3 Middleground Romance That Know Their Not Perfect

Romance, shoujo all hurts sometimes

Romance anime in all the ones I’ve watched over the years has a mix of feel killers, frustrators and  the ones that remain on the line. I’ve noticed no-one likes to speak on the middle ground when it comes to average shows. 

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How could you know that I secretly love the average among the romance anime there is out there? In the last year there were so few anime I’ve enjoyed with what romance element was contained or was a shojo. The ones I did enjoyed were all middle ground class to me, certainly was not perfect in a lot of areas but somehow made up for those imperfections in a weird sense. The average among anime is seen as like a black sheep more than a series is seen as terrible which is really interesting.  The average is flanked to side more often I have noticed these days, where they possess more to offer if you stick around like enough. Romance genre in this regard, middle ground ones go somewhere or flop out a lot or things happen but it’s not exciting. Here are 5 I personally love that acknowledge their imperfections but I enjoyed for different reasons. 

 

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Taisho Otome Fairy Tale

Meiji era set romcom the Fall Seasonal 2021 had to offer me and no way was I going to say no to that. Tamahiko does not see the pointing clinging to this dismal lifeless life he leads after his family disown him from his nobility lineage. Because due to an accident cannot no longer use his right arm, a disabled individual has no such place in nobility if he cannot excel and provide. His bleak world is soon opened up to the spring storm of his bride to be Yuzuki, through her own circumstances is sent off as debt collateral on her family’s part. Not much goes on in this show expect following the daily life of the potential couple and how things blossoms. 

The execution however on this is so soothing, I was not expecting this series to be the cutest romantic comedy I’ve watched in a long time. Tamahiko is the one who benefits most out of the two, having been nowhere near women you can imagine this reactions to particular scenarios. From first positive compliments to having food being made for him, Tamahiko is left stunned most of the time. Yuzuki is a great fit for Tamahiko, really patience, this beam of constant presence Tamahiko needs that he didn’t know he needed. This couple have some of the cutest moments that made me feel warm on the inside, when I was watching weekly. The shortcomings with this show was one of the characters introduced, I found her annoying and added unnecessary disruption to the flow of things. Obvious this is not a perfect romcom but the cuteness levels truly gash that fact out right away. I will gladly watch again anytime.

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Real Girl 




 Real Girl had been on my romance list for couple of years now, an shut in otaku Hikari gets to dating popular Iroha in his school.It has been sometime since watching such a wonky romance, oh my god. Don’t think I could begin to describe what transpires within this series, even first episode makes you feel so off of what the hell is actually happening here. Some of the characters are an interesting bunch? I am putting lightly here, Hikari best friend Itou has cat ears? everything is moving at a constant rapid pace that would be abnormal for real life dating. There are many shortcomings within this series, I would class this romance as not good. But why include such a series in this list?

One thing this romance did truly well at were harsh stabs realities of dating and life, dealing with both. There were so many good real truth moments for example when Hikari is thrown under the bus by another guy who likes Iroha and causes Hikari to be mistaken for a pervert trying to kidnap guy’s little sister. The bullying is terrible for Hikari and other guy asks why does he keep putting up with it and not fighting back. Hikari responds by saying what can you do, that life is unfair to us, we can do nothing about the inevitable. To compensate for how this series is it was ridiculously entertaining. The terrible was turned into useful moments of humour. Even though I dub this series as not great, It definitley knew it wasn’t and I appericated that. 

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Tada Never Falls In Love



Tada Never Falls In Love again was another on list for past three years that somehow never got around to watching until end of last year. Thankyou HiDive. Mitsuyoshi has been in love with his camera and photography majority of his life, nothing else seems to get past that. Until he encounters foreign exchange student Teresa at the park one day whom had been separated from her companion. Mitsuyoshi is about to see life again through a different lens. I was so surprised how much I loved this series in the end, by first episode had me in stitches. The comedy and humour is really great, characters make that so. There was an interesting photography aspect not huge but worth mention still. Shortcomings I’d say towards end of the series where things got a little ridiculous and cliche but I knew it was going that direction. 

This romance is a really fun one to follow although, a wonderful sentimental and warming atmosphere surrounds this series and it’s circumstances that made it bit more enjoyable for me. Mistuyoshi and Tada actually make quite a cute couple and wouldn’t mind a season two if ever were to happen.  

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There you have it three middle ground shows that I went into with lowest of expectations and came out enjoying them all for many different reasons. I do not seek for the perfect romance like I use to in romance anime, because so few actually reach that feat. Definitely sometime I’ll go through which ones I think are perfect romances to me. 

If there a romance anime you would class as middle ground? do tell so I can add it to my list and can check if it is or isn’t. 

I’ll see you in the next post! 

Lita Kino

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