I'm having a really hard time finding a romance anime I'd enjoy. Any help in that regard?

[Akytalusia]

Netoge no Yome wa Onnanoko ja Nai to Omotta?

satisfies all of your vocalized conditions.

 

[ninja666]

Better put that in your OP if you don't want off and on recommendations for like a month.

I mean, I don't need anymore for now, but at the same time, the more, the merrier. Gives me more options to pick from, too for other times.

Netoge no Yome wa Onnanoko ja Nai to Omotta?

satisfies all of your vocalized conditions.

Sounds goofy as all hell, but interesting at the same time. I'll check it out. Thanks.

 

[Mechamorph]

@Mechamorph

Thank you for the recommendations. Both Hachimitsu to Clover and Miyuki sound like something with potential. I'll add them to my list. As for Kimagure Orange Road, I think I'm going to skip it cause while those characters might be a little bit more fleshed out, the archetype base is still there, and it's that base that annoys me.

Yes I can understand why tsundere can easily turn you off. It was originally based on the Japanese cultural concepts of honne and tatemae (a public and private "face") which I think Kimagure Orange Road pulled off very well. Madoka (prototype tsundere) has severe intimacy issues due to an absentee family and used to run with a rough crowd. At school, she's standoffish because she does not want to ruin her love interest's (Kyousuke) reputation. When he visits her at her part time job in a cafe, she is much warmer since she can be herself. She does love her love interest as a woman but she loves his other suitor like a sister, it is this conflict that results in her tumultuous feelings. Better yet, the other suitor is her kohai so there is a bit of the "big-sister vs little-sister" dynamic. Add on top of that a heavy class divide (Madoka is a Yamanote girl, high class while Kyosuke is from the working class) during a time when this was a much bigger thing than it is today and you have a recipe for mixed signals.

I believe that it was done well, the final confrontation comes when Madoka decides to be selfish and take her man away from her surrogate younger sister. This wrecks their relationship until they come together again several years later as adults. Even then the lingering regrets and attraction colour their relationship heavily. Can you go back to being a circle of friends when two of three are in an exclusive relationship that constantly reminds the third that she lost her first love?

Modern tsundere are mostly pretty badly done; there is little depth or complexity to them that would result in such mixed signals. Often it is just heavy denial of their feelings mixed in with a violent streak. *That* part of the tsundere archetype comes from Tendo Akane, the female lead of Ranma Nibunnoichi. That was probably why someone tried to bait you into watching it; Akane would have made your brain melt out of your ears if you hate tsundere since she was the origin of the worst parts of the stereotype. For example she walks in on someone in the shower and she decides that she should clobber him because "it is different when a girl sees a man naked (compared to when a man sees a girl)". It is a show about sociopathic comedy mostly where humor is derived from throwing your child, bound hand and foot while wrapped in fish paste, into a pit of starving cats to teach him martial arts.

Having scanned the thread, looks like there were a lot of good suggestions. Shame on Drathnoxis for trying to bait you like that! (I know he was joking, I am too ) The only worse anime he could have recommended in that regard would have been Tenchi Muyo.

 

[Dreiko_v1legacy]

Strongly recommend Kare Kano (his an her circumstances). It's a romance anime by freaking Gainax so you know its good. Also, it only covers about a third of the manga so after watching it you'd wanna read up on the rest of it.


It jumps the hurdle of "will they or won't they" that most of these shows spend their entire duration on very fast and then becomes an active relationship, which I think addresses all your issues regarding lack of intimacy and tsundere heroines and the such. I won't spoil any more, I'll just say it's my fav shoujou anime in general.

 

[fischer_elite12]

[link url=http://tora-dora.wikia.com/wiki/Toradora!_Wiki]Toradora![/link]



I heard a lot of great reviews and feedback for this Anime from my friends. I haven't watch it yet since I couldn't find great links to stream watch this. Did anyone here watch this one? help me find one... Pretty please.

[link url=http://inuyasha.wikia.com/wiki/Inuyasha]InuYasha[/link]

[img src=https://myanimelist.cdn-dena.com/s/common/uploaded_files/1454379052-93f3051384006f06f9066c36bc361e2b.jpeg]

Got to watched this. A very nice Anime Series. Kagome is such a brave girl to begin with. So much feels when Inuyasha is thorned which to go with, is it for the resurrected Kikyo who seek revenge to him or to Kagome, who is the reincarnation of real Kikyo. I won't spoil you, get the feels when you watch it. >.<

[link url=http://hanadan.wikia.com/wiki/Boys_Over_Flowers_(anime)]Hana yori Dango (Boys Over Flowers)[/link]

[img src=http://www.animeplus.tv/images/series/big/401.jpg]

An Anime Manga series turned into Anime Series and into Japanese Live Series. Super famous in Japan way back years. The so-called rich-guy-poor-girl into a roller coaster of a love-hate relationship. Flower boys mean beautiful men who study in a rich-ruled university wherein money speaks for all what you do. As a weed-type girl enters the university making the Uni-go crazy. Hilarious funny, with romance and a bit of heartfelt story.

Enjoy watching! :)

 

[kitsunefather]

I just started exploring anime myself, but I found Gamers! to be a really decent story and an interestingly funny romance that had a decent awareness of the tropes.

 

[ninja666]

@fischer_elite12

Toradora's already been suggested in this thread. It's not what I'm looking for beecause it suffers from all the tropes I mentioned I don't like.

Inuyasha is also out. It's based on a manga by Rumiko Takahashi, and while she can make decent-ish quality comedy, she couldn't write good romance even if her life depended on it.

Boys Over Flowers sounds more like something I'd like, but at the same time, the whole setup sounds a little bit too shojo-y for my taste. I'll consider it, though.

Thanks for the recommendations.

@kitsunefather

Sorry, but it's not what I'm looking for. I don't want "decent awareness of the tropes". I want there to be very little, or ideally none of those tropes. Thanks anyway.

 

[dscross]

Well, as an anime connoisseur you may have seen it, but I really like The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya. It?s one of my favourite animes, more generally, in fact, It?s the weirdest contrast between the completely mundane and the completely bizarre. It?s sort of comedy and slice of life meets sci fi. I?d still class it as romance though, although it?s not overt throughout. I think a couple of those criteria you didn?t want are in there, but in a sort of weird quirky way, so I don?t think you?ll notice at all.

Plus you can?t argue with that theme song...

 

[Kyrian007]

Its not romance, but have you seen Blue Seed. The couple of the main characters is reversed from your 1st gripe. The female is the awkward, shy, and dense one. The man is the "cool" character but is focused on other matters, aloof, and well... pretty dense in his own right. Other than that though, most of the other stereotypes do apply. But if you take the focus off the main characters (who are just teenagers and aren't all relationship things with teens pretty stereotypical and uninteresting) the adult members of the cast have far more interesting relationships with completely different problems. A manchild who never really grew up being thrust into a position of responsibility he's not ready for develops a reluctant relationship with a gun freak tomboy who has a problem with authority figures, a woman in probably not in her 30's yet who is seriously crushing on a guy easily in his late 50's, a career woman trying to reconnect with an ex husband to bring her family closer together.

Of course the focus is on the teen main characters who are annoyingly... teens. And just annoying in several other ways. And it isn't a romance story, what with all the monster fighting. But I like the team dynamic and pressures, the older animation cell style, the omaki shorts, and the tie-ins with many aspects of Japanese folklore. And... it ends. It doesn't draw out and go on forever. It tells a story, and finishes it.

It starts slow, but it does it for a good reason. The first dozen episodes each focus on a member of the cast to introduce them to the audience. And then the characters develop from there.