Junjou Romantica

Oh, an anime that certainly puts the fab back in fabulous and the gay back in yaoi.

Junjou Romantica is a yaoi anime, as anyone with eyes would know. What it is, is a well loved yaoi anime and a pretty crappy normal anime.

The storyline is plain old unbelievable. You expect me to believe that there are so many gay guys who are all inter-related, yet most don't know the rest are gay unless they had boinked them in the past or something?? Where are the women in this anime? Fine, I can chalk up with the no women thing since gay men can't see ... oestrogen anyway unless it's from themselves, but the one woman in the entire anime is a yaoi fangirl. I mean come on. Wtf.

Each story is basically a mirror of the other one. Check this out.

Teacher --> younger man --> butt secks.

That's all that freaking happens for the entirety of the anime. An older, teacher-like dude meets a muuuch younger dude and they hook up and have lots of unwilling sex with one another.

First couple: a tutor who tries to seduce his best friend's little brother. Second couple: a teacher who is seduced, is trying to seduce a younger man. Third couple: another teacher whose ex-brother-in-law is trying to seduce him. God, come on! What's with this? What are they trying to say--that gay men with any position of authority in a younger boy's life will try to lead the boy astray?? Nothing happens in the story other than a whole lot of angst, sappy romance, and sexing all over the place, with a lot of "Nooo! Don't touch--oh wait, go ahead, but nooo!" going on.

Art was trash, sound was worse trash. Those theme songs sucked balls.

Characters were dead awful. Most of the time they're whining or they're moping or taking advantage of someone. I mean, come on! The writer guy did nothing but go, "I love you. Let's do it." for the whole anime. The boy he liked kept going, "Oh, I don't want this...wait, I think I do." and that's pretty much how it went for the whole anime with EVERY couple.

Don't watch this is you are a normal person. For fabulous folks like myself, AVOID.

You want to know what really helps shape a relationship for me? An abundance of rape, sexual assault, and non-consensual acts being performed to your partner. God, what a literal pure romance that is. Thankfully, Junjou Romantica was sure to base one of its relationship entirely off of non-con and definitely wasn't afraid to add in some of that to the other relationships as well! Definitely the type of romance any gay man would dream of.

There are three different "love" stories in this anime, and all three manage to be equally as terrible as the other. For one thing, let's talk about the fact that ... literal sexual assault by a man 10 years older than you leading into love is not only extremely disturbing, but also completely out there. There is no moral groundpoint for the character Misaki, who is constantly abused in many ways by his newfound partner, Usami. This romance is so pure, that Usami literally shoves Misaki into a car against his will because Misaki dared to have a conversation with another man. What a healthy relationship, such a charming guy. Not to mention he doesn't let Misaki speak on the phone with said guy, and makes sure to later sexually assault the poor guy.

Seriously, what in any way is romantic or logical about this? There isn't anything healthy or consensual about the actions that Usami places on Misaki. And not only that, but it's all played as a joke. As if this kind of stuff is a humorous, cute thing that Misaki secretly wants. The romance in here is a total joke, and if you expect me, or any person with a functioning brain to take a relationship completely built off of sexual harassment seriously, then there's a good chance your morals need reevaluating.

The reason this is such a issue is both because said relationship is the main focus of the show, and because this is apparently a romance. Having your romance start and develop with borderline rape is a terrible choice, because from there on out it's extremely hard to feel anything except disgust at the events occurring. It's an unnecessary element to the relationships. Age difference aside, I wouldn't have had nearly as much of an issue with this show had it not been for all the times that Misaki was screaming "No! Let go! Stop it!" when being advanced on. It makes for a very fucked up relationship.

The other two relationships, while they didn't revolve around borderline rape, still had their major problems in it. One relationship lasted for about 3 - 4 episodes and included a timeline of about 6 years. It also included the man getting up and leaving his partner without any explanation or contact because he thought it'd make him want to come back. Again, great romance there. The last romance only lasts for about 2 episodes, and therefore had less of a chance to be completely idiotic. Though it should be noted the two characters have about 17 year age difference, which is always a plus here. It still featured the token sexual harassment that this show is known for though.

Not only that, but the stories are really choppy and broken up. The first 2 episodes focus on Romantica, episode 3 on Egoist, back to Romantica for a bit, some more of Egoist, etc. Basically it's all very choppily split up, unnecessarily so. The rapey elements obviously ruin it too, and frankly the time it takes for the characters to "fall in love", their reasons for doing so, and how they act towards their loved ones (Preventing them from being with friends, going into their house after you've known them for less than 24 hours) is so incredibly far-fetched that the romance just feels terribly pushed.

In terms of characters, you can tell how they'll be from the designs. Triangle face guys are the seme, and baby-faced boys are the uke. The seme is almost always the one performing the near-rape actions while the uke is the one begging for no more and eventually falling for these creeps. There's not too much to say about them, except for the fact that Usami is an extremely creepy harasser and that the seme in the Terrorist arc actually has some interesting traits to him regarding his past. Other than that, these characters are just here to fill the traditional seme/uke roles and either begin or resist the sexual assault.

The art reeks of terrible same face syndrome, to the point where you can identify the seme and uke just by looking at their faces. The seme's are all drawn with these very awkward looking rectangle chins and huge broad shoulders, likely to insist their dominance on the usually much younger looking uke character. All the ukes are drawn with childlike features to insist their submissiveness. The animation is very cheap-looking too, often relying on chibi faces in order to save budget. It's honestly an unimpressive looking anime.

The sound isn't all that bad frankly, just not at all fitting for this type of anime. There's usually some acoustic piece playing in the background as one of the characters is being assaulted, which is very ill fitting and and makes it feel like the show is romanticizing borderline-rape even more. It's not necessarily a memorable soundtrack, but it's decent at best, just not fitting for the gross nature of this show.

Being asked if I enjoyed this anime is the equivalent to being asked if I enjoy bashing my head against a wall for about 4 hours and would likely have the same answer to them. If you're going to portray a romance, hell, especially a homosexual romance where there's already stereotypes that all homosexuals are pedophiles and stuff, then you don't do it this way. You don't have the starting point of the relationship for a major couple be near-rape. You don't give unequal focus to the relationships and have one take place over a course of 6 years in four episodes. Oh, and you especially don't include homophobic remarks from your own gay characters in an anime. Seriously, how idiotic do you have to get to even think of doing that?

Anime that focuses on something other than straight romance can be really refreshing, but when it's done this way? You'll be left wondering if half the show you just watched was a so-called "pure romance" or a stockholm-syndrome documentary.

In Junjou Romantica you get to follow 2 couples (and a potential third) with Usagi and Misaki being the one that gets the most exposure. Then there is Hiroki and Nowaki which is basically the same thing as the first couple, younger guy + older guy, but reversed positions between the sheets. If you ask me I think that just focusing on Usagi and Misaki would have been better cause the others just feelt tacked on for the sole purpose of having more bi-shounens ( or "pretty boys" if you like).

The music is nothing special, it doesn't help to add to the mood but it ... don't do the opposite either. However, there is some nice pieces in there but I found them to seldom be played at the right time. The opening-theme is pretty nice but this isn't 1999 so it feels kind of out of place. The VAs generally does a good job but some of them don't match their character, not a huge problem since it is always with characters that have little screen-time but still annoying.

Have you ever felt that eveyone looks very similar to you? No? Well, I guess the characters in Junjou Romantica have since they all look very alike. Except from the hair and eye color they could all be brothers from the same mother. It is quite rare that you see this kind of bland and unimaginative character design. It tries to make all the characters bi-shounens but man sometimes they failed miserably, in some scenes it looks like they have some kind of facial distortion since it sometimes doesn't fit the body at all. Otherwise the animations and characters look ok and sometimes even (intentionally) funny when they go into chibi-mode and extreme facial expression-mode.

If it is so bad then why is it so highly placed on the top-list? There are perfectly bad reasons for that. The first being the amount of sex (non graphical) there is, it is almost ridiculous and you always get the tiresome ”No, I don't wanna do it with you”-reaction from the smaller of the two gets old quickly. Sometimes the reactions are so strong that they almost looks like an attempted rape... You don't get any mentionable depth to most the characters, with the exception of Usagis childhood, but that is good in a way that you don't have to care. The only ones I really came to care about was Misaki and Usagi but the rest I could have been without.

The highlights of the show is the humor which sometimes makes fun of the show itself.

To sum the series up it is an unimaginative piece of boredom that tries to excuse that unimaginativeness with some random sex. It has some qualities but they never truly shine through. If you are a fan of boy on boy-relationships then this might be for you. Otherwise I suggest that you don't even poke this with a stick cause there will be a lot of fooling-around going on. You might have read my Legend of Duo review and thinks ”Hey, this guy clearly dislikes shounen-ai so why should I listen to him?”, well... it's not that I dislike it (I try to keep an open mind about all themes) I just haven't found a series that is very enjoyable.

Please, Studio Deen, you know better than this. You gave us Maria-sama ga Miteru on the shoujo-ai side so please give us Joseph-sama ga Miteru (or something like it) on the shounen-ai side instead and lose the redundant sex scenes in favor for some real heartfelt and meaningful brotherly love. Please.

Dear yaoi fandom,
there is such an impressive quantity of yaoi out there that are actually really good. Been there, seen it. So why in the world do you love Junjou Romantica so much?

Starting out as a hardcore fan of the series, I gave myself a few years of growing up before I realized this anime deserves to be proverbially spat on with passion. Shamed and enlightened, I saw the Truth and it set me Free. Dramatic as it sounds, fellow reader, the Truth IS: this anime (especially manga) is an utter fuckup.

Probably the biggest problem with today's yaoi that is present here; the 'uke' ... side of the couple has little to no back spine and, despite the fact they dedicated an episode trying to convince us he WASN'T forced into the 'loving relationship' he is in right now by the 'seme', it is very painfully obvious he was. In other words, characterization is lacking, as it were.

Class writing with many "uwwa" moments. I know you love those.

Another fun thing about this thing is that there are three couples involved and none of them are done right and all of them are an insult to gay relationships, as well as relationships in general.

It only came to my attention recently that all three of storylines have "submission&domination" formula, which would be OK, I guess, considering how common that is; if all three of them weren't exactly the same. MentorxStudent kind of thing, as hot as it can be, had been done terribly wrong in all three instances.

Now I'd like to talk about characters - or should I say a character? Indeed, they are all relatively identical examples of one and the same fantasy the author apparently has about anime men. Not only their design, it is their "personalities" that are particularly painful to watch.

The characters are so shallow and badly developed, their love is completely unjustified by anything they do.

Annoying voice acting.

All in all, fangirls. Pay attention please, I have a few suggestions for you.
Here is a couple of manga you can read instead of watching/reading this dreadful thing, because apparently the best yaoi manga are never made into an anime:
Aitsu no Daihonmei, Yume Musubi Koi Musubi and it's slightly hotter spin-off Himegoto Asobi, Doushitemo Furetakunai and its spin off After 9 Hours.

Enjoy the reads, you don't need to thank me, spread the word, gimme some good ones in return and god bless our gay hearts.

So bad it's good!
If you are looking for a terribly written shounen ai anime with the most cliché characters and a ridiculous story, Junjou Romantica is the anime you need to watch! (it has dub-con, be warned)

This is a must-see if you are a fan of the genre and want a good laugh. If you really want to watch something good (and I assure you, good yaoi does actually exists), I suggest you run far away from this.

The characters and situations are as stereotypical as they can get in a romance anime. So stereotypical and cliché in fact, that it actually ... becomes funny.

Story: 3
Extremely poor. It doesn't really have a plot and the setting is perfectly common (it is not set in a high school so it could have done worse, really). The side stories are the ones that should get your attention the most, since the main one doesn't have anything to tell. Don't worry, you probably won't be able to remember anything about it in a few month, except that the main relationship is based on non-consensual acts (it means rape).

Art: 2
With its dorito faced seme and soft cheeked uke, JR's character design is the most typical one you can find in the shounen ai/yaoi genre. You wouldn't differenciate the characters if it weren't for their hair color. It's also full of yaoi anatomy examples, as expected from the author.

Sound: 5
Actually it's pretty average and the opening song is absolutely what you would expect from a shounen ai anime. Perfectly cheesy and cheerful.

Characters: 3
The characters are flat and only consistent in their love interests. To be fair the side couples and characters aren't so bad, you could almost find an average romance story if you were to overlook the two (very annoying) main characters.

Enjoyment: 8
As I said, it is an absolute must-see for BL fans along with Sekaiichi Hatsukoi. Something to enjoy with your BL fan friends.

Overall: 2
Let's face it, this anime and its spin offs are terrible but can be very enjoyable. I am torn between wishing nothing like that will spawn from Yaoi Hell ever again, and waiting for another gem like this one to land in our lives and cheer us up.

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.

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 we used to tolerate.

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 lesser the amount of sexual content than this anime but are still R-17 or R-15. I impress 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.

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.

Moving to the characters, 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.

First are Misaki and Usagi, a 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.

Second is Hiroki and Nowaki the unbelievable couple. 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.

And lastly Miyagi and Shinobu, 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.

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

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 it 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.

An easy 2/10.

From the stereotypical strong masculine-seme and weak feminine-uke trope, all the way to huge, unsettling age gaps in EVERY pairing and creepy romantic encounters, this anime has everything to give you the worst second-hand embarrassment of your life.

I am aware that many of the prominent tropes in this anime are meant to be hot. If you're into that, go figure. If you're not, this is your sign to find another anime.

Let's discuss two relationships in this anime that may potentially be triggering or uncomfortable to some.

Main pair: Misaki Takahashi and Akhiko Usami

... Let's go over the power imbalances between the two.

-> Misaki is eighteen. Akhiko is twenty-eight.
-> Akhiko is Misaki's tutor.
-> Misaki lives in Akhiko's house.
-> Akhiko is strong enough to pin Misaki down. Which he does with no hesitation. (Say it with me now -- that's assault!)

There's a lot of problems with this dynamic.

Akhiko frequently physically restrains Misaki by holding him down, pushing him, etc. This is portrayed as a romantic device, because "Aww, poor baby Akhiko is needy!" However, considering that Misaki does not consent to this 99% of the time, it's just uncomfortable to watch.

Next, they just generally don't trust each other. Misaki's senior at his university, Sumi, begins to develop a bond with Misaki. When Akhiko sees this, becomes angered to the point of physically kicking a window, punching a table, etc, and angrily confronts Misaki in front of Sumi. Likewise, Misaki is seemingly jealous of how much time Akhiko spends talking to Takahiro, and responds as such to Akhiko.

These two things make their chemistry feel forced. Misaki and Akhiko have a sort of "forbidden" relationship, which is intended to be a selling point. However, sometimes the age gap makes Akhiko seem like a guardian to Misaki rather than an equal partner in some ways. It is also REALLY hard to see Akhiko as anything other than predatory for a while.

Though there are a few compelling moments between the two, the huge majority of their interactions just feel weird to watch.

Now that we've talked about the main couple, let's unpack the mess that is...

Side pair: Yoh Miyagi and Shinobu Takatsuki

Let's go over the power imbalances between the two.

-> Shinobu is eighteen. Miyagi is a whopping THIRTY-FIVE.
-> Miyagi is Shinobu's sister's ex-husband.
-> Shinobu is extremely forceful with Miyagi in insisting that they should be in a relationship. Miyagi is uninterested.

First, it is unsettling how this relationship proceeded. It feels extremely forced when considering that Miyagi, for a long time, shows no interest in Shinobu. Miyagi is thrust into the position of the responsible adult, juxtaposed with Shinobu's forceful professions of love. It seems obvious that Miyagi shouldn't just... get together with his ex-wife's teenage brother? Who is also half his age?

In the end, BL wins and they start a VERY awkward relationship.

The most uncomfortable part of their relationship may be that it feels so fragile. It is very heavily emphasised throughout the show that Shinobu is fearful that Miyagi is only with him out of sympathy and could leave him at any time. This, again, causes their chemistry to feel forced. They are extremely unequal in the sense that Shinobu desperately latches into Miyagi, while Miyagi is more distant. While the anime does try to solve this problem, it is hard to stop viewing the relationship as awkward and forced.

In the end, while the anime has... some(?) plus points, it was not a good watch. Sitting through three seasons of this felt like a drag. While it does get better to some extent, the relationship between the various pairings never truly feels authentic. Their relationships progress weirdly fast, which leaves you in a weird limbo of seeing the pairs fall for each other, hard, while still feeling icky about the whole thing.

The only reason this even has a 2/10 rating is because I enjoyed Nowaki and Hiroki's narrative—1 point for each character.

Usami is a romanticized rapist and manipulator—there's no other way to spin his character. He was very manipulative and predatory and it was just really distasteful. There was nothing likable about him. I really did enjoy Nowaki's and Hiro's stories however. Had the story only been about the two of them, Junjou Romantica would have received a 8/10 rating from me. But it wasn't so I decided to drop it. I just can't support a series that tries to make rape and abuse a normal ... thing. It happens in real life; I don't need to see it in fantasies too.

This anime sucked balls.

There is, for some reason, an abundance of female characters throughout the story. Everything is repetitive. I now wonder after watching this series, how I managed to cope with this. Every fucking gay man has a triangular face, the love interests i.e Misaki or whatever, looks like a five year old idiot who kept whining and complaining. Like, dude. If someone is assaulting or raping you, you need to kick them in the balls, punch their face and go home to tell your brother to break his friendship with him and report against him for sexual assault.

But, instead, he stayed with the ... douche bag and eventually fell in love with him. After two major headaches and ten episodes later, they're still not an item. Like what the f dude?

THIS ANIME MADE NO SENSE, WHATSOEVER.

This year for our Valentine's week romance review, we're looking at Junjou Romantica. This one is based off of the best known work of Nakamura Shungiku. The manga has been going since late 2003. The anime, at least the first series of it, aired in 2008. And that was brought to us by Studio Deen. Yes, the same studio that brought us Gravitation, Twilight Q, & Shouwa Genroku Rakugo Shinju. I have a feeling one of those is going to bear far more similarities to this than the others. But maybe I'm just making assumptions based on the genre overlap. Is this one ... as good as Gravitation was? Let's take a look at the first series and see.


Story:

We start out with Misaki, our protagonist, trying to get into a good university. There's just one problem. His test scores are pretty bad. In order to better prepare for the entrance exams he enlists the aid of his older brother's friend who also happens to be a famous author. This is Usami, also called Usagi-san. But things quickly take a strange turn when Usami immediately molests Misaki. We then go through a harrowing narrative as Misaki struggles to cope with the violation and whether or not to involve law enforcement. Or, maybe that's just the start of a romance. It's one of those, and not the one that makes more sense.

Therein lies the fundamental flaw with Junjou Romantica. The main romance is completely fucked up. Usami straight up sexually assaults Misaki a lot. With dialogue from Misaki to the effect of “Stop. Let go. Get off of me.” and yet we're supposed to buy into the idea that this is a good romantic relationship and not a serial rapist who's chosen a younger victim who happens to be in his power. But it's actually totally the latter and they never acknowledge the severe problems with it. Give a series like Love Stage some credit, at least when it uncomfortably started with an attempted sexual assault they put some effort into showing redemption and repentance on the part of the guilty party. There's also a secondary romance between a university professor and a high school boy who wants to go to the university he teaches at. I foresee no ethical problems with that whatsoever. Frankly, both of these romances are super unhealthy & really uncomfortable to watch. Which also adversely affects the attempts at comedy. Because you aren't getting legitimately funny scenes in a series with an uncomfortable, rapey atmosphere.

The one area where I'll give the series some credit is that the relationship betwixt Hiroki & Nowaki generally does work. They demonstrate respect for one another's boundaries, which should go without saying but, in this series, is unique. They also have some compelling relationship issues that do speak to the kinds of real problems that healthy couples face. Like a lack of communication or jealousy.

Characters:

The characters could almost be pretty typical. Usami is the talented rich boy who has a childish side into adulthood, with a side of being a rapist. Misaki is the youngster with a lot of potential who's uncertain about himself but will do anything for the one they love. Or, in this case, the one he's got Stockholm syndrome for. Ultimately, that makes them worse than generic. Because this series is grotty.

Like with the romance in general, the only characters who somewhat redeem the series are Hiroki & Nowaki. Since the problems they deal with are pretty legitimate and they handle their situations in a somewhat realistic fashion.

Art:

In terms of artwork, there are some nice backgrounds. The character designs look decent enough. The comedic art shift that you get when the series thinks it's pulled away from the uncomfortable romance aspects enough to go for a joke look pretty bad and they're kind of over done in terms of how frequently it happens.

Sound:

They did get some very talented actors for this. Including our old friend, Sakurai Takahiro. There's also Itou Kentarou, Canna Nobutoshi & Kishio Daisuke to name a few. That being said, these aren't their best performances. A lot of it boils down to them having reactions that are really downplayed because “this is a romance. So, your “no, stop” needs to be a soft protest.” It's almost like that element singularly damages virtually every facet of the series. That's also why Itou & Canna give, by a good margin, the best performances in the series. Since their characters are allowed to react to their situation in a way that isn't totally stilted. The music is by MOKA, the same music unit that brought us Elfen Lied's average music. This is slightly better than that. It's okay.

Ho-yay:

Well, we have three main couples, all of which are gay. Our main couple is really rapey and repulsive. One of our secondary couples is exceedingly unethical excrement. That leaves the Hiroki/ Nowaki couple. Which, to be honest, isn't worth sitting through the rest of this for. They have some cute moments and if they were in a series by themselves I'd probably be pretty fond of it. Overall, though, this is not a series with a healthy concept of what a romantic relationship between men looks like. You'd be better off with Gravitation or Gakuen Heaven. Even something with a gay couple on the side like Gundam Wing or Voyages of the Cerberus (I know, shameless self plug) would be better if decently handled.

Final Thoughts:

It's probably pretty plain to see that I did not care for this series. Part of the problem is that it paints sexual assault as an ordinary part of romance. Part of the problem is that it portrays itself as a “pure” romance series while having that kind of shite as a staple. Ultimately, it's pretty bad and I really don't recommend it unless you have a fetish for gay rape. Which I won't judge you for but I may slowly back away from you and only ever be around you in bright, crowded areas. The one redeeming factor is the Hiroki/ Nowaki romance, which is, unfortunately, not the focus. So, the final rating is going to stand at a 3/10. Next week I'll look at A-Ko the Versus.

For whom it may concern...

The story has three arches, each focusing on one couple. Two of these, romanitca and terrorist, romanticize pedophilia and unhealthy relationship dynamics. They feature statutory rape while the other characters in the story acknowledge the underage status of the victims, and they also feature full-on rape with the victims repeated telling the older person to cease.

In both cases, the older person is in a position of trust. In romantica, he was a tutor, and in egoist he was previously related to him as well as nearly twice as old. Egoist is particularly heinous with the adult doing nothing but taking advantage ... of someone who is twice his junior and raping him on more than one occasion. He mocks him based on how he's sexually inexperienced, and yet somehow cannot feel pity for anyone but himself when he becomes obsessed with him. In romantica, it romanticizes how it's okay to keep pushing someone even if they tell you to stop, because they know those aren't their //true// intentions.

The second story arch in the middle of the anime, egoist, contains two adults and is overall a great improvement over the other two. However, it is still somewhat unhealthy based on something which happens later on. Had the anime focused on this relationship I would be more than willing to recommend it to others.

Though I am not a victim of abuse or anything else mentioned above, I am underaged and watching how the story romanticized adults taking advantage of underage people made me very uncomfortable.

Alright, before some yaoi fangirl strangles me to death for writing this review, first listen to the reasons.

junjou romantica is an extremely popular anime in the shounen-ai genre. However, it isn't as good as you might think.

The art is crappy, the characters are very sappy and romancy (in other words, they make you wanna puke.) Please note, the review up till now is spoiler free but i'm getting in to detail below. Not many spoilers are mentioned though.

**SPOILER WARNING**
The relationship between characters is given below:

1) Misaki and Usami:
Misaki and Usami's relationship could've been better. If they had not included the whopping ten-year age gap, and ... not included various 'rape' elements. When Misaki first meets Usami, he gets sexually abused by him, for waking him up from his sleep when he TRIES to confront him about why he writes about sex between both of them.

What the actual crap.

CHARACTER OF MISAKI:
Misaki is a very stupid character, in general. He lives with Usami after his brother moves away and often has sex with him. Literally every episode has steamy sex in it. NO story development, nothing. What ticks me off, is that once he bangs him, he's like 'I don't wanna do it' and then after two seconds changes his mind. What's more? he is very stupid and often doe the most cliche things ever. Like go on a friendly 'date' with someone knowing that Usami is going friggin jealous.

I actually don't know why I saw this anime. For BL fans this might be a gem, but for me? well it's stupid AF

I watched this anime once again, this time, with my friends. We speedran through it, playing the whole anime on speed 1.5. We took a break after 8 episodes to mentally recover and then resumed the next day.
CHARACTERS
We had fun diagnosing characters: Here we have Usami Akihiko, who is a pure example of autism (doesn't excuse his rape behavior), but sometimes he melted my heart. Thus, he is the cutest rapist of yaoi. Hiroki, who has very severe anger issues, his partner, kinda doglike (my favorite one), who not only suffers from autism (once again), but also from regression. Sometimes him, being the most mature ... out of all characters here, made me reconsider life. Also, he plain cute. When he was respecting Hiroki's personal space. (Very rare). I shall not mention Shinobi. He was just bad. I want to forget about him. His partner was actually pretty solid... before he was struck with yaoi syndrome. Even though, he never finished his cigarettes and put them off just after liting them up. And now, last but not least, Misaki. This little dude, protagonist, suffers from extreme stupid. He yells out what he thinks midway, shocking innocent bystanders, doesn't even know what he wants, and overall? He either irritated me or made me cringe. Yeah.
To summarize, thanks for unintended autism representation.
STORY
Actually i liked how many things were connected. Especially the thing with Hiroki and Usami (Akihiko). The town they lived in was kind of a gay gathering spot - you'd normally not see that many gay people.
Also I liked the story and how it linked to the present of the smoker guy.
But what I can't forgive is the amount of rape, sexual assault, molestation, disrespect of the personal space, and the dudes casually forgetting about it, like it was just another day for their little gay world. Only Hiroki's and Nowaki's case didn't require police involved for sexual assault - however, I would call police on Hiroki for violence on partner. I don't care about his anger issues. Don't throw objects at your dude.
Also, remember - if you don't chase at your partner, but instead of running, you just walk at fast pace right behind him, do you really love them? Junjou had a few moments of men just walking. Right. After. The other one. Like it's nothing. And talking even though there are people around.
The story was also quite predictable. There was a 90% chance that when we say "He's gonna...", he was really gonna. And he did that. And we laughed.
ART
Sometimes they suffer from the syndrome of yaoi hands. But the beggining of manga was worse. BUT THE DAMNED AMOUNT OF FLOWERS IN THE OPENING. HELL. Also, the transforming of Hiroki's chin once he realised he was the bottom of the relationship... Pure comedy. Even though it's the trope of yaois, I still don't like the clear visual differences between this stupid stereotype of one taking pp in, one putting pp in.
SOUND
Opening was what i hated when i was younger. I curse my younger self for that - it's a total banger. I hate the ending tho, especially the "junjou baby love" part. But the opening... Pretty solid. Especially the part they didn't sing in the short version of the song. Besides the opening? I dont remember that many tracks, which means they were not getting on my nerves. But since the opening lived rent free in my head for a few days (now what is living here is the second opening), I'm giving it an 8.
ENJOYMENT
Sometimes we were disappointed. Sometimes we laughed. Sometimes we thought it's actually pretty cute (mostly Nowaki). Sometimes we laughed through disappointement. It was quite enjoyable. But yeah, it probably wouldn't be that enjoyable if we didn't make fun of characters every 2 minutes.
OVERALL
Since it was one of the earlier """yaois"""... It's quite ok. But watch it with friends on speed 1.5. Point out some bad and, in rl, unforgivable cliches, and it's way better. A fun anime to watch with your friends, partner, children (actually don't) and get disappointed, laugh, and very rarely - find someone adorable.

you should seriously read this if you're curious about this anime: its sucks, however, surprisingly there are good traits.
Story: 3
If i were to rate the first and third couples alone this would be a 1. The first couple has something like a 10 year age gap with Misaki being 18/19 and a first year in university and usami being a fully grown man...its creepy dude. Basically, without spoiling it (even though i advise u to not watch it) usami was in love with misaki's oldest brother however misakis brother was clueless and he eventually married a woman. In an attempt to heal his heartbreak ... this PREDATOR begins perusing poor young misaki. Misaki say "no" and "stop" and yet he ends up moving in with this creepy little loser so that he can get out of his newly married brothers hair and attend uni. it is truly a story of stockholm syndrome. you watch this poor boy slowly breakdown his barriers and "falls in love' with him. If this anime intended on spreading awareness on abuse it'd be amazing.

Then we have couple number two, the egoist. THIS COUPLE IS ACTUALLY GOOD. I got into it if im being honest. Its thanks to this couple that i didn't quit the entire show I mean wow their is actual passion. The couple consists of a heartbroken Kamijou and an enthusiastic Nowaki. I'm actually not entirely sure if this couple was as interesting as I remember it since anything is intersting compared to the other couples. Theres a lot of miscomunication and cheesiness but at the end of the day it made my heart ache so thats why I give the story a 3 overall.

Then there was the dreadful terrorist couple. i mean i felt gross watching this. Its a 35 year old man and a 17 year old boy...someone call the police immediately. The 35 year old is a divorced uni professor and plot twist: the 17 year old is his ex wifes brother. you got that right: his BROTHER IN LAW. I mean what? and the worst of all of this is that there is a scene where the older man pins the boy to the floor and starts touching him and it is grouped with sharp angles and eerie sound effects...it was clearly not meant to be viewed as a romantic scene so my question is, what was the point of romanticising it at all anyway? its clearly gross. i dont get it.

art: 2
I guess for it's time the art wasn't that bad but i've seen animes with better art than this from early 2000s so I not cutting it anymore slack. the art style somehow makes this anime even creepier than it already is. Like the faces are giant, everything is disproportioned....idk it was weird.

anyway, this is as much as im willing to write. If you plan on watching it as a joke with friends as I did then go ahead, there is a ton of stuff to mock.

So this one, like the rest of the rapey animes, gets a 4.

The music and animation style is fine, not particularly good or bad (but I'm no expert and sorta oblivious so take that with a grain of salt).
Don't get me wrong, there are some really cute moments (guy comes home to other guy asleep with his shirt uwu) but this is totally negated by the fact that all the relationships are (at least somewhat) non consensual and creepy.
All three relationships shows relatively large age difference (for their ages) and/or abuse of power. SPOILER --
The main one is the friend of the guys ... older brother (much older, we're talking about 10/11 years here) and started tutoring him when he was still only 17/18 (and in high school) and upon their second (2nd) meeting he sexually assaulted him so that's a THING.
--SPOILER OVER
Unfortunately it seems to be a running theme in anime for LGBT characters (especially main characters) to be perverted/creepy/abusive/rapists etc. and Junjou Romantica follows this.
Putting aside the literal abuse/assault (as if you could), the show style of jumping between characters in episodes (for me at least) feels kinda inconsistent and disconcerting, although they're all connected it still feels relatively random and breaks up the tension (ya know, of who will be assaulted next, smh).
The storylines are all also extremely similar with the age differences and rapiness and quite similar problems and all.
All in all, its a no from me boys and I'm wondering if maybe I should make my score lower after writing this tbh...

Junjou Romantica is a solid 2/10.
I enjoy a good BL story just as much as the next person. However, this one crossed the line. The story was distracting and stupid. While the character’s chin’s could stab someone’s eye out. Throughout the story we follow two couples and they seem decent enough. But after watching the whole show I could only come out with one thought, “Wow. That was toxic.”
The plot centred around and “uke and seme”. There wasn’t anything else to it. And non-con and dubious consent were common place. Not to mention the age gaps! The whole anime didn’t feel like it ... could happen in real life. And it definitely didn’t feel like an LGBTQ+ member wrote it. It felt fake and forced.
To break it down...
The characters: They had no actual chemistry. It was more-or-less, “You’re a cute guy and I’m gay! Let’s date.” The interactions felt forced almost like they were strangers, not lovers. While the other couple felt like they couldn’t speak. And when they magically did, it was always the “uke”s fault because he wasn’t strong enough.
The Story: It was obviously made the please girls. It wasn’t meant to watch and enjoy by LGBTQ+ people. (To be enjoyed by that group of people, the show normally has to say “Yes, this couple is homosexual. Your point?” It’s normally nonchalant about it. No. THIS IS GAY.) The characters made up no matter what and were pushed together and kept together for random reasons.
The Art: It was basic yaoi art. Nothing much else to say. Their hands were too big and their chins were hazardous.

Good parts: Though not many, this anime did a good job at keep your interest. I always wondered what stupid problem these couples were gonna get themselves into.

I don’t recommend this if you want a good BL, it’ll only upset you. It was good for its time but nowadays? There are so many better options.

*English isn't my first language*
*This review is covering all 3 seasons of the anime*

Junjo Romantica is quite popular. It is known to be one of if not the greatest shounen-ai anime of all time. Many people praising it for it's "realistic story" and "interesting story." Not going to lie. When I heard this, I got quite interested. I do enjoy watching some shounen-ai shows. I always love seeing two guys fall in love with each other. Same with two girls. However, when I sat down and watched all 3 seasons of this anime, I was shocked by how underplayed this anime was.

Story: 5/10

Interestingly ... enough, there are 3 stories to this anime. Usagi/Misaki, Hiroki/Nowaki, and Shinobu/Miyagi. I'm not gonna lie, as generic as some of the stories for the couples are, they are quite interesting. Each pairing bringing us something interesting to see. I also enjoy how these couples do in their everyday life situation. Such as Usagi being a manga author, Hiroki being a college professor, and Miyagi dealing with the death of his wife. These are the REAL parts of the anime. I also love seeing Misaki shoot to get into the college that his brother wanted to before their parents died. And as cliche as some of it, I do enjoy watching them. However, the anime suffers from being repetitive, predictable, and even cliche. Oh dear, dead parents. Oh dear, gotta tell my brother I'm secretly gay (which never happens). Oh dear, dead wife. It follows way too many tropes that we seen in other romance anime, and done better. Also, the anime tries to pull you into certain stories that would be very interesting, but unfortunately, never gives us these things. Such as Misai telling his brother he's in a gay relationship. Usagi and Misaki have been in a relationship for 4 years and yet he STILL hasn't told his brother. I understand that it would be difficult since you are worried that they wouldn't accept you for you, but it's just ridiculous. And the pacing is poor. So many things are dragged out that should not be dragged out. Like Misaki accepting the fact he's gay, Miyagi realizing there's an 18 year old in love with, etc. The story isn't bad, but there needs to be some polishing.

Art:

4/10

I do like some of the colors that mix in. It gives you a good feeling of what kind of show you are watching. The backgrounds are in also quite nice. Nothing special, but nice as is. The animation itself is stilted. The characters move so awkwardly most of the time it becomes funny. The character designs are quite awkward themselves. Not to mention that the semes and ukes look the same. Season 3 does fix the animation making it more colourful and less awkward, but still a little funky looking. Not terrible, but needs some fixing up. The facial expressions on Misaki are really good though.

Sound:

4/10

Takahiro Sakurai, the voice of Misaki, is wonderful. His performance is real for all 3 seasons. He is having so much with the role it's just beautiful. It's so enjoyable. Everyone else does great as well. The voices match the characters well. The soundtrack, however, is bad. Maybe it's just my taste in music, but it's bad. The openings, to me, are unbearable. They are so annoying. The ending songs are mediocre. Nothing stands out. Not bad, but not great. Really bad soundtrack, great performances.

Characters:

3/10

Misaki, even with a few redeemable qualities, is a fucking idiot. I know he's human. Humans make mistakes, but this guy is just so fucking stupid and annoying that it's just irritating. Usagi tells him a million times not to do something that would seriously hurt him. And he does it anyways even knowing the consequences. And, for some reason, every single guy that is somehow related to Usagi falls in love with him. For no reason. Why him? I don't fucking know. Usagi is abusive. He constantly throws Misaki in the car, tells him he can't go out, forbids him from calling other people, he's an abusive boyfriend. He even basically MOLESTS HIM IN EPISODE ONE. What they have isn't real love, it's lust. They have sex EVERY SINGLE EPISODE. Hiroki and Nowaki are characters I enjoy. Hiroki is a college professor who struggles constantly, and Nowaki is always there for him. He truly loves Hiroki. They are a real gay couple. They are the only realistic couple in the entire anime. They are both interesting. Shinobu is an annoying, possessive freak that no one would ever associate themselves with ever. His actions would make people run away from him in a second. If something doesn't get his way, it's like it's the end of the world I want to kick him in the fucking throat. Miyagi has no personality whatsoever. Their relationship is decent despite the age difference. I do like how their romance and relationship develop. Usagi's editor, is as useless and boring. Her only joke is getting mad at Usagi for not meeting deadlines. Everyone else is forgettable and bland.

Enjoyment:

5/10

Despite my rage and frustration, I did somewhat enjoy this show sometimes. I did still want to see what was going on. I was still interested in what would happen next as predictable as it was going to be.

Overall:

Junjo Romantica is a below average anime with some decent art, a few decent characters, slightly enjoyable story, but still fails with some unrealistic relationships, predictable story and idiotic characters. I still do recommend this show to people who enjoy the shounen-ai genre and aren't as critical as me. You may get to see something in the characters that I just can't. YOu many enjoy the strange art style. You may like the predictable story. Or if you want to pass time, then I guess this wouldn't be so bad. Anyone else, I don't recommend it. It still suffers from serious issues. I heard the manga wasn't much better so I'm not thrilled. Not a terrible anime, but not a good one either. That's why we have Sekai Icchi Hatsukoi, which is like Junjo Romantica, but did everything 100% better.

4/10