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In the case of the ML, he has been stripped down to his most basic form: has a name, barely a face, and a modifier to the base personality of "somewhat kind". Oftentimes this modifier is simply "otaku" to prevent alienating an otaku audience.

We then have the FML, who has instead been assembled into the widest-appealing fetishistic ideal. She is a sister but a girlfriend, an otaku but a gyaru, provocative but chaste. Much like ML, she's no longer an actual character, but through opposite means.

To me, this is a symptom of art's plight under modern capitalism. The audience no longer looks at art for emotional fulfillment, but rather as masturbation. It is simple consumption to them, much like McDonald's or a 2000 calorie Crumbl cookie. And what does this mean for the author? The author is incentivized not to create mindful art, not to pull from lived human experience, but to look only at other media.

Audiences don't want real and nourishing, they want quick and easy... or rather, they've been conditioned to want that. As a result, many a romance manga are now trapped in a simulacrum, slop imitating slop imitating slop imitating slop ad infinitum.

In other words, romance mangaka need to watch Toradora and enact revolutionary change on the genre.

Endnote: It ain't actually that serious lmao

The ideal is your sister... do people not dislike incest...

Most people who fetishize sisters don't actually have sisters. The magic 8 ball I shake for media analysis tells me that the point of the little sister type heroine is to give the audience a character who is affectionate from the start, without the need for additional investment. And also, the taboo element.

I hate to say it but when readers get to a certain age they gotta stop reading shounen and shoujo and move on to seinen and josei.

What in the flying fuckery is the fucking fucked up fuck?

@Azeban I agree, though I still think there are a few gems in shounen and shoujo... but I've also seen shit that's as horrific in seinen romances

I haven't read too much josei though.

@NotaNuffian The world is a fuck, buddy.

benis

Woah, that's a hot take. I wouldn't go that far.

@ShrimpShady I felt the Habsburgs were nodding when the phrase "sister and girlfriend" was muttered.

Shivers on my spine man

That and doing underaged girls that also send me recoiling.

Hedonism is very popular nowdays.

@NotaNuffian Reading the panel felt like getting pepper sprayed ngl.

@RepresentingGreed Folks need to start having genuine, meaningful, and life-affirming experiences

Incest is Wincest. But jokes aside, please don't do incest it's technically a crime.