{"id":1785,"date":"2015-04-29T00:43:47","date_gmt":"2015-04-29T04:43:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sharkpuppet.com\/?p=1785"},"modified":"2015-04-29T00:43:47","modified_gmt":"2015-04-29T04:43:47","slug":"this-week-in-anime-back-to-basics-with-ore-monogatari","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/sharkpuppet.com\/wordpress\/this-week-in-anime-back-to-basics-with-ore-monogatari\/","title":{"rendered":"This Week in Anime: Back to Basics with Ore Monogatari"},"content":{"rendered":"

One of my favorite shows of the new season has been Ore Monogatari!!<\/em>, which runs as My Love Story!!<\/em> here in the US. It\u2019s not especially original or innovative, and that\u2019s kind of the point. In a medium that so often relies on gimmicks and melodrama to sell romantic stories, it has the guts to just tell a story. In three episodes, with just three characters, it\u2019s managed to outdo a huge portion of the genre. That\u2019s pretty impressive, and it\u2019s worth examining why this series works as well as it does.<\/p>\n

\"AWWWYEAH\"<\/a><\/p>\n

For a start, it has characters the audience can actually like and relate to. No one has amnesia, no one\u2019s tangled up in a twisted web of relationships, and no one\u2019s an intolerable mix of passion and jealousy. There\u2019s a big, goofy guy, his levelheaded best friend, and a nice girl who the big guy mistakenly thinks has a crush on his friend. Takeo, Suna, and Yamato are all entertaining on their own, and their personalities play nicely off of one another. The dramatic tension doesn\u2019t come from wanting the protagonist to choose the good romantic interest over the bad one. Instead, it comes from wanting all of the characters to find the happiness that they want for each other. If it were possible to hug a work of fiction, I would.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s interesting to me is how My Love Story!!<\/em> seems to have a fairly broad appeal. A lot of it seems to come down to Takeo\u2019s strength as a main character. On one hand, he\u2019s very much a guy\u2019s guy: the kind of person you\u2019d want to be friends with. He acts and thinks in ways that make it hard not to root for him. On the other hand, he\u2019s not the same generic nice guy character that plagues the romantic comedy genre. There\u2019s an actual, complex person behind that ridiculous face, and that\u2019s the sort of thing that makes a character compelling no matter who\u2019s in the audience.<\/p>\n

Of course, it helps that the series is also damn funny. Takeo\u2019s outlandish expressions are the main draw, but the writing is also very strong. Suna\u2019s deadpan reactions to the other characters add another layer of humor and help to keep the story grounded. Yamato is an adorable mess, and her nervous energy is practically tailor-made to be paired up with Takeo\u2019s intensity. There\u2019s such a good comedic balance within this core trio that I\u2019m almost afraid to see what will happen as the story develops and the cast presumably expands.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s really about all there is to it. Assemble some believable characters and tell their story with a good sense of humor, and you\u2019ve got something worthwhile. Sometimes we need a series like My Love Story!!<\/em> to remind us of that.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

This Week in Anime\u00a0is hastily cobbled together by Paul Jensen. You can follow his ramblings about anime and manga on\u00a0Twitter<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

One of my favorite shows of the new season has been Ore Monogatari!!, which runs as My Love Story!! here in the US. It\u2019s not especially original or innovative, and that\u2019s kind of the point. In a medium that so often relies on gimmicks and melodrama to sell romantic stories, it has the guts to [Read more…]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[23],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/sharkpuppet.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1785"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/sharkpuppet.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/sharkpuppet.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sharkpuppet.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sharkpuppet.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1785"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/sharkpuppet.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1785\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1787,"href":"http:\/\/sharkpuppet.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1785\/revisions\/1787"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/sharkpuppet.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1785"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sharkpuppet.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1785"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sharkpuppet.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1785"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}