarou Itou
Nowaki Kusama
Nobutoshi Kanna
Shinobu Takatsuki
Daisuke Kishio
You Miyagi
Kazuhiko Inoue
Ryuuichirou Isaka
Toshiyuki Morikawa
Kaoru Asahina
Ryoutarou Okiayu
Eri Aikawa
Noriko Namiki
Takahiro Takahashi
Kishou Taniyama
Keiichi Sumi
Isshin Chiba
Risako Takatsuki
Mayumi Asano
Sensei
Yuki Masuda
Manami Kajiwara
Kumiko Hashimoto

EPISODES

Dubbed

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RELATED TO JUNJOU ROMANTICA

ANIME ComedyJunjou Romantica 2

MANGA ComedyJunjou Romantica

MANGA ComedyJunjou Minimum

OVA ComedyJunjou Romantica (OVA)

ANIME ComedySekaiichi Hatsukoi

REVIEWS

Ezekiel01
26/100
How to Write a Bad Romance. Its Boku No Pico but family-friendly because its PG-13.
Shounen Ai which is a literal meaning in Japenese “Boys Love” is been around in the anime industry dating back in the late ’80s. Beginning its roots on Natsu e no Tobira for being the first movie and Patalliro! Both made by Toei animation. Only a handful of them exists mostly on OVAs and Movies but not much on TV series. Shounen Ai TV series for the most part doesn’t give much of an impact in both popularity and financial gain so the studios stopped making them. They are more like the shadows in the corner that only a selected few can notice their existent.

But one anime pretty much rise from the darkness and have reached the light of day and that was Junjou Romantica. Becoming a critical success in financial sales. With a devoted fanbase to back it up, it becomes a significant title in 2008.

Smells Bait

A question start to mind, Is this anime good in tackling the intricate topic of Homosexuality? The short answer is NO! Don’t let the statistics data fooled you. To be frank Junjou Romantica is an abomination mutated from the typical shoujo clichés.

6 Minutes After Watching the First Episode

For starters, I would like to say this anime has a rather sadistic approach when it comes to romantic relationships. The romance in this anime consists of an excessive amount of sexual assault, rape, harassment, and forcing the weak to love back the strong. Sounds familiar? This is literally a plot for a Hentai. I am still baffled to the fact that this show is PG-13, to begin with. It should be R-17+ or higher. I watch a bunch of anime that have lesser the amount of sexual content than this anime but are still R-17 or R-15. I am impressed this anime did a good job of camouflaging itself. This anime is straight up a Yayoi since it bluntly presents a lot of sexual red flags that are punishable by law.

There is three male love team in this show. Each having equally worst than the other. Let me summaries each love story and characters briefly.

What's the Difference? They All Look the Same!

First Couple is Misaki and Usagi. They got the most episodes amongst all the couples and it a disgusting love story of a grown man that sexually harasses and rape his best friend younger brother. Even if the age gap between the two is 10 years apart. The only reason why this anime being safe from pedophilia territory is Misaki is conveniently 18 at the time. And why would Misaki even hesitate, Usagi is the perfect Husbudo. Usagi is rich, successful, and reliable. If Misaki becomes Usagi's bitch he will have a wonderful life. In return, Usagi will have his personal sex pillow.

What actually bad about their relationship is that Usagi is always going to have his way on Misaki. Usagi can force anything he wants while Misaki is a submissive pussy bitch. There is no equal decision or fair exchange between the two. This one-sided relationship where only one partner is absolute on everything is not a healthy relationship. Their love story is shit.

Second Couple is Hiroki and Nowaki. Your typical teacher and student love story but on the most unbelievable passion. Nowaki just magically falls in love with his teacher Hiroki. Hiroki on the other hand is historically homo. They get a chunk amount of episodes for their story and to be honest, is boring and tedious to watch because it always the same thing.

Would you believe me their relationship was built upon Nowaki's continuous attempts in invading Hiroki's personal privacy? Nowaki going for the extreme on stealing Hiroki's house keys to continuously invade the Hiroki's apartment. Until the guy has given in to his aggressive moves. There certainly less rape in this series. But Harassing someone's privacy is just not the way you attract a person to love you. The same issue with Misaki, even as a grown man, Hiroki is also a submissive bitch pussy. That is all for the younger guys D. Even he shoves in the corner acting he doesn't like it. But deep inside he craves for men's affection.

I have no idea why Nowaki aggressively falls in love with Hiroki even though they only just met. I assume the author wanted to have a teacher and student love story but forget how to write an introduction first. Nothing to talk about this couple aside there love story is forced.

Third and Final Couple is Miyagi and Shinobu. Having the smallest amount of time and episode for their story. Their story is more like fillers to complete an episode quota on clearly how short it is.

Now a grown man being forced to love his Ex-wife younger brother that is 17-years younger than him. So aside from pedophilia with got incest now? And conveniently he just got divorced recently so his Ex-wife younger brother has an absolute chance to get his man. It is totally ok because they are no longer legally siblings in law. So you got away with the homosexual incest there Junjou Romantica. I guess you're really desperate for that PG-13 tag.

Same issues with the first couple. There is a moderate amount of harassment and rape in this story but not as much as the first couple. Still, a bad relationship since the way characters fall in love in this show is utterly ridiculous. Doing the same tactic of the second couple. Purely the best way to make a man fall in love with you is always invading his home privacy and continuously bitch upon how much you love him until he has gone insane and rape you. Certainly a brilliant plan. This not how relationships are made.

To make a point. You cannot say a person is in a relationship just because they have sex. There should be a consideration in developing a relationship first. This anime is a lazy Yayoi crap. It's more about the boy's sexuality than the deep psychological bonds of a relationship.

As you can tell all these main characters romantic relationships are utter garbage and a joke. Truly a work of fiction.

Wouldn’t you even know, the humor quite ironically composed of a lot of gay jokes which are something you desperately need to ease down your aggressively erotic romantic drama. Nice work in attempting to break the 4th Wall. The drama is a serious joke. There is no absolute consequence in this show. Nobody and no one will ever intervene with our male couple's love stories. They are free to do whatever they want. They have nothing to lose. There is no conflict here whatsoever.

Even the supporting characters don’t even matter. What do they even do? Absolutely nothing. What matters in this show is the sexual pleasure of our main characters.

How about the Art style and Animation? Quite mediocre, almost all the character looks the same where the slight difference is the color of their eyes and hair. This anime doesn’t even know how to draw women its only women's character. The only trademark this anime has to offer to remember it by is the disturbingly large chins.

Music and Soundtrack. Forgettable and not worth remembering. Why would you want to remember this anime?

In Conclusion, Junjou Romantica is straight out bad romance anime. This anime has no chill or regards in building a meaningful relationship. It cheaply uses sexual plot devices to move its romance forward without any respect for its characters. The main characters are sex bitches than people. They never feel like characters, to begin with. The narrative lacks any redeeming themes and concepts. The moral messages are shit. And even if you change the gender relationship to exclusively female to male relationship. I assure you this the anime still a terrible romance anime that promotes invasion of sexual privacy and what a toxic relationship is all about.

This is a Yayoi Hentai pretending to be a rom-com anime. Don't be fooled.
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Quuule
61/100
Famous yaoi with problematic stuff. Typical yaoi from 2000s
TW: molestation
Junjou Romantica is the most popular yaoi anime, several years ago, and fujoshi liked by the older generation. In addition to its popularity as famous yaoi, it also has the fame of the most problematic, although it includes some bad aspects it is not the evilest.

Story 5/10 (4/10 junjou romantic, junjou egoist 6/10, junjou terrorist 4.5/10, junjou minimum 6/10)
The first story is a typical love-hate story. A love-hate that lasts from three anime seasons. Misaki and Usagi are typical yaoi archetypes, titled "young tsundere", and "aggressive sexy seme". The story is very meh because it begins with sexual harassment where Misaki is molested. And then he will hate and run away from Usagi for 3 seasons because we all like typical shoujo behavior. Usagi sometimes puts too much pressure on Misaki, which is why their romance is definitely questionable.

The second story is the most adequate of all. Nowaki and Hiroki are fine although there are some disagreements in their relationship that they will struggle with. They are much more adequate and not heteronormative than the first couple. Nowaki is quite a caring and good man, and Hiroki is also a tsundere uke who, instead of openly telling about his feelings, will act like a cactus.

The third story is quite vague and incomprehensible in the first season as it only has 2 episodes and will have a development in the second season. And yes, molestation again. Here we have the biggest age gap, and uke is not tsundere, but more yandere. At least something new.

Junjou minimum story. Just nice childhood stories from Hiroki and Usagi. We have the opportunity to look at something healthy and nice. Yes, Usagi was once a nice boy, not a selfish jealous wayward seme. And Hiroki has always been himself. Narcissistic and confident.

Characters 5/10
Characters have motivations, stories, are well written because their character is understandable. I have only pretensions to the main couple for the most part. Usagi's selfishness is killing me. Usagi is sometimes abusive as hell, and other characters can be infantile. Minus points for him and the childishness of some of the behaviors of others.
Comedy 7/10
How comedy works great. The humor made it a show for me. Lots of humor and funny scenes.
Romance 4/10
For the molestation and selfish behavior of Usagi and some characters, I cannot recommend this to everyone. And even more so nowadays. Yaoi has always suffered from sexual abuse from the very beginning, and Romantica does not save the situation. And it even supports it and makes it worse. If you are looking for something healthy, the show is not for you. Romantica was released in 2002, so it contains the typical yaoi bad tropes. For example, Sekaiichi Hatsukoi also had one molestation scene in episode 3, although it is much less ''rapey''.
For which this show should not be praised.
__The good part:__ Humor/comedy Soundtrack second couple __Bad sides:__ Molestation Some abusive behavior Character design, because __ALL THE SEMES LOOK THE SAME__.
Generally:
I do not recommend this show to anyone. If you don't like the typical old yaoi, you won't like it. Or if you don't like bad yaoi tropes. Same as me. If you don't like infantile characters that act like kids then the show is not for you either. Characters are sexualized as in most BLs. Rather, it cannot be called some kind of good representation or something realistic.
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