Post

Two of my favourite romances, if both short series. They solve the 'relationship start=end' problem by ending the first episode with the protagonists in a committed relationship. Wotakoi involves distanced childhood friends with similar interests, one of them having suffered many failed romantic relationships, while the other has never been in one. The narrative is the exploration of a new kind of relationship for both of them, discovering what the other means to them as they deal with everyday situations. On the other side is Tonikawa, wherein two strangers are quite suddenly married after having fallen for each other, and must each slowly learn things about the other while, once again, dealing with everyday situations. Tonikawa basically has both parties smitten at the start, and so leverages the cuteness of the infatuated heavily. Wotakoi on the other hand involves more serious questions about identifying your own feelings and those of others, and what those involved truly want and get out of the relationship. Both series have one character with a strong personality and the other who is more withdrawn or mysterious, enabling good development and giving them a strong dynamic. Since they are enjoyable to watch being together, you want to see their relationships succeed, and have reason to believe they can. All the while, drama is used sparingly and appropriately to show what ordinary or unique difficulties they face, and how they can overcome them together.

This is one of those that manages to make high drama work in places, being a romance involving royalty. However, the drama always serves the plot and characters, rather than being tension for its own sake. Even following life-threatening situations, the focus is how it affects the characters and their relationship, but at the same time none of the side-characters are wasted. There is remarkable development for all of them, including some that I did not expect, but the central story is always the relationship between the main characters. It manages to keep the fairy tale 'damsel' concept without depriving the female character of personality and agency, and it is fully willing to explore the difficulties they face in a committed relationship, not just the travails to get to that point. It also takes a risk by making clear from the start how difficult the relationship would be, given their vastly different social standings - giving it an extra hurdle to convince the reader that the relationship could work, but making it all the more rewarding.

I mentioned before that Toradora exemplified a lot of the worst traits of 'bad' romance, and now I will elaborate. Taiga and Ryuuji are each romantically pursuing the other's best friend, and end up interacting because they are neighbours. From very early on, Taiga is violent and possessive of Ryuuji, verging on the abusive, and is thus primarily unsympathetic. Ryuuji meanwhile is set up to have a platonic, almost brotherly relationship with Taiga until he is rejected by the object of his affections, after which he rather abruptly switches. The drama level is fairly ridiculous - at one early point, Taiga screams her ownership over the prone form of Ryuuji in the middle of a class of students. There is still almost the entire series to go before their romantic relationship begins, and when it does, it lasts for all of one episode before it is cut short by more excessive drama, at which point the series ends. Ryuuji's development is weak, and Taiga's largely selfish. Their dynamic is not strong, being so one-sidedly dominant yet dependent for most of it. Drama is used too liberally, and when it does progress the plot, it feels more like forcing it.

The relationship between Amy and Rory was nothing but excessive drama. The Doctor literally had to drag her fiancee through time and space to stop her from abandoning the wedding and trying to seduce him instead. Even after they were together, the writers took the frankly incomprehensible decision to keep baiting the illogical idea that Amy's child was the Doctor's, through infuriatingly frequent ambiguous conversations and awkward wordings. The worst moments however were in Asylum of the Daleks, where to add more unnecessary drama, Amy has divorced Rory because she thinks he wants children she cannot have, and decided the best course of action was to divorce him with no explanation or discussion. Then, when challenged about it during the episode, she claimed that it was because she loved him more than he loved her, and that 'giving him up' was harder for her than the time he spent two thousand years guarding a box she was sealed inside (it is science fiction). Here the drama of a relationship is being used for its own sake, with little care for the effect it has on the plot or characters - as a result:
- It makes the characters unsympathetic, stripping them of their positive character development.
- It shows that their relationship is dysfunctional, with Amy being emotionally abusive and Rory enabling and emotionally trapped. This means that they have a poor dynamic, and the prospect of them being together is more worrying than enjoyable.
- It failed to show them engaging with problems as a couple, as instead they have divorced.
All of the above was done for the sake of high drama.