Realism. I love it so terribly. There's only so much cgdct you can take before reaching the point of oversaturation. Even more so since the people who cultivate the cute 'n moe genre tend to think that cutesy antics can replace plot (hint: it doesn't).
Thanks the heavens for Flowerchild, Akiyama Haru, Uozumi Ami, Kodama Naoko, Iwami Kiyoko and all the other great ladies ot realistic psychological drama. And all the Chinese and Korean authors too, of course.
I like realism. Although, I also like syrupy vanilla stuff with no plot. They're different things, that doesn't mean one of them has to be wrong.
But speaking as someone who has been personally involved in more than one syrupy vanilla romance with no plot, they aren't actually unrealistic. People fall in love and are happy about it ALL THE TIME. Many of them then get married and have good lives and never cheat on each other and so on. I just celebrated the 28th anniversary of my syrupy vanilla romance with not very much plot.
And contrariwise, I'm pretty sure at least one or two of the authors you mention are not known for realism, but rather for trainwreck-for-its-own-sake. Which is fine--not my cup of tea, it is some people's, but that's all good. But what bugs me is when people who are into stories about people being ridiculously dysfunctional, where the co-incidences always twist the plot towards more twisted, where everyone is basically all self-destructive all the time . . . go around claiming that's "realistic". Gritty is not the same as realistic; lots of gritty things either just don't really happen in real life, or maybe happen but are incredibly rare, much rarer than either real-life saccharine sweetness or real-life kind-of-averageness with bits of good and bits of dysfunction. Melodrama of trainwreck stories are not "realistic" any more than "A Series of Unfortunate Events" is and I wish people would stop claiming they are.
To be clear, I think Octave, for instance, is realistic. It's not over the top. There's grit, and characters do things wrong, but not obsessively all the time. But some gritty stories are pretty ridiculous if you think about them.
last edited at Mar 5, 2024 1:52PM