Hello everyone and welcome back to another Gamerman Weekly! Back to regular programming and so let’s jump right into this week’s topic, the appeal of Rom-Com Animes.
To start off, even though I know my readers are intelligent and can pick up on most of my meanings with certain terms, but for those of you starting out in this world of content critique, I’ll explain what a Rom-Com Anime is.
So, Rom-Com still means the same in this context, Romantic Comedy. So think of movies like Love Actually and 50 First Dates and you’re in the ballpark of the genre. You will have the genre staples of the usual Rom-Com, an intimate involvement of 2 people, usually in a hetero pairing. The plot is all zany and loosely connected to the average person’s reality, and through all the twists and turns of the story, our couple becomes more and more infatuated with each other, leading to a romantic ending. Basically every person’s fantasy in meeting “the one”.
A Rom-Com Anime is a little different. All the classic tropes for the genre are still in the story, but with an anime twist. I’ll use Ouran School Host Club as an example. So, the show is a personal favorite of mine. I discovered it about 2 years ago now and every time I watch it, I’m filled with a feeling of light humor and general gay (the old definition, but appropriate for the show as well) feeling. The show heavily draws on a distinct anime staple characteristic that I like to call “Animated Close-Ups” (ACP).
Basically an ACP is a progression of actions within a scene that focuses and closely illuminates a character’s feeling in a certain moment. It’s used a lot for times when a character feels gloomy, grief-stricken, shocked, or what I like to call “Apocolyptically Shocked” (this kind of ACP is recognizable by the level of shock a character has and the pause between their gut-reaction moment, and when they speak again). So in Ouran School Host Club, there are a lot of these ACPs. This anime trope adds a level of cartoony to their characters. Because even I forget, all the time, that watching an anime is technically watching a cartoon, so ACPs are like a light and happy reminder of that. Sometimes ACPs can also denote very serious tones in animes, but usually they’re meant for comedic relief.
Along with ACPs, another appealing factor of Ouran School Host Club is its massive Kawaii presence. Kawaii, if I haven’t mentioned yet to those who don’t know, is a Japanese exclamation for something that is cute or, in a not-so-serious sense, beautiful. All the characters; Haruhi Fujioka, Kyoya Ootori, Takashi Morinozuka, Tamaki Suou, Hitachiin Hikaru, Kaoru Hitachiin, Mitsukuni Haninozuka, are drawn in a very Kawaii style. Their demeanor, speaking style, fashion, and personalities are filled with kawaii tropes of handsome, sufferingly beautiful, gorgeous smile, and overall happy attitude.
The two main characteristics in the appeal of Ouran School Host Club is its comedy and kawaii-ness. Now, I’m not gonna say that all Rom-Com Animes are like Ouran School Host Club and that all the appeal is the same in everyone, each has different aspects to offer for different audience members. Same with all media. But, shows like Toradora! and Your Lie in April also rely heavily on the same defining aspects of Ouran School Host Club. For me, I’m not a huge fan of Rom-Com Animes, to the extent of actual massive fans, but I do enjoy one or two. I would like to end the article here this week, and leave you all with a quote I find inspirational from Ouran School Host Club “Mitsukuni Haninozuka: ‘I like people who put in effort, even if they’re not good at it.”
Thanks again for reading guys, and I’ll see you next week.
--G
