Junjou Romantica
Junjo Romantica

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JUNJOU ROMANTICA was my first introduction into yaoi aka. Boy's Love. I didn't particularly had any thoughts on it before hand. I just hadn't ever tried any because I was addicted to shoujo. I had started out with the JUNJOU ROMANTICA anime and I fell madly in love, Soon after I finished I found out there was a manga and became addicted to it! Man, oh man! JUNJOU ROMANTICA was absoultely amazing! I couldn't get enough!

Misaki is failing and wants to get into university. Luckily Misaki's brother's best friend, Usami Akihito will be tutoring Misaki. Misaki soon finds out that Usami is in love with ... Misaki's brother and aside from the normal novels he writes, (oh, by the way he is a famous writer), he writes Boy's Love on the side and occasionally uses people that he knows in the books, like Misaki's older brother. Misaki and Usami get off on the wrong foot at first, but soon after they get along better. Usami soon falls for Misaki because of his caring heart and kindness!

I love both Misaki and Akihito. They are both so funny. Akihito is very straight forward with his feelings and Misaki evades all thing romantic. The story is really cute. Older man falls for high schooler and tries to make him fall in love with him. The loved how the relationship developed just for the two chapters They began hating each other and slowly began to care for each other. The only thing is I am not too fond of the art. The art isn't as bad as some, but I"m not crazy for it either. Thankfully, the art inproves greatly in the future volumes.

JUNJOU ROMANTICA consists of three stories about three different couples and all three have connections to at least one person from each couple out of the three. Our second couple was featured in volume 1 and they are called the Junjou Egoist couple, Hiroki and Nowaki. Hiroki is Akihito's childhood friend and Hiro has had a crush on him forever, and it is painful to read too. He is hurt that he knows Akihito will never feel the same way. Nowaki pops into his life soon after. So overall, JUNJOU ROMANTICA would be another yaoi manga that I would recommend if you are just starting out and I highly suggest watching the anime as well, you'll get tons more laughs in!

Shungiku Nakamura is known for her most popular work, Junjou Romantica (Pure Romance). All three stories within the manga are interconnected and have some similarities. They present a noticeable age gap between each couple and cover the same themes (jealousy, love triangles, unrequited love, etc.). Although the manga follows the lives of three couples, the primary couple (Usagi and Misaki) receives the most recognition and has the least development. If it were not for the other two stories, Junjou Romantica would be even more unenjoyable.

The stories become clichéd at some point. Each story begin with one major problem that lasts a few chapters until it ... is resolved. Then nearly each of the following chapters involve a random problem that's resolved in an instant. It is helpful towards the couples’ as they experience the challenges of being in a same-sex relationship, but it would be nice to have more chapters without the drama. The extras make up for that though, and the majority of them are cute and comical. In addition to awkward scenes, the characters’ emotions, reactions, and exaggerations to most situations can be hilarious.

The stories are ordered based upon their level of relationship development (most to least).

Junjou Egoist
The pacing is very well done. The couple developed individually as they experienced the major complications earlier in the relationship, so the drama is less intense in later chapters. New problems escalate because of their hectic occupations, and it takes a long time for them to finally be outspoken with each other. Nowaki’s bright personality brings tons of comedy and cuteness as he is a reserved and patient lover. As a tsundere, Hiroki’s attitude is a bit over the top at times. He can be so violent at times that it is painful to see Nowaki endure such treatment. However, Hiroki gradually opens up to Nowaki and does the kindest things, and Nowaki’s reactions to Hiroki’s kindness and fantasies of Hiroki are adorable. Despite the fact that the couple hardly spends time together, their relationship is the most realistic of the three.

Junjou Terrorist
A story involving a 35-year-old college professor (Miyagi) and an 18-year-old high school student (Shinobu) delivers quite the thrill. Also, Miyagi is Shinobu’s sister’s ex-husband. Unlike the other two stories, the drama is not escalated by outsiders but stays within the relationship. Shinobu is the most straightforward of all the ukes, but it’s on an annoying level. He starts a problem by yelling and stating his issues with Miyagi, followed by him sulking until Miyagi comes chasing after him. Miyagi is both serious and playful, making their relationship enjoyable to follow. Their moments together are pleasurable and often hilarious. Sadly, Shungiku focused on this couple the least, so readers don’t see much of their relationship.

Junjou Romantica
The love story had a promising start with Misaki being an excellent tsundere by being so affectionate towards Usagi on various occasions. Then things went downhill, and Misaki is primarily the cause. Even after living under one roof for over four years, there are literally no changes in this relationship. Usagi always makes the initiative and opens his heart to Misaki, but Misaki's indecisive attitude and immaturity cause the relationship to be at a standstill. One moment he is caring and loving towards Usagi, and the next he is yelling at Usagi to stop being so touching. Unlike the other two couples, sex between Usagi and Misaki is unexciting, mainly consisting of Misaki aggressively opposing Usagi and eventually giving in. Overall, it becomes confusing as to whether the feelings are mutual.

Their story has a vast number of characters, and the majority are always there to cause trouble in their relationship. Besides their intimate moments, new people appear out of nowhere whenever Misaki and Usagi are alone. This creates unnecessary and repetitive drama. Regardless of how one problem is resolved, the same thing repeats itself as if nothing happened.

Shinguku's artwork shows a little improvement in later volumes. The artwork in earlier volumes are really rough, but the panels became clearer past the 15th volume. Characters’ emotions and reactions are drawn to a great detail. The sex scenes are really graphic and pleasing. The chibis are adorable and brings some brightness to the story. However, this simple animation makes the characters looks identical, which makes some scenes complicated to understand.

Overall, it is good thing that Shungiku included three stories. They all have their flaws, but Terrorist and Egoist are far more satisfying than the main story. The characters actually move forward, and drama is not forced. Feelings are clearly mutual, and their relationships progress as the characters become more open with each other. Sadly, the main story with Misaki and Usagi is vastly different. If Shinguki released more chapters of Terrorist and Egoist or showed some development in Junjou Romantica earlier on (4 years is way too long), this manga would be much more appealing.

Junjou Romantica, the series that portrays wholesome and interesting romance between the well drawn characters… in some alternative universe, maybe. Instead, what we have here is a rape within the first 22 pages of chapter 1, and it being portrayed as a great way to start relationship.

Seriously, the manga cuts from explicit portrayal of rape of underage looking character to the assailant and the victim just talking over some tea, not acknowledging what just happens. The scenario is pretty much A: "Hi I brought you a soup" B: “Welcome to the rape cave lmao” and then they just have casual talk after? The rape into ... romance pipeline didn't even give the poor dude a time to breathe, just instant brainwashing for BL purposes. Maybe one day writers of BL will find out that gay people don’t start dating by raping the person of interest.

“Something happens but it literally doesn’t matter in any form to the story” is what you can expect a lot from Junjou Romantica. The goal of this manga is not to tell a story, but to come up with some short exchange before sex, and then to draw said sex. That is the depth of storytelling you should be expecting and even then you will most likely be disappointed.

But the story isn’t the worst part of this manga – ultimately that is just the average yaoi storytelling. What this manga excels at is the horrendous art. I shit you not, the very first chapter features a beautiful artwork with anatomy so hideous that one character’s finger is very literally the length of other character’s head. And this is far from the only case. This manga make you realize that the “yaoi hands” meme is not in any way an exaggeration. I don't think you can understand just how terrible the art is without seeing it for yourself. It's on a level that makes you feel like starting a charity called "Lessons on basic anatomy for BL authors". Art this bad couldn't have survived outside of yaoi genre - or maybe could have as some bottom of the barrel shoujo manga. Only in the latest volume or so does the art start to look slightly less goofy. Yes, it took about two decades of publishing for the artist to improve from eyecancer imagery to tolerable doodles.

If only it was just the artstyle itself that's bad but no, the composition is absolutely dogwater. In fact, you might have better chance of understanding what is going on if you were trying to divine it from a bowl of dog water instead of from the actual pages of this manga. The only joy I derived from art of this manga is screenshoting the worst parts and reposting them in a group chat for comedy.

Circling back to the story, most chapters consist of some silly relationship drama straight out of hallmark movies, followed by a kiss, followed by some (badly drawn) sex. But hey, it has penises, which does satisfy the usual needs of readers of this type of fiction. There is no reason at all to care about the story other than just liking boys fucking each other.

I think that the only reason Junjou Romantica is even this popular is that it’s from early 00’s when demand for BL skyrocketed, but also when most BL manga were just 1 volume long, so the demographic longed for long running series, even if said series is basically just recycling scenarios from the other shorter titles. There is literally nothing original or unique about Junjou Romantica, not even anything at least slightly out of the mold.