Audience reviews
20 · Sample from the first available page, separate from the total number of ratings.
INfidelINfielder
Junjou Romantica is often hailed as one of the quintessential BL anime to come from the 2000s, owed to being largely accessible with a light hearted slice-of-life pacing and characters of shallow to moderate depth. The art style is agreeable, and I for one prefer the simple line art and limited animation. The first episode was incredibly promising and set the tone for the anime. I'd have been overjoyed if the writers were able to keep up the pace, but all things come (haltingly) to an end and JR is no exception. To my chagrin, that end would come as soon as episode 3.
I won't try to disguise it, I can't stand the other couples. Misaki and Usagi had an interesting, albeit questionable dynamic. Most of the humor came from Misaki and his inner monologues and JR would've been helplessly stal…
Read at the sourceholacaracola
I ate this shit up!!!
Truth be told it's a bit hard to watch - at least it was for me. I'm not really used to old BL and the general dynamic of the couples was a bit too much at times. When I got to the 3rd season I straight up decided to skip the story of the professor and ex-brother in law-high school student. It was too much...
Anyways, Takahashi Misaki you will always be famous! I love you and I would give my life for you. He is one of the funniest characters I have ever seen omg. He is very relatable as well. I love him. I've become so attached to him that now that I've finished the show I feel as if I have a hole in my chest. Just adore him.
Kinda ashamed to admit it (because this show is insane and all the plots contain at some point an element of crime that should send the charact…
Read at the sourcevanilla__
An easy 2/10.
From the stereotypical strong masculine-seme and weak feminine-uke trope, all the way to huge, unsettling age gaps in EVERY pairing and creepy romantic encounters, this anime has everything to give you the worst second-hand embarrassment of your life.
I am aware that many of the prominent tropes in this anime are meant to be hot. If you're into that, go figure. If you're not, this is your sign to find another anime.
Let's discuss two relationships in this anime that may potentially be triggering or uncomfortable to some.
Main pair: Misaki Takahashi and Akhiko Usami Let's go over the power imbalances between the two.
-> Misaki is eighteen. Akhiko is twenty-eight.
-> Akhiko is Misaki's tutor.
-> Misaki lives in Akhiko's house.
-> Akhiko is strong enough to pin Misaki d…
Read at the sourceSpettroGatto
I watched this anime once again, this time, with my friends. We speedran through it, playing the whole anime on speed 1.5. We took a break after 8 episodes to mentally recover and then resumed the next day.
CHARACTERS
We had fun diagnosing characters: Here we have Usami Akihiko, who is a pure example of autism (doesn't excuse his rape behavior), but sometimes he melted my heart. Thus, he is the cutest rapist of yaoi. Hiroki, who has very severe anger issues, his partner, kinda doglike (my favorite one), who not only suffers from autism (once again), but also from regression. Sometimes him, being the most mature out of all characters here, made me reconsider life. Also, he plain cute. When he was respecting Hiroki's personal space. (Very rare). I shall not mention Shinobi. He was just bad.…
Read at the sourcecocolita22
Hands-down, my favorite romance anime. My favorite yaoi. One of my favorite anime of all time.
I don't know many people who haven't heard of this show, and they either love it or hate it. But I think all yaoi lovers can agree this is a staple anime and a must-watch.
I miss these characters so much just by writing this. This is genuinely such an entertaining and exciting show, and I had so much fun watching it. I think you will enjoy it, too. There is seriously not a single dull moment.
I can only imagine how much fun the VA had with this; they were seriously so hilarious and every character had comedic moments. The music was sooo good, and the story itself had a genuine plot. Can you believe it? A yaoi with a plot?
I hope I've convinced you to try this!!
Read at the sourceBunniberserker
Honestly, I was here for the drama. This series is lacking any serious depth. although there are points where we have insight into the somewhat rocky pasts of the main characters. I was very much bothered by the fact that three of the characters looked the same. The first couple, felt weird. There is just such a weird disconnect between them and I wish the series focused more on the second couple who ended up being my favorite. Although, so many stupid issues could have been resolved by just being honest and open with each other, which irks me. But then again, where would the drama be. The last couple is just, I feel really reaching for the drama factor. The entire series just feels like a big BL fanclub wrote it. If you're looking for something with substance I'd watch something else, but…
Read at the sourceQuuule
TW: molestation
Junjou Romantica is the most popular yaoi anime, several years ago, and fujoshi liked by the older generation. In addition to its popularity as famous yaoi, it also has the fame of the most problematic, although it includes some bad aspects it is not the evilest.
Story 5/10 (4/10 junjou romantic, junjou egoist 6/10, junjou terrorist 4.5/10, junjou minimum 6/10)
The first story is a typical love-hate story. A love-hate that lasts from three anime seasons. Misaki and Usagi are typical yaoi archetypes, titled "young tsundere", and "aggressive sexy seme". The story is very meh because it begins with sexual harassment where Misaki is molested. And then he will hate and run away from Usagi for 3 seasons because we all like typical shoujo behavior. Usagi sometimes puts too much p…
Read at the sourceburntbella
you should seriously read this if you're curious about this anime: its sucks, however, surprisingly there are good traits.
Story: 3
If i were to rate the first and third couples alone this would be a 1. The first couple has something like a 10 year age gap with Misaki being 18/19 and a first year in university and usami being a fully grown man...its creepy dude. Basically, without spoiling it (even though i advise u to not watch it) usami was in love with misaki's oldest brother however misakis brother was clueless and he eventually married a woman. In an attempt to heal his heartbreak this PREDATOR begins perusing poor young misaki. Misaki say "no" and "stop" and yet he ends up moving in with this creepy little loser so that he can get out of his newly married brothers hair and attend un…
Read at the sourceJustFloatingPpl
Junjou Romantica is a solid 2/10.
I enjoy a good BL story just as much as the next person. However, this one crossed the line. The story was distracting and stupid. While the character’s chin’s could stab someone’s eye out. Throughout the story we follow two couples and they seem decent enough. But after watching the whole show I could only come out with one thought, “Wow. That was toxic.”
The plot centred around and “uke and seme”. There wasn’t anything else to it. And non-con and dubious consent were common place. Not to mention the age gaps! The whole anime didn’t feel like it could happen in real life. And it definitely didn’t feel like an LGBTQ+ member wrote it. It felt fake and forced.
To break it down...
The characters: They had no actual chemistry. It was more-or-less, “You’re a…
Read at the sourcemeowmin
This was the first yaoi i ever watched back when I was like 11 so it holds a weird place in my heart. At the time I was super into it,cool and whatever.
However I came back to visit it years later and found it very weird. Something just doesn't sit right with me anymore. Dare I say,its quite creepy and uncomfortable. The romance aspect is definitely off,but hey I'm a loser whos never been in love so can I really say anything? I don't think these two are a ship worthy ship.
If you're young and looking for some yaoi,sure this will help you out. I'd recommend you look for something a little different but each to their own.
Read at the sourceAoiKoke
So this one, like the rest of the rapey animes, gets a 4.
The music and animation style is fine, not particularly good or bad (but I'm no expert and sorta oblivious so take that with a grain of salt).
Don't get me wrong, there are some really cute moments (guy comes home to other guy asleep with his shirt uwu) but this is totally negated by the fact that all the relationships are (at least somewhat) non consensual and creepy.
All three relationships shows relatively large age difference (for their ages) and/or abuse of power. SPOILER --
The main one is the friend of the guys older brother (much older, we're talking about 10/11 years here) and started tutoring him when he was still only 17/18 (and in high school) and upon their second (2nd) meeting he sexually assaulted him so that's a TH…
Read at the sourceEzekiel_01
Shounen Ai which is a literal meaning in Japenese “Boys Love” is been around in the anime industry dating back in the late ’80s. Beginning its roots on Natsu e no Tobira for being the first movie and Patalliro! Both made by Toei animation. Only a handful of them exists mostly on OVAs and Movies but not much on TV series. Shounen Ai TV series for the most part doesn’t give much of an impact in both popularity and financial gain so the studios stopped making them. They are more like the shadows in the corner that only a selected few can notice their existent. But one anime pretty much rise from the darkness and have reached the light of day and that was Junjou Romantica. Becoming a critical success in financial sales. With a devoted fanbase to back it up, it becomes a significant title in 20…
Read at the sourceShubham_m
It is one of the earliest shounen ai anime and is also one of the best ones among them. It was the first shounen ai anime i ever watched and i am glad it was so good! It is light, funny, slice of life based BL anime which features three couples with different problems and situations all we can relate to. Absolutely recommended for every BL fan and even romance lovers! I liked the characters, the frequent comedy punches, storyline and its manga is also amazing. I really want that manga story completes soon and we get the 4th season further.
Read at the sourcenessdabest
So I had heard about the Junjou Romantica series a while ago, and as an avid yaoi fangirl I was thrilled. I was intending to watch it. However, I was intimidated by the three seasons it had to offer, and was thus swept away by the seasonal anime on offer at the time. This year, my friends encouraged me to finally get into it. And oh boy am I glad that I did.
JunJou Romantica is a 36 episode 3 season long anime that falls into the Shonen Ai (Boys' Love) genre. It follows 3 different sets of all male couples, but mainly revolves around the saucy romance between Usami and Misaki, the coverboys for the series. If you're a fujioshi searching for a Boys' Love anime, then look no further!
One of the things I most love about the Junjou Romantica series is just how relatable it can be sometimes.…
Read at the sourcepomegranit
This anime has me conflicted. As a fanfiction writer and a girl who lives on tumblr and thrives off of shipping, this is first class 100% yaoi with probably some of the best not straight up smut that the BL market has to offer. Looking at it through those eyes, this is somewhat of a BL classic if I'm being honest. But looking at it through the eyes of a literature and anime enthusiast who loves well-written shows, this is kinda a steaming pile of shit that perpetuates some very dangerous stereotypes and promotes rape culture and heteronormative fetishizations of gay men. Thus, I'm really conflicted about this.
To begin with, the story is not that good. There are three very loosely connected storylines-- while I call it a 'storyline', there is hardly any real plot. It's just loose events…
Read at the sourceLucisz
I have a poster of this series on my bedroom wall, I ordered volumes of the manga straight from Japan, along with some CD dramas, and all three seasons of the anime on DVD. So it's about time I ripped the first season to shreds.
Let's start with the core concept. The story is told by the 18-year-old Takahashi Misaki, who moves into the house of his brother's best friend, the 28-year-old Usami Akihiko (Usagi). Usagi has been in love with Misaki's brother for years, but when he gets married, he decides that he'd be better off screwing a completely normal, heterosexual, 18-year-old boy, because if simply being gay wasn't enough for the audience to call it quits, being borderline pedophiliac must do the trick. Misaki somehow survives the first encounter (for which he has my respect), but afte…
Read at the sourcektulu007
This year for our Valentine's week romance review, we're looking at Junjou Romantica. This one is based off of the best known work of Nakamura Shungiku. The manga has been going since late 2003. The anime, at least the first series of it, aired in 2008. And that was brought to us by Studio Deen. Yes, the same studio that brought us Gravitation, Twilight Q, & Shouwa Genroku Rakugo Shinju. I have a feeling one of those is going to bear far more similarities to this than the others. But maybe I'm just making assumptions based on the genre overlap. Is this one as good as Gravitation was? Let's take a look at the first series and see.
Story:
We start out with Misaki, our protagonist, trying to get into a good university. There's just one problem. His test scores are pretty bad. In order to…
Read at the sourcezetsushiki
What you're about to read will be really deep, that's what you need to know.
I've never really understood why people even liked yaoi or why there were so many people fangirling over it. One day, I was really curious about what yaoi anime was like, so I looked up for some and found Junjou Romantica.
I was a young teenager during this time, going through puberty and all. I have had a history of being emotionally abused often, so when I saw this anime I thought it was cute and couldn't see the abuse at all because I thought this was normal, and the characters really reminded me of how my emotionally abusive mom who was super overprotective like the characters in the anime. I didn't understand what healthy relationships or friendships were like back then, so yaoi became my coping mechanism…
Read at the sourceshayne112
First off, let me say this is FICTION. It is free to be over dramatic, sappy, and unrealistic. That is part of what makes fiction so enjoyable-- it's not something we see everyday. Some of the characters do cry in situations a lot of people, especially males, probably wouldn't actually cry about in real life, which you see in the first episode. And since I'm not a guy or a gay guy, I guess I can't really have an opinion on how boyish or girly the guys in this are, but generally I don't think they're too feminine, and I don't think it even matters either way. There ARE quite a few gay characters in this that are all connected in some way, which I can see is unrealistic, but again, it's fiction, and I want to add that a lot of them do go through trouble accepting their feelings toward anothe…
Read at the sourcemelodyvonshewk
This anime sucked balls.
There is, for some reason, an abundance of female characters throughout the story. Everything is repetitive. I now wonder after watching this series, how I managed to cope with this. Every fucking gay man has a triangular face, the love interests i.e Misaki or whatever, looks like a five year old idiot who kept whining and complaining. Like, dude. If someone is assaulting or raping you, you need to kick them in the balls, punch their face and go home to tell your brother to break his friendship with him and report against him for sexual assault.
But, instead, he stayed with the douche bag and eventually fell in love with him. After two major headaches and ten episodes later, they're still not an item. Like what the f dude?
THIS ANIME MADE NO SENSE, WHATSOEVER.
Read at the source
