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By: Vrai Kaiser February 8, 20220 Comments

Fave Romantic Drama: Recency bias may be at work here (2018-19 was just yesterday, okay?), but probably Bloom Into You? As someone who's aroace, but still enjoys romance now and again, I'm partial to stories that don't present romantic love as fundamental to all life, but an element of some people's lives, pursued and defined as per their individualities. I love how YagaKimi devotes so much time to asking and examining what love is, presenting it as a feeling rather than an essence, how it can be both liberating and confining, how it shifts along time and situations, and how rationality and emotion aren't opposites on a binary, but simply perspectives and lenses that further tie into love, which may move from the mind to the heart or vice versa, or be stuck somewhere in the middle around your throat (poor Sayaka). Also, the bit where Maki explains his perspective on love helped me realize I was aroace myself, which cleared up a lot of personal doubts I was having, so I owe this wonderful story for helping me realize that romance isn't necessary, and can therefore be appreciated from a distance. Fave RomCom: Monthly Girls' Nozaki-kun! Every episode (and manga chapter) manages to make me laugh. It's just a bunch of sweet oddballs with tremendous bi energy, which is the essence of great romantic comedy. Fave Romance Subplot: Ange and Charlotte from Princess Principal, because they unite the two all-important sentiments of 'our society is rife with arbitrary and cruel divisions that we must overcome by thorough systemic reforms so that no one suffered as we did in our youth and the resources of this country are redistributed to those that need them most and 'in a world of lies, deceptions and danger, I'd bend heaven and earth to be with you'.

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