So, it turned into a Slice Of Life, instead of building romance between the two.
We already knew they end up together, but come-on, what's important is not the destination, it's the journey.
I could really do with more stories that focused a bit more on the destination. I'm kind of tired of the old "and then they got together the end." It's one of the reasons I really like Kase-san.
But once they are together, the only way to have a "story" is to create drama or conflict. With family/friends/school/rivals/tragedy...
Or it becomes a slice of life : a couple living their day do day lives and doing couple-ey things. At which point, you become a voyeur, because there's no story to speak of. Not everyone's cup of tea.
Isn't romance even before the couple gets together more or less already Slice Of Life? You're looking in on the "soon-to-be" couple and their progressing relationship and daily life. Romance is basically a Slice Of Life that focuses on Love. If you dislike as you negatively put it being a "voyeur", why are you reading romance in the first place? Or even any story, you have to look in on some kind of characters and their lives, journey, struggles, progression. You're a viewer of a tale, the audience to a theater play, the fly on the wall.
Also even before a couple gets together there's usually drama/conflict with "family/friends/school/rivals/tragedy", stories of generally every kind have some kind of obstacle(s) to overcome.
I strongly believe part of a romance's "story" can be after they get together. You're still progressing the characters, you're progressing their relationship even further. Sometimes this is a build up to sex, marriage, having children, growing old together. There isn't much of a story if it's just "and they got together, the end", I personally want to know what happens after they get together, what kind of struggles the couple faces and what they overcome, something that really makes me believe in their love and their ability to overcome anything together. That's in my opinion all part of a romance's story, if you choose to go that route.
You then may say well not everyone enjoys that sort of progression. Okay cool, well there are stories that end right after the couple get together, plenty of them exist. There's also the option to stop reading after the couple gets together.
I don't understand why we shouldn't have stories that continue after the couple gets together simply because "some people don't like that". There are people like me who enjoy stories that progress further, I think we should be allowed to enjoy and have those kind of stories. People that aren't a fan of stories that progress in that way can simply go enjoy the many stories that progress in the way they prefer.
Edit: After thinking about it more, I realized there's another element here. After the pair officially become a couple and are no longer just friends or associates their dynamic changes completely, how they interact with each other is changed on a fundamental level. For example their dialog and physical interactions can be more relaxed, because there's no longer that tension and they're able to say how they really feel. There's a lot of various changes you can make to the couple. Actually this new chapter of "Their Story" shows off this kind of change, we see that Sun Jing now teases Qui Tong in a more open and flirty way.
last edited at Mar 9, 2018 3:04AM