Junjou Romantica

High school student Misaki Takahashi returns home to see his older brother being fondled by an unknown man. Bewildered by such a sight, Misaki finds out that the stranger is actually Akihiko Usami, a popular novelist and his brother's best friend. With the two of them slowly becoming acquainted, Akihiko ends up as Misaki's private tutor. However, after stumbling upon the author's latest boys-love novel, Misaki becomes uncertain whether or not to trust Akihiko regarding his friendship with the student's brother.

Elsewhere, Hiroki Kamijou, a university teacher of classical literature and Akihiko's friend, is grieving a failed romance. While on the edge of a mental breakdown, he meets student Nowaki Kusama, who wants his help for an upcoming exam. Despite denying Nowaki's request numerous times, Hiroki eventually lends him a hand. As the two get closer, more revelations about the student are made.

Furthermore, when wealthy teenager Shinobu Takatsuki finds out that his older sister has divorced Hiroki's coworker You Miyagi, he immediately wants to date the same man—as he saved Shinobu from a robbery three years prior. Even so, You does not feel the same way and attempts to scare him off. However, the educator soon realizes that Shinobu will do anything for their destined romance.

Junjou Romantica collects three love stories, narrating every couple's romance.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Usami, Akihiko Main

Hanada, Hikaru Japanese

Takahashi, Misaki Main

Sakurai, Takahiro Japanese

Kamijou, Hiroki Main

Itou, Kentarou Japanese

Kusama, Nowaki Main

Canna, Nobutoshi Japanese

Takatsuki, Shinobu Main

Kishio, Daisuke Japanese

Miyagi, You Main

Inoue, Kazuhiko Japanese

Isaka, Ryuuichirou Supporting

Morikawa, Toshiyuki Japanese

Aikawa, Eri Supporting

Namiki, Noriko Japanese

Asahina, Kaoru Supporting

Okiayu, Ryoutarou Japanese

Takahashi, Takahiro Supporting

Taniyama, Kishou Japanese

Kon, Chiaki Director, Episode Director, Storyboard, Key Animation

Gouda, Hozumi Sound Director

Jinbo, Masato Episode Director

Okajima, Kunitoshi Episode Director

Reviews

Dec 10, 2011

OtakuTrey

Recommended

For anyone that is unsure about giving this series a chance, then you should read this to see if its right for you or not. (look for *)

IF! you switched half the guys for girls people would say this is one of the best romance anime's to date. That is how good this story, and anime are!

Okay here is a little background on me, I am a Straight male with no interest in men or for even watching a BL series, However there might be a few people out there who's Girlfriends really want to watch this so..... they FORCE you to watch this (which ... is what happened to me.) Before i watched this i knew what it was and i had a feeling i knew where it was going to go. well at first try i almost couldnt stand what was going on, i thought to myself OMG RAPE! and turned it off. then about two weeks later i then tried (got forced) to watch it again. To my surprise i enjoyed this, and very much so.

Story 9
Its very simple but very powering with alot of colorful words. its about three homosexual couples how they live there daily lives, some knew they were gay and accept it, it also shows the people that dont really know if they are gay, or even what being gay really means. It shows there struggle through acceptance, denial, and their love for one another.

* If you dont mind yaoi then this is a most watch, this was my first one. IF you like great romance stories with fun characters and sexually funny moments this is for you. IF the thought of two guys disturbs you in any way then i would try the first episode and see what you think

Art 7
The art, well its art. this has just the right amount for what its trying to accomplish. I cant give this a higher score because there is no need for the Art to be off the charts its a Rom/Com. they charcter designs were nice some of the guys looked the same so that didnt help any, i did however enjoy the silly faces misaki made when he freaked out, when the humor comes so does the silly drawings which were nice and a refreshing change from a typical romance style art.

* IF you must have Brotherhood type Art or a style classic like Mononoke or and art that has an old school vibe like bebop this isnt for you, this is a typical and averagely average Art style.

Sound 8

I cant say it was really typical but it wasnt overly aggressive. The OP and ED were decent nothing great, once again pretty average, the music throughout was the same, however when it needed music the most it got it. Every sappy love speech or new revelation they encountered the music fit wonderfully.

* Not a mozart score by any means, also not some Glee infested over hype. I dont really think theres much to say, but just to be safe if your looking for an awesome blow me over feel from the music and how it makes the whole mood better it does this decently. so if you a sound type of guy/girl not for you.

Characters 9/9.5

They were fantastic, i swear misaki is a tsundere... i dont know if thats how it works but whatever. you could clearly tell after a few episodes who wore the pants and who wore the mini skirt in the relationships. The characters were cute, funny, and dramatic what kept me from saying 10 was the over dramatic parts. most of the time the characters pulled of the role great and really shined but every half dozen episodes it was just to overplayed. The last couple to be declared really surprised me as well it also added in some nice background drama that i thought was pretty interesting and cant wait to see who they work out and how the other characters work out there relationships.

* Well this is a BL series so for obvious reasons if you cant get past that you wont like this, if you can do what i did and just treat the "weaker man" as the women you will be happy with this series. I think if you watch this it will be hard to say anything negative about these wonderful characteres.

Enjoyment 9

at first i really did not like this, it started of awkwardly with a little mis communication along with other things. Then after that moment passed i really started to get into this and found myself really wanting the relationships to develop. just really great.

overal 8.5/9

If this review helped and made you want to give this a shot then chances are you will love this it is a pleasant surprise and kind of a shocker for me that i actually enjoyed this as much as i did.

Thank you i hope this was helpful.

Reviewer’s Rating: 9

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Sep 24, 2016

pleochroic

Mixed Feelings

This is a totally guilty pleasure for any Western fan with the slightest concept of "consensual sex", because it is a prime example of what sort of stuff passes for successful relationships in BL land. I have to constantly remind myself that as a gay man I am not the target audience here, but that this functions as self-insert fantasy for Japanese women, and actually fulfills a useful role in having them play with gender and sexuality. The characters are not gay men, and they are not meant to be. This isn't a part of the "rape culture" (which is indeed a ... real thing and a serious thing), but rather it's an example of nonconsensual fantasy. We don't get to see that in the West in mainstream entertainment, except badly done in porn, but it exists here too in niche genre markets because it fills a need for some people.

When ranked against good non-BL anime, this is really terrible. But among other BL anime, this is a fun romp because it never takes itself too seriously. There are sex scenes here, but nothing at all graphic, and it's mostly the voices that make a scene sexy. Seriously, the drama CDs are hotter.

Story (5/10): There isn't really one; it's more a slice of life thing, though each relationship depicted makes some slight progress during its arc. There are 3 couples, A =Usami Akihiko x Takahashi Misaki (famous literary author who also moonlights as a BL mangaka and his pupil / boarder who so happens to be the younger brother of Usami's unrequited love), B = Kusama Nowaki x Kamijou Hiroki (medical student and college professor who was previously in love with Usami), C = Miyagi You x Takatsuki Shinobu (college professor in the same department as Kamijou, and high schooler who is Miyagi'sex-wife's brother). With all three couples there is an age difference, which is most pronounced for the third couple. While there are only 4 years separating Nowaki and Hiroki, interestingly enough the difference presents the largest problem to the relationship. This is also the odd one out when it comes to the seme/uke setup -- Nowaki, the younger one, is the seme. No, wait, C is also unusual in that the uke does all the pursuing and the seme is resistant. Couple A starts out with the two characters being kind of randomly thrown together, couple B meet when Kamijou is mourning his lost love, and Kusama comes across him in the park and it's love at first sight for him; couple C is basically Takatsuki interpreting a random encounter during which Miyagi helped him as "fate". There is a slight supernatural potential here, but nothing ever comes of it.

Art (3/10): Atrocious. I cannot stand Nakamura Shungiku's art; it's ugly -- heads are often too small for bodies, as are hands, facial shapes are unappealing, mouths look like the characters are in a bad mood, eyes are often dull, and worst of all, she has only two character types, seme and uke and they all look alike within type. The backgrounds are decent, but I bet Nakamura doesn't do them herself. I do like her chibi and SDs. The animation is stiff and wooden, the usual victim, I imagine, of low budgets for BL anime.

Sound (7/10): I didn't care for most of the BGM, and the OP and ED are generic JPop. The voice talent on the other hand is mostly superb -- Sakurai Takahiro voices Misaki; he is still a favourite seiyuu of mine. It's a perfect portrayal, but he also has some range to play with, since Misaki is easily the most expressive character. Inoue Kazuhiko also does a great job with Miyagi; I could listen to that man read the phone book and probably get aroused.

Character (5/10): The primary character, the one in whose head we spent the most time, is Misaki. And I constantly vacillated between being utterly frustrated with him and kind of rooting for him. Because he has to be the most naive and idiotically dense character I've encountered in a long time, and he is also the typical tsundere uke who completely denies his feelings and is unwilling to ever say the L word; he fights every bit of affection with tooth and nail, while secretly liking it but also being horribly ashamed of it -- Japan is fucked up, seriously. But while he always instinctively acts like a cactus, he also thinks about everything, and though he often settles temporarily on a naive answer, eventually he works his way around to what is actually going on. He is also hampered by his back story, which has made him into a person who never wants to be a bother to anyone, and he likes to please people -- but his tsundere nature works against that in many ways which he doesn't even recognize.

Usami is a cantankerous, crotchety egotist, and I never warmed up to him, even when he goes all lovey-dovey later. He pushes Misaki into intimacy (we'd call it sexual assault here), but it's hard to deny that if he didn't, Misaki would never ever do anything on his own. I don't like that sort of setup and I'd never get involved with somebody like that, but yeah, it's not my culture.

The other two couples don't have the same unpleasant dynamic going on because while Kamijou is also a tsundere, at least he is basically willing, just also embarrassed. The problem with Nowaki is that I completely lost any liking for him when he disappears for a whole year. It was also Kamijou's fault for not paying attention, but the justification for Nowaki pulling that stunt was garbage. Couple C interested me primarily because I was watching for signs of Shinobou being Miyagi's first love's reincarnation.

Enjoyment (7/10): The humour is what makes the show. It's a strange mix, but with relatively little sexual innuendo humour; most of it comes from Misaki struggling with everything in his life in amusing and often unexpected ways. I'd really like to hang out with Nakamura Shungiku some time. ;)

Reviewer’s Rating: 6

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Jan 29, 2009

iamjoe

Not Recommended

Oh, an anime that certainly puts the fab back in fabulous and the gay back in yaoi.

Junjou Romantica is a yaoi anime, as anyone with eyes would know. What it is, is a well loved yaoi anime and a pretty crappy normal anime.

The storyline is plain old unbelievable. You expect me to believe that there are so many gay guys who are all inter-related, yet most don't know the rest are gay unless they had boinked them in the past or something?? Where are the women in this anime? Fine, I can chalk up with the no women thing since gay men can't see ... oestrogen anyway unless it's from themselves, but the one woman in the entire anime is a yaoi fangirl. I mean come on. Wtf.

Each story is basically a mirror of the other one. Check this out.

Teacher --> younger man --> butt secks.

That's all that freaking happens for the entirety of the anime. An older, teacher-like dude meets a muuuch younger dude and they hook up and have lots of unwilling sex with one another.

First couple: a tutor who tries to seduce his best friend's little brother. Second couple: a teacher who is seduced, is trying to seduce a younger man. Third couple: another teacher whose ex-brother-in-law is trying to seduce him. God, come on! What's with this? What are they trying to say--that gay men with any position of authority in a younger boy's life will try to lead the boy astray?? Nothing happens in the story other than a whole lot of angst, sappy romance, and sexing all over the place, with a lot of "Nooo! Don't touch--oh wait, go ahead, but nooo!" going on.

Art was trash, sound was worse trash. Those theme songs sucked balls.

Characters were dead awful. Most of the time they're whining or they're moping or taking advantage of someone. I mean, come on! The writer guy did nothing but go, "I love you. Let's do it." for the whole anime. The boy he liked kept going, "Oh, I don't want this...wait, I think I do." and that's pretty much how it went for the whole anime with EVERY couple.

Don't watch this is you are a normal person. For fabulous folks like myself, AVOID.

Reviewer’s Rating: 4

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