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Nov. 12th, 2024 06:25 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
stardust_rifleWould like to thank (question mark) this post from r/animecirclejerk for inspiring this one.
I'm certainly not the first person to notice this sort of subgenre of shounen romance, but I don't think it has a name, and I'd like to lay out all of its features in one place just to see 1: if anyone has any ideas for a pithy name so I can discuss this further and 2: to see if people also agree with me that this is a thing deserving recognition as a thing. Gonna start laying out the characteristics right here.
The male lead is usually a very generic audience stand-in character, with a very generic design. Short black, brown, or dark-colored hair, dressed in a non-customized school uniform. Higher-than-average chance of having sanpaku eyes, regardless, they're usually dark in color. He has no unique personality gimmicks that catch a viewer, and more poorly written examples of the type have no unique personality at all. Definitely a cousin of the Stock Light-Novel Everyman and the Stock Harem Protagonist.
The female lead is usually where the interesting stuff comes in. She has a unique personality gimmick that is also the series' "hook", so to speak, and the title usually references said hook. In a lot of examples, she is explicitly the title character. She is likely going to be designed more interestingly than the male lead, but that's not a high bar to clear. The female lead almost always wears a school uniform, and has the Standard Hot Anime Girl Body Type (small waist, large but not too large breasts, long legs). She probably has long hair that's some eye-catching color.
There might be other female characters with equally eye-catching designs and interest in the male lead, but they're never presented as love interests for him in the same way that the female lead is.
The plot is a romcom, set in school.
Honestly, this is all surface-level stuff, I'd like more input from people who've actually watched these series.
I'm certainly not the first person to notice this sort of subgenre of shounen romance, but I don't think it has a name, and I'd like to lay out all of its features in one place just to see 1: if anyone has any ideas for a pithy name so I can discuss this further and 2: to see if people also agree with me that this is a thing deserving recognition as a thing. Gonna start laying out the characteristics right here.
The male lead is usually a very generic audience stand-in character, with a very generic design. Short black, brown, or dark-colored hair, dressed in a non-customized school uniform. Higher-than-average chance of having sanpaku eyes, regardless, they're usually dark in color. He has no unique personality gimmicks that catch a viewer, and more poorly written examples of the type have no unique personality at all. Definitely a cousin of the Stock Light-Novel Everyman and the Stock Harem Protagonist.
The female lead is usually where the interesting stuff comes in. She has a unique personality gimmick that is also the series' "hook", so to speak, and the title usually references said hook. In a lot of examples, she is explicitly the title character. She is likely going to be designed more interestingly than the male lead, but that's not a high bar to clear. The female lead almost always wears a school uniform, and has the Standard Hot Anime Girl Body Type (small waist, large but not too large breasts, long legs). She probably has long hair that's some eye-catching color.
There might be other female characters with equally eye-catching designs and interest in the male lead, but they're never presented as love interests for him in the same way that the female lead is.
The plot is a romcom, set in school.
Honestly, this is all surface-level stuff, I'd like more input from people who've actually watched these series.
