[DonQuigleone]

I generally agree with Demi_soda

Originally Posted by Triple_R

1) Maids. I don't dislike maids, but I wonder why they show up in all sorts of shows, often fulfilling roles that maids usually don't fill in fiction. Is it just a fetish? Is it due to Japan having a fascination with the very concept of maids, maybe viewing them as an exotic and hence exciting element of European culture that's not common in Japan? I honestly have no idea how common maids are in modern or historical Japan.

This fetish is also popular in the west. It's just one of many fetishes. Anime has fads, this is one of them. I think the appeal is that maids are women that, ahem, serve. There's a power dynamic, and power is sexy.

2) Nosebleeds. I certainly get what nosebleeds are symbolic of, but I'm mainly curious about why nosebleeds were chosen as a means to convey a character being sexually aroused. I think 0utf0xZer0 once said it was tied to an old wife's tale in Japan. Well, it might be nice if someone actually told that tale (or linked to it on another site), as it might shed some light on why anime equates "bleeding nose" with "sexually aroused".

When you see nosebleeds (particularly the projectile kind...), it looks a bit like an erection. It's also humrous. If you know your biology, an erection is caused by an increase in blood pressure. So the logical extension is that a guys blood pressure climbs so high he gets a nose bleed. It's a bit like the joke where the old guy gets so turned on he gets a heart attack.

3) Static romances. That's probably the best way I can put it. In other words, romances that seem to be permanently locked on the "1st base" position. In other words, romances that never progress beyond the shy, blushing stage. I certainly get the cuteness of the "shy, blushing stage", but not letting a romance get beyond it strikes me as being similar to, say, a person wanting to dream about New York City but never actually visit New York City. A good example of a static romance is the main one in Kimi ni Todoke.

I think this is primarily driven by commercial concerns. This is primarily a manga thing (and can be seen in anime adapted from manga). Usually the mangaka wants to keep their manga going as long as possible. If the manga is a romance manga, resolving the romance will most likely end the manga. They could try and do something skillful and get more varied drama in, but the easiest way to keep their manga going forever is to keep them in "will they or won't they" territory. A fair number of american soaps or sitcoms do this too, in order to draw things out as much as possible and get maximum mileage out of a romantic subplot. For instance, in Friends, Ross and Rachel may have done the deed a lot faster then most anime couples, but they still took an incredibly long time (IE the whole series...) to get into a stable committed relationship. Artistic choice, or commercial ploy to keep the series going as long as possible? You decide.

4) Tsunderes. Now, I do get tsunderes to a point. I get how the charm of some tsunderes is her slowly getting nicer/friendlier over-time, and that being a neat way to seamlessly blend character development with romance development. But some tsunderes never really change (there's a certain imouto in Ore no Imouto that seems like this ). I do wonder what drives this. Is it just a love of slapstick comedy, and the consistently tsuntsun tsundere is seen as a good vehicle for delivering that? Or is it something deeper than this?

Tsunderes is a manifestation of the idea among many guys that they can "tame" a girl. You have a similiar plot in a lot of western literature (consider much ado about nothing, or the taming of the shrew). Basically, there's no achievement in getting with the nice girl. Getting with the hostile one, there's an achievement.

The character in itself is appealing because she pushes back, a fair number of guys don't like girls who are complete overly nice pushovers (like the Yamato Nadesico archetype). Arguments are also generally a good vehicle for dramatic and romantic tension (and tsunderes are a good source for those).

The dere side is also important, the girl might have a hostile exterior, but underneath it all she's still a caring and feminine, it's just more difficult to reach it.

Tsun -> dere is an easy character evolution. I'd say a Tsundere who remains tsun tsun for the entire narrative is more a result of poor writing with static characters, then anything else.