AnimeSuki Forum - View Single Post - Why do realistic anime elicit so much hatred?

NinjaRealist · 2012-09-24, 18:46

I have not watched the Nana anime, but I read all the extant manga back in about 2009, and it is indeed one of the most heart-wrenchingly realistic love manga I've ever read, perhaps even more so because Nana Komatsu is basically exactly like my high school girlfriend after she moved away to art school and went off to college there (although I didn't cheat on her).

But Nana is a much more mature manga about much more mature characters. It's
true that Nana is one of the best of these, but there are a lot more mature anime about mature characters than mature and realistic anime about high schoolers. There is also, by contrast, a much larger quantity of slapstick, fairy tail, high school romance anime.

I think the reason why I liked School Days so much. It took all of those conventions and cliches which are such an essential part of highschool romcom animes and just completely turned them on their head.

Stupidly naive and honest protagonist is switched for a cunningly sociopathic protagonist ( I dunno if good people doing bad things applies to Makoto...)

Idealized shy and sweet love prospect is replaced with a fragile and neurotic perfectionist pushed over the brink.

And instead of some happy, deus ex machina ending we get ten minutes of pure horror that might as well have been the ending to Se7en (plus a very nice boat). Also, I didn't know this was ripped straight from the visual novel, but I still think it's an awesome ending.

So I guess the main reason I thought this anime was so great is because it's such a potent satire of all the absurd romcom animes that I've grown up with. In this way, I though the absurdity really worked.

2012-09-24, 18:46	Link #3
NinjaRealist Battoru! Join Date: Sep 2012	I have not watched the Nana anime, but I read all the extant manga back in about 2009, and it is indeed one of the most heart-wrenchingly realistic love manga I've ever read, perhaps even more so because Nana Komatsu is basically exactly like my high school girlfriend after she moved away to art school and went off to college there (although I didn't cheat on her). But Nana is a much more mature manga about much more mature characters. It's true that Nana is one of the best of these, but there are a lot more mature anime about mature characters than mature and realistic anime about high schoolers. There is also, by contrast, a much larger quantity of slapstick, fairy tail, high school romance anime. I think the reason why I liked School Days so much. It took all of those conventions and cliches which are such an essential part of highschool romcom animes and just completely turned them on their head. Stupidly naive and honest protagonist is switched for a cunningly sociopathic protagonist ( I dunno if good people doing bad things applies to Makoto...) Idealized shy and sweet love prospect is replaced with a fragile and neurotic perfectionist pushed over the brink. And instead of some happy, deus ex machina ending we get ten minutes of pure horror that might as well have been the ending to Se7en (plus a very nice boat). Also, I didn't know this was ripped straight from the visual novel, but I still think it's an awesome ending. So I guess the main reason I thought this anime was so great is because it's such a potent satire of all the absurd romcom animes that I've grown up with. In this way, I though the absurdity really worked.