These Romance Anime Tropes Need To GO

These have to be the worst, most redundant tropes in all of romance anime....

SOCIAL MEDIA

RESOURCES
Videos Mentioned:

SUPPORT THE CHANNEL:

LISTS

CHAPTERS:
0:00 The State of Romance Anime
0:23 Harassment & Stalking
5:28 Age-Gaps & Student Teacher Romances
10:40 Romance Between Siblings
13:35 Final Thoughts

PURPOSE
My name is Phoenix and I dive into the world of visual storytelling in anime and sometimes manga on a weekly basis.

Tags: #romanceanime #missnagatoro #fruitsbasket

LEGAL INFO
I do not own any of the animated content in this video.

Some links provided may be part of an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means of compensation for referring traffic and business to other companies.

[theshire]

I hate how often manga makes a "romantic" moment the female lead gets sexually harassed and the male lead saves/defends her. This isn't romantic; it's a terrible situation that you'd never want to remember even if a good guy helps you.

Edit: Stop the strawmanning in the replies. No, this isn’t an attack on anyone who likes this trope. I’m just really annoyed at how often it happens in anime to the point that it’s expected that anyone who helps a female character out of sexual harassment is automatically assumed to be a love interest and not just a decent human being that everyone should be without expecting romantic feelings in return. And I know that a lot of women like this trope too. This doesn’t change how annoying it is to me personally

[pasindudinusha]

To me, the worst thing about Koi kimoi is not about their age gap but seeing a playboy going after an innocent girl. They use others for fun and now want someone pure for themselves? They don't deserve that. It's freaking disgusting.

[itsbasicboi]

“Your teacher, your mentor, or some random dude that you met off the street is not your love interest.” YES, YES, TRIPLE YESS!!!

[ChronicHater]

To any teenagers watching this: If a grown person shows interest in you romantically, ask yourself, “why do the men/women their age want nothing to do with them?” They want a younger partner that’s less experienced at noticing red flags. This still applies if you’re 18/19 and someone who’s 30 or older shows interest in you. I’ve seen so many horror stories, it doesn’t matter if you’re “legal”; it’s not worth it.

[mollyshinebrown]

The worst age Gap Romance offender is Cardcaptor Sakura between Rika Sasaki and Mr. Terada. They literally pair an Elementary school girl with a 30 something year old teacher and they both plan to marry once she comes of age. I really don't know what Clamp was thinking back then.

[aquadraws]

Age gap is fine… when it isn’t between children and working adults

[RavenDreamer]

One trope that I see time and time again is where the guy is straight up abusive (usually verbally) to the female protag/Love Interest and it just played off like "oh he just needs to be loved because he had [insert tragic event in the past ᴛᴍ) happened" like it's an excuse for his absive behaviour.
There was one anime (the name escapes) where it shows the entire relationship from when this couple went to high school together all the way to them getting married and having a child and this guys is emotionally (and physically at times) abusive the ENTIRE TIME, and it just played off as "romantic" because she stuck by this human shaped trashheap.
This trope that women have to "fix" these broken trash men needs to die 💀🔪

[RukileinchenChan]

I can tell you, the harassment thing is SO annoying. Yes, teasing in a relationship is normal I'd say but just to an extend and if both parties know it's just for fun/a joke (me and my husband do that often but it is nowhere near sth like e.g. in Nagatoro). I HAVE actually often been harassed as a child by boys, also had to listen to this stupid ""He likes you!" comment and you knew what happened? I still have problems when talking to men because I was so often laughed and bullied at 20 years later. I still couldn't shake off having a very bad view of men in general, too (though the same goes for women, I also had bad experiences with females in school...).

[phoenixxxashez]

Why are there so many people talking about how "problematic" the men are in anime when the women are just as bad. Like how overly jealous and possessive they can get to downright abusing them for things out of their control. I can't tell you how much I hate the stupid trope of women hitting the man they like just because another girl looked his way or something and it isn't even their fault.

In all honesty they are just as if not more disgusting.

[QuynhNguyen-gpti]

Speaking of the age gap trope, I'm so TIRED of the type of trope where the female lead has a more viable romance interest in their age range, who is more endearing anyway, and still chose the too-much-older-than-them love interest (I'm looking at you Mei-chan's butler). Or a still-minor character revealed they used to have relationship with a much older person yet that adult isn't painted as a predator but like a tragic love story. Like, why.

Another trope I'm really bumped about is "yes they're elementary schooler, but we understand that their love can move the world and we should make it more seriously than it should" (Cardcaptor Sakura and Gakuen Alice are examples that popped up in my mind rn). They're KIDS, please chill.

[jayneb]

One scene that traumatize me about maid -sama was usui giving a hickey on misaki back bc he didn't want her to be seen in swimsuit in front of her friends.

[whatthehecktye]

I despise the trope where sexual assault is considered “romantic” moments. One of the worst offenders is Tokyo Mew Mew. I recently read it out of nostalgia, and was horrified at how rapey and disturbing the men were. It completely ruined my childhood memories of that show. 😭

[rclamond]

My Little Monster really got under my skin because the guy clearly disrespected everything the main character wanted for herself. The first time he ignored her explicitly stated wish to be left to focus on her studies and pushed himself into her life until his animal brain got so upset that he lashed out and she got accidentally punched, I tried to brush it off but when it happened again I realized there was no "fixing" this dude.

[laracunningham]

When talking about age gap relationships, it really disturbed me after I read what happens in the manga of "Usagi Drop". I really enjoyed the anime as it did not adapt the part of the show where they begin to fall in love. Like Daikichi raised Rin as a daughter which makes their romance so odd and honestly not acceptable.

[orestria]

I'm personally tired of 'the girl is gorgeous, the guy is just some guy' especially if they double down and make the girl smart, athletic, popular, student council president, or all of the above. certainly not as egregious of the stuff mentioned in this video, but once you start noticing it, it's like almost every show.

[ale_yuki]

One of the tropes I hate the most is when the FL is just stupid. She has no redeeming qualities except being your basic mary sue, innocent type of girl. The ML is usually mean/rude, and the FL tries to see the "good" in him and ignores all the red flags. This happens in a lot of reverse harems and it's just annoying seeing how dumb the FL truly is.

[QueenCloveroftheice]

Harem anime in general, including reverse harem are one of my big pet peeves. The one exception is My Next Life as a Villainess because it makes fun of a lot of the tropes and the main character is so blissfully unaware

[foodieyumiko]

If I had to pick a trope that really grinds my gears, its the super mean guy and lovestruck girl. He'll be a jerk the entire time and she'll gloss over it cause he says nice things at times. Itatsuda na kiss gave me trauma

[darlingkorexo]

I see a lot of people complain when the girl gets harrased and I agree its horrible and gross that its shown as "romantic".
But it also goes when the guy gets harrased its just as gross and annyoing..
I have always felt this way like I would scream at the screen:" LEAVE THEM ALONE OML PLEASE!!"

[jayneb]

I'm tired of starving for shojo romance and forced to deal with shonen romance trash.