Warning: The following contains spoilers for Masamune-kun’s Revenge R, Episode 1, "The Wee Parisian Mademoiselle", now streaming on Crunchyroll.
The story of Masamune-kun’s Revenge revolves around a high school boy named Masamune Makabe. As a little boy, he was often bullied by his crush, a girl named Adagaki Aki, due to being chubby. Since then, Masamune works hard every day and manages to obtain a ripped body. Now, years later, Masamune gets into the same school as Aki, who no longer recognizes him, and plans to make her fall in love with him, and rejects her in the most embarrassing way possible. This is his revenge. At least that is the plan.
The first season ended up with barely any progress between Aki and Masamune’s romance. And now, the whole grade is on a study trip to Paris, the city of love, where Aki and Masamune stumble across a Parisian otaku, a girl named Muriel Besson, who wants to be a mangaka. She wants their advice on how to make a good rom-com manga. And that’s where the discussion becomes quite interesting.
Cultural Difference
We jumped into Masamune-kun’s Revenge R expecting a lighthearted rom-com with a simple story. Something you can watch without having to think too much about it. A popcorn anime, so to speak. As it turns out, we ended up leaving the first episode with an interesting food for thought.
When Aki and Masamune read Muriel’s rom-com manga, they think the story is a bit strange. Not because the art or the writing is bad, but it is actually because there is a fundamental difference in how both parties look at a romance story. To Masamune, the self-proclaimed shoujo manga expert, in order to create a great rom-com manga, the writer has to be a master teaser.
He excitedly says, “When it comes to rom-coms, once they both fall for each other, 80% of the story is over! Tease! Tease until you can tease no more!” In response to this, Murial innocently said that if the characters like each other, why not express that feeling? Let them confess their feelings, let them kiss, let them display their affection towards each other. Needless to say, none of them are inherently wrong, it's just a matter of cultural difference.
Examining The Essence Of a Rom-Com
Generally speaking, Japanese people are quite reserved, especially when it comes to sensitive feelings like love. On the other hand, most Europeans (and also most Westerners for that matter) are generally quite open when it comes to expressing their feelings. This fundamental difference influences how the two different groups of people convey their romance stories. At least that is the case in mainstream fiction. Needless to say, there are always people and stories that go against the norm once you look deeper into any place and culture.
As explained by Masamune, Japanese romantic comedies, and also the romance genre to some extent, tend to see the love confession and the two characters committing to a serious relationship as the end goal. Anything that comes before that is the meat and bone of the story. That is where the romance and the comedy happens. As Masamune said, once the characters explicitly expressed their love, that is about 80% of the story. That is the case in old anime like Fruit Basket, and that is also the case in the new one like Kaguya-sama: Love is War.
On the other hand, most Western’s romantic comedy stories, and also regular romance stories to some extent, tend to see the love confession as a simple part of a much larger story. As Muriel said, once the characters know that they are in love with each other and express those feelings properly, then the story can throw all kinds of obstacles in their way, either to test the strength of their relationship, or to make the dynamic of their relationship that much more interesting to see. That is basically the case in Disney’s classics like Cinderella, and also in a new feature film like Entergalactic.
Muriel’s Story Can Be More Interesting Than Masamune-kun’s Revenge
Masamune-kun’s Revenge is designed in the same way as any other Japanese romantic comedy anime. The structure of the story is basically the same as what Masamune describes in this episode, which is actually quite meta of him. Tease and tease until the characters eventually confess their love. At that point, we’ve reached about 80% of the story. And as mentioned earlier, this is the type of anime that you can enjoy without having to work your brain, which is the type of anime that is fun to see from time to time.
The story that Muriel has in her hand, however, can potentially be much more interesting than what Masamune-kun’s Revenge has to offer. A romantic comedy manga made with a European perspective. That would be extremely refreshing, don’t you agree? We get the usual heartwarming moments and lighthearted shenanigans of the usual rom-com manga, but the story is structured and told in a much freer and more dynamic way, just like most western style rom-coms.
There are two stories that use somewhat similar concepts that instantly come to mind, which are Horimiya and Wotakoi: Love is Hard for Otaku. Both of them are interesting and absolutely fun to watch. Hopefully, we get more stories like that in the future.