Monks in anime: Fushigi Yugi Part II - Love, friendship, and hate: A reflection on romance in anime (and on romance in general)

Something that I have been thinking about a lot lately is the concept of romance in anime, which

started with what I focused on with the anime Fushigi Yugi last week as part of my monks in anime

series. I guess this post can be part of this series as it's a continuation of reflecting on the conversation

in the previous post, as well as reflecting on other things related to it. The parts of the conversation

that I would like to focus on are when the monk character tells the main character that friendship and

love are equally important, but gaining one or losing one ... there's nothing we can do about that and

that her friend still loves her more than she knows, her friend probably doesn't realize this herself yet,

and that her friend loves her so much that she's begun to hate her, which is why she should help her.

First, there's the idea that friendship and love are equally important, but gaining one or losing one ...

there's nothing we can do about that. The next thing that the monk says after this seems to be an

example of what he means by this idea. The idea seems to be hypocritical and/or a paradox, but at the

same time, it seems to be based on his experience. Romance cannot, or at least should not, be limited

to one experience. Just because you had a certain experience with romance doesn't mean other people

will have the same experience (I talk about these things in a more general sense in the included

document at the beginning of this post).

Then we get the idea that the friend of the main character still loves her more than she knows, which

is probably something the friend doesn't even realize herself yet, and that her friend loves her so much

that she's begun to hate her, which is why she should help her. There is a reason all of this is

happening. The friend of the main character thought the main character abandoned her when she

needed help. She ended up getting help from someone who is the enemy of the main character. The

friend of the main character also doesn't really understand the situation either at the point in the anime

when the conversation between the monk and main character happens. There's also more to all

of this then I say here, but the point is that love is also complicated, besides being based on experience.

The point that love is based on a complicated experience is also seen in other ways in other romance

anime, both in anime with romance in it and anime that is mainly a romance. Besides examples that

are on this blog already, there's also Tonikawa and Horimiya. Tonikawa is an anime I watched right

away when it came out at the end of last year. What made me think about this anime recently for this

reflection was the recent announcement of an OVA for it coming this summer, which I talked to a

friend of mine about last night (we started watching it together when it came out, although we ended

up watching most of it on our own). I could say more about the anime here, but I should make a

separate post about that soon. Same for Horimiya, which ended recently (and other series that I have

seen and are not on this blog yet or sequels to anime that I have already talked about that are

complete). Both are really good, and are different from the usual romantic comedy, but romance in

anime tends to focus on love in terms of getting a girlfriend/boyfriend or wife/husband instead of other

romantic relationships. Friendship and hate are part of love and romance in anime needs to, or at least

should, focus on that more, which requires thinking more about what else romance can be.

Anime and Manga Lectio