#shonen romance

[marcianaart]

Some promises of the heart can be eternal like love.

[shoujoteatime]

loving them~ ₊˚⊹♡ ‧₊˚ ⋅

[manikas-whims]

I cannot believe..

Andy and Fuuko went from that crazy motorcycle trip where they bump into Shen & Void..

..to happily getting married and riding off together on a motorcycle 🥹🤌

Undead Unluck really gave me one of the most satisfying endings in shonen mangas..♡

[eau--de--rose]

[witch--btch]

Reminder that we will see THESE CUTIES animated soon!!♡

- A Fragrant Flower Blooms with Dignity / Kaoru hana wa Rin to saku

[tanz423]

Everyone thinks the shonen rivals are gay, but they're not. They're actually aroace, and are in a queerplatonic relationship

[kopykunoichi]

Stumbled on this old reddit post and decided to go track down this novel for myself. I just bought a copy. I'll have to run it through Google translate or some other AI because I can't read Japanese, but I tested translating a few screenshots of it and it read very smoothly in English.

Here's some highlight from the article and my thoughts:

It definitely seems like this novel is considered canon to Oda, since he had a hand in it and he has included content that he had to cut from the OG story, but was later added as filler. I'm assuming he read it before it was published, so whatever made it through the final cuts was approved by him.

I'm very interested in the extra scenes with Smoker and Tashigi. I love that it clarifies that Tashigi was the first one to defeat Billy the Orca and take his sword. Smoker just finished him off.

Having already read translations of this portion of the novel, this isn't surprising, but it's nice to see that the casual reader is picking up on it, too. It's so blatant, you can't not see it. This is Zoro we're talking about, after all - if he's blushing and his heart is beating faster and he's connecting his own reaction to *feelings*, this is a big deal.

I also like how the author adds that as the story progresses, Zoro is already seeing Tashigi's dissimilarities to Kuina and recognizing her uniqueness. And, for her part, Tashigi is already realizing he's not like other pirates.

This ☝️is important. I hear so many people talking about how weak Tashigi is because she loses fights. But her sword skill is very real. Is she ever going to be a threat to Zoro? Of course not. He's a beast, and neither one of them *actually* have any bloodlust toward each other. Maybe some other sort of lust...

I mean, come on, this is the image of Zoro that lives rent free in Tashigi's head after their first encounter.

Did you catch that? Let's slow it down.

Anyway, I digress. Tashigi has very good technical skill, but lacks the stamina to last long against Zoro, who also has skill, good instincts, and vastly superior strength. But it's important to note that he was having to work hard in their first encounter, because that formed the foundation of his respect for her.

Their first fight is, in many ways, the inevitable conclusion of all his fights with Kuina. Had she lived, he would have eventually had a duel with her that ended the same way his duel with Tashigi ended.

But with Tashigi, there is no sense of triumph. There is no pleasure in it for him; no satisfaction. Kuina died undefeated and that image of her has remain undisturbed in his head. But then, this woman - who reminds him of Kuina in looks, attitude, and skill - falls to him. The victory is hollow. It's like he finally beat Kuina, but he didn't.

And what's worse for him, he's finding himself feeling attracted to this woman who reminds him of his childhood friend...except for her glasses, and her girly blouses, and her nerdy little sword book, and her adorable clumsiness, and her feminine curves, and her determination to take noteworthy swords out of the hands of those who are undeserving of them, and the fact that she's a Marine whose sworn duty it is to pursue him.

But even with all those conflicting feelings and strong emotions that confuse the hell out of him, he does respect her. And as time goes on and they have more encounters with each other, that respect is shown to be mutual.

The attraction is there from the first encounter for both of them, as showcased by the novel's description of his physiological reactions to her, and by her mental image of him later in the show, complete with the slow pan up his chiseled body, and that wolfish grin on his face.

The beginnings of the mutual respect is also established at their first meeting, and becomes solidified in Punk Hazard. I'll write more analysis of that arc at another time. But the groundwork for mutual attraction and respect is established on day one of them meeting. And those are the ingredients for a healthy relationship.

I firmly believe that Tashigi's character was written specifically to be Zoro's endgame relationship. Her contribution to the overall plot of the story is negligible, except for where her story intersects with his. She is repeatedly depicted as his weakness; the one person he can't fight. She unsettles him and he finds that terrifying, so he runs away at first. Then later we see him worried about her, while at the same time calling her annoying (Sasusaku, anyone?). We see him protecting her, but giving her space to do her own thing, because he respects her.

I'm telling y'all, these are the sort of tropes that shonen writers eat up when they're setting up their endgame ships. Shonen doesn't focus on romance, but the writers aren't blind to it, either. Often, they have a clear idea from the beginning who they're going to bring together in the end. Back in the day when I was watching Bleach and Naruto as they were first airing, I called the main ships really early on in the series. Naruto/Hinata, Sasuke/Sakura, Ichigo/Orihime, and Renji/Rukia came as zero surprise to me. I was legit surprised at how many people didn't see it coming. I could do a whole post on Tashigi/Renji and Zoro/Rukia parallels, because there are a LOT.

I would be very surprised if we get to the end of One Piece and Oda doesn't bring Zoro and Tashigi together as a couple. She's the only person that he seems remotely attracted to out of all the characters he is shipped with, and Oda has taken pains to establish a strong mutual respect between them. Zoro simply wouldn't be in a relationship with someone he didn't respect for both their skills and their values, and Tashigi checks both those boxes.

[untilyouremember]

Insomniacs After School by Makoto Ojito is a great series about two teens who bond over sleepless nights, the sky and photography. The scenery in this is off the charts, though I could be biased since I LOVE space panels. A bit of a slow burn romance but I really found myself cheering for them, hoping that they get all the good things in the world.