I’m basically going to devote this feature to Sukitte Ii na yo., Tonari no Kaibutsu-kun, and Kamisama Kiss unless there’s a shoujo out there people think I should be watching too. No, this isn’t meant to be another Harem Hill-like thing but for shoujos. Here’s the thing: I want to write more about shoujos, but on their own, I didn’t think any of these shows deserved their own dedicated post. But hey, I figured together they could. Plus, if I ever feel like comparing and contrasting the shows, it makes it easier when all three shoujos are on the same page (in a sense).
Alrighty then, let’s kick things off with Sukitte Ii na yo.
Sukitte Ii na yo.
• My main beef with the story thus far is how Mei has lost any bite to her character since the first episode. She was sort of cynical back then with the whole “You can’t trust anybody” schtick, but nowadays, she’s just a puddle of emotional goo around Yamato. I’m not saying that she should be cynical, but I just think she’s gotten too neurotic lately.
• Of course, the change in her character also results in the boys at her school thinking she’s cuter nowadays, so I guess that’s all that really matters.
• I’ve only now noticed that she only comes up to Yamato’s shoulders. Either she’s super short or he’s super tall. I’m going to go with she’s super short. Maybe even shorter than 5’0″ even.
• I like how the teachers will try to confiscate something as innocuous as Mei’s bracelet, but they let Yamato walk around with that Skrillex hairdo.
• Why would you like a girl who slaps you just because you said she was cute?
• I think it’s incredibly scummy that Yamato slept with Aiko just because she felt bad. The anime keeps trying to paint the guy as a playboy on the surface with a heart of gold underneath, but ugh, bad move.
• Yamato talks about Mei’s change over the past few episodes as if she’s his kid or something. Oh, she’s made so many friends! She’s no longer shy around them either! Go ahead, dearie, exchange phone numbers with the nice man!
• /scoff:
• Everyone’s just so incredibly skeezy in this show besides the main character herself. All Kakeru wants to do is to take what he doesn’t have, and in this case, it’s Yamato’s girlfriend. This is kind of funny because he pretty much taunts Yamato into bringing her along in the first place: “Don’t tell me you don’t want me to meet her. Sounds kinda possessive.” So he was projecting.
Plus, I sometimes wonder how far removed I am from high school these days because I can’t even imagine how a shitty line like this would work on any sensible girl: “…but how about going out with lots of guys, become even prettier, and make Yamato happy?” It’s basically the equivalent of “If you rub your boobs, they get bigger!,” but spruced up. I mean, c’mon, these lines can’t possibly work on any girl, right?
• It’s kinda funny to me how cellphones are a big deal in the show, but Mei didn’t quickly text Yamato to let him know that she was leaving. In fact, she even turned it off. Welp, that’s a sensible reaction.
• “Mei isn’t just any girl. Mei is…” Oh, he’s going to explain what makes her so special to him. This is gonna be good. “Mei is mine.” Uh… calling her cute would’ve been better than that.
• According to Mei, Yamato allowed her to act more “human.” Welp. Another show is in which the popular guy fixes the girl.
• Ah, corny: Mei is touched that Yamato hurt his hand punching Kakeru.
Final word: I just think the show takes itself way too seriously.
Kamisama Kiss
• I should say I rather enjoy the show’s OP/ED. As for the actual show itself, it’s still a work in progress.
• Here’s the thing that makes the relationship dynamics in Kamisama Kiss a little palatable to me: there’s a bit of a back-and-forth between Nanami and Tomoe. In the previous shoujo, Mei pretty much doesn’t do anything until Yamato says something outlandish.
• There’s this unsettling possessiveness quality that both these shows seem to share. I know some people find this shit romantic, but both guys see their girls as a treasure that they must defend against unwanted suitors at all costs. It isn’t ancient Greece anymore though. Not every male lead has to play the role of Odysseus. To be fair, Tomoe just doesn’t want the humiliation of losing his woman to “a stupid snake,” but that isn’t that much better.
• Naturally, Tomoe decides to become a high schooler in order to keep his eye on Nanami. I love how easy it is in anime for anyone to enroll at a high school.
• “For the time being, don’t leave my sight while we’re at school.” Nanami just gulps. So romantic!
• The white snake turns out to be another cherubic familiar with silver hair. What’s with this show and silver hair?
• Good times: Nanami stumbled herself into a forced marriage. Even in shoujos, certain things are forced. Oh well, the damsel-in-distress can only await her savior’s arrival, right?
• Anyway, the rest of the episode plays out as you’d expect it to. Mizuki tells Nanami his sob story, so when Tomoe shows up to rescue her, she asks him to spare Mizuki. Ho hum.
Final word: The main reason why I don’t enjoy this shoujo as much as I should is because I just don’t have the slightest bit of interest in Shintoism. Every time the characters start droning on and on about shrines, deities, spirits, etc., my mind just completely wanders off.
Tonari no Kaibutsu-kun
• That’s a lot of oil in the pan for frying eggs:
• Eccentric Haru moment #1: he likes the yolks on his fried eggs to be broken. That… that’s horrible!
• I see the one-sided competition between Haru and Shizuku is still an ongoing affair. Still, I do like Shizuku’s persistence. I find it funny when she argues with her teacher for a higher score.
• Eccentric Haru moment #2: he thinks of eggplants when summer comes up.
• In general, I think both the heroines in Sukitte Ii na yo. and Tonari no Kaibutsu-kun fell for the male protagonists a little too quickly. Both relationships feel rushed as a result, and thus a little unconvincing. And since both shows like to put their shoujo leads behind the eight ball, they unfortunately share the same gimmicky plot point in which the love interest is popular with the girls at school.
Due to this, our heroines have to cope with their newfound feelings of jealousy. This conflict is then almost always resolved in the same fashion too. At some point, the male protagonist will convey to the heroine that her attention is all he really wants or needs. To be fair, Haru’s sudden popularity is probably a temporary thing.
• It’s like a rule in romantic comedies that the girl has to be nailed with a ball at some point, isn’t it?
• I should note that both Haru and Shizuku seem to help each other. Without Shizuku, Haru might not have recovered from his fight so well in this week’s episode. My problem with Sukitte Ii na yo. is that I don’t even get why Yamato is attracted to Mei or how she even influences his character for the better. He’s just this tall god that all the girls love, but luckily enough, Mei caught his eye. I get that there’s still plenty of time for Sukitte Ii na yo. to demonstrate what Mei means to Yamato, but I just had to laugh when he said, “”Mei isn’t just any girl. Mei is… Mei is mine.”
• Eccentric Haru moment #3: just this screencap below alone will suffice.
• So we meet Haru’s brother who seems a little shady. He seems to take a weird interest in Shizuku. I hope the show doesn’t go where I think it’s going to go, i.e. the brother tries to steal Shizuku away. Supposedly, Haru has a brother complex so what’s a better way for him to get over it than this? Ugh. We’ll see though.
Final word: Why do I enjoy this show more than the other two shoujos? It’s funny. Okay, it’s not always funny, but it can actually get me to laugh from time to time. Sukitte Ii na yo. can be such a shoujo-y drag full of teenage angst. As for Kamisama Kiss, it has its fun moments, but they’re too far and in between. And although Tonari no Kaibutsu-kun shows Shizuku leading Haru around on a leash, this hasn’t exactly played out in the actual anime itself. The other two shows, on the other hand, have characters that feel a little too possessive.
You didn’t even mention glasses girl.
We were promised she’d be an important character in ep. 1: http://i.imgur.com/12Ets.jpg.
She didn’t really do anything of note.
Give that bishie some silver hair. Bishies love silver hair.
I’m trying not to read the manga for Tonari no Kaibutsu-kun in hopes that I don’t inevitably compare it to the source material. I’ve heard that it’s being adapted at a breakneck pace, though, and could explain why Shizuku falls in love with Haru so quickly in the anime. Whether that’s true or not, I’m just satisfied with the fact that both characters are aware of each others’ affection.
I wonder if Haru’s awareness is even similar to our sense of awareness. Does he sit around and think about how it must feel for him to reject Shizuku that night? Unfortunately, we’re only privy to her thoughts and not his.
Given Haru’s lack of sensitivity at times, It would make sense that empathy would also rank low on his priorities, certainly below Nagoya and Yuzan. He’s concerned for Shizuku, thinks of her, and even admits to having dirty thoughts about her, but this doesn’t necessarily amount to him understanding her just yet.
At the very least he is somewhat conscious of her presence to the point of blushing at times. Whether that means anything when it comes to his actual feelings is still up in the air.
I have to admit that I was done with Sukitte Ii na yo after the second episode, when Yamato pushes Mei up against an alley wall and kisses her until she admits she wants him. Uh.
I mean, I registered that it was supposed to be a hot, passionate scene, but it skeeved me out in HUGE way: I’ve seen enough shoujo to know that guys being forceful and aggressive towards the main character is pretty standard, but even so, Mei’s helplessness, and the fact that Yamato was physically intimidating her by invading her space until she consented to luvving him, made me incredibly uncomfortable.
I’m sticking with Tonari no Kaibutsu-kun. It’s a cute show, and doesn’t seem to have gaping power-balance issues where gender is concerned (Haru can be a meathead, but he doesn’t control every aspect of the relationship). Looking forward to more of your recaps!
It was funny to see all the hoopla surrounding Tonari no Kaibutsu-kun at the start of the season, but Sukitte Ii na yo is shaping up to be a lot more… controversial is the nicest way I can put it. It doesn’t help that everyone around the main couple seems to want to screw each other in more ways than one.
I agree, I felt that scene wasn’t romantic at all. I considered dropping that show, if didn’t improve soon. So, far I feel underwhelmed with the latest eps. and I haven’t read the manga either.
I agree with the strange possessiveness of the main guy’s personalities, sure, it seemed cute when I was younger and reading shoujo, but now I see it more as a red flag. I’d like to see more anime where the main guy is OK with the female lead having guy friends w/o the whole you’re MINE issue.
To be fair, Kakeru was trying to get Mei into bed. It just didn’t help Yamato’s cause that he couldn’t really say why Mei is different from other girls besides the fact that she belongs to him.
“She’s not like other girls! I OWN her! I don’t OWN other girls! I only have one, and I can’t share! Go get your own!”
/romance of a lifetime
Generally how I saw the “Mei is Mine” situation:
Yeah, it was short-lived popularity for Haru, alright. He went from scary to “OMIGOD LOOK AT DAT SMILE!!” to scary again in a single episode. Works for me, though, since I don’t think it would’ve been sensible to have ended up any other way with Haru.
I get a genuine feeling of heart from Monster-kun I don’t get from the other two shows. They have their moments I guess, but there’s just this authentic -something- with Monster-kun that makes it pop out in comparison. Most likely the way the characters are done. They share similar traits (especially when it comes to learning about their own emotions and reasons for their actions) but are mirrored just right. While I think the romance did dive in head first a bit too soon, I can’t say it feels tenuous. Probably because it’s a romance between two people who don’t know thing 1 about actual romance. One knows about it through textbook-like knowledge and the other through mangas.
-I really liked the watermelon smashing scene at the end, where Haru questions if they’re even doing this right and Haru says, “Probably.” It shows that they -know- smashing watermelons are a festive and happy thing to do with those you care about, but they don’t quite get why or what’s so special about it. They’re just going through the motions because they think they should since they care about one another.
Good review as usual, mate, and I kind of like this idea of reviewing the three shows like this, at least for the episodes that don’t give you an abundance to talk about. I have to say, though, I can’t see any hints of Haru’s brother going for her in this episode, more like he’s interested in what kind of girl would hang out with Haru and actually get him to go back to school. Maybe he’s just weird because the apple doesn’t fall far from the genetic helix. …Wait, I screwed that up. You know what I mean.
-I don’t know. After Lovely Complex pulled that trick with the Maity character, I can’t fully say if he’s creepy or not. The good thing about this show is that it doesn’t seem that predictable. Here’s hoping it stays that way.
I liked how Shizuku was wearing a green/black striped shirt while Haru was smashing the melons.
Ha! I didn’t even notice that! I wonder if that’s significant in any way. Maybe it’s a metaphor for something. I certainly hope it’s not foreshadowing.
On the other hand, this show is probably the most “normal” of the bunch in that the main plot for now is everyone trying to become friends. It’s just easier to identify with it. Sukitte, on the other hand, has characters competing for one another like some Machiavellian sex game. And Kami Kiss has spirits so there’s that.
Well, we’ll see soon enough.
I’ve read all three of of the manga before their anime adaptations were even announced, and for some strange reason, I found their source material far more palatable. That applies particularly for Sukitte Ii na yo, can’t quite put a finger to it, but I felt the manga has a more mature and realistic ring to it. The heroine in Kamisama Hajimemashita appears a lot more independent and respectable too.
I’ve read quite a far bit of shoujo, and I’m almost sad to say that these three here are actually one of the better ones from the genre; but I’m struck by how generic and cheesy the anime adaptations seem in comparison to their manga counterparts. Not sure if it’s because I have a very dull imagination, or that the sappiness was really overdone by the animators. And not to mention the numerous changes that does the story no favour…
I refer to this point: “I think it’s incredibly scummy that Yamato slept with Aiko just because she felt bad. The anime keeps trying to paint the guy as a playboy on the surface with a heart of gold underneath, but ugh, bad move.”
Bad move, indeed, because the Yamato from the manga is a lot more self-aware and less one-dimensional (assuming you’ve watched the first episode, you’d only have to read a single page from the manga to spot the jarring differences – http://mangafox.me/manga/suki_tte_ii_na_yo/v01/c001/20.html).
If I have to speculate, I’d imagine that since the anime has to condense a lot of material into a handful of episodes, anime studios opt to hit all the familiar shoujo beats. As such, everything seems a bit more generic in comparison to the source material.
I clicked yuour link and was blindsided by the characters’ elongated proportions. Christ, it’s like they’re all variations of Slenderman or something.
I’m not going to defend Yamato, as I do not see any reason for why I should. Any comments on him will be on how he abuses his knowledge about how Mei feels about him and a brief comment on why he is attracted to her going by what happened in episode 3, but I won’t defend him. I will however defend Mei, as I find her change in character believable.
“Ah, corny: Mei is touched that Yamato hurt his hand punching Masashi.”
The jerk’s name is Hayakawa Kakeru (or the other way around, I’m not sure). And I think the reason for Mei being touched by Yamato’s defense of her has been established in the previous episodes. Corny, yes, but I think it was the expected reaction. Given that Mei didn’t believe that Yamato would actually come to help her when she called, it showed that she was used to people not helping her when she requested it, and that it wasn’t just the betrayal that led her to choose social withdrawal. That Yamato defended her without her needing to ask for it was a salient experience for her.
Mei placed a wall around herself by constantly scowling and giving the general impression that she didn’t want to get to know anybody. This would deter most people from from being friendly with her, and those that made an attempt to do so could possibly have given up after a few attempts, but that Yamato kept persisting in trying to interact with her, and actually came to her aid when she requested it, has imprinted him on her in a significant way. She thinks very highly of him (although many other viewers don’t), but at the same time, still has trust issues, which is why her moods seem to swing wildly. Mei is attracted to him, but Asami’s comment on the ease of which Yamato kissed other girls, bothered her, as she wanted to be special to him. Even after she saw that Yamato didn’t leave the building with Arai, Mei was still uncomfortable because she still had lingering thoughts about what Asami told to her, and is why she was distressed when seeing him, despite clearly being attracted to him. Yamato saw her attraction to him, and kissed her because he thought that she wouldn’t object due to that. After this, Mei was distraught and thought she might have just been another girl to him, and said that kisses like that don’t make her happy, implying that she wanted something more. Now, I am not going to defend how Yamato forced himself onto her as he clearly did so due to the belief that Mei was attracted to him and abused this, but from my perspective, Mei really did want to be swept off her feet. That Mei wanted to Yamato’s affection is why I think that there wasn’t more outcry over this scene. If these multiple kisses instead occurred in episode 1 before Yamato had warded off the stalker, I think the response to the scene would have been even more negative than what was seen in Tonari no Kaibutsu-kun’s start. In Tonari no Kaibutsu-kun’s case, I got the sense that the author had Haru pin Shizuku down, threaten to rape her, take his pants off, and punch her in a fit of rage because the author thought such scenes were funny (and even had another similar alley scene in episode 4, except without uttering rape). Suki-tte hadn’t completely trivialized the forced kisses, as Mei did fight back initially, whereas Shizuku actually followed Haru after the threat of rape, which was insane even with the show being a comedy.
In episode 3, Mei could see just how large the gap in social standing was between Yamato and herself. After Aiko told her about how Yamato had lost is virginity to her, Mei would of course be upset, as she still knew very little about him, and due to his huge popularity, for all she knew, he might just sleep with one of those girls who flirted with him on the street. More emphasis on Mei’s trust issues again, which led to Yamato expressing that he is attracted to her because of how she doesn’t strive to be inoffensive like he had been, which resulted in his best friend friend transferring to another school. At that point, it appears that she wants to move on from the betrayal she suffered when younger, since Yamato and Asami could also move on from past events. Her lack of social interaction probably led her to believe that such experiences were more restricted to a very small part of the population, and is why she never tried to move on. It was never about her being unable to open up to others, but that she didn’t want to do because of what she had previously experienced. I’m not going to give Yamato points for suggesting that Mei is a better person than he is. He still abuses his knowledge of Mei’s feelings for him, and tried to stop her from getting her hair cut because he likes it longer. There was clearly a time skip between episodes 3 and 4 where Mei attempted to be more social, and ughhh …. and Yamato didn’t have to make it sound like he was proud of his kid. The flashback in episode 1, where Mei remembered her father, probably indicated that he was the last guy that she was ever close to, and she might actually see Yamato as sort of a father figure (Crunchroll’s translator must have been high or something by translating it as “human”. Nobody would say that in real life.) due to her present lack of one. That Mei is physically attracted to him seems sort of gross after considering this as a possibility. Mei deciding not to text Yamato was probably another sign of her trust issues. She was not too thrilled about how Yamato could possibly introduce her to such a terrible guy, which also resulted in her avoiding him at school for a short while.
Suki-tte seems to be framed entirely around Mei’s trust issues so far, so I expect the rest of the series to be mostly about her overcoming them. And hopefully, about improving Yamato’s character, as his current character seems particularly flawed.
I’m amused that the two dudes in Sukitte whatever are named Yamato and Kakeru since there was a pair of brothers in the first two seasons of Digimon named Yamato and Takeru. Probably just a coincidence, of course, but mildly amusing nevertheless.
This is where you tell me Digimon is super depressing, rite?!
Second season was an angst-fest, but I wouldn’t exactly describe it as “depressing”… and third season got fairly dark, but I don’t recall it as being exactly “depressing”.