Grotesque jealousy in romance comics, anime, etc

[unknown_user]

What do you think about grotesque jealousy in romantic plots?
Like "Holy shit, he looked at another girl's boobs... He will regret it."

• It's annoying
• It's relatable
• It's funny
• It's interesting under some conditions (list, which ones...)

Show results

[AbelDraws]

Voted that it's annoying, because generally it is, a lot. Right now I can't recall an ocassion I enjoyed a character like that x'D I'm positive there must be stories out there that handle the topic in an interesting way tho.

[sarrowsmith10]

I think mild jealousy is interesting, especially when its a misunderstanding (isn't that like the trope of tropes in romance?). But one partner getting over the top crazy mad jealous over something, especially if its small, screams toxic behavior to me and I can do without that.

[Kann]

I think it's annoying but mostly because I find it annoying in the real life. Though I think I could get into a story with someone this jealous if there were reasons for their behavior (still annoying and doesn't justify anything but at least readers know what made them be like that). If it's used as a joke or something that's supposed to be "cute", then a story gets big nope from me.

[unknown_user]

For me personally, it's annoying.
It could be suitable for comedies... if only it wouldn't be such a banal cliche.
If talking about more-or-less serious plots, it irritates me even more.
It may be interesting, if jealousy is really justified by the behaviour of one from couple (so it looks more-or-less adequate), and if it leads to interesting plot twist... i.e. if it's well-written and serves a purpose. But unfortunately, it's rarely a case.
Besides, it feels like many authors (and readers) think that jelaousy is inherent part of love, with which I don't agree. In my opinion, it's a part of the desire of owning another person. Of course, this desire often accompanies love, but not always. And it's expressed more or less for different people (depending of personality, culture, level of egoism, particularities of feelings, etc, etc, etc...)
I would like to see a plot with love relationships without or with minimum amount of jelaousity. They are so rare...

[unknown_user]

I think it's annoying but mostly because I find it annoying in the real life.

Yeah, for me it's annoying in real life, too. I see no fun in jelaousy, only a problems. But even if I attribute it to darker side of human's nature, it's not a main reason, why I don't like it.
In general, I find it interesting to write/read about dark side of people's nature, when it's psychologically justified and well-written. But it's not the case for such a feeling, like a jelaousy. It's literarly everywhere, in every love story. Why? Isn't it boring, when all love stories share the same feature? People are different, we all feel differently in reality. And in 99% cases it looks like absurd for me...

[Jophiel]

It's kinda annoying so I barely stick around with romance stories that are too long (ironically I like playing with yandere tropes oops).

If "jealousy" is only a trait to serve as the flaw on an otherwise convenient or not so well-fleshed out character to begin with, then no Many times I see people use it as a quirk and very little stories actually address the jealousy of the character. It's kinda tiring when misunderstandings occur and it's just any other day then it goes recycled again and again. The trope that will forever annoy me I guess is "I saw them together in this angle in my perspective and I'm hurt."

[DokiDokiTsuna]

Your example scenario made me LOL, so I voted 'funny'. XD But to be honest, I think it's kind of creepy.

If there's one aspect of romance I'll never truly understand, it's how being possessive is viewed as flattery. =/ And thus, the extremes of possessiveness, all the way on down to the yandere end of the spectrum, are viewed as 'hot' and 'sexy'.

Like, personally, I wouldn't want someone to be offended by the fact that another human being might look at me or talk to me or, dare I say it, think I'm pretty. Like, chill; damn...

[yansusu]

I also think it's mostly annoying, especially if it doesn't serve the plot in any way. If it does, I think it might be interesting though. Like, maybe there's a special reason for that kind of jealousy? Maybe it'll have actual (serious) consequences for the characters in question that influence the direction of the story? Maybe the author is actually able to put some kind of spin on this?

[Sapphireangelbunny]

Some levels of jealousy is understandable in any relationship, because it will happen at some point.
Though when it gets to the point of "Partner A" can't even look at another person without "Partner B" thinking their partner is unfaithful or will cheat, is frustrating.

[burginlewis]

Jealousy needs a believable explanation to be a good story tool. History of cheating, mental illness, insecurity... something. I'm way less concerned as a reader about jealousy being "bad" than I am about it being badly written.

That goes for pretty much everything, actually.

[vothnthorvaldson]

Annoying, at best.
I am absolutely not jealous and could not be with someone jealous, because the ability for both partners to trust the other is the most important thing for me in relationships. So all these jealousy plots are not relatable to me at all, and very offputting.

I can imagine cases where it could be an interesting topic, but outside of the pure romance genre.

[Maps]

Annoying.
I feel like jealousy tends to get taken way out of hand in so many romance plots, especially shoujo mangas. There always seems to be a weak female character, an over-bearing and jealous lead, and like... a decent dude at the side that never gets picked over the main asshole. There just comes a point when the jealousy and the submissiveness together feels gross and the story loses any of its interesting parts. It’s like, it builds up for a while until (usually the girl) convinces the guy to admit he likes her, then all the sudden he is BOOM jealous about everything. Like last week he seemed to hate her and now he hates when another guy talks to her. It’s like people struggle to create any more build up or drama in a romance once their characters admit to liking one another, so somebody now has to get jealous to stir the pot.
Actually, this happens in a ton of BLs too.
It was way worse years ago, but there are still too many stories with this concept.

[Jenny-Toons]

And just to piggy back off of this -- the entire "group of jealous fans/exes coming in to bully the protagonist." just pisses me off to no end. They act like this ONE GUY is the ONLY hot/cool/suitable boyfriend material outta how many other guys in the school??

I see this especially in the shoujos, with the full-on horrible bullying. I'm talking trash in her locker, marks on her desk, her shoes with dumbtacks, cutting her hair, etc. Even getting more violent than that. And I'm sitting here looking at the guy they're all jealous for, and I go:

"REALLY? You're doing all of this gross behavior that'll get you kicked outta school...for THIS clown???"

[beta1042]

not sure what you mean by "grotesque" but obviously I have no problem with jealousy in a comic... my entire comic is about the various types of jealousy and envy people experience... I even named the comic I WIsh I Were You cause everyone is jealous of someone XD

[CodeMonkeyArts]

Unless the jealousy is played up for horror (Yandere levels) or a explored as a relatable symptom of insecurity on the MC (One webcomic I read has the MC be jealous of random girls on her BFs' instagram. While it irritated me at first, it was handled as a problem she had due to being insecure of her appearence AND her boyfriend spells out that he has no interest in anyone else), then it leaves a really sour taste in my mouth.

If it's not dealt with maturely, or does not spell out to the audience that the character is unhinged, then I find it really gross. ESPECIALLY if it's part of the tsundere act (which needs to die sudden and quiet death).

[DualDragons]

Not a fan of the tsundere or jealous girl trope in comics/manga or anime myself. I didn't mind too much at first but i started to find them a bit annoying

[dawgofdawgness]

I'm actually ok with it. It's kind of annoying when the female character gets really possessive of her boyfriend and it's played off as cute (since it's kind of a popular trope). It kind of implies that their relationship isn't very healthy either lol.
It's common to be jealous of other people, and I like it when stories touch upon it since it seems to be an emotion that's rarely shown in depth in movies and tv shows etc

But do I see this kind of "jealous" trope in fanart? Yes. Do I think it's cute sometimes? Yes.

[IdiotWithPencil]

read one where the dude was the jealous one, and hot damn I wanted to kick his teeth in -_-

[Swamp]

To me, there are two ways for it to be interesting

A) It's something the characters discuss and work on. Maybe jealousy is a flaw they need to talk through. Maybe the bad behavior gives a good chance to talk about lack of trust in the relationship.
I can see why people find jealousy sexy/flattering, since it feels like being valued, and I do think it's a natural human emotion, but I've seen too many actually jealous creeps to find it cute or funny.

B) For horror. Honestly, possessiveness scares the fuck out of me. A bit of jealousy is normal, but when it gets to like... punishing somebody for being jealous, that's terrifying. And that's okay if the author agrees.