When You Should Like Something, But Don't

[joannekwan]

Ever been disappointed by a recommendation from a friend who thought this thing would be just right for you? Ever read the description of a book/movie/comic and on paper it seems like it should be right up your alley but then you read it/watch it and it's not?

Vent here for fun and share your experiences!

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I'll start with a couple of my own about monster romances.

So this manga pops up on my Amazon recommendations, Monster and the Beast by Renji, and I thought, "Oh neat! A cool-ass-looking monster with an older man who likes to sleep around. I'll add this to my cart." I read it … and was kinda disappointed. (SPOILERS AHEAD so I'll put it in a summary)

Summary

It started off interestingly enough, but then their romantic plot in the first volume just shifted to a normal jealousy tsundere type situation. You know, the kind where the tsundere is jealous of the other giving their time and physical attention to other people when they aren't even a couple yet. It's like, we have a monster here! Make him act a bit more inhuman, a bit more territorial and possessive at least! But instead he's more like an angsty 13 year old boy. I can get the tsundere jealousy arc with any ol' human couple …

Even though the jealousy plot concluded at the end of the first volume, it irked me. This monster romance that I thought would be an interesting examination of two non-mainstream archetypes turned out to be pretty mundane. Monsters are supposed to be exciting, thrilling, dangerous even! (unless it's a total subversion of the idea, like having a monster in a HELLA domestic situation. Like How to Keep a Mummy. I liked that. It was cute.)

My second experience was with some original fiction I came across on tumblr. The story was about a girl living with the monster under her bed and the monster in her closet. She forms a poly relationship with them and it was pretty great up until the last installment. They bring up the idea of children at the very end and the girl was happy with the idea of 'little monsters of their own' running around the house, and I'm like "NOOOOOOOOOO"
For me, one reason I like the idea of monster romances is because of the incompatibility between species with zero possibility of cross-breeding. It's about the fun without the risk of pregnancy! At least personally, according to my taste.

and kudos to anyone who read through my rant, you've earned nuggets of info about my personal tastes LOL

[Kelheor]

The Mayfair Witches series.
I knew Ann Rice is not a proper writer for me (I previously read some Vampire Chronicles books and they were not... really good). But every time I saw anything connected to the Mayfair series like a hand made perfume with this name and very mysterious aroma description, or a witchy dress dedicated to the series, or anything really, I thought "ah, that's so good and just what I need right now". Witches, thundery air, magnolia scent in New Orleans... Gods, never was I this wrong.
The books were beyond terrible and it just went from bad to horrifyingly fcking disgusting and tasteless. No words can describe my frustration.

[JRHoch]

I'm feeling this way with a lot of anime. All the characters look basically the same and there's a lot of screaming. Make them stop.

[joannekwan]

LOL this is why I haven't really watched any anime in the past few years.

[SpavVy]

I wanted to like Moana but I ended up hating it even more than Frozen. The songs to me just weren't catchy at all and were actually pretty annoying especially the scene with the giant crab singing about how shiny he is.

I also wanted to like Fire Force because it's from the same author that created Soul Eater but like many people on the internet I did not appreciate how the fanservice was handled.

[burginlewis]

I felt this way about A Song Of Ice And Fire.

I love reading (and writing) twisty long epic fantasies, so I really wanted to get hooked. I kept reading, and reading, and reading... and reading... I just never connected with it. Too cold for me, and there wasn't anyone I could really root for, anyone I would want to be instead of me, anywhere I would want to escape my own life and go live.

On top of which, he employed the "character I swore was dead, is now alive" trope, which is my biggest pet peeve of all.

Suffice it to say I have not seen Game of Thrones.

[Rosso]

That bit about cross-breed incompatibility...
THANK YOU!!! YES!! THIS PERSON GETS IT!
i just looked up Monster and The Beast and GAHD this shit right here is so my type! i'm so disappointed to know the plot is so mundane given the non mainstream couple : ( (which is ALSO my type too! big cool monster and middle aged person ) and the art is so pretty to boot orz

Funny enough, i thought of how disappointing The Ancient Magus' Bride was before i even read what you wrote lmao. I don't even know where to start with this, but it simply just boils down to your grievances as well. You have an interesting setup, premise, and couple, and do absolutely nothing about it (and the protagonist is such a Mary Sue if you ask me) I LOVED the concept, but was left extremely disappointed i just want my wasted time back lol.

Bakuman was quite informative and sometimes funny (only a single character was genuinely funny, actually...) but the "romance" and all the female characters (and the fat=bad and stupid) absolutely ruined it for me. I thought i'd love it because it's made by the guy behind Death Note and it's about the life of a mangaka but my god. He should never write romance or women ever again.

you've earned nuggets of info about my personal tastes LOL

friend, your tastes are on point

[IdiotWithPencil]

I'm feeling this way with a lot of anime. All the characters look basically the same and there's a lot of screaming. Make them stop.

Reasons why I read manga instead, the really weird and fun ones always end up not getting and anime (they are too niche) and the screaming is more funny than annoying when you read it instead of hearing it, *Looking at you black clover <_<

Bakuman was quite informative and sometimes funny (only a single character was genuinely funny, actually...) but the "romance" and all the female characters (and the fat=bad and stupid) absolutely ruined it for me. I thought i'd love it because it's made by the guy behind Death Note and it's about the life of a mangaka but my god. He should never write romance or women ever again.

To be fair Death Notes romance was also horrible and the female characters weren't that great either, dude really needs to read less philosophy books and more Romance novels XD

To me It was rising of the shield hero web novel, started out great, but at the end the boss fight goes like this:

"BBEG: I use the power of infinity to kill you
Naofumi: Well I use the power of infinity +1!!!!
BBEG: Ipossibruuuuuuuuuuu blegh XP

and everybody lives happy ever after with their own harem of in slaved women the end"

yeah needless to say I was not happy with that ending whatsoever >=/

[Jenny-Toons]

I guess one thing that's pretty big now but didn't appeal to me is that new webseries Hazbin Hotel. Like, don't get me wrong, I liked the sneak-peek animation they put out months before the official pilot. But then I saw the pilot, and it...it didn't work for me personally.

Like, disregarding all of the controversy surrounding the creators (another can of worms I don't even know about, tbh), it's not really my brand of humor -- kinda feels like a lot of the adult animations these days (not including Archer and Bob's Burgers -- actually like those shows). That, and I just don't do sing-alongs.

[rajillustration]

For me it's Game of Thrones. I just...don't see the appeal of GRR Martin's writing. I know it has an audience and that's cool--like what you like, but I found his books to be just real...really boring in parts and then so violent in other parts to try and make up for how boring it was before. I didn't really know what I was getting out of those books so I just kinda finished the series by reading the summaries on Wikipedia.

other than that it's Evangelion for a lot of the same reasons (though I will say I liked it better than Game of Thrones). They're lovely mechs, there was beautiful art, and the story had a lot of potential, but I wasn't a fan of the execution. There were moments that I liked, and I'm glad I watched it for my anime literacy (the surreal parts of Evangelion are the only reason to watch Evangelion) but a majority of it was boring long shots of nothing that felt more like a high school anime mixed in with random panty shots. So much wacky panties in this very serious robot anime that didn't really need to be there IMO. Like I get there were issues in creating the show, but half of Evangelion could have been edited out.

[CodeMonkeyArts]

So I love me some horror. I love me some sensual horror with gothic trimmings. Like a spoopy Dark Fairytale. That's my jam. I grew up on a lot of horror, Tim Burton, fairytales, etc.

...Yet I could not really enjoy Penny Dreadful. Everything was just...so...I dunno...lifeless. No one except for one character seemed to actual put EFFORT into it. I really just could not enjoy it, even though it had all sorts of elements I usually LOVE and throw my all into. Yet I just could not feel ANYTHING for anybody in this dark tale.

So I gave up on it. Boo.

[snowy]

"The Wheel of Time" series. Started out ok-ish, then became almost comically bad by book 4, and nauseatingly so by book 5 ( a book I actually put in the trash, which I should feel ashamed for, but I don't). Put me off the fantasy genre for years. First time I encountered a piece of popular fiction so bad it actually made me angry.

So yeah, the tv show will probably be a huge success, lol.

[GesuGesu]

Monogatari is supposedly famous and legendary, but I could never really get into it.

I read maybe the first 2 chapters of the prequel and thought it was okay.

[burginlewis]

As a general aside in this thread: does anyone else avoid something generally whenever they hear that "everybody" likes it? Pretty much every time that the whole "with it" world Omgloves a thing, I don't.

[CodeMonkeyArts]

...yes...
I still haven't watched Game of Thrones and now that it's over, everyone else stopped talking about it.

Good.

[ratscout]

Hmmm I dunno, I was looking for something new to read, and some people on deviantart suggested that I should read The Hunger Games. And, yanno, it's not the worst book I've ever read or even the most disappointing, but I just felt completely neutral while reading it, which, in a way, was worse. I just couldn't connect with Katniss and I felt like the love interests in the story were kind of poorly drawn. Like, there's a really sweet moment in the story when bread kid throws her a piece of bread--showing her some kindness and selflessness--and I think that's the most I ever felt during that story.I wish Katniss had been even a little bit more cold and cruel to offset the kindness bread kid showed her. That might have made it more interesting.

Still better than His Dark Materials though.

[joannekwan]

Love reading through everyone's posts! Keep 'em coming!

@Rosso I was actually interested in looking into the Magus Bride OVA a while back but things got in the way. And then I heard about the iffy elements like Chise's age and that put it down farther on the list for me. Funnily enough, after I read some more complaints from a person about the series, it prompted me start my monster romance novel. And now after reading your post it's going another notch down the list. Haha!

@CodeMonkeyArts My husband tried watching that! He found it dropped off after the first three episodes and I think he finally quit after episode 6. And yeah, it did sound interesting! (Though at first I thought it was about a lady galavanting around with literary monsters and figures solving supernatural mysteries)

@snowy My husband had been reading Wheel of Time since his youth and I think he said pretty much the same thing about it! As I recall, he said it just turns into a cycle of X gets abducted, the others save them. And whoa, I did not know they're making a show about it

[rmdooley]

I just started the series and am on the fence about continuing. It's a staple in the fantasy genre so I feel obliged to read it but it's been difficult to get into the world and a lot of the characters come off as...awkward?

[rmdooley]

The 'A Darker Shade of Magic' series. I read the first but couldn't get through the second. The story and characters felt like they were getting shallower rather than deeper and a few off-putting straw men discussions made what should have been an interesting world more bland than cotton ball soup

[joannekwan]

Oh boy, I have the first book of this sitting on my nightstand right now waiting to be read. XD
I'll still probably read it, since I already have it, but I'll keep what you posted in mind haha