Other love stories you read before Katawa Shoujo

[Potato]

It wasn't even that though. It's the fact that people hail it as the greatest, most romantic love story of all time. That's completely missing the point. Friar Laurence even warns them that they're going way too fast, not because of their age, but because they barely freaking know each other and are already banging and trying to get married and run away and ready to kill themselves based on pretty much surface attraction alone. The whole idea was that they WEREN'T really in love.

Wasn't the point a cautionary tale about how you should just shut the fuck up and listen to your parents or you'll end up dead?

Best joke in any sitcom ever:

"We'll be like Romeo and Juliet!"

"...You never got to the end, did you?"

[FelOnyx]

And dead in the middle of the Black Death at that, and in Italy, one of the most affected areas.
But yeah, it goes to show you, "damn kids these days, havin' sex at 14" is older than Shakespeare.

It wasn't even that though. It's the fact that people hail it as the greatest, most romantic love story of all time. That's completely missing the point. Friar Laurence even warns them that they're going way too fast, not because of their age, but because they barely freaking know each other and are already banging and trying to get married and run away and ready to kill themselves based on pretty much surface attraction alone. The whole idea was that they WEREN'T really in love.

Very true, whenever I hear anyone describe a relationship as "Just like Romeo and Juliet!" I find it very hard not to reply "How, shallow and ending in double scuicide?" It was definitely the opposite of any kind of romantic ideal, and that indeed seems to be the exact point Shakespeare was making. I can just never pass up a chance to point out how "Kids these days" are the same as kids those days, which the work also shows, although I agree that their age, or rather Juliet's age, as Romeo was of an entierly reasonable age for such things, which really just makes things worse, is not the main point.

[KeiichiO]

Well, there's Romeo and Juliet, if that counts. (More of a tragedy, really)

That's about it. I'm not really into gushy stuff like that, unless it's pulled off superbly.

[Atario]

But yeah, it goes to show you, "damn kids these days, havin' sex at 14" is older than Shakespeare.

Read that as "havin' sex at fourteen inches" and got really confused for a sec.

people hail it as the greatest, most romantic love story of all time

"Romantic" does mean more than lovey-dovey-ness, though, and certainly more than being sensible about love. Namely, idealism, adventure, chivalry, etc.

[SpunkySix]

people hail it as the greatest, most romantic love story of all time

"Romantic" does mean more than lovey-dovey-ness, though, and certainly more than being sensible about love. Namely, idealism, adventure, chivalry, etc.

True. I just have a hard time accepting that as a positive in this context.

OH WELL, MOVING ON.

[KeiichiO]

It wasn't even that though. It's the fact that people hail it as the greatest, most romantic love story of all time.

Do people really? Because it wasn't really meant to be a romance. It was written to show how stupid young love can be, and the end is an extreme example of where that blind love can take you. Romeo and Juliet literally have no chemistry together. They just feed off the thrill of meeting behind their parent's backs. If there was no thrill factor, (and they didn't kill themselves at the end) they'd probably get bored with each other, and break up eventually.

[gekiganwing]

I started delving into romance comics just a couple years after I discovered there were comics about topics other than costumed heroes. A few indie romance comics held my interest for a while: the first book of Red String, an early volume of Strangers in Paradise, and the last few issues of Shades of Gray Comics and Stories. Some translated series became my favorites: Maison Ikkoku, a seinen demographic series that's somewhere between sitcom and soap opera, Kimikiss Various Heroines, which devoted one volume to each romance option, Kodocha, which had less humorous antics than its animated adaptation but still remained amusing, and Nodame Cantabile, which set up two clearly flawed people and made them the main couple.

It was easy for me to associate visual novels with porn games in the early 2000s, when there was not much else available in English. Thankfully, I started finding different things a few years later. A Midsummer Day's Resonance was worksafe, avoided including a love polygon or a harem, had an unconventional couple, and was just a story with a beginning and an ending. Yo-Jin-Bo had some serious flaws, but for me, it was the first step into the larger world of girl x boy romance VNs. Finally, even though I didn't care for the polygon graphics, I appreciated two things that Virtually Date Ariane did: present a couple who were clearly adults, and use interesting moment-by-moment pacing so that no scene dragged on. So yeah, I've liked quite a few romance games and visual novels. Not sure if I have a favorite...

A few years ago, I read Smart Bitches, Trashy Books. It provided humor and some insight into romance novels for adult women. I checked today, and the website related to the book continues to be updated. I haven't read a romance novel just yet. However, I would probably benefit by putting aside my macho BS and cynical assumptions, and just giving one a chance.

There are some other media formats for which I haven't really given romance fiction a chance just yet, such as movies and gamebooks. Again, I should place my expectations aside and try them out.

[Munchenhausen]

I haven't really read many love stories, unless you count countless fluffy oneshots of varying fandoms. If so, I have read many.
As much as a reluctant and/or blossoming relationship is my one true weakness, I really don't have the motivation to read a book all by myself. Unless it has pictures.

So besides numerous short fanfics, I guess I've only really read the obligatory English-Literature Lesson books... Romeo and Juliet, A View From The Bridge and Othello, to name a few I remember that had romantic themes.

Also what do you guys reckon about The Faults In Our Stars?
I haven't read it, but it seems to me to be a new Fifty Shades Of Grey in the sense that everyone regards this one book as a sort of completely new genre.
I remember people flipped a shit about Fifty Shades, as if nobody had ever written detailed sex scenes before... TFIOS appears the same, but with tragedy instead.

[AussieInquisitor]

"What the <blank> is this trash?" - My first thoughts on hearing the hype about 50SOG.

Anyways, I hadn't read romance novels - never got into the genre, myself, and I had averted it like the bulbonic plague. However, before KS, I had read of some romance sub-plots within other works.

Some of them, in my opinion, were good or, rather, had extolled ideals about what a "good", committed love would entail (eg: Beren and Luthien, Aragon and Arwen - both from Tolkien's works).

Others, like Helen and Paris from Homer's Illiad, implied the negative sides of misplaced lust. Case in point, if we were to take the Illiad at face value, because Paris of Troy lusted after Helen, he kidnapped/eloped her from her native land (with or without her consent, mind!), brought a joint Hellenic army to his father's doorstep by said incident and his brother gets killed. All culminating in Odysseus' famous ruse and Troy getting wiped off the map in one night.

Need I go on? Because it seems like Paris didn't stop to think what his destructive desire would bring down on his people's heads!

[Potato]

Fifty Shades Of Grey in the sense that everyone regards this one book as a sort of completely new genre.

...Wait, what? Are people really that dense and sheltered? Fifty Shades is just written porn, nothing new. Anne Rice did it with a Disney character.

[KeiichiO]

Fifty Shades Of Grey in the sense that everyone regards this one book as a sort of completely new genre.

...Wait, what? Are people really that dense and sheltered? Fifty Shades is just written porn, nothing new. Anne Rice did it with a Disney character.

It's also Twilight fan-fiction. I'm not even fucking kidding.

[ogorhan]

I dont think I ever read a love story before KS so I was very suprised that I liked it so I think in the future I might read some more similar ones. I even dl'ed narcissu and true remembrance mentioned in the reccomend a VN thread but havent even started them yet, feeling a bit reluctant after finishing KS and feeling sad and bit emotional afterwards for a few weeks.

[SpunkySix]

Fifty Shades Of Grey in the sense that everyone regards this one book as a sort of completely new genre.

...Wait, what? Are people really that dense and sheltered? Fifty Shades is just written porn, nothing new. Anne Rice did it with a Disney character.

It's also Twilight fan-fiction. I'm not even fucking kidding.

I want to punch every dumbass that was involved in deciding that such a thing deserved even the slightest bit of media attention, let alone a freaking movie.

[Steinherz]

Fifty Shades Of Grey in the sense that everyone regards this one book as a sort of completely new genre.

...Wait, what? Are people really that dense and sheltered? Fifty Shades is just written porn, nothing new. Anne Rice did it with a Disney character.

It's also Twilight fan-fiction. I'm not even fucking kidding.

Started as Twilight kink fanfiction.
Then the author was like "Hey, I could file the serial numbers off and make a shitton of money" and proceeded to do just that.

Also, 50 Shades is NOT a good idea of BDSM.
At all.

[Forever_ambivalent]

Fifty shades of grey is a piece of shit that should have remained a peace of shit.
I guess some people like shit though. Especially in the modern world