It was one of the best dreams I’ve ever had, but I couldn’t help but feel a little bit cheated. What could have caused this sudden turn of events? Maybe it was binge watching the last 8 episodes of Ao Haru Ride (Blue Spring Ride) all of last night. Maybe it was also finishing all 38 episodes of Kimi Ni Todoke the previous week, and all of Tonari no Kaibutsu-kun (My Little Monster) and Golden Time the week before that. I was on a romance anime kick, and much like how much money a year you spend on dakimakuras, it was starting to become a problem. It was at the point where I couldn’t even escape the feels in my sleep. My most inelegant, maladroit, and graceless state of being. The polar opposite of the way romance anime is meant to make you feel.
The fantasy portrayed in romance anime is that of the worst kind. The kind that teases you with its perfection and plausibility, but ultimately ends with the realization that nothing will ever be as pure and ideal as whats being presented to you. Even romance anime that portrays more realistic relationships (such as Golden Time) with flaws and work that has to be put into them, they still project some sense of fantasy, because in the end that is what they are. Fantasy.
Why I think romance anime is so great, is because of this fantasy. It brings out the best in the clichéd ideas we all have about this confusing thing called love. Sure, none of my romances in the past have ever been anything close to the romances portrayed in anime, and they more than likely never will be, but at least there’s the hope and goal of a kind of relationship to strive for. These are the actual types of things that the hashtag #goals should actually be used for.
Romance anime appeals to the inherent want of an ideal companionship most people search for in this world. As a hetero-male, there are all sorts of expectations of masculinity that reject things like emotions and warm feelings. There’s always a certain apprehensiveness I see in guys when the topic of romance anime comes up. They either play their man card and proclaim to only watch shōnen shows like Dragonball Z and Bleach or they are all in and will spend two hours talking to you about the subtle complexities of Nisekoi when you really just want to hurry up and go out because this is not how you wanted to spend your first Saturday night off in 4 months. It’s usually the former rather than the latter. But in the end, things like emotions and feelings are things we all experience. At least I hope so. The cynic in me will always get annoyed when I feel people are being way too obnoxious with their affections for each other out in public, but I wont deny the warm feelings I get when I see some kid pull off some elaborate ass plan to ask the person they like to prom. Or videos of people from the military coming back home and surprising their loved ones with their presence. Those ones always fucking get me.
When it comes to anime, I like to refer to these feelings as heart boners. It’s those moments that give you that warm fuzzy feeling and tug at your heart strings and possibly turn you into an emotional mess, whether it’s because you're happy for what just transpired or because you just realized that your life is shit compared to this moment right now. When two characters who I’ve watched for countless hours go back and forth with their feelings until it finally culminates in that confession or kiss, it gets to me. I care. I can relate to that anxiety filled struggle. I can relate to doing those subtly cute things to get the girl. Maybe more than anything, its a sense of nostalgia for an innocence a lot of us long for in love.
