I am rich beyond belief. I am also insanely intelligent. My mental acuity is such that I am already at the top of my class (of a school I’ve yet to attend but why quibble over details?). Despite all of this, I am an ostracized ojousama. People gossip behind my back. Mean girls splash water on me. The people around me wear fake smiles. All I can do is resign myself to an incredibly luxurious apartment suite that would put the oil barons of Dubai to shame. I can’t be a normal girl; I have a dutiful manservant attend to my every need — day and night — while I relive painful memories of my less-than-perfect father in my head as I sip chai.
*sigh*
I am the one percent that proves that money can’t buy happiness.
Gotta protect’em all!
Ririchiyo comes from a long line of midget tsunderekkos with sour attitudes, but luckily, there’s a creamy beneath that oh-so-rough exterior. If only there was a persevering nipponjin — a man so utterly devoid of a life or personal ambitions — willing to chip away at our ojousama’s facade. I mean, you must have the patience of a hundred Tibetan monks because this ojousama won’t be easy to please. You may as well get rid of any personal hobbies ’cause there just won’t be time to attend to them. Want to walk your dog? No time! You must stand outside ojousama’s window every night to discern whether or not she’s having a good night’s sleep:
Seriously, though, what exactly are we trying to accomplish here? Are we really trying to harken back to good ol’ days of ladies and lords? Don’t worry about the land. Don’t worry about having to procure and cook food. We’ve got servants and serfs to handle such menial, degrading tasks. Let us just waste every precious, living second of our lives in some pathetic courtship. Trust me, the incredibly wealthy inhabitants of the estate the Ayakashi Mansion really do have nothing better to do. They may as well spend all day penning love letters to each other as they stare wistfully off into space.
Twilight for weeaboos
But Soushi redefines the word ‘sycophant.’ His actions border on the pathologic that I don’t think the romantic ideals of the olden days ever espoused. Did lords ever stalk their ladies day and night like some bizarre, twisted creature of the night… like… some Mormon vampire, you might even say. Soushi croons that it hurts just to even spend one living second away from his ojousama. He watches her every move so that he may serve her every need. Well, even before Bella ever learned of Edward’s existence, he had already been studying her:
Isabella Swan: Do you do this a lot?
Edward Cullen: Just the past couple of months. I like watching you sleep. I find it fascinating.
But what is Twilight? It’s safe to bet that Stephanie Meyers had pining females like herself in mind when she unleashed those vacuous novels upon our unsuspecting society. Even though Soushi is so painfully analogous to the whimpering, effete Edward (while Edward sparkles in the sunlight, Soushi transforms into a half-kitsune with a flourish of swirling sakura petals), it’s hard to imagine that Inu x Boku SS wasn’t primarily concerned with placating a (technically) masculine audience.
From Ririchiyo’s pettanko physique to Nobara’s shameless love for high school freshmen girls, Inu x Boku SS must have known that its complete doormat of the male lead must still resonate on some level with a shounen audience. So what’s up?
Uguu, women are so complicated!
(source)
Some people will claim that they find it heartwarming to see Ririchiyo’s icy heart thaw out over the course of the series. Such a pitiful, “forever alone” child with no family to love her and no friends to rely upon… but fear not! Through hard work, a “Nice Guy” will show her that there are people worth trusting! Unfortunately, Ririchiyo’s characterization feels forced and her predicament transparently contrived. It’s hard to see how one could draw much emotional depth out of the show’s flimsy premise. Instead, I think the show appeals in another way.
Ririchiyo didn’t immediately take to Soushi’s suffocating, stalkerish charms right off the bat, but it didn’t take her long to soften up to the idea that she basically has a slave at her beck and call. I guess the moral of the story is that if you bludgeon a female enough with good intentions and servitude, she just can’t help but feel for you. Despite the fact that Ririchiyo barely knows Soushi, by the third episode, she couldn’t help but grow green with envy when she saw her manservant daring to even pretend any other women may exist in his world but her.
Soushi, the most devious “Nice Guy?”
So all you self-proclaimed “Nice Guys” out there… rejoice! Social interaction where two people are on equal footing is, like, complicated, man. You have to endure multiple conversations, pick up subtle social cues, become fluent with body language and–… ugh, isn’t there an easier way? This method is too hard. At the end of the day, you don’t even know if you’ll get the girl or not. She might even… /whisper/ …just want to be friends? Can you believe that? Since I have the subtlety of a battering ram, I thus propose that we just simplify the pursuit of love down to a simple, repetitive algorithm.
Something that our minds can execute over and over until the female feels so burdened by guilt from our apparently selfless actions (even though our endgame is still getting into her pants) that she feels obligated to entertain the idea of us “Nice Guys” as viable romantic partners. RPGs are simple and boy do I love RPGs. If I wasn’t at a high enough level to beat the boss, I would just keep at it. I would just grind the experience points all day until I could conquer the fight with nary a thought. Imagine if love was the same way. If I just do enough nice things for the target of my affections, make every conversation revolve around her — to the point that any semblance of a personality within me is obliterated — I’ll certainly level up her affection towards me! Then we’ll get married and live happily ever after ’cause if there’s one thing that makes for a solid foundation in a relationship, it’s complete and utter domination of one person over the other.
Right…?
Thanks, now I want to watch it. On a more serious note, i’m finding this post to be too one_dimensional for what i’ve come to expect. I’m finfing it hard to believe that there is nothing more to this show whan the ojousama and her stalker.
The characters are also, uh, demons or something, but that aspect hasn’t really been explored in the first three episodes (they spend 90% of the screen time in human form anyway). I personally don’t have much to say about it.
Yeah, I hate this anime as well.
I’d say you might want to rewatch ep.3, since your analysis here goes against some of the basic points that episode tried to make (Ririchiyo is not jealous, after all, and the validity of Soushi’s actions is also questioned and explored). But on the other hand, if you’ve made up your mind about the show already, there’s no harm in dropping it and letting others enjoy it for what it is.
I’ve already deleted the episode from my hard drive. Plus — and this goes to everyone in general — if you’ve got a point to make, just make it. If you think my reading of the first three episodes is in error, it would help to elaborate beyond a few vague, unsupported examples. Don’t just throw “You’re wrong; go read/watch it again” out there. It’s such a waste of everyone’s time. I don’t mind being wrong. Unless, of course, you don’t think you could convince me otherwise, but then why even bother to leave a comment at all?
I’m not sure how anything written here should prevent anyone from enjoying what they want to enjoy.
I actually don’t mind this anime, but now I’m finding it increasingly hard to think of why when all these points are completely valid…
On a different note, I don’t know if this occurred to anyone else or if it just seemed that way to me because I was recently forced to read it, but Soushi really reminds me of Gatsby from “The Great Gatsby” in his obsessive, my-life-IS-Daisy attitude about Ririchiyo. I don’t really see Soushi as being devious, per say, as just more psychotic…which isn’t exactly better, I’ll admit.
Firstly, great to see you’re back. The anime blogosphere was a darker place indeed without you. Also, congrats on getting engaged.
I like this entry, and I mostly agree with your analysis on the nice guy archetype in anime, and even to some extent many real self-proclaimed ‘nice guys’, but this feels too strong. Perhaps I’m quibbling, but you don’t seem to allow any possibility for ‘nice guys’ to be anything other than lazy, socially awkward people trying to get laid in the way that requires the least mental energy.
If I’m totally misinterpreting you, I apologise. I’m somewhat sleep-deprived so it’s quite possible I’m just taking this the wrong way.
As a fairly avid Nietzsche reader, I doubt many are quicker to look for baser, less noble motives, but to tar all ‘nice guys’ with this brush seems excessive. I’m sure I’ve met plenty of genuine nice guys, and I’m fairly certain I’ve seen a few genuine ones in anime too. Ryuuji from Toradora comes to mind as a stand-out. Not to say the character interactions in that show were particularly realistic, but I don’t think Ryuuji’s nice guys character was being used as an escapist nerd fantasy, and I think he ascended beyond a character archetype by the end of the show.
I agree it’s not a good way to go about a relationship, but I feel like there’s an unnecessary amount of venom in your analysis.
This is probably horrendously long-winded and poorly expressed, but I hope I’ve got my point across, and I’d love to hear your thoughts.
When I refer to “Nice Guys,” I’m really describing a phenomenon that goes beyond just being a plain nice guy. Everyone should strive to be nice; being nice is a virtue. There are, however, a subset of guys out there who constantly complain that girls always date assholes and not “Nice Guys” like them. They always complain that their chivalrous efforts are for naught, completely unbeknownst of the fact that their outward doormat behavior and inwardly passive aggressiveness are the very reasons undermining themselves as romantic candidates, not that girls are too stupid to date the right people. There are “Nice Guys” who do nice things for their female friends only to feel completely offended when the girl doesn’t reciprocate with romantic feelings. When you do nice things for others with the expectation of sexual favors in return, that’s not so nice, is it? This is the sort of “Nice Guy” that I was referring to, and I had hoped that by capitalizing the term and bracketing it in quotation marks (e.g. “Nice Guys”), I would have done enough to differentiate these guys from those who are just plain nice — guys who do things for their friends without ulterior motives. If there was any confusion, it’s my fault for assuming that the “Nice Guy” phenomenon is ubiquitous.
Now, is Soushi a “Nice Guy” or just someone who is strangely devoted to the ojousama? I actually think this is the wrong question to ask. Soushi himself is not a realistic portrayal of a man nor was he ever intended to be. Instead, I see him as a concept that enables the anime to convey a certain message. The appeal to the romance in Inu x Boku SS, as I see it, is that we can simply bombard the female with servitude so much that she can’t help but fall in love with us. After all, I think most of us watch a show like Inu x Boku SS and expect that Ririchiyo ends up with Soushi. And how will this pairing happen? The process began as early as episode two: she feels compelled to return the favor even though she barely knows the guy, she never wanted a bodyguard to begin with, he exhibits creepy, stalkerish behavior (he watches her sleep), etc. So whether or not Soushi is really a “Nice Guy” is not as important as the fact that the anime reinforces the “Nice Guy” philosophy: if you devote yourself enough to the girl, you should win her. Maybe Soushi doesn’t expect romance out of Ririchiyo, but the audience does and the anime seems to have no problem pushing this angle.
Ah, I thought this might be where I was misinterpreting you. Thanks for the fast response, and sorry for my tardy one.
I don’t know whether the ‘Nice Guy’ phenomena is ubiquitous or not, but I’ve certainly met a few so I can understand where you’re coming from, the fault is not yours. For the most part I completely agree with what you’ve said (witty and succinct as usual), but I still feel this is taking the ‘Nice Guy’ phenomena as more malicious as it is.
Firstly, I’d disagree that the endpoint is always, or even mostly, to get into a girl’s pants. I think a lot of these ‘Nice Guys’ are honestly romantics, as misguided and frustrating as their methods may be. I certainly agree that having an overwhelmingly dominated partner is not a good basis for a relationship though.
Secondly I think a lot of these people are genuinely socially awkward, and are often aware that the ‘Nice Guy’ methods aren’t the best way to go about things, they’re just bad at body language, nuanced conversation etc.
I’m aware that this really is quibbling, but I did find parts of this unnecessarily harsh.
Good job completely misunderstanding and simplifying the whole “nice guy” issue here. You bitch about uninformed stereotypes, doing the exact same thing yourself, good job.
AFAIK, it’s not a matter of “demanding” a sexual reward in return for being nice. It’s expectancy of some acknowledgement of the effort given. Take this for example: A gentleman opens a door for a lady and lets her through first, but a lady just walks through thinking of this as a given and basically treats him as a trash. Now the guy won’t bitch to her about it, because he didn’t do it for her praise, but when it’s second, fifth, tenth, hundredth woman that acts this way, the guy starts thinking “OK, WTF should I care about it if they don’t?”. Then, when he stops doing this, the girls start bitching about how men are rude and act like assholes for not opening doors for them or letting them through first, to which they reply “OK, but this is your fault for treating us like shit, alright?”.
Then you come out and say “LOL, what do you mean their fault? If you did it for the sake of their praise, then we can go without, TYVM.”
The point you’re missing here is that the long-lost and forgotten art of courtesy and savior-vivre is never one-sided. It must never be one-sided, because courtesy from one side must always be acknowledged by the courtesy from the other party. Otherwise it all dies. Women expect to be treated well, but still go for the assholes without properly explaining why. Instead they tell men to go with a simple “you’re not my type” or “I like you, but as a friend”, which is the same as a slap across the face saying “I like it when you act like a manservant, but don’t get too cocky, because only the bad boy over there which treats me like his bitch is going to be let near me enough to enjoy the comfort of my private space” (no innuendo meant).
I always said it and I will keep saying it. You bitch and go on and on about equality and bullshit, but in reality you just want more privileges. You want to be stronger than men, but when you get there, you bitch that there are no men strong enough to be your partner. Make your fucking mind. Like the wondrous logic of coming to Mr. Nice guy who , let’s say, is interested in you and cares about you (which is why he listens to your bitching). And then starting to talk shit like “Yes, my ex-boyfriend treated me like a rag and a bitch, and I wish for someone nicer…” – then when he opens his mouth – “…but I still love him, so I will keep on trying to make it work”. Or the absolutely genius approach of “Oh, but you are a great guy, and any girl would be happy to have you as a boyfriend”. Except you. Which ATM means exactly shit to him, because he doesn’t want to be with “any girl”. He wants to be with you. Good job, you just made the guy feel useless and completely unfit for any romantic relationship, because what he’s going to get out of this conversation is “Being nice doesn’t get you pussy, it makes YOU a pussy. Man up, start treating bitches like bitches and then maybe you’ll finally get laid”. But it’s noone else’s fault. Just you, dear ladies.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nice_guy#Other_viewpoints_on_the_.22nice_guy.22
E Minor can you write a review for Yosuga no Sora? PLEASE!!!
Also I really wasn’t expecting you to start watching inuboku, I’m surprised that you are :D
Great, now I’m gonna have nightmares from seeing a picture of that creepy Twilight guy. Thanks.
Anyway, insofar as Edward is “whimpering” and “effete”, I would suggest perusing the fairly in-depth running analysis at Ana Mardoll’s Ramblings to see how that’s an incorrect assessment at best, and such a judgement is, in fact, part and parcel of why Twilight’s messages are so very bad. A dishrag Edward would not a good book make, but it would be less troublesome than the Edward who teaches girls that the man of your dreams should be controlling and willing to resort to violence if one doesn’t subjugate their will to what he believes is best for them.
I’d disagreed with that analysis of Twilight. Yes, Edward seems controlling and overprotective on the surface, but he is a monster trying to cope with these intense feelings of attachment. Bella then manipulates his confusion (at least in the first book/movie) and is, I would argue, more in control of the relationship than it may appear. Still, I don’t think anyone wants me to write 2000 words on Twilight, so I’ll just end this post with the following analysis by another (a critic I respect — the usage of the word ‘fag’ aside) here:
excellent writing
I can’t stand the personality you describe, the kind of person that complains on 9gag about being friendzoned.
of course, I’m this person, minus the complaining and minus the whole ‘trying to connect with people’ thing
aanyway I was considering unsubscribing because you guys tend to make me dislike animes that I would otherwise watch vacuously, but this kind of good poasting makes me want to see more, so I’ll stick around
I loled soooooo much through the review. I haven’t watched but I’ve heard a lot about it, here and there. Yeah, that equal footing issue, damn…
This is my first time visit at herde and i am really happy to read verthing at one place.