What's wrong with RomComs and Anime?

vicious-cycle · 2014-06-05T16:30:52+00:00

I once heard a saying, I know it sounds kind of Beta, because I suspect it was written by a woman, but I think it explains the RomCom inconsistency and why the male characters are so inconsistent. Remember, these are fantasy's written and marketed almost exclusively to women:

"Every woman wants a bad-boy that is good only for her, and every man wants a good girl who is bad only for him."

Its essentially female wish fulfillment....."taming" an alpha and turning him beta because she is of such high value.

This is also why RomComs make most men recoil in horror, because the instinctively want nothing to do with the concept.

KyleTFH · 2014-06-05T16:46:59+00:00

Modern anime is disgustingly beta. The male leads are all indistinct losers with no personality, so designed in order that the lowest-common-denominator audience can self-insert themselves into the story, and fantasize about being surrounded by rainbow-haired girls who all look about nine years old. It's basically the same thing as Twilight, but for guys. And it's very, very unhealthy.

Japan has totally lost the plot on how to be masculine. Part of it is reactionary; a lot of young Japanese guys grow up with basically no father, and their betaness is a reaction to the lousy attempts at masculinity by Bubble-era salarymen (who think that working thirteen hours six days a week and kissing up to the Boss makes them Real Men.)

I think that part of this is that Japanese guys don't aspire to emulate powerful, masculine men (Fist of the North Star, Dragon Ball, etc.) any more; they think it's too much work to improve themselves. As a result, stories where an Ordinary Lame Teenager falls into the cockpit of an experimental robot/arms of a beautiful girl/ancient magical power are much more popular.

JP_Whoregan · 2014-06-05T19:30:28+00:00

Consider the target audience. RomComs are written for women. And what do women seek? The "perfect guy" who can satisfy both sides of her Alpha Fux/Beta Bux hypergamy. Their version of a unicorn, if you will. That's why you see the main male character acting like an aloof, confident man one minute, and buying her flowers and writing poetry the next.

TheRealMewt · 2014-06-05T18:56:20+00:00

It's important to keep in mind who writes RomComs, who draws Anime, and who their audiences are. By and large, they appeal to the "this loser is you" demographic created by even more "this loser is you" artists indulging in some wish fulfillment. At least in Anime, that can be chalked up to cultural differences between what is considered a real man in Japan in contrast to western society.

It's been common knowledge for a long time that Hollywood paints the wrong picture when it comes to how a man is supposed to woo a woman, but think of the kind of people that live in this world - hell, just look at how the rest of Reddit views TRP. If someone made a movie starring a protagonist modeled after TRP, I can imagine the audience going "eww, why are we rooting for THIS asshole?". It's what happened with I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell, so now we get more beta white knights in our movies. It's why more harem anime shows model after Tenchi Muyo than for Urusei Yatsura.

TheHafrikan · 2014-06-05T19:21:20+00:00

Don Jon is a mostly "red pill" Rom com, and though not anime Battle Royale's is a good film from Japan.

redpillwolf · 2014-06-05T19:29:50+00:00

I think in context of TRP, RomComs and Anime help to normalize societal/romantic cognitive dissonance experienced by the viewer out in the real world, men and women included.

It's like a numbing agent that let's you ignore real societal narratives, in favor of how things play out in the fantasy worlds (i.e. your head).

I say this as a guy who really loves anime and struggles to accept this part of myself along with my other "normal" hobbies like lifting and camping.

Clauderoughly · 2014-06-05T17:39:19+00:00

Those sort of Anime are aimed at girls anyway, so the guys are wimpy losers.

I preferred ones like Ghost in the Shell, which had more complex stories.

PaulRivers10 · 2014-06-05T18:10:50+00:00

In Romantic comedies the main character shows signs of being an Alpha (Generalization for arguments sake, some are wimps). Good looking, confident, distant, well-presented, subtle. Yet they also send cute morning messages, flounder under the main Females gaze, send gifts, talk about being love and other stuff that simply drives girls off in real life.

Interesting thread, but which rom coms are you talking about?

Watch The Notebook from a blue pill perspective and you could think he's blue pill - he sends her a letter for 365 days until he finally gives up when he doesn't hear back, he takes her out on dates in romantic scenes, etc.

Watch it from a Red Pill perspective and he's complete dark triad. When he initially meets her she's on a date with another guy, which doesn't stop him at all from pursuing her to the point of recklessly grabbing onto the ferris wheel she's on with her date and putting himself and other people in danger. He's not being red pill romantic, he's being a sociopath - and that's what does it for her.

When he comes back he's engadged to someone and so is she - preselection for him, and kinda sociopathic for him to keep aggressively pursuing her.

You might think "oh, but he wrote her a letter every day for a year! so blue pill!" - it's not a coincidence that in the movie, she's never received those letters. After he tells her, she finally "discovers" that someone else was hiding them from her - the characters reality was complete dread game, he left, and never said anything to her. Her discovery just makes it ok for her to like his dread game "Oh, it wasn't his fault".

Another mistake is not following the sequence of events (this applies to most movies, not the notebook).

Blue Pill: - Guy brings her flowers. Guy gets laid.

Red Pill: - Guy gets laid. Guy brings her flowers. - Guy brings her flowers. Doesn't get laid, or gets laid and disappears for some reason. Time passes. Later, they get together.

Blue Pill thinking is that bringing her flowers will make her attracted to you. Red Pill thinking is that (depending on the girl) there's nothing wrong with giving her the social things she wants to feel good about herself after she's sleeping with you.

That's what I think. Blue Pill is trying to "earn" her affection with flowers and stuff, Red Pill is rewarding her affection with flowers and stuff. (Though again it greatly depends on the girl.)

Dreamtrain · 2014-06-05T18:19:29+00:00

Anime is a Japanese export and as such, is incredibly influenced by its society/culture. Even if some things are universal such as AFBB and AWALT, culture plays a huge role on it.

homosexualsaipian · 2014-06-05T19:41:12+00:00

[permanently deleted]

HolographicWhaleTail · 2014-06-06T19:20:59+00:00

Was never too into anime but do you all remember Yu Yu Hakusho? Kid was a badass.

Astronauts · 2014-06-05T22:54:13+00:00

Honestly I think a lot of this media is responsible for blue pill behavior in general. Most "friendzoned" guys are young, impressionable nerds with little experience in female interaction but lots of absorbed training from anime, movies, TV, games, etc., wherein the main character often gets the girl because he's a paragon of justice and she "falls in love" with him for whatever fucking reason. So you have these kids talking to girls and getting really confused as to why they're being rebuffed and why girls are calling them creeps, when they're just doing what they were told would work.

I mean, it even sounds good. Just do good things and be a nice guy. Girls will see how good you are and they'll want to date you. Problem is "do good things" and "be a nice guy" are defined differently by the two parties.

SlickJamesBitch · 2014-06-05T18:20:36+00:00

The only really good romcom was 40 year old virgin.

ilovemyself101 · 2014-06-05T21:10:14+00:00

I've found close to all Anime are "beta" one of my favourites which is 'RP' in the sense of finding your goal/passion and going for it which also suggested by another TRP'r here is 'One Piece'.

The main character, as well as the rest of the crew have their own goals and work insanely hard overcoming challenges to reach their 'goal' or progress towards their 'end goal' and its entertaining and funny as hell to boot. I highly recommend it.

2014-06-06T08:44:38+00:00

lol its fucking Japan. What do you expect? They can't have teenage boys acting tough with teenage girls. The toughest main character in Anime I've seen is Kurosaki Ichigo, from Bleach. But its not a romantic anime so he has no idea his friend is mad/stalker-level crushing on him.

Title	What's wrong with RomComs and Anime?
Author	ExamplePrime
Upvotes	8
Comments	62
Date	June 5, 2014 3:14 PM UTC (12 years ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/TheRedPill
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/TheRedPill/comments/27dye1/whats_wrong_with_romcoms_and_anime/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/TheRedPill/whats-wrong-with-romcoms-and-anime.16314 https://theredarchive.com/post/16314

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