Miki's Journal

This is something I've been idly thinking about for a while now and kinda want to put into words. It's just gonna be a dumb little post about my personal preference in otome games, their heroines, and the way the heroes act towards them.

To say it simply, I like heroines who are capable of accomplishing things by themselves, and heroes who recognise and respect their strength.

The hero respecting that strength is the most important part of this for me. I always end up sighing when an otome game has a strong heroine and then one or more of the heroes basically just go "You're a girl so you're supposed to just stand back and be protected by me, the man." I know there are girls who like that feeling of being protected by the big strong boy, but that really isn't for me. Nothing makes my heart flutter more than when the heroine and one of the boys are in a tough situation and they both equally have each other's backs.

Thinking about it just earlier today, I realised that my favorite heroes from 3 out of 4 of the main Neoromance series (excluding Clavis) are all like this.

My favorite from the Haruka series, Ridvan. He's very strong and determined to protect Nozomi, but instead of purely using his strength to protect her, he uses what he's learned to train her to be able to protect herself and hold her own in combat. And my favorite from the Corda series, Myouga. He recognises Kanade's skill/potential and views her as his arch nemesis. His greatest rival. And my favorite from Geten no Hana, Ranmaru. He grows to really respect Hotaru's swordsmanship and there was at least one scene that the two fought having each others' backs and it was so nice.

And then I think back to when I read some of Hakuouki. It's been many years since I read it so I could be remembering wrong but... I just get frustrated thinking about it because there was sooo much potential for Chizuru(the protag) to become strong and help the Shinsengumi, But she just..... Didn't. I vaguely recall there being a part at least half way through the game that Chizuru thought she wished there was something she could do to help them. Maybe if you started trying earlier instead of just sitting around all the time you could have done something Chizuru!!!! I don't want to get into spoilers but let's just say that because of what Chizuru is, she had the potential to feasibly be stronger than any of the men who were protecting her. Again, if I'm remembering right.

I see people calling the Neoromance games 古臭い(too old fashioned) here and there, but they're well ahead of the rest in having strong female characters, and male characters who respect that. At least from my experiences.