Junjou Romantica – Why’s Love Always So Complicated?

Posted by Kuuki ⋅ November 22, 2011 ⋅ Leave a Comment

Filed Under  Anime, BL anime, junjou romantica anime, review, shonen ai, Yaoi

This poor reviewer has had a rough time lately (mind you, things were going too well, I can’t handle it when things go too well, not to mention I’ve been torturing my mind to find a name for this corner, any idea?) and as such rendered me weak to another friend’s recommendation. And there I thought  was safe from them.
Anyway, Junjou Romantica, popular BL anime (mostly due to the fact that it’s one of the rare BL anime, most of them are technically OVAs) is the story of three couples. They all share the same pattern, boy A declares his love for boy B, boy B says “I don’t love you”, they have sex anyway, boy A declares his love for boy B who rejects him, they have sex anyway again, until boy C comes to try to snatch boy B who’s saved by boy A, rinse and repeat. (Somehow I feel that 1) my summary is not very clear and 2) I just have summarized most BL in existence)

Now that we’ve established the story is not very interesting (unless you’re into soap operas or a die-hard BL fan which, despite being a fujoshi, I am not) you might probably wonder why one would watch this. I, personally, was looking for comedy. I was disappointed. The comedy in Sekaiichi Hatsukoi (from the same author) is much better.
So, what about the characters? This anime emphasizes one thing that makes me almost always dislike BL that is not fanworks, and it’s the lack of character development. The story always follows more or less the same pattern, so characters are what makes it different from everything else; unfortunately, while each character on his own is pretty nicely developed (even when given 3 episodes, in 2 seasons), ironically, it lacks in the relationship department. Only in the BL world does a serious relationship start in one episode, and that bothers me.
In the end, is there something salvageable in Junjou Romantica? Aside from Sakurai Takahiro you mean? Well, the answer is no, not really. Which does not mean it’s absolutely awful and a shame to anime, it’s watchable but it’s not something I’d recommend to anyone. Unless I’m asked for BL, there, I wouldn’t have much of a choice.