The Rom and/or Com challenge is on

[ittaku]

36 minutes ago, Limerence_ said:

Try Sakurasou no Pet na Kanojo. Initially it may appear somewhat cliche, but it gets way better.  

It's one of my personal favourites 

Check my watched list. I've already seen it. 8/10

[iamnoob]

Not sure what to recommend if Clannad After was awful :/

[ittaku]

Finished Special A. It was okay. Once again the old school humour and animation fell flat for me. The overall story was mildly amusing and the ending quite satisfying. The last 6 episodes were a cut above the rest which were just not that funny. Either way I didn't lose my time watching it but it only rates a 6/10 for me.

 

On 23/06/2016 at 9:51 PM, iamnoob said:

Not sure what to recommend if Clannad After was awful :/

Long story behind that but I had already dropped the clannad series for hating it in the first place and then found myself being part of the fansub group that did the first release of after story. I did not enjoy subtitling it as the material just didn't click with me on any level and the melodrama felt like nonsense to me after hating the series too.

Watching kuragehime next.

[ittaku]

Finished watching kuragehime. it was a fun show even if romance was only hinted at. It was very light-hearted and easy to enjoy. A lot of the plot evolved in convenient rather than logical ways, and a lot of the characters - mainly the other otakus she lived with - were about as interesting as cardboard and received no development whatsoever. On the other hand, Hanazawa Kana was singularly sensational voicing Tsukimi which was more than enough in itself to make this worth watching. 7/10

[ittaku]

On 15/05/2016 at 2:15 AM, Fred the Barber said:

Kimi ni Todoke (romance)

Kimi ni Todoke has pacing issues and is often frustrating, but it's also very heartwarming, and it has a lovely, complete ending. It's a very sweet show.

On 15/05/2016 at 4:25 AM, Tiagofvarela said:

Itazura na Kiss - Comedy and Romance, this has them both. I've never seen a romance that goes so far with its plot, and I must therefore recommend it. It's flaws? A cold as ice male romantic interest who will constantly suffer from what I can only call some sort of bipolar disorder, his tsundere levels are off the charts, and not in a good way. The female is the sweetest thing ever, though. Expect the supporting cast to change with the times, which is great. Compare to Nodame Cantabile.

Reiterating Fred's Kimi ni Todoke. If you can somehow last through the first season (not that hard, diabetes inducing in many ways besides the romance), it'll only get better.

You liked Azumanga Daioh? Then- oh, wait. It says 'decent'... Doesn't matter! Give Lucky☆Star a try anyway! Watch a couple of episodes. If you don't like it that's that.

 

Tried watching Lucky star. Smiled a little bit but I get the feeling this would have been much funnier around the time it aired with references to popular anime of the era. I do get the references but I'm not really laughing; I guess I'm just a sour puss as rarely does a comedy work just right for me. Pretty sure I won't be bothered finishing it.

Kimi ni Todoke and Itazura na Kiss are next on my watchlist. Started with itakiss, so far so good

[ittaku]

Itazura na Kiss was a lot of fun. @Tiagofvarela was spot on about the male romantic interest. I never really warmed to him in any way. They should have softened him more with time. Nonetheless I still had great fun watching the series, quite a few laughs, and was surprised that it covered so much timeline in the story as well. That was quite refreshing to see the relationship post coupling for almost half the series tackling random different real world and Kotoko nonsense issues along the way. Some of the medical stuff was stupid bad while a lot was actually more accurate than I'd expected (I can say since I'm a doctor myself.) The ending was super sweet too so spot on with the recommendation, thanks! 8/10

Alas now I'm really starting to run out of stuff again, but I have some other stuff to watch first and then I'll hit up Kimi ni Todoke. I'm hoping for more goodness.

[ittaku]

On 13/06/2016 at 6:24 AM, Kenshin_sama said:

Welcome to the NHK - Most of the value to this anime is the comedy and psychological aspects. The romance is there, and it can be very pleasant too. Misaki is one of those girls that just melts you heart away, while at the same time makes you nervous a little. Both her and Satou are very peculiar characters, but they have great chemistry.

 

On 13/06/2016 at 10:18 AM, Fred the Barber said:

Welcome to the NHK has its ups and downs from a romance perspective, but in the end I think it does very well with it. The ending, especially, is quite satisfying. I appreciate it more as a dark comedy, though, and the target of the humour hits a little close to home at times.

Thanks for the recommendation on that one. It definitely belonged a genre that was off the radar for me but I did enjoy it. I agree it hit a bit close to home at times and some arcs made my skin crawl. It wasn't haha funny but amusing and engaging enough to keep watching and the ending was satisfying in its own way. I agree with @Kenshin_sama that the chemistry between the two leads is great and very different. As @Fred the Barber said, I wouldn't exactly call this a romance anime but there were definite shades of romance there that were unique.

Kimi ni todoke is probably next... Dunno what I'll do once I've run out completely. Probably just rewatch FMAB and Cross Game through again..

[Kenshin_sama]

I wouldn't entirely agree that it isn't a romance anime, but I kinda have different standards for what is and isn't a romance. I'm aware that it wasn't the primary focus, and that NHK put more time into comedy and character development, but there is enough romantic development between Satou and Misaki for me to consider it romance.

[ittaku]

2 hours ago, Kenshin_sama said:

I wouldn't entirely agree that it isn't a romance anime, but I kinda have different standards for what is and isn't a romance. I'm aware that it wasn't the primary focus, and that NHK put more time into comedy and character development, but there is enough romantic development between Satou and Misaki for me to consider it romance.

I did agree with you, just saying that it's not primarily a romance.

[Kenshin_sama]

Oh okay. I was kind of unsure with the way you worded it, but I see what you mean now. Well, glad you liked it. There were a few things about Satou I could personally relate to, and Misaki is the kind of girl I'd really like to know IRL.

[ittaku]

@Fred the Barber and @Tiagofvarela. At your suggestions I finished Kimi ni Todoke S1 and S2. I thoroughly enjoyed season 1 and the diabetes side of it didn't bother me one bit. It even had a great non-conclusive ending. Season 2... was painful until it started to properly resolve. The tension was maintained through gratuitous overuse of my most hated plot device - misunderstanding. The level of misunderstanding was way beyond what I could suspend disbelief for and Sawako's character regressed far too much during that first half. I understand only too well how hard it is for the Japanese culture to speak without indirection and obfuscation but that was ridiculous. The second season may as well just have been the last 5 episodes since I would have dropped the series if season 1 was the way the first 7 eps were. On the other hand once the story started resolving it redeemed itself immensely - what more could I ask of an ending than that, and resolving slowly over 5 episodes was actually most welcome instead of a confession 30 seconds before the end.  All the other characters were great and fleshed out , with real development too which was satisfying. So overall I greatly enjoyed it even with that painful flat spot so thanks again for that recommendation!

Next, I grabbed Emma a victorian romance so that will likely be my next romance watch.

[Mr Poltroon]

1 minute ago, ittaku said:

Next, I grabbed Emma a victorian romance so that will likely be my next romance watch.

Well... I'll reiterate that I only read the manga, not watch the anime, so I'd like to ask you what you think of it whenever you get around to it.

[ittaku]

2 minutes ago, Tiagofvarela said:

Well... I'll reiterate that I only read the manga, not watch the anime, so I'd like to ask you what you think of it whenever you get around to it.

Thanks. I understood that. Nihonreview gives it a fairly decent rap so I'm willing to give it a try. I keep looking for (possibly older) gems that are often overlooked, and that's how I stumbled across things like cross game and lovely complex; both awesome viewing.

[Fred the Barber]

2 hours ago, ittaku said:

@Fred the Barber and @Tiagofvarela. At your suggestions I finished Kimi ni Todoke S1 and S2. I thoroughly enjoyed season 1 and the diabetes side of it didn't bother me one bit. It even had a great non-conclusive ending. Season 2... was painful until it started to properly resolve. The tension was maintained through gratuitous overuse of my most hated plot device - misunderstanding. The level of misunderstanding was way beyond what I could suspend disbelief for and Sawako's character regressed far too much during that first half. I understand only too well how hard it is for the Japanese culture to speak without indirection and obfuscation but that was ridiculous. The second season may as well just have been the last 5 episodes since I would have dropped the series if season 1 was the way the first 7 eps were. On the other hand once the story started resolving it redeemed itself immensely - what more could I ask of an ending than that, and resolving slowly over 5 episodes was actually most welcome instead of a confession 30 seconds before the end.  All the other characters were great and fleshed out , with real development too which was satisfying. So overall I greatly enjoyed it even with that painful flat spot so thanks again for that recommendation!

Next, I grabbed Emma a victorian romance so that will likely be my next romance watch.

Glad you ended up enjoying it. I'm 100% on the same page with you about the first ~half of Season 2: my frustration over those misunderstandings was immense. And, yeah, the last episode of Season 1 is awesome. Honestly, sometimes I wish the show had ended there.

[ittaku]

@Tiagofvarela I finished Emma: A Victorian Romance. It was good overall 7/10. It was hampered by being relatively quite slow compared to modern anime, but it was a far more mature story as a result with fleshed out characters and a great deal of attention to period details in the animation. Ironically Emma was probably the character that changed the least in my opinion over the whole story. My viewing was hampered by poor source material. The first season is mostly predictable and very slow, the second picks up the pace quite a bit and has a few unexpected turns though to be honest some of the plot devices towards the end felt a bit contrived in an attempt to create more tension in the lead up towards the (very happy) conclusion. The sort of level on which romance would have occurred in high class societies in the Victorian Era certainly rang true to me.

There were a handful of other things on your list with less strong recommendations that I might look into next. I had a quick look at keroro gunsou and it didn't work for me  so much. DC Da Capo, Kimikiss, and Fortune Aerial are the only things left so I'm really getting to the thin edge of the wedge here and will have to just assume that I've seen all the decent romance/romantic comedy animes.

BTW I ended up watching Ookami Shoujo to Kuro Ouji  and it was quite okay. The protagonist wasn't quite as nasty as I thought he'd be, though I had little respect for the lead heroine falling for the arsehole, and the story was close to 100% predictable. Also 7/10.

[ittaku]

On 15/05/2016 at 4:25 AM, Tiagofvarela said:

Kimikiss: Pure Rouge - Can't exactly recommend it in good conscience because I ragequit when my preferred love interest lost, meaning I don't know how it ends, but I got a pretty good sense of where it was going, so I wouldn't worry too much on that front. I would compare this to Amagami SS, so if you liked that, you'll like this - with one key difference. As I implied earlier, Kimikiss follows one continuous storyline. Only one female will triumph and the rest will be left to eat dust and tears.

Well I finished this. I'd have to say that you may not really know how this ended. I predicted what would happen but it wasn't as clear as you might think by the end and I think (in my eyes) the truer route was born out. There is a good deal of frustration towards the end as teenage angst burns holes in your sensibilities and the losers did indeed eat dust and tears, one unfairly so IMO. Either way I still enjoyed it greatly though I know a lot of people have conflicting opinions on this, but I'll probably add it to my wife watch list. 8/10 which actually puts it above Amagami SS for me.

You've done great with your recommendations so I'll give the last two you recommended a go as well, probably starting with Fortune Arterial and then go to Da Capo. Thanks!

[ittaku]

On 15/09/2016 at 0:53 AM, ittaku said:

You've done great with your recommendations so I'll give the last two you recommended a go as well, probably starting with Fortune Arterial and then go to Da Capo. Thanks!

Could not make it through Fortune Arterial. It was incredibly meh. I stalled at that point and never even tried Da Capo. Will eventually look into it.

 

No one else up for the challenge? I doubt there's much of anything of significance left

 

[Kenshin_sama]

I've got a few more for ya.

White Album 2 - The ending is kinda frustrating for some, but the characters in this series are phenomenal.

Acchi Kocchi - I personally find the romance in this series adorable, although it's not much of a focal point. It's a comedy for the most part.

Kokoro Connect - I didn't get the pairing I wanted in this, but most other viewers seem to think the main pairing is preferable anyways. If you agree with the main pairing also, you'll likely cherish the romance (they're very popular among romance enthusiasts). The drama in the first arc is fantastic, although it kinda dips after that. It does pick up again in Michi Random.

[Fred the Barber]

8 minutes ago, Kenshin_sama said:

I've got a few more for ya.

White Album 2 - The ending is kinda frustrating for some, but the characters in this series are phenomenal.

Acchi Kocchi - I personally find the romance in this series adorable, although it's not much of a focal point. It's a comedy for the most part.

Kokoro Connect - I didn't get the pairing I wanted in this, but most other viewers seem to think the main pairing is preferable anyways. If you agree with the main pairing also, you'll likely cherish the romance (they're very popular among romance enthusiasts). The drama in the first arc is fantastic, although it kinda dips after that. It does pick up again in Michi Random.

Kokoro Connect is one of my very favorites, but I always thought of it as more of a character-focused drama, rather than a rom-com. I guess it's got a bit of com, and a bit more rom, but mostly, it's a drom. I love it to death, though.

[Kenshin_sama]

Just now, Fred the Barber said:

Kokoro Connect is one of my very favorites, but I always thought of it as more of a character-focused drama, rather than a rom-com. I guess it's got a bit of com, and a bit more rom, but mostly, it's a drom. I love it to death, though.

Well, yeah, but the thread is Rom and/or Com, and I do know a lot of people that are really into the romance despite the lack of emphasis.

[ittaku]

27 minutes ago, Kenshin_sama said:

I've got a few more for ya.

White Album 2 - The ending is kinda frustrating for some, but the characters in this series are phenomenal.

Acchi Kocchi - I personally find the romance in this series adorable, although it's not much of a focal point. It's a comedy for the most part.

Kokoro Connect - I didn't get the pairing I wanted in this, but most other viewers seem to think the main pairing is preferable anyways. If you agree with the main pairing also, you'll likely cherish the romance (they're very popular among romance enthusiasts). The drama in the first arc is fantastic, although it kinda dips after that. It does pick up again in Michi Random.

Thanks very much. I've seen Acchi Kocchi and it was cute and amusing in its own right but there was no real romantic evolution which was a little disappointing.

I've heard of the other two but never really looked into them, having fallen off my radar, so I will check them out!

[ittaku]

So I finally got around to watching Da Capo. It was pretty average. The best thing about it was its comedy which I found quite amusing but as the story progressed it got more melodramatic and most of it fell flat and was rather meh. Watchable as a filler but not much else.

Onto White Album 2 next.

[ittaku]

On 13/11/2016 at 11:48 AM, Kenshin_sama said:

White Album 2 - The ending is kinda frustrating for some, but the characters in this series are phenomenal.

Kinda frustrating? Let me quote my opening post.

On 14/05/2016 at 10:12 PM, ittaku said:

I love romantic comedy. Or plain romance. Or plain comedy. Or action mecha demon magic intrigue political historical futuristic ecchi anything that has either romance or comedy in it. However it must have a happy ending.

So I give you marks for recommending something that was intriguing. I found myself very annoyed at how eloquent and thoughtful the dialogue was coming from high school teenagers, but that wasn't enough to stop me watching it since the story interested me. However it failed miserably on my MUST component in the recommendation. I'm the guy who has trouble sleeping from mild drama that happens in light hearted moege. I hate endings like that. About its only redeeming quality was that I got to hear Rio Natsuki as a minor character again (she also voiced Lucy, my avatar), and

Spoiler

the characters actually had sex for a change in anime instead of some bullshit excuse, comedy, convenient interruption, or something giving them a way out of putting it in the story.

But seriously, not a single person had a happy ending... In the romance and friendship side of things, absolutely no one got what they wanted. Could have been worse; it could have been the ending to my lie in April.

I'm not here to debate that there's anything wrong with stories like that for others, but as far as I'm concerned, bitter endings like that can suck my dick.

I really hope your recommendation of kokoro connect isn't like that :s

Now if you'll excuse me I'm off to drown my sorrows in hard core moege.

[Kenshin_sama]

4 hours ago, ittaku said:

I found myself very annoyed at how eloquent and thoughtful the dialogue was coming from high school teenagers

That's not particularly unusual. There are many intelligent high school students out there, it's just they're only ever recognized by employers and college admission officers.

My apologies though. I knew it had a very depressing outcome, but I thought the complexity of the characters would have been enough to carry your enjoyment. That seems to be far from the case this time. I did miss the part of your post where recommendations were suppose to have a happy ending, so that was complete negligence on my part.

I suppose it would feel like I was understating the level of frustration one can feel towards the ending. I really didn't think it was that big of deal (at least not to me), but my brain tends to lean a little bit more toward the logical side than the emotional one, so my interest in the characters greatly exceeded my disappointment in the turnout. I don't think I met anyone who expressed much frustration with the ending either (might be because I didn't look hard enough). I'm not trying to justify my views over yours or anything like that, just explaining how I perceived it and the reason behind my choice of wording. I will try to be more careful next time.

 

Oh and you might actually want to avoid Kokoro Connect. I don't have the faintest recollection of how it ended, so my guess is that it was probably incomplete. KC is more lighthearted than WA2, but still contains some not-so-insignificant drama. The romance may or may not make it worth watching. I'd recommend either waiting until you can stomach another tearjerker or just not watch it at all.

[Mr Poltroon]

6 hours ago, ittaku said:

 

I really hope your recommendation of kokoro connect isn't like that :s

Now if you'll excuse me I'm off to drown my sorrows in hard core moege.

Kokoro Connect doubtlessly contains spoonfuls of drama. Nothing I couldn't tolerate, and I'm not exactly known for high tolerance, but it also had some romance. Not enough for me, truly, but my favourite pairing got together, so that carried it for me.
Effectively, it can be said this anime doesn't contain an ending. It's... somewhat episodic: think arcs. And it ends right in the middle.

Still, something about the concept really intrigued me. Looking back on it, I have no idea why. I distinctly remember disliking the drama, and disliking how certain characters acted, but my every impression of the show is that I "liked it a lot".