This time around, there were two R-R topics to choose from. The first being Rape Fantasies and the second (the one I chose) the OTHER guy. The thought of writing about how I feel about Rape Fantasies scares me so I went for the second topic. I’ve been wanting to write about this particular cliché for a while ever since I did the Sleepy Kiss post.
The OTHER Man
More often than not, one of the walls the main couple has to climb before reaching the Happy Ending is “the OTHER guy“. Said OTHER guy always tends to be the complete polar opposite of the original guy and since the original is an asshole most of the time, the OTHER guy is the Ideal (the embodiment of perfection). Despite being the Ideal, the OTHER guy is always left behind because the girl ends up choosing the original guy.
Sigh.
This is probably the cliché that annoys me the most. The first series that comes to mind when I think of “the OTHER guy” is Brillant Magic. Just thinking about it has me going “Why the FUCK did I even read that series?” It isn’t often I bash and hate a series but Brillant Magic just plain sucked. Basically, the girl starts dating the guy of her dreams but then realizes that she likes the other guy who’s the total asshole. Most of time, I have absolutely no complaint about the guys themselves (even the asshole). It’s not their fault. The person I’ve got beef with is the girl. I wouldn’t have hated her as much if she DIDN’T date the guy. What pissed me off was how she dates him and THEN realizes she likes the other one. But whatever.
Sigh’s Kiss
I’m not saying I hate these type of love triangles.
Shinshi Doumei Cross had Taka-kun and Shizun and I had no complaint about Haine choosing Taka-kun over Shizun. And there’s also Sigh’s Kiss (by Yamakami Riyu) who had Tatsuya and Tanabe. I had not complained once how Akira chose Tanabe (who’s the embodiment of the word “asshole”) over kind and responsible Tatsuya.
What I’m trying to say is that its the execution that matters with any cliché no matter how used and annoying said cliché might be.
But why don’t the nice guys ever win?
I think it’s that it’s because their the “nice guy” that they don’t win. They are kinder and more considerate than the end guy and often they let the girl go because they want her to be happy even if it isn’t with him. I’m not saying they always bid her “good luck and farewell” with a smile on their face. Most of the time, they struggle and try until the very end (even doing really horrible things disgraceful to the label “nice guy”) but they know that they’ve lost. Unlike the end guy, the nice guys are little more rational and can admit defeat (albeit sometimes bitterly). Ha, admirable aren’t they?
Who would I choose?
It’d really depend on the character themselves. It doesn’t matter if his label says “asshole” or “nice guy” it’s their character that really matters. If I had to choose between Taka-kun and Shizun, I’d pick Taka-kun. But then again SDC is a pretty complicated example since both Taka and Shizun showed their “dark sides”. If I had to choose between Tanabe and Tatsuya, then I’d pick Tatsuya but with them it wouldn’t really matter who I pick because their gay. That’s all to say that my choice would depend on how the character grows over the series.
If we’re talking RL, I’ve never fallen for a nice guy. But I guess that’s biased considering how I’m 15 and only fell in love twice. At least, neither guys fell into the asshole category either.
The Heroine
Rather than the guy being at fault, it is still the heroine’s choice to pick. I don’t often read shoujo manga (or manga at all for that matter) and I’m lacking in examples to use. I haven’t finished Furuba, but I’ll still use it since I’ve got nothing else. In Furuba, there’s Kyo and Yuki where Tohru picked Kyo in the end despite all the crap he does to her. Okay, so maybe Kyo isn’t a total asshole and is just bad at expressing his feelings because of his messed up childhood. But then Yuki’s the same isn’t he?
I think the reason Tohru chose Kyo was because she felt that Kyo needed her more. Meh, what all the girls want in shoujo is to be needed. Or maybe its because they prefer to take care than to be taken care of.
But I’m generalizing. There are some girls that wake up and realize that they aren’t making themselves any happier. At the moment, I can think of Kyoko from Skip Beat! who went as far as wanting to get revenge on Sho (who is the king of assholes maybe only after Sasuke) …
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Luckily for me, it isn’t often I stumble upon manga with a heroine weak enough to stay with the asshole. Sure, it’d be fine if said asshole was just being tsundere about the whole matter (Like Kyo) but if he were like Sho or Sasuke then I’d just feel bad for her. It’d be a great world if all the girls could realize they deserve someone better than that.
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Links out!
Hinano – Frustration with Shoujo
Sakura – Shoujo Cliché, the Other Man
Ria – GOOD BOY v.s BAD BOY
Blissmo – [AGRR] Shoujo Cliché: The OTHER Man – What about him?
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Death by Moe 
I was hoping someone would bring up Kyoko during all of this (I would, but I’m sitting out for both topics this round). Kyoko is the anti-shoujo heroine and I love her for it! This manga definitely won’t let the asshole win.
But the Taka-kun, Haine, Shizumasa love triangle is a confusing one. No clear “bad boy” or anything. Which just causes me to give more blatant fangirl love to Arina-sensei.
But good point with nice guys not winning because they give up the girl. I think that does happen fairly often.
Nice post and yes that was a great point about the good guys giving up, I didn’t even think of that.
They are just way too nice for their own good sometimes!
great post! though i’ve never read or watched the titles you mentioned with the exception of furuba… well, i like kyo. but i never really saw your point about why tohru chose him until you pointed it out. but now that i think about it, it seems that the girls in shoujo tend to lean towards the guy who seem to need them more. it seems that the one with the most baggage wins… i always see on final episodes that the OTHER guy always just smiles fondly at the two… which most of the time sucks.
[…] checked it out you might want to read Hinano’s post on this. Blissmo’s post on this Saimaisama’s post on this Ria’s post on […]
Yay! Another high school anime fan (you’re just a year younger, though). But I do get quite disgusted with how shoujo anime pick the jerkwad over the saintly soulmate. Whenever I watch or read anime, the first guy I see acting like an asshole to main girl is usually the one I figure she’s going to end up with. Skip Beat! is the only one I can think of (off the top of my skull) that probably won’t end that way (but Ren acted like a prick to Kyoko, yet he was kind of being a prick because he didn’t want her to waste others’ time to just get revenge on some asshole.)
@ fuyumaiden: That’s what’s so awesome ’bout Arina! Her characters never fit to a tee with certain labels. XD
@biankita: I HATE it when the ending has the nice guy smiling at the happy idiot couple.
@cristina: I’ll shoot someone if Ren doesn’t win out in the end. Sho’s just a selfish bastard that deserves to rot in the deepest depths of hell.
The thing about Tohru, is that she always adored the cat more than any of the other animals of the Zodiac. And this is before she even met Kyo. Remember when Tohru had the talk with her mother about the zodiac animals? So you can say that her attraction to Kyo is more pity than anything. So yes, Tohru leaned more towards the guy that needed her more. I mean, Yuki has a whole fan club at school to run to if he get’s lonely!
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