Junjou Romantica
Junjo Romantica

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At the time of reading I have read 3 volumes.

NB: Also contains Junjo Egoist

This manga is progressing well. We are starting to find out more about the characters and it's starting to move its focus back to Romantica rather than Egoist, making the manga truer to its name. From a yaoi point of view this manga has everything you need, the right amount of hardcore nekkid scenes with a bit of lovey dovey and coyness mixed in. A yaoi fangirls ideal.

Story/plot wise? Egoist is moving along much better than Romantica, but from the get go Egoist has had more mystery and thus more to ... be discovered. Romantica is more of watching how the relationship progresses story than one full of twists and turns. In that sense they are different to one another but the author has done well at having them both progress as readable and likable stories.

The characters are good too, well designed for their roles. They are developing well too, most notibly in Romantica with Misaki and Usami changing as their relationship grows.

The let down for me in this manga at the moment is Egoist. As the back story unravels I'm feeling a bit confused. It's almost like everything in it is happening too quickly, before we've been allowed to get to know the characters in the present we are being plunged into their past.

Romantica on the other hand has stolen my heart away. I can't wait to get my hands on volume 4 and I really hope it's filled with lots of chapters of Romantica.

If you like your yaoi graphic with a little bit of shippyness then grab this one, its taken 3 volumes for me to love it but its worth it.

Nanashi Moriko *definitely a Romantica fan girl*

24/08/07

I'm going to rate each story starting with the my favorite to least favorite.

Junjou Terrorist- My favorite pairing and story. It's about a guy who falls for his sister's ex husband. There are so many elements to this storyline. Dealing with age differences, jealousy over past loves, dealing with the death of a past love, the newness of a relationship where you're never sure if you're even in one et al. I really like the Miyagi and Shinobu pairing. I like how Shinobu is honest with his feelings and forces Miyagi to confront his hang ups. Sadly we do not get enough of the terrorist ... couple. We might as well call them the nonexistent couple of the series.

Junjou Egoist- I love how adult this relationship is. Watching Hiroki get over his unrequited love for Usagi and move on to someone much better for him was great to see. I love their interactions, I love Nowaki! This pairing is very funny and know each other well. However, I don't think there is any more stories to tell with them, or at least the mangaka doesn't have any oother ideas for them. Sadly this one is also not the main story here.

Junjou Minimum is all about Usagi and Hiroki's past, it's so sweet and so touching how they met and become friends, and how Hiroki's feelings blossomed for his friend.

Junjou Romantica- At first this was my first pairing, I loved Usagi and Misaki when i first started reading. But the one question I have to ask is...Where is the Misaki from the first few chapters? I honestly believed that Misaki and Usagi had a great blossoming first start, I loved how they didn't care for each other at all and couldn't stand each other but began to draw closer and closer to one another. Where is the Misaki that was subtly realizing his feelings for Usagi? Where is the Misaki that held Usagi in his arms and cried for him? Now this guy doesn't even want to touch the man. We are on volume 15 and Misaki is just now sleeping in the same bed as Usagi, he still uses the bear as a barrier, Usagi always initiates every interaction. Seriously, at this point I feel sorry for Usagi.

Here is a man who is letting Misaki live with him, pays for his education, buys him everything, and all Misaki does is complain complain complain about all of it. He acts like a child, he's afraid to express how he feels to Usagi, he is just too old to be behaving like this! You live in a person's house and have sex with them yet you call yourself a virgin and feel you should be with a woman. Usagi seems so pathetic as he gobbles down every little scrape Misaki tosses in his direction. Their romance is so shallow. Misaki complains about Usagi touching him, then gets nervous and frets if he doesn't touch him. Talk about fickle as h3ll!

The mangaka tries to spice the story up by having another guy come in who is interested in Usagi, but naturally it goes nowhere as Usagi just wants to be Misaki's whipping boy forever. Now the mangaka tosses in Misaki's most favorite mangaka, author of "the Kan" but there is nothing to get excited about because Misaki acts like a clueless idiot and can't tell that he is getting hit on and then Usagi gets jealous. Whatever. This is so freaking repetitive its ridiculous, it's like a one shot that the author decided to drag on forever but can't think of anything besides "Put X and X together." At this point, this series should just freaking end already cause there is nothing going on that matters. I have no respect for Usagi and Misaki is a nagging b*tch.

Junjou Romantica, the series that portrays wholesome and interesting romance between the well drawn characters… in some alternative universe, maybe. Instead, what we have here is a rape within the first 22 pages of chapter 1, and it being portrayed as a great way to start relationship.

Seriously, the manga cuts from explicit portrayal of rape of underage looking character to the assailant and the victim just talking over some tea, not acknowledging what just happens. The scenario is pretty much A: "Hi I brought you a soup" B: “Welcome to the rape cave lmao” and then they just have casual talk after? The rape into ... romance pipeline didn't even give the poor dude a time to breathe, just instant brainwashing for BL purposes. Maybe one day writers of BL will find out that gay people don’t start dating by raping the person of interest.

“Something happens but it literally doesn’t matter in any form to the story” is what you can expect a lot from Junjou Romantica. The goal of this manga is not to tell a story, but to come up with some short exchange before sex, and then to draw said sex. That is the depth of storytelling you should be expecting and even then you will most likely be disappointed.

But the story isn’t the worst part of this manga – ultimately that is just the average yaoi storytelling. What this manga excels at is the horrendous art. I shit you not, the very first chapter features a beautiful artwork with anatomy so hideous that one character’s finger is very literally the length of other character’s head. And this is far from the only case. This manga make you realize that the “yaoi hands” meme is not in any way an exaggeration. I don't think you can understand just how terrible the art is without seeing it for yourself. It's on a level that makes you feel like starting a charity called "Lessons on basic anatomy for BL authors". Art this bad couldn't have survived outside of yaoi genre - or maybe could have as some bottom of the barrel shoujo manga. Only in the latest volume or so does the art start to look slightly less goofy. Yes, it took about two decades of publishing for the artist to improve from eyecancer imagery to tolerable doodles.

If only it was just the artstyle itself that's bad but no, the composition is absolutely dogwater. In fact, you might have better chance of understanding what is going on if you were trying to divine it from a bowl of dog water instead of from the actual pages of this manga. The only joy I derived from art of this manga is screenshoting the worst parts and reposting them in a group chat for comedy.

Circling back to the story, most chapters consist of some silly relationship drama straight out of hallmark movies, followed by a kiss, followed by some (badly drawn) sex. But hey, it has penises, which does satisfy the usual needs of readers of this type of fiction. There is no reason at all to care about the story other than just liking boys fucking each other.

I think that the only reason Junjou Romantica is even this popular is that it’s from early 00’s when demand for BL skyrocketed, but also when most BL manga were just 1 volume long, so the demographic longed for long running series, even if said series is basically just recycling scenarios from the other shorter titles. There is literally nothing original or unique about Junjou Romantica, not even anything at least slightly out of the mold.