Hate on what you Love. Let's air our grievances.
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@maxwyght I truly understand your pain.
I can manage if there is a loli character in an harem, but if most of the heroines (or the sole heroine) are lolis this can be enough of a turn off for me to make me walk away from the series. Especially if there are well developed or voluptuous girls in the story who either aren't love interests or even are villains. Every time I read Arifureta and the author mentions that Yue has the body of a 12 years old it causes me pain.Another thing that irritates me are super dense protagonists. I mean, I'm aware that sometimes you need a way for the main couple to not get together in the first volume or else the story will end too soon. I also think it's reasonable that unpopular guys with low self esteem may find hard to believe that a girl might be interested in them even of she sends them signals. But then you have series where the heroines the protagonist "I love you", everyone else tell him "She loves you", and he is like "I wonder what they are trying to tell me". Bonus points if the heroine is a violent tsundere who cannot be honest for the sake of her life but still abuses the protagonist when he fails to read her mind and act as she expect him to do. Yeah, I'm talking of you, Infinite Stratos.
I don't like yuri, so of course while I don't have a problem with those series existing I don't read them. Sadly this isn't enough to avoid the occasional gropey friend that spend most of her screen time squeezing the boobs of the heroine. But even that is nothing compared to the psycho lesbian love rival, one of the tropes I absolutely loathe the most. Every time I read Lazy dungeon master and Keima mentions that he won't do anything with Rokuko because "Haku would kill me" I feel the urge to drop the series (you may argue that Haku is more of a siscon than a lesbian, but in the end the result is the same). Do Jaoanese readers really find it fun?
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@lex ugh, When protagonists are denser than Issei is the worst. The lesbian rival never bothered me though, it's played to great effect in horimiya. But I like yuri so, eh? And you'll never escape loli's with japan. They've basically bred their women to be very small and petite. It's what they like. Neoteny is the term.
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@lex It's probably accurate to think of characters like the psycho lesbian as being the Japanese equivalent to the flaming homosexual that dominated western portrayals of gay men a decade or two ago. It's a widely accepted stereotype that normal people can point and laugh at. Yuri fiction's still niche enough that the concept of characters who happen to be lesbian hasn't fully displaced the stereotypes yet.
I agree with you on the super dense protagonists, kind of. Tropes are tools, as they say - even the most 'negative' traits can be used to tell a good story if you use them right. But that means letting the characters develop, probably away from their original archetypes. The idiot who never gets a clue is just as frustrating as the tsundere who never faces their insecurities, or the shrinking violet that never finds their courage.
Oddly enough, the yuri romances I've read have been better written than the straight ones (on average). I suspect because a lot of the straight romances are being shoved into series in other genres for purposes of fanservice (resulting in a formulaic 'romance' with no progression or payoff and love interests chosen to tick fanservice boxes rather than for the sake of the narrative), while most of the yuri romances I've come across are from people who were actually trying to write love stories (and thus, put some actual effort into them).
If nothing else, yuri series avoids one of my least favorite tropes, the faux-action-girl treatment of 'capable' female leads to make the male lead look more awesome. In cases where you have, say, a male fighter and a female noncombatant (ex Marielle Clarac and her fiancee/husband Simeon Flaubert) I'm not too fussed - it's consistent to both their characters, and not everyone needs to be a badass. Marielle's an author, not a spy or a one-woman army. But then you go to The Sorcerer's Receptionist, and the number of times Nanalie (supposedly in the top 2 mages in her age bracket) ends up being beaten (or rescued) by Rockman really doesn't match the buildup she was given.
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The thing is, I can't walk away from TRPG.
Everything about the series is SO GOOD that while the loli irks me, it is overshadowed by everything else.Hell, even the MC isn't dense at all.
He's like:
"Hey, this psuedo-loli likes me, and both my new family AND her family seem to be encouraging us to get together, but they work their machinations in ways that kids won't notice. I really have to make up my mind if I want to get with her or not."This story would've been a perfect 10 if only he'd went with "the body of a 15 year old" instead of 10 year old.
And not just 10 compared to other isekai novels.
I'm talking right there with Dragonlance and Forgotten realms type stories.You know, actual classic fantasy literature.
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@maxwyght
hot damn, I haven't heard a dragonlance reference in years. Not even a fizban meme. -
@poisonedbite yeah there is no winning against lolis, luckily there are still enough series with heroines more suited to my tastes. I'll forever be grateful to the editor for Lazy dungeon master for making Rokuko not stay in her loli form.
@kuali my theory is that authors want to add love rivals but if they make them males fans are gonna complain,by making them lesbians it doesn't count as ntr if they have some skinship with the heroine and they might turn I to love interests if the need arise. Now if only they could be made less abusive and the protagonists less wimpy there would be at least some progress.
@MaxWyght the funny thing is that when I read TRPG I'm more bothered by the fact that Margit has the upper body of an elementary schooler rather than by her having the lower body of a spider, and I don't even have a particular fetish for monster girls.
Going back to things I'm not too fond of, one is when the protagonist is weak or plays a support role and his companions (be them a traditional party or a battle harem) do all the action. Basically I prefer stories that make me feel awesome rather than stories that make me feel like I'm watching someone else being awesome. Series like Mapping, Monster tamer and Unwanted undead are guilty of this, albeit not too much.
Now a specific nitpick about one if my favorite series, Invaders of the Rokujouma:
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@lex said in Hate on what you Love. Let's air our grievances.:
Now if only they could be made less abusive and the protagonists less wimpy there would be at least some progress.
I don't get why it's so hard to write a protagonist who sets clear boundaries but who also doesn't immediately resort to being a total ass.
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@salientmind it's on purpose. They're written to be self insert power trip fantasies. I still agree though, I can't stand those blank slate instant harem protagonists. So dense and weak willed a girl can literally climb on them naked and say i love you and they still wonder what they really mean, or say something like, "if you keep saying that, I might start believing you"
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@salientmind It's not so much that it's hard, as that it's rarely necessary, so few bother to put much effort into the protagonist. Harem series live or die on the ability to make the audience interested in the members of the harem, after all, so they're where all the effort goes.
https://forums.j-novel.club/topic/6701/omnibus-builder
https://forums.j-novel.club/topic/5745/ascendance-of-a-bookworm-omnibus-editionsThe Primal Desires: Food, Sleep, Sex, StroZero, Hypnotism, and Awayuki Kokorone.
Item Diaria Apothecaria legi debent.
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@lex said in Hate on what you Love. Let's air our grievances.:
the funny thing is that when I read TRPG I'm more bothered by the fact that Margit has the upper body of an elementary schooler rather than by her having the lower body of a spider, and I don't even have a particular fetish for monster girls.
Well, yeah, that's why I specifically called this series out.
I'm not into monster girls(unless the stereotypucal animal ears/tails count), but in the case of Margit, I ended up trying to imagine what it would be like to be embraced like Erich was in the 1st volume Henderson.
And immediately followed that by slapping myself, since she'd look like a 10 year old(Her status as a 22 year old being irrelevant, since it's the whole legal loli lip service again) -
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@maxwyght so, I met one true "legal Loli" in real life. She was in college, college age. She had a disorder that stopped her physical development at around 12.
Just having normal sfw adult conversations took a while to get used to. Because everything about the person in front of you signaled to the brain they were an adolescent.
I really don't get why it's such a popular trope. The only justification I can think of is they don't actually mean "Loli" but young looking adult woman. That... Or the majority of these authors are so young when they first start that they don't get it.
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@salientmind
Are you talking about Shauna Rae? -
@maxwyght nah. This was my ex-gfs good friend. It was a while ago.
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@maxwyght How Not To Summon A Demon Lord had a good reason for the MC to not sleep with the girls, Rem is 14 at the start, Shera is 16 but for an Elf that's still a baby, and Horn is 12. Don't know about Lumachina but I'd say 16 to 18, but since she's the High Priest (why not High Priestess?), sex with her would be a political problem for both of them.
The guild master is at least of age, looks like a child but is around 50, so sex with her would technically be ok. (In my fanfic, D does have sex with her and Horn is actually his daughter from the future. Why can he get her pregnant? He's the Demon Lord of course.) Rose could use her mouth and hands but has no other way to do it. The crazy women is out, never stick your d*ck in crazy. Kreb is out, she's a loli and Edelgard... she's hot but the LN says she is covered in scales so prob not. -
@kuali Well it sucks how true that is.
Just kidding. The truth is It Totally Sucks how true that is ლ(ಠ益ಠ)ლ
Someone might say "steer away" but you are pretty much grinding on the web, trying to find a good protagonist, especially in romance lately, where they don't appear in the cover, let alone in the story (is almost like reading in first person because the male lead has as much personality as a seashell).
This 2022 I will definitely make senpai notice me!!!
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@avatarian That's not the only thing they have in common - I heard a rumour that if you hold a harem protagonist against your ear, you can hear the ocean ;)
https://forums.j-novel.club/topic/6701/omnibus-builder
https://forums.j-novel.club/topic/5745/ascendance-of-a-bookworm-omnibus-editionsThe Primal Desires: Food, Sleep, Sex, StroZero, Hypnotism, and Awayuki Kokorone.
Item Diaria Apothecaria legi debent.
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@kuali said in Hate on what you Love. Let's air our grievances.:
@avatarian That's not the only thing they have in common - I heard a rumour that if you hold a harem protagonist against your ear, you can hear the ocean ;)
lol
@kuali SEAms legit. -
@lex said in Hate on what you Love. Let's air our grievances.:
Going back to things I'm not too fond of, one is when the protagonist is weak or plays a support role and his companions (be them a traditional party or a battle harem) do all the action. Basically I prefer stories that make me feel awesome rather than stories that make me feel like I'm watching someone else being awesome. Series like Mapping, Monster tamer and Unwanted undead are guilty of this, albeit not too much.
There's a western novel series I read that attempted to fix this very problem. It was called "An Unlikely Hero" and it basically took the premise from "To Love Ru" and said "what if the protagonist was actually a total badass who knew what he was doing and wasn't as dense as a rock?" and in my opinion it actually came out really good. It was enjoyable to read. While it does steal most of the characters and the initial plot from To Love Ru, the plot does go off on a direction of its own because it's impossible to go the same direction when the protagonist's personality prevents him from making the same choices as Rito. He also has (in my opinion) a much more wholesome relationship with the alien princess (i.e. they actally have stuff in common and do things together, rather than the princess just liking him because he's nice and doesn't treat her like a demigoddess)
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Seems interesting, I'll check it. Thanks for the suggestion.
