Love Stage!!

Happy LGBTQ+ Pride Month! In celebration, I’m reviewing one of the most beloved Shounen-ai anime from 2014. Love Stage!! ... … … *Trigger warnings: Homophobia, transphobia, sexual assault, victim-blaming.* Once upon a time, your average ~straight~ teenage boy awakens from his bed and greets his idol, Lala Lulu. Izumi, the boy in question, lives with his family of actors and musicians. They constantly put pressure on him to become an entertainer, to his dismay. Izumi is an introverted otaku who dreams of becoming a famous mangaka. Despite wanting to move in a separate direction, he is dragged into showbiz by his family. When I first watched Love Stage as ateen, I thought this would be a coming-of-age story about a boy who achieves his dreams and embraces his sexuality. Oh, how wrong I was. Ten years ago, Izumi starred in a wedding commercial with Ryouma Ishijou, a now-famous actor. Back then, he played a girl due to his feminine features. When they first met, Ryouma fell in love with Izumi’s femininity and beautiful eyes. In the present, they reprise their roles for a new wedding commercial. Once they meet again, Ryouma confesses his feelings because he assumed Izumi was a woman. The two believed they were straight, but their feelings are strong enough to kindle a romance. They enter into a complicated relationship in which Ryouma stalks and sexually assaults Izumi until he ‘becomes gay.’ This is all framed as romantic, cute, and sexy. After all, this is a boys love anime; therefore, it adheres to the most toxic and homophobic cliches ingrained in the genre. Note: Love Stage frustratingly never acknowledges bisexuality exists. Izumi is assigned the submissive uke role (he doesn’t get a choice). Conversely, Ryouma assumes the dominant seme role. In the traditional yaoi erotica, the seme is aggressive and creepy, Ryouma lives up to those expectations. Whereas Izumi is helpless when confronted with emotional and sexual abuse. Ryouma stalks Izumi at school and home by manipulating his family’s trust, as a child groomer would. When Izumi finally calls Ryouma a creep, he apologizes profusely, guilt-trips him, then showers him with shallow compliments until Izumi forgives him. Of course, all that is manipulative bullshit because he kisses Izumi while he’s sleeping in the next scene. Mainstream audiences comprised of mostly straight men and women agree Love Stage is ‘pretty good for a gay anime.’ At the same time, most LGBTQ+ people strongly dislike it, as we should. If Ryouma wasn’t a “hot” and wealthy celebrity, no one would defend their relationship. Stereotypical portrayals of gay characters in anime have desensitized people to homophobic tropes since the inception of boys love manga. The absurd premise forces the ~straight~ men together like two north-pole magnets. Rather than developing a realistic romance like Given and Bloom Into You, it panders to the lowest common denominator with romanticized homophobia. Including both men being disgusted upon realizing they kissed a man. Ryouma insults Izumi for being a “Cross-dressing pervert” as if we needed more clues he’s homophobic. Implying people who try to pass as women are perverts attempting to trick men is also an argument used by transphobic people. There’s only one transgender woman in the cast—an unnamed hairdresser with a stereotypical transphobic character. She is voiced by a man in both the Japanese and English versions. Her only comments are to sexually objectify Izumi. The show continues to be transphobic and homophobic. Occasionally both in the same scene, remarkable! Izumi’s manager, Rei, is also gay. He is supposedly brilliant but frequently allows Ryouma to be alone with Izumi. Which often leads to sexual assault. Throughout the show, various contrived situations force Izumi and Ryouma together. The anime even pokes fun at these deus ex machinas. It is aware of how cliche it is but not aware enough to subvert cliches. Simply doing the trope repeatedly is not the same as parody, satire, or subversion. After Izumi’s first sexual assault, Rei consoles him by confessing his previous forays as a confused homosexual. He describes being gay as “A mosquito that needs to be squashed before it becomes a monster.” Rei pridefully claims homosexuality is a phase that gay people can suppress with effort. These are the same manipulative arguments homophobes use to justify conversion therapy: a variety of harmful practices that target LGBTQ+ people to change their sexuality or gender identity. It often leads to anxiety, depression, and possibly suicide. Not only is Rei’s advice wrong, but it is also dangerous and shows an offensive lack of awareness on the writer’s part. Rei is not a villain; instead, he’s framed as a mentor and treated as though his homophobic beliefs are valid. Izumi’s brother is gay as well, and he’s in a scandalous relationship with Rei. His brother has a not-so-subtle incestuous crush on Izumi and blames his cuteness for why Ryouma attempts to sexually assault him. Again, this is not targeted at the people who it’s about: gay men. It is almost fetishistic how Izumi and Ryouma reject their sexuality. Both make it clear they’re suffering from internalized homophobia, seemingly treated as a cute tongue-in-cheek joke. The only way you know they’re making a ‘joke’ is with the same goofy song and chibi art, regardless of how awful the situation really is. Homosexuality is treated like a dirty secret that everyone must hide, and they do. To the public, they are just “good friends,” and the only openly gay men are stereotypical predators (Including a scene in episode 10 when random men nearly rape Izumi, but it is played off as a joke). The only jokes that made me crack a smile were Izumi’s dream sequences about his idol Lala Lulu. The few female characters are shoujo stereotypes—screeching harpies who fetishize both Ryouma and Izumi. The only exception is Izumi’s mother, who is arguably worse than a non-entity because she doesn’t protect him from his predatory boyfriend and forces him to become an actor. His father is equally to blame for Izumi’s lack of autonomy. The art is what you’d expect. Like most boys love anime adaptations, it was made on a shoestring budget, with not much animation and very bland backgrounds. For 2014, it looks serviceable. The character designs live up to yaoi manga, thin guys with identical body types and abnormally pointy chins. As for the music, the opening and ending are pretty catchy. At first, the soundtrack distracted me from the appalling dialogue. Each background song was repeated over and over until it became mind-numbing. Love Stage is a repugnant anime, but the perfect example of everything wrong with boys love anime. It is stereotypical, homophobic, offensive, and it romanticizes abusive relationships. There’s nothing romantic about this bizarre romcom that seems to care more about condemning homosexuality rather than convincing us these two polar opposite men are genuinely in love.

This is now one of my favourite animes, this is my first review so bare with me, I've never felt like writing one til i watched this anime. As a fan of yaoi/shounen ai this was a breath of fresh air as it's so hard to find decent animes in this genre because there are little to choose from and they're lacking in every department. This is a -absolute must- watch for fans of the yaoi and shounen-ai, but also i would highly recommend it for those new to it and want to check it out, it would make a good starter into these genresbecause it's quite cute, nice animation, likeable characters, good development in only 11 episodes and also it's quite tame when it comes to the sexual things compared to other ones like Junjou Romantica, yet it's still enough too excited about. Izumi stared in a wedding commerical with Ryouma when they were younger and since then Ryouma has loved her..ahem him... ever since. Later they meet in a reunion commercial and Ryouma's love is releaved.. and so is Izumi's real gender, but that doesn't stop his love. And so Ryouma pursues Izumi. Izumi plays the Uke, he's very cute, and loveable i just wanted to squeeze him to bits. Ryouma as a famous actor I wasn't expecting him to be a such a lovable character. He was so sweet, caring and kind.. it was cute seeing what love does to him, he was the kind of guy I would want as my man. Overall I really liked them as a couple. The supporting charcaters were great aswell, especially Izumi's brother he's quite funny. Though there's only 11 episodes I was worried no way that's enough and I'll be disappointed cause it will leave me hanging incomplete. But actually it developed further than I thought in such the short time it was nice. Unlike other romance animes you have to wait for 24+ episodes just for a confession or even a kiss. I was excited for each episode and how it'd progress next. The art was nice and especially the detail in Izumi eyes, so pretty. Only bad thing was lets say Izumi is walking down the street.. he will be detailed and everything but all the background people are whited out figures like ghosts or something which was a bit lazy. There's not really any music in the anime it'self other than the OP and ED, they're really catchy I would always sit through them, usually I skip through the Op and ED on animes and get straight to watching the anime. Only downside was that Izumi is a hardout fan of a anime La la Lulu which i found a bit childish but it goes with his cute character but after awhile it was bit annoying, especially that La La Lulu alarm clock omg lol. But it effected the anime to where there were La La Lulu scenes.. some which toke minutes that I had to skip and I didn't see the point of myself and just wasted the screen time. Make sure you watch the OVA aswell for a total of 11 episodes. Though i wish there was more - there's alot of potiental for 2nd season, though the 11 are still satisfying. Overall don't miss out on this anime even if you don't watch shounen-ai, this is a good place to start especially if you're into the romance genre. I tend to watch only romance animes and the romance in this anime was great it got me excited and fangirling on the other side of the screen. So give it ago you won't regret it :)

As with any genre, yaoi/shounenai is often criticized by people who doesn't like it. Actually shounen ai (and shoujo ai too) is mostly the same as ANY romantic comedy anime out there, the only difference is that the main couple features homoromantic characters, which tends to scare off straight viewers. The thing with "Love Stage!!", what makes it so special, it's that for some reason it seems to have broken that genre barrier, and a big part of their viewers are straight male people who don't usually watch shounenai/yaoi shows. The premise of the story is very simple: Ryouma, a famous actor, fellin love with a girl when he was a child and has been obsessed with her memory since then, and once he meets 'her' again, now as a young adult, he discovers 'she' was actually a him: Izumi, a clumsy otaku with a showbusiness family. What makes it SO good is both the comedic value, because the story is tremendously HILARIOUS, and the characters itself, which are really very well developed in just a few episodes. The art is pretty cool, nothing out of the "shoujo norm", but myself, i love the character design a lot. But i'm biased because i really love Zaou Taishi's drawing style. So, i must say that if you are a fujoshi/fudanshi or a person who appreciates the genre just like me, this is a MUST watch. If you are a viewer who usually doesn't like yaoi/shounenai, or you haven't watch one ever, i will give it a try. Odds are you are going to like it... and if not, at least it's worth the laughs.

THIS REVIEW CONTAINS SOME SPOILERS, READ AT YOUR OWN RISK Love stage is a Shounen-ai anime. Most of the male population really won't enjoy this but it's mostly for girls. The anime is really good and was enjoyable with Comedy, Romance, Drama etc... Story -8 Story's pretty good. Izumi wants to become a manga artist. His family is in show biz and so they want him to enter the show biz world. Note that he is only in college. He is often mistaken for a girl because of his cute looks and such. Ryouma, our main male character number 2, mistook him for a girl when they hadto do a commercial when they were young. After meeting 10 years later, Ryouma still has feelings, even after finding out Izumi was a guy. Izumi struggles to draw manga. It gets rejected and gets into despair. I really like Izumi's character development through out the show. He slowly realizes his feelings for Ryouma and gets into show biz in the end. Art - 8 Art is beautiful but there were times were the art was iffy but it's good overall. Sound 9 I love the OP and END. There both really amazing and also the background music Character 9 Characters are great as well. A lot of development with Ryouma and Izumi. Shougo, Izumi's brother who is a musician, has some secret affair going on with Rei, the Sena family's manager. But no one really actually realizes it unless you really pay attention. Izumi's parents are side characters and so are his friends. Most characters get a development. Enjoyment 10 It was really enjoyable. It made me laugh. There was some sexual moments and they were steamy. The drama is good and they left us some cliffhangers. Romance is beautiful as well. Though no one knows Izumi and Ryouma are gay hehe. Overall this anime is great. If you're a yaoi lover than give it a watch, you'll love it. If you're a guy and watch Yaoi then I also recommend it. It's not as amazing compared to Sekaiichi Hatsukoi, but it's close. There isn't a lot of intimate scenes, maybe few. Unlike most of them that are M ;) So give it a watch, and I'm sure you will like it, unless you hate Yaoi dont bother watching.