I’ve seen a fair bit of romance anime in my days and I’ve realized I’ve not had that itch scratched in a long long time.
Most romance anime coming out today feels very… Like idk, pipeline-y, they often follow a really similar formula which present two characters who are clearly perfect for eachother, but draw out them actually getting into a relationship for forever, so the “I love you” either never happens, or has been waiting to happen for so long that it happening evokes mostly feelings of “Oh, they finally did it”.
That formula is really heartwarming to watch a lot of the times, I can’t say I don’t like it plus I understand why they use it, it’s the most sustainable way to write a romace anime, otherwise you’d very quickly run out of interesting parts of the story to tell, but there’s another side to romance that it doesn’t quite touch for me and that feels the most youthful and authentic, and that is the adrenaline, the risk, even the initial falling in love itself, the disappointment and the euthoria, overall, the emotions that result from, but aren’t just the love itself.
When one says “I love you” oftentimes it’s a really heavy and impactful statement that will inevitably and fundamentally change the nature of the relationship in question one way or another and I’m looking for an anime where that weight is visible.
The scene that comes to my mind most of all, that doesn’t even use the words “I love you” but rather lack there of, is Yui from snafu in one of the last episodes as she cries her eyes out.
Other examples include:
Non anime, but I used to really like star vs the forces of evil, back in season 2, because the ending of that season captured that gut wrenching feeling of confessing to someone perfectly(it later went a bit to shit, but still).
In Quintessential Quadruplets, don’t remember the names, but there was that scene where the butterfly girl confesses to the mc in the kitchen and declares that she will get him to love her back.
Tho not exactly with “I love you” as the main focus, yet still Rem’s confession from Re:Zero.
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