Well, this is probably good advice, although at this point this basically rules out watching anime for me. Feels like the entire medium has driven off a cliff over the past few years. Every season, it's the exact same thing

I find this take somewhat odd, as since 2018 we had anime adaptations of Yagate Kimi ni Naru, Adachi To Shimamura, Machikado Mazoku, Manaria/Mysteria Friends, the final season of Symphopgear, The Executinor and her way of life, and original gems like Birdie Wing (if we are just talking about yuri/subtext shows mind you, there is more in other categories that aren't relevant to this community, like Jojo's Bizarre Adventure which, if anything, is one of the most creative uses of anime as a medium I have ever seen. Same can be said of Mob Psycho 100 and the like). There is an unfathomable mountain of low quality generic material, but there always has been. Whether you go to 2006, 2016 or 2022, there will always be far more unwatchable content than decent one.

My take is that so often we start to take fewer risks, dismiss series more quickly and grow saturated with tropes to the point where enjoyment withers. But I always shirk away from claims of an objective decline in imagination or variety. The amount of anime produced every year does push the industry to its limits and there are issues with animators having to cut corners no doubt. But for every generic harem show we get incredibly odd cases of anime that are clearly passion projects or elevated by the source material.

At the end of the day the result is the same, and I can't say I have any respect for writers who place pleasing that particular demographic above everything else.

I don't think this is the writers' decision, behind every writing team is an investor who only thinks of anime in terms of profits. And of course the people who want to make all the money will pander to the demographic that spends the most.

these formulaic CGDCT yuri baits

Again, not necessarily bait! Many of the authors of those CGDCT manga that get adapted are genuinely yuri fans.

Feels like the entire medium has driven off a cliff over the past few years.

Maybe? Seems to me that the vast majority of anime has always been trash for as long as I've been following the new seasonal releases, just like the majority of everything that comes out in every single medium is mediocre and uninspired. But there is definitely an ongoing crisis in the anime industry--every year there are multiple production disasters, so producers could be less willing to try new things. Also, this is me talking out of my ass, but I have a suspicion that the Japanese incels are becoming increasingly radicalized and unwilling to think of even fictional women as more than objects, hence the flood of shitty power fantasy harems. I don't think that's going to get better any time soon.

I watch fewer anime than I used to, but I think it's worth keeping up with what's being released (even if you don't subject yourself to it personally) because once in a while something comes along that's actually worth watching. Last season's Birdie Wing isn't everyone's cup of tea because of its unabashed absurdity, but it's the most fun I've had with an anime in more than a decade. And the main characters are so openly gay for each other I don't think it caught on with the waifu crowd at all (or with any crowd; in fact, the Blu-Rays sold terribly). There are exceptions that make the research worthwhile (I personally let other people do most of the researching).

I'm going to stop because I can't express myself well and I'm afraid of coming off as patronizing, but there's nothing wrong with engaging less (or stopping completely) with a medium that doesn't make you happy anymore. I stopped watching live-action movies and television years ago because I realized they brought me more annoyance (and straight up anger) than happiness. Haven't heard of a single one since that sounded like I'd enjoy it.

Feels like the entire medium has driven off a cliff over the past few years.

Maybe? Seems to me that the vast majority of anime has always been trash for as long as I've been following the new seasonal releases, just like the majority of everything that comes out in every single medium is mediocre and uninspired. But there is definitely an ongoing crisis in the anime industry--every year there are multiple production disasters, so producers could be less willing to try new things. Also, this is me talking out of my ass, but I have a suspicion that the Japanese incels are becoming increasingly radicalized and unwilling to think of even fictional women as more than objects, hence the flood of shitty power fantasy harems. I don't think that's going to get better any time soon.

On this note, it’s not just Japanese incels, it’s global incels. IIRC, when Executioner came out, it wasn’t the Japanese audience that threw a fit, it was international audiences that bombed the rating and threw hissy fits. The incel community has become very loud and very vocal, especially in America.

On this note, it’s not just Japanese incels, it’s global incels. IIRC, when Executioner came out, it wasn’t the Japanese audience that threw a fit, it was international audiences that bombed the rating and threw hissy fits. The incel community has become very loud and very vocal, especially in America.

That was really kind of stupid; people on the MAL forums in particular didn't read the synopsis or even the fucking title and decided the self insert Japanese kid was going to be the MC before he got Talentless Nana'ed.

I find this take somewhat odd, as since 2018 we had anime adaptations of Yagate Kimi ni Naru, Adachi To Shimamura, Machikado Mazoku, Manaria/Mysteria Friends, the final season of Symphopgear, The Executinor and her way of life, and original gems like Birdie Wing (if we are just talking about yuri/subtext shows mind you

I think production committees prefer slow burn yuri (bait) that doesn't really lead to anything over the course of a season. Otherside Picnic, Executioner, and Adachi and Shimamura... even Symphogear took its time to give us unprotected hand holding. Seems like its been a while since I've seen yuri kisses animated. And then there's some stuff like Aquatope where I didn't see it as yuri at all.

For me Machikado Mazoku and LycoReco are satisfying in a way a lot of other series aren't though, I'm not really sure why. Momo/Shamiko and Chisato/Takina are really individually likable, and they've got great supporting casts I guess... I dunno really.

Anyway life is too short to stick to only watching "popular" anime or to force yourself to watch something you're not enjoying. Three (or four) episode rule exists for a reason, and there's no shame in jumping off at episode 10 either.

Something I'd note is that once you get out of the realm of harem power fantasies, Japanese productions in general don't feel the need to shove in a romance subplot the way American ones tend to. 'We'll just leave it implied' is something I've seen happen to het pairings, too

Three (or four) episode rule exists for a reason

Honestly, I rarely let myself suffer even that long anymore. If the first episode doesn't grab my attention and make me think I'll be missing out by not watching more, I'm usually out. On a related note, I think it's been several years since an anime actually made me interested enough to watch all of it.

I find this take somewhat odd, as since 2018 we had anime adaptations of Yagate Kimi ni Naru, Adachi To Shimamura, Machikado Mazoku, Manaria/Mysteria Friends, the final season of Symphopgear, The Executinor and her way of life, and original gems like Birdie Wing (if we are just talking about yuri/subtext shows mind you

I think production committees prefer slow burn yuri (bait) that doesn't really lead to anything over the course of a season. Otherside Picnic, Executioner, and Adachi and Shimamura... even Symphogear took its time to give us unprotected hand holding. Seems like its been a while since I've seen yuri kisses animated. And then there's some stuff like Aquatope where I didn't see it as yuri at all.

I will be charitable and assume that you did not just equate any of the slowburns you or me listed as bait.
Romance in general tends to be like this, however. Be it yuri, BL or het, most romance focused works will take their time. There are hundreds of season 1s awaiting their continuation that will never arrive, completely ending without any satisfying conclusion (at least in the anime adaptation). To get from 0 to 100 within 12 episodes (or less) would either require an unfaithful adaption or a source material that was rather short itself. Unsurprisingly the popular ones tend to be longer form, though, which means the ones being picked for an adaptation tend to be slowburns.

As for yuri kisses, they do happen fairly regularly, just not always in yuri focused works. A good example of that would be last year's Gekidol, which by no means is a yuri focused work, but did have a serious kiss between two girls.

For me Machikado Mazoku and LycoReco are satisfying in a way a lot of other series aren't though, I'm not really sure why. Momo/Shamiko and Chisato/Takina are really individually likable, and they've got great supporting casts I guess... I dunno really.

I cannot speak for Lycoris Recoil, because I put it on the backburner for later, but at least Machikado Mazoku thrives by being simply one of the best Kirara manga regardless of its romance aspect. It is criminally underrated on every level. That does of course not mean I disagree about ShamiMomo at all. Their development is slowburn, but incredibly good. Though we have not gotten to an explicit kiss or the dating stage yet (and I suspect those will only happen at the very end (should Ito not die beforehand)), their romantic chemistry is perfectly executed and permeates into every fiber of the plot itself.
I believe a manga/anime that can stand on its own plot, but can also keep a romance meaningfully integrated is the best.

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Something I'd note is that once you get out of the realm of harem power fantasies, Japanese productions in general don't feel the need to shove in a romance subplot the way American ones tend to. 'We'll just leave it implied' is something I've seen happen to het pairings, too

This however I cannot confirm myself. Nearly every anime ever made has romance in it in some form, barring perhaps some kids shows or Shounen anime. Rather than "implied" the most common version is just that this plot point goes nowhere or gets resolved at the end without build up.

last edited at Sep 26, 2022 7:41AM

I will be charitable and assume that you did not just equate any of the slowburns you or me listed as bait.

Depends on which ones, but generally what happens in volume 7 of an LN doesn't really matter for an anime only watcher. I don't consider them much different especially when the romance isn't in the forefront like in Executioner and Otherside. And Symphogear always aimed to be Schrödinger's yuri.

To be fair to your greater point 2018 had Citrus, Bloom Into You, Kase-san and Morning Glories OVA, and Happy Sugar Life. I generally don't get people who hearken back to some kind of yuri "good old days" but that was a pretty good year. I'm still cautiously optimistic about The Magical Revolution of the Reincarnated Princess and the Genius Young Lady next year, and hopeful that ILTV will get adapted... someday.

Romance in general tends to be like this, however. Be it yuri, BL or het, most romance focused works will take their time. There are hundreds of season 1s awaiting their continuation that will never arrive, completely ending without any satisfying conclusion (at least in the anime adaptation). To get from 0 to 100 within 12 episodes (or less) would either require an unfaithful adaption or a source material that was rather short itself. Unsurprisingly the popular ones tend to be longer form, though, which means the ones being picked for an adaptation tend to be slowburns.

I don't think I agree with that at all; what usually drags things out are harems, love triangles, or in yuri roadblocks like "but we're both girls!" I guess there's meme manga that somehow gets 3 seasons like Rent-A-Girlfriend but that's not exactly the norm. The more memorable and/or highest rated het romances are usually pretty definitive over 12 or 24 episodes, especially if they're adaptations of shoujo. I've always been partial to Kase-san because its basically a shoujo manga with two girls.

Yuri actually tends to be sort of formulaic; its really heavy on themes of self discovery and it always kind of comes back to classic trope pairings like 'meek kouhai X disaster senpai' or 'gyaru X plainy' -- though occasionally something like Citrus will mix it up a bit where its gyaru X disaster senpai. And don't get me wrong I enjoy it but there's something to be said for stuff that's gay but detached from some of the tropes that are the bedrock of yuri as a genre.

Anyway I'm impressed someone else watched Gekidol, it was... interesting if nothing else.

strayalive posted:

I will be charitable and assume that you did not just equate any of the slowburns you or me listed as bait.

Depends on which ones, but generally what happens in volume 7 of an LN doesn't really matter for an anime only watcher. I don't consider them much different especially when the romance isn't in the forefront like in Executioner and Otherside.

Yeah, supposed nefariousness aside (though, this is most of what matters, to some) I can't see much of a difference between them all. I loved Executioner's yuri (the anime), but based on a lot of folks' definitions it wouldn't even count as yuri in the first place. Could never recommend it for that element, and thus it's functionally pretty similar to some of the most prominent "bait" anime out there.

I don't think I agree with that at all; what usually drags things out are harems, love triangles, or in yuri roadblocks like "but we're both girls!"... The more memorable and/or highest rated het romances are usually pretty definitive over 12 or 24 episodes, especially if they're adaptations of shoujo.

And if they do end early, the endgame is usually very noteworthy from earlier on. To pull a yuri example, Sasameki Koto certainly felt like that sort of romance story. At least, that was my experience till I stopped watching het romance anime (~2016). This being the case doesn't undercut all yuri anime of course - Machikado could've ended after one season and it would have still been satisfying romance.

last edited at Sep 26, 2022 10:04PM

Lots of replies to stuff I wrote but I have nothing new to add to the conversation because my mind is currently being blown by Birdie Wing. I have no idea how I overlooked this one.

Lots of replies to stuff I wrote but I have nothing new to add to the conversation because my mind is currently being blown by Birdie Wing. I have no idea how I overlooked this one.

I am glad you enjoy it. It is without a doubt a hidden gem among this year's anime releases and thankfully already renewed for a second season.

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I will be charitable and assume that you did not just equate any of the slowburns you or me listed as bait.

Depends on which ones, but generally what happens in volume 7 of an LN doesn't really matter for an anime only watcher. I don't consider them much different especially when the romance isn't in the forefront like in Executioner and Otherside. And Symphogear always aimed to be Schrödinger's yuri.

This is a poor definiton of "bait" then in my opinion. Is an adventure anime "adventure bait" because the final villain is not defeated by the end of season 1? Of course not, it is a work in progress with the obvious intention of a resolution. The same goes for romance anime that don't get a second season. Why is it bait when the intrinsic idea is that by the end romantic feelings will perservere?

No, bait should be - even if not nefarious by default - something that obviously flirts with yuri themes, but has no intention to ever deliver on them. Let us forget about the original bait and switch definition that requires a derailment into het and simply treat bait as the word suggests... something to attract a certain type of viewer's interest. It is something that gets attention, much like an anime that has a incredibly obvious shock factor scene in the first episode to attract the "edgy" demographic, but then swerves into 11 more episodes of generic fantasy/SOL/mystery. Yuribait is often just the promise of something gay happening with no actual plans to go there. But once they hooked that audience in they have already won, as yuri fans in particular are desperate for content. To not conflate this with subtext in general, sometimes romantic themes are just not that relevant to a story in the first place, so subtext is the extend of what it cares to show, but then it is almost never used as bait to begin with as it is too minor to attract people from the start.

Executioner and Otherside Picnic make very clear early on that the romantic tension between the main characters is both intentional and endgame. There may be twists and turns that make it not always as clear-cut, but the point is that a faithful adaptation is setting up the romantic parts the same way the source material did, which means it is genuine in it's delivery, unlike bait. To be an "anime only" is the audience's own shortcoming in this particular case. It is nearly foolish in this day and age to expect an adaptation to complete a story in an industry that purposely picks on-going series as their targets.

I don't think I agree with that at all; what usually drags things out are harems, love triangles, or in yuri roadblocks like "but we're both girls!" I guess there's meme manga that somehow gets 3 seasons like Rent-A-Girlfriend but that's not exactly the norm. The more memorable and/or highest rated het romances are usually pretty definitive over 12 or 24 episodes, especially if they're adaptations of shoujo.

You are just saying the conventions of romance stories drag down romance stories' pacing. I am shocked, shocked I say!

There are rarely any anime that are definitive within 12 episodes. If such things get rated highly, then it is simply because anime onlies are desperate for conclusions, which makes a lot of sense of course. 24 episodes are also a much different standard. Yagate Kimi ni Naru could easily be completely adapted within two seasons. It's a fairly normal length. But 12? As we have seen that is not possible. Het shows enjoy a broader audience and thus get more chances to be renewed for another season, especially lowly ahem... bait for lonely teenagers who need a certain type of self-insert fantasy (I am desperate not to use the I-word here).

I've always been partial to Kase-san because its basically a shoujo manga with two girls.

Nothing about Kase-san is intentionally Shoujo manga like. Not any more than most Yuri manga are, as Yuri is tacitly an off-shoot of Shoujo manga to begin with. Kase-san's tropes and framework are pretty strongly based in general yuri conventions. I cannot say whether your perception of Shoujo is awfully specific or if you just happen to have avoided certain types of yuri branches.

Yuri actually tends to be sort of formulaic; its really heavy on themes of self discovery and it always kind of comes back to classic trope pairings like 'meek kouhai X disaster senpai' or 'gyaru X plainy' -- though occasionally something like Citrus will mix it up a bit where its gyaru X disaster senpai. And don't get me wrong I enjoy it but there's something to be said for stuff that's gay but detached from some of the tropes that are the bedrock of yuri as a genre.

This is a meaningless discovery I fear. The same can be said about any romance story. Het romance has it's repetitive tropes, BL has its repetitive tropes. Yuri is nothing special in that regard. The majority of all fiction is "formulaic" or the much more popular term of recent decades "generic".

last edited at Sep 27, 2022 10:44AM

and thus it's functionally pretty similar to some of the most prominent "bait" anime out there.

Nooo, not you too, fellow subtext enjoyer Pekoe :(

Lots of replies to stuff I wrote but I have nothing new to add to the conversation because my mind is currently being blown by Birdie Wing. I have no idea how I overlooked this one.

Yes. Everything is going according to plan. rubs hands

To be an "anime only" is the audience's own shortcoming in this particular case. It is nearly foolish in this day and age to expect an adaptation to complete a story in an industry that purposely picks on-going series as their targets.

To be an unsatisfying anime is still the series shortcoming. If you're the type of person to pick up an LN series after watching the anime that's your prerogative, many of us aren't so the anime is the only opinion we have of a series. If its not particularly compelling in its early going -- again it just doesn't matter what happens in LN volume 7.

In fairness to Otherside Picnic the adaptation was a bit butchered. I actually kind of tried to read the series but didn't really enjoy it enough to stick with it. There are series I get into here and there; yuriwise I loved ILTV and enjoyed Sexiled but the odds of me picking up an LN series are still pretty slim.

There are rarely any anime that are definitive within 12 episodes. If such things get rated highly, then it is simply because anime onlies are desperate for conclusions, which makes a lot of sense of course.

Um... are you one of the people who doesn't really watch or read het romance? Because your assertion makes no fucking sense otherwise. Off the top of my head there's Kokoro Connect, Tsuki Ga Kirei, Horimiya, Bakemonogatari, VN adaptations like ef, and I'm sure a lot more that I can't think of. Yeah, two cour is a lot more to work with but that's also a lot more room for a love triangle or an amnesia subplot or some such.

Nothing about Kase-san is intentionally Shoujo manga like. Not any more than most Yuri manga are, as Yuri is tacitly an off-shoot of Shoujo manga to begin with.

Hmm... that's not completely wrong but sort of misleading. Yuri has relatively little in common with shoujo romance and was built more on amplifying female friendships that existed in shoujo and especially class S. Kase-san is more in line with typical shoujo romance.

Being friends before being lovers can be limiting when it comes to romantic tension, I guess that's the crux of why I think yuri kind of has a variety problem. I also don't really know how to quantify an LN series that is 6 volumes of friend zone with a final volume of "please sit on my face". I'll take the face sitting but I guess I'm just generally not fond of class S. It kind of feels like a relic from another time.. which I guess it actually is.

I don't think I agree with that at all; what usually drags things out are harems, love triangles, or in yuri roadblocks like "but we're both girls!" I guess there's meme manga that somehow gets 3 seasons like Rent-A-Girlfriend but that's not exactly the norm. The more memorable and/or highest rated het romances are usually pretty definitive over 12 or 24 episodes, especially if they're adaptations of shoujo.

You are just saying the conventions of romance stories drag down romance stories' pacing. I am shocked, shocked I say!

It doesn't have to be that way, though. Just because it's the norm doesn't mean it's not worth complaining about. Lonely Girl is by far one of my biggest favourites in recent years, precisely because it has none of that. That's not to say it doesn't use many of the tropes we've all become familiar with, but the tropes are usually used to push things forward rather than back. They were already making out and cuddling from the start and we got several entire volumes after they officially started dating. I want more of that in my life. Like, 100000x more of that. You can tell romance stories about people who are a couple. It's possible! It really is!

TB posted:

and thus it's functionally pretty similar to some of the most prominent "bait" anime out there.

Nooo, not you too, fellow subtext enjoyer Pekoe :(

Don't misunderstand! I accept that the average yuri fan is moving away from non-explicit works and can see why that might be. Doesn't mean I'll stop enjoying them anytime soon though!

Also,

as yuri fans in particular are desperate for content.

It's funny, isn't it? Because there's no shortage of "yuri" content. There is absolutely tons of "yuri". But there's so little that actually delivers, leaving us all hungry for more. For lack of a better word, being a fan of yuri feels like being in a perpetual state of being blueballed for years and years and years without end. Probably why my patience for what I perceive to be bait is so low at this point... especially since, in the manga sphere if not in anime, we actually have made a lot of progress over the decades in how forward writers are willing to be.

last edited at Sep 27, 2022 5:37PM

It doesn't have to be that way, though. Just because it's the norm doesn't mean it's not worth complaining about. Lonely Girl is by far one of my biggest favourites in recent years, precisely because it has none of that. That's not to say it doesn't use many of the tropes we've all become familiar with, but the tropes are usually used to push things forward rather than back. They were already making out and cuddling from the start and we got several entire volumes after they officially started dating. I want more of that in my life. Like, 100000x more of that. You can tell romance stories about people who are a couple. It's possible! It really is!

It depends on what you mean by romance. "Romance" is a genre with fairly strict expectations, one of which is the ending must be the two leads getting together and "living happily ever after." The driving tension and source of conflict in the narrative is the two leads wanting to be in a relationship but being unable to for whatever reason (this is where the classic misunderstanding usually comes in). This applies to yuri, a subgenre of romance, just as much as it applies to het (and BL) romances.

It is of course possible to write a story about a couple who's already together, but it requires you to find some source of tension and conflict other than the "will they/won't they," and you don't have the romance genre formula to fall back on. It's just a lot more difficult to do that. You can even see this difficulty in Lonely Girl, which I do enjoy, but which kind of stalled out and turned into full slice-of-life once they started officially dating. (Anemone is in Heat is currently solving this problem by switching to a side couple lol.)

There are some excellent manga currently exploring this space, though. If you haven't already -- and don't mind reading about severely flawed protagonists -- I highly recommend checking out Brides of Iberis.

"Romance" is a genre with fairly strict expectations, one of which is the ending must be the two leads getting together and "living happily ever after."

Romeo and Juliet might voice an objection here. It's certainly a common trope in the entire anime/manga/LN sphere, but as an overarching genre of storytelling I think this expectation would not be grounded in reality.

It is of course possible to write a story about a couple who's already together, but it requires you to find some source of tension and conflict other than the "will they/won't they,"

Yeah, I feel like this is the most trivial caveat ever... have you ever been in a relationship? Relationships are never "happily ever after with zero tension for the rest of your life". If anything, it's the opposite. Merely depicting a relationship provides boundless opportunities for conflict and drama.

You can even see this difficulty in Lonely Girl, which I do enjoy, but which kind of stalled out and turned into full slice-of-life once they started officially dating.

Hmm, I don't agree, though? I think it's done a perfectly fine job of continuing the story, with stuff like tension about how much time they spend together, their plans for the future, coming out to their friends. Mind you, it's a fluffy, low-drama story where all of the issues are generally resolved quickly and happily, but it was also like that before they started dating, so I don't think that's really related to the topic at hand.

Romeo and Juliet might voice an objection here. It's certainly a common trope in the entire anime/manga/LN sphere, but as an overarching genre of storytelling I think this expectation would not be grounded in reality.

I mean that a happy ending is literally listed as a requirement by the Romance Writers of America (I'm aware we're talking about Japanese media, but it's more or less the same there):

Two basic elements comprise every romance novel: a central love story and an emotionally satisfying and optimistic ending.

Romeo and Juliet is a tragedy, not a romance. That's why I said it depends on how you define the word.

Yeah, I feel like this is the most trivial caveat ever... have you ever been in a relationship? Relationships are never "happily ever after with zero tension for the rest of your life". If anything, it's the opposite. Merely depicting a relationship provides boundless opportunities for conflict and drama.

Of course, I never said it was impossible, just that it's more difficult to come up with conflict outside the standard romance template. In particular, it's very difficult to write conflict between two characters who are basically good or at least who the audience are expected to sympathize with; this is why most fictional antagonists are one-dimensionally evil, and why most obstacles in romance are external (misunderstandings, evil parents, love triangle, whatever).

I would also venture to guess that a large subset of the romance audience wants to read about an "ideal" relationship they can self-insert into, and bluntly depicting the difficulties that arise from (most/all) real-world relationships ruins that wish fulfillment aspect.

To be clear, I do agree with you that I'd like to see more work that seriously tackles realistic disagreements and conflicts that arise between two (or more!) people in an established relationship. I'm just theorizing as to why those works aren't particularly common.

Hmm, I don't agree, though? I think it's done a perfectly fine job of continuing the story, with stuff like tension about how much time they spend together, their plans for the future, coming out to their friends. Mind you, it's a fluffy, low-drama story where all of the issues are generally resolved quickly and happily, but it was also like that before they started dating, so I don't think that's really related to the topic at hand.

I confess I didn't love the manga before they got together either (not because it's fluffy and low-drama, the characters just aren't particularly compelling to me), so that's a fair point.

I remember when the current yuri landscape included parodies like Strawberry Panic! and outright tragedies like Blue Drop, so the current climate, even with stories that could be seen as "bait," is much more tolerable to me.

To be an unsatisfying anime is still the series shortcoming. If you're the type of person to pick up an LN series after watching the anime that's your prerogative, many of us aren't so the anime is the only opinion we have of a series. If its not particularly compelling in its early going -- again it just doesn't matter what happens in LN volume 7.

Yes, well, that is certainly your own personal issue then. There is nothing more to say here.

In fairness to Otherside Picnic the adaptation was a bit butchered. I actually kind of tried to read the series but didn't really enjoy it enough to stick with it. There are series I get into here and there; yuriwise I loved ILTV and enjoyed Sexiled but the odds of me picking up an LN series are still pretty slim.

I agree on Otherside Picnic. I honestly have no idea why they changed the order of things so haphazardly. There are plenty of cases where LNs/manga are just superior to their anime adaptations anyway, so it is usually better to go for the source material first. The anime is merely an advertisment to hook readers at that point.

There are rarely any anime that are definitive within 12 episodes. If such things get rated highly, then it is simply because anime onlies are desperate for conclusions, which makes a lot of sense of course.

Um... are you one of the people who doesn't really watch or read het romance? Because your assertion makes no fucking sense otherwise. Off the top of my head there's Kokoro Connect, Tsuki Ga Kirei, Horimiya, Bakemonogatari, VN adaptations like ef, and I'm sure a lot more that I can't think of. Yeah, two cour is a lot more to work with but that's also a lot more room for a love triangle or an amnesia subplot or some such.

I am sorry, this is Dynasty, is it not? I may have experience with het works, sure, but it is obviously not a focus of mine. That being said, your exceptions don't matter. I could make a list of 100 het romance anime that are not complete in a 12 episodes season. Even more if we add non-romance focused ones. What does throwing around names prove? As usual I have to note that you have tunnel vision. And it appears to me that you are far more knowledgable about het works than yuri every time we talk. Not that this is a flaw or anything, enjoy what you will. It just means that often you seem to be hyper-focused on the things you are familiar with over a broader perspective.

Nothing about Kase-san is intentionally Shoujo manga like. Not any more than most Yuri manga are, as Yuri is tacitly an off-shoot of Shoujo manga to begin with.

Hmm... that's not completely wrong but sort of misleading. Yuri has relatively little in common with shoujo romance and was built more on amplifying female friendships that existed in shoujo and especially class S. Kase-san is more in line with typical shoujo romance.

Yuri has little to do with Shoujo romance? Except a majority of early yuri manga used Shoujo tropes, Shoujo artstyles and dynamics. The distinction only came about slowly. I suppose there are two schools of thought there of course, one being Shoujo-like yuri and the other being Class S style yuri, both birthing different aspects of the genre. But tropes like the "handsome school prince" who pins girls against walls and crossdresses etc. are 100% steeped in Shoujo origins, where the girl first and foremost had to replace the role of the boy.

In your previous comment you asserted what you consider the "bedrock" of yuri works, but you failed to mention any of the dynamics that are part of this side. Beyond the more recent "gyaru x shy glasses girl" tropes that you brought up, there have been the "Onee-sama/garden of lillies" works or the "tomboy x sheltered lady" pairings etc.

Nobody thinks Class S is actually yuri these days (I hope) and no yuri LNs I know of are this insipidly stretched out as you claim (with the exceptions being those which dont actively focus on romance and... AdaShima, but just because AdaShima is a unique case of Iruma's madness).

Being friends before being lovers can be limiting when it comes to romantic tension, I guess that's the crux of why I think yuri kind of has a variety problem. I also don't really know how to quantify an LN series that is 6 volumes of friend zone with a final volume of "please sit on my face". I'll take the face sitting but I guess I'm just generally not fond of class S. It kind of feels like a relic from another time.. which I guess it actually is.

Being firends before being lovers is literally what 90% of Japanese romance is like though. Slowburns are the standard when it comes to romance, particularly in manga where the editor forces the mangaka to drag the story out as much as possible. Het is far more symptomatic of this than BL and Yuri actually, it is just that the expression of said friendship is always way hornier and the girls tend to be vying for affection regardless of relationship status. Yuri's slowburns take more time for the realization of romantic feelings on average, though, that much I agree with. And BL... well BL is a different beast entirely. Aggressive progress is the norm.

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@protectmomo

You are just saying the conventions of romance stories drag down romance stories' pacing. I am shocked, shocked I say!

It doesn't have to be that way, though. Just because it's the norm doesn't mean it's not worth complaining about. Lonely Girl is by far one of my biggest favourites in recent years, precisely because it has none of that. That's not to say it doesn't use many of the tropes we've all become familiar with, but the tropes are usually used to push things forward rather than back. They were already making out and cuddling from the start and we got several entire volumes after they officially started dating. I want more of that in my life. Like, 100000x more of that. You can tell romance stories about people who are a couple. It's possible! It really is!

Naturally, it doesn't (and perhaps shouldn't) have to be this way. I was merely pointing out that this is the norm, the convention and that saying "It only happens if you include the things that most things include" is a pointless observation. Tropes are not innately an issue, it is the skill of the writer and how they use it that defines a work. YagaKimi avoids most tropes, making it a universally enjoyable work, meanwhile AnoKiss steeps itself in tropes, but it is enjoyable because it revels in its melodrama unabashedly.

As for the idea of starting a romance in the couple stage, this is obviously great and has been done well before (Hana ni Arashi is a great example), but it requires a much tighter handle on the characters and conflicts. The chase, the build-up and the gratification of the romantic pursuit are inherently easier to invest an audience in. There is a clear "end" goal that the plot progesses towards. This structural advantage can never be understated.

My compromise is to have it all. Start with proper build up to a relationship... and then don't stop. For when you had time to establish the cast properly before the romance, it is easier to create a contrast that makes the second half all the more fresh.

Also,

as yuri fans in particular are desperate for content.

It's funny, isn't it? Because there's no shortage of "yuri" content. There is absolutely tons of "yuri". But there's so little that actually delivers, leaving us all hungry for more. For lack of a better word, being a fan of yuri feels like being in a perpetual state of being blueballed for years and years and years without end. Probably why my patience for what I perceive to be bait is so low at this point... especially since, in the manga sphere if not in anime, we actually have made a lot of progress over the decades in how forward writers are willing to be.

I would not agree at all that there is "no shortage of yuri content". You always have to apply a proper standard first. Compared to het and BL works, yuri has an insignificantly small pool to draw from. Your issue about quality goes hand in hand with that. The rule of "90% of all fiction is garbage" applies unilaterally, meaning that if you have 100 yuri works, 10 may be decent or good. But you have 1000 het works, so 100 may be decent or good in comparison. This leads to the disparity.

That being said, I find yuri overall has a much higher quality rate than het or BL, so that is the only advantage of the genre. Maybe there are 20 in 100 works that are decent instead. Still not great, but alas...

last edited at Sep 28, 2022 5:51AM

I am sorry, this is Dynasty, is it not? I may have experience with het works, sure, but it is obviously not a focus of mine. That being said, your exceptions don't matter. I could make a list of 100 het romance anime that are not complete in a 12 episodes season. Even more if we add non-romance focused ones. What does throwing around names prove? As usual I have to note that you have tunnel vision. And it appears to me that you are far more knowledgable about het works than yuri every time we talk. Not that this is a flaw or anything, enjoy what you will. It just means that often you seem to be hyper-focused on the things you are familiar with over a broader perspective.

Is this what they call "projection"? You're the one who decided to invoke comparisons to het in the first place, if you're not knowledgeable enough to back up your own assertions maybe stop making them?

Yuri has little to do with Shoujo romance? Except a majority of early yuri manga used Shoujo tropes, Shoujo artstyles and dynamics. The distinction only came about slowly. I suppose there are two schools of thought there of course, one being Shoujo-like yuri and the other being Class S style yuri, both birthing different aspects of the genre. But tropes like the "handsome school prince" who pins girls against walls and crossdresses etc. are 100% steeped in Shoujo origins, where the girl first and foremost had to replace the role of the boy.

AFAIK a lot of early yuri was tragic. And don't get me wrong, I love dramatic shoujo here and there (Ai Yazawa is one of my favorite mangaka ever) but I'm talking more about bubblegum romance here. Otherwise... I'll give you that the "princely girl" came from shoujo but more often than not she's not even gay. Ouran High School Host Club gave a "prince" character a reverse harem. I wouldn't consider them a gender swap either though I'm sure they've been used that way.

In your previous comment you asserted what you consider the "bedrock" of yuri works, but you failed to mention any of the dynamics that are part of this side. Beyond the more recent "gyaru x shy glasses girl" tropes that you brought up, there have been the "Onee-sama/garden of lillies" works or the "tomboy x sheltered lady" pairings etc.

Nobody thinks Class S is actually yuri these days (I hope) and no yuri LNs I know of are this insipidly stretched out as you claim (with the exceptions being those which dont actively focus on romance and... AdaShima, but just because AdaShima is a unique case of Iruma's madness).

I don't believe AdaShima has face sitting but I was definitely thinking about it when discussing dragged out LN. And going through an exhaustive list of yuri tropes was never my intention either; that's a conversation for a different thread. As far as Class S though I'd assume people still consider Maria-sama ga Miteru yuri, which was pretty much pure Class S. It casts a really, really long shadow over modern yuri, though at least the more problematic implications of Class S were lost to time, though I don't want to diminish what it was for its time here either.

Being firends before being lovers is literally what 90% of Japanese romance is like though.

...but you just admitted het isn't your focus in a previous paragraph so you're basically pulling numbers out of your ass. And you don't like examples either so I'm not sure how to respond here. If your point is that 90% of yuri romances start as friendship that's basically my criticism of the genre and why I'm talking about its roots in Class S and relationships that overemphasize friendship in the first place.

It feels like you're just trying to derail and score some internet points here but the discussion I thought we were having was 'subtext vs bait vs slow burn' and because I know yuri relationships have historically been a 'road to nowhere' the burden is IMO on the slow burn to prove its going to be different. If it can't really do that in one anime season I just don't see it any different than bait, though Class S is probably a better label.

To answer your point(lessness) though I guess I will give you that childhood friends are really common in het but they tend to be unsuccessful in love. I'd give them like a 10% success rate with plenty of memes about the childhood friend losing. I know very little about BL (aside from some BL bait here and there) but I got the impression rivalries were a more common basis for a relationship than friendship. Maybe I was mistaken.

I mean that a happy ending is literally listed as a requirement by the Romance Writers of America (I'm aware we're talking about Japanese media, but it's more or less the same there):

Ehh... have you ever looked up MAL ratings for the "romance" tag? There's an overwhelming number of tearjerkers at the top; stuff like Clannad, Your Lie in April, I Want to Eat Your Pancreas, etc. And Makoto Shinkai has made a career out of scenes of longing (between two people who barely know each other, mind you) against the backdrop of an immaculately rendered golden hour sky.

Don't get me wrong, there's still plenty of "happily ever after" but Japan really seems to favor the bittersweet as well.

TB posted:

and thus it's functionally pretty similar to some of the most prominent "bait" anime out there.

Nooo, not you too, fellow subtext enjoyer Pekoe :(

Don't misunderstand! I accept that the average yuri fan is moving away from non-explicit works and can see why that might be. Doesn't mean I'll stop enjoying them anytime soon though!

Oh, thanks for clearing that up. My apologies for doubting you! Subtext 4eva.

I mean that a happy ending is literally listed as a requirement by the Romance Writers of America (I'm aware we're talking about Japanese media, but it's more or less the same there)

Romeo and Juliet is a tragedy, not a romance. That's why I said it depends on how you define the word.

I don't have a literature degree; I'm just a person who reads, critiques the things I read, and sometimes writes a bit of ff. That said, as that ordinary person, I don't find any kind of categorisation where "tragedy" and "romance" are exclusive categories to be useful in any way at all. I'd suggest that tragedy is on a dichotomy only with comedy; and that no matter where a story falls on the sliding scale of tragedy/comedy it can be romantic or it can be something else in addition.

Regardless of what the Romance Writers of America might say, if you tell me that Your Lie in April isn't a romance story, I'm going to think that's not particularly conducive to having a conversation or understanding each other's perspective.

I would also venture to guess that a large subset of the romance audience wants to read about an "ideal" relationship they can self-insert into, and bluntly depicting the difficulties that arise from (most/all) real-world relationships ruins that wish fulfillment aspect.

This is a good point. I enjoy reading about messy relationships in general, but I do have a red line; it's a particularly unpleasant subject for me, so I don't really want to read stories about cheating. Unfortunately for me, that strikes out a number of stories about established couples.

I will say, though, that this point about tension/conflict in a story after having an established couple circles back to the very start of the conversation. There's a third path, where you both have an established couple, have an "ideal" relationship, and still have tension/conflict: by not making the story entirely about romance. That's what I want to see, and as of yet don't think I've ever seen it in a single anime. In Lycoris Recoil, if Takina and Chisato get together, that doesn't change anything about the story's conflict - the tension was never "will they won't they", it was "government assassins vs. terrorists". We even got a homosexual male relationship, all I freaking want is for them to do exactly that thing they just did but with women now.

I would not agree at all that there is "no shortage of yuri content". You always have to apply a proper standard first. Compared to het and BL works, yuri has an insignificantly small pool to draw from.

Hmm, I'm not sure this is true. I have no idea about manga because I don't generally keep up with het manga, but there's a small enough amount of anime each season that I try to keep tabs on everything airing, and in terms of anime I think that the pool of "yuri" is actually quite close to het, if you're counting subtext and bait, because every season has numerous CGDCT, idol, etc anime and I think the majority of them do yuri bait.

@strayalive

Ehh... have you ever looked up MAL ratings for the "romance" tag? There's an overwhelming number of tearjerkers at the top; stuff like Clannad, Your Lie in April, I Want to Eat Your Pancreas, etc. And Makoto Shinkai has made a career out of scenes of longing (between two people who barely know each other, mind you) against the backdrop of an immaculately rendered golden hour sky.

@protectmomo

I don't find any kind of categorisation where "tragedy" and "romance" are exclusive categories to be useful in any way at all. I'd suggest that tragedy is on a dichotomy only with comedy; and that no matter where a story falls on the sliding scale of tragedy/comedy it can be romantic or it can be something else in addition.

As I keep saying, it really depends on how you define "romance." Romance as a genre has a specific set of tropes/expectations/"rules," including a happily ever after (among other things). These rules are not necessarily ironclad, but they are the overwhelming standard. But obviously any type of narrative can have a romance as a part of it -- call this romance as a "tag," like on MAL.

The reason I bring this up is that "yuri" is a romance subgenre. When people set out to write a yuri manga (or novel or whatever), they largely have romance genre tropes to fall back on. And as @Licentious Lantern says, romance tropes exist for a reason; the "will they/won't they" dynamic provides an inherent tension and a clear goal that automatically makes audiences invest in it. (Manga like Nisekoi and Rent-A-Girlfriend can persist literally only on that for hundreds of chapters...)

Also, this doesn't affect the larger point, but Clannad absolutely has a "happily ever after" ending.

There's a third path, where you both have an established couple, have an "ideal" relationship, and still have tension/conflict: by not making the story entirely about romance. That's what I want to see, and as of yet don't think I've ever seen it in a single anime.

I also would absolutely love to see more of this. The problem is that almost every anime -- frankly almost every piece of media -- with a gay main character is a "gay romance" first and foremost. I can think of almost no works of narrative art with an LGBT protagonist that aren't fundamentally about their love life. There are several reasons for this I'm sure, but the biggest is probably that (due to homophobia) studios and investors are afraid they'll lose a large part of their audience if they have a gay main character in an otherwise "mainstream" work. "Yuri" and "yaoi" are specific genres with their own built-in audience, even if it's a smaller audience than for het romances (especially for yuri). But if you're aiming at a more broad, mainstream audience, the funders are going to be terrified of scaring off the homophobes. Disney cancelling The Owl House is a case in point here.

That being said, there are actually a few recent anime with an explicitly lesbian main couple that aren't romances first and foremost. I can't vouch for their quality, but this is true for both Otherworld Picnic and Magical Girls Spec-Ops Asuka. MagiRevo is also getting an anime adaptation soon. I also have high hopes for Birdie Wing season 2. Times are changing, albeit slowly.

last edited at Sep 28, 2022 4:51PM