Cause what usually goes for romance here is. Man saves girl from slavery.
Man then expresses that girl is attractive.
Turns out that man was the first guy in the whole universe to show kindness to girl. The only good person girl ever encountered in her entire existence.
Definitely first person to ever call her beautiful.
After that girls falls super hard for guy.
Now the guy and girl never actually talk or do anything romantic. Then this continues and other girls join.
Also romance never feels alien or something you might see in different world.
Let me give a example of the type of romance I want in novels.
I have never read something with romance like this on the site
Like something like this never happens.
Guy has helped assist his first murder.
Bandit attack and due to useless mayor. He himself had to fight.
So he has natural reaction of being somewhat cranky and irritated. With a smudge of dread. After seeing how dangerous world is to him and that he might also die.
Or has been struggling at some task for a long time.
No one absolutely no one goes on full crying beside the river after seeing death. That is very unrealistic.
It will probably be anger and dread.
So
this scene happens.
" I just feel like the city infront of me could burn and I wouldn't care at all. Everything feels so irritating. Here I am trying to live a second life but here too I have to deal with this bullish it.
It's just such a shit world. Everyone is ignorant an idiot and each have such huge ego that they don't do anything and there primary concern is just stroking there ego"
Girl-"i sometimes get such a feeling too. Just an irritation at existence and the world. "
"I feel soo empty. I could just poison or assinate the mayor if I could. I feel more angry at him. The bandits did not even have much choice. It was either live a life without pleasurse and die a pointless death or attack some caravans . "
Girl "Anger with helplessness huh. Can't say I haven't felt that before.
You know what. Do you want to hunt? It might decrease your anger. It also provides an amazing feeling of freedom"
"But I don't want to hunt some innocent animal"
Girl "let's hunt a predator then . It's not so innocent "
Girl "let me get one to run I would call when it has started running "
Girl calls. They hunt a little. Naruto running over the trees.
The finally decide to attack the beast.
Guy stabs the beast but it starts yelping and guy starts feeling sympathy for it.
But girl insists that she should also atleast get one stab . Then she stabs a artery. Takes some blood on her hand.
Then she uses healing magic and let's it go.
Girl says that blood is really tasty. They drink a little.
After that guy says he wants to do something more innocent.
Girl suggests hide and seek through the forest.
Guy thinks how many years it has been since he last played hide and seek. Remembers childhood memory.
Then the girl hides.
Guy isn't able to find.
He sits near trunk of a tree.
Something bites playfully at his neck and pulls him to the pond. He falls in it.
He is started for a moment but seeing innocent childlike smile of girl calms him down.
Then they play chase.
Running over the branches.
They then get tired and girl uses wood magic to expand a branch and they sleep together under moonlight and stars on a tree.
The guy can just feel his stress fading away and being replaced by a feeling of warmth and home.
Magic also keeps mosquito away.
See this is romance. It feels alien innocent without making it look like that only thing two lovers can think of is each other.
I think what it boils down to, is character writing, as always. Which is more or less what I think you're hinting for.
I don't want to insult isekai as a genre, but the stories of such nature have, quite often, lacking characters.
Things that they lack?
Motivations. Quite often they lack this. I don't mind happy-go-lucky stories, but you want to feel a sense of purpose, of direction, when reading non slice-of-life.
Clear path of development. And this is what I find isekai characters lack the most. They change little, if at all. And often they don't need to, because they are without flaws to begin with. The purpose of a story, in my humble opinion, is the MC learning from it's mistakes.
Now imagine two deep characters, both with motivations for what they are doing. Both have flaws. In their time together, their flaws become apparent. This can put them into conflict with one another. But that also means that they have room to improve, and evolve together.
That is the true aspect of romance I believe. Not only the fluff.
Now lets talk about the pure-romance oriented isekai.
The problem I think many, like myself, have is that the only flaw, for instance male leads have in a story with female MC, is that the male lead has always the same flaw. He's abusive towards MC. And over time, he then becomes less so. While MC is created perfect.
But do you notice the mistake here? The MC being abusive isn't a flaw. It's an attitude. So he too is made perfect. A perfect asshole. And noone likes an asshole.
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So what's the solution? Experience. When I go back and try read my favourite fantasy trilogy from 15 years ago, I can't read it anymore. The characters are lacking the manner I mentioned.
And that is a result of getting older and gaining experience. I've read more, and seen more.
I believe that a lot of it has to do with writers lacking such experience. They are either young, haven't read enough, experienced enough, or been patient enough with their characters.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to hate on other writers, just recently beginning to write my first story myself.
Writers should write because they wish to. And learn from it. Sadly, it makes it difficult for those who are looking for deep quality writing. But who knows? The writer whose story is being critized for reasons stated, will write a gem you will enjoy some day. As long as their passion doesn't vane.
My apologies for the rant, and any hurt feelings.
