Review of Junjo Romantica
Story 9/10 Junjou Romantica is one of my favourite BL stories of all times. It is not a "yaoi" story that is filled with pointless sex scenes. In fact, there is no explicit sex shown in the anime at all. Any sex is mostly short and glossed over, and used to add to the mood of the story. The story deals with 3 couples that are semi- interconnected (while living their own lives). These 3 couples have very similar romances and faces similar problems, but each one deals with them differently. The focus of the story is mostly dealing with the character's personal feelings and thoughts,and how they deal with the problems they face in their romance. It's filled with inner thoughts, so there's quite a lot of monologue.
I find that this story deals relatively well with the implications of what do you do when you just happened to fall in love with someone of the same gender. It's not about gay men per se, but about men who just happened to fall in love with another guy and then having to live with the consequences. Especially in the case of Misaki and Miyag-sensei, they had problems accepting the affections and romantic advances from another guy. Through the story, they had to think it out for themselves and eventually accept their own feelings for another guy. In this sense, it is quite a serious story. However, the day to day events of the story are quite comical.
Another issue the story dealt with is the age gap. In the 3 couples, the age gaps are 4 years, 10 years, and 17 years. Each one shares different problems, whether it is social pressure, or wanting to be worthy of the one you love, not wanting to lose them to the age difference etc. There's also other social problems involved such as teacher-student or in one case, the younger brother of his ex-wife. The point I wanted to make is that the story focuses on how the characters think about their situation, and how to deal with their feelings and the problems, instead of just about men having sex.
Art 8/10
The art style is slightly different from the manga, but still quite similar. I think that there is a good balance between masculine and feminine features in the characters. Except in the case of Misaki and Shinobu, where they are somewhat feminine looking (because they are supposed to be younger), all the other men are very masculine without being too masculine. What this achieves is that it avoids the BL cliche that the uke basically looks like a pretty girl. While I don't mind art features metro pretty boys, it is refreshing to watch BL about men who look like men. Very clean and clear animation.
Sound 10/10
I personally fell that the background music tracts did a great job to fit the mood and events of the story. There was several times that I thought "hey, that music's really good".
Character 9/10
As mentioned earlier regarding the story, Junjou romantica focuses on the character's inner turmoil and thoughts, which means we really get to see the inner workings of the character's minds. While the story is a bit cliche (their thoughts are mostly predictable), but that is the point of romances. Cliche romances are loved by many (including me ^^).
Enjoyment and Overall 10/10
What's best about the anime is the blend of everything together, the serious issues that the character deals with but with very good comedy moments. Together, it makes the show very enjoyable to watch.
Now to address the problems with the anime: it was too loud. There was just too much yelling. In each of the 3 relationships, there is one "quiet" one and one "loud" one. The loud one gets flustered easily and yells WAY too much, and sometimes it really gave me a headache. While reading the manga, you don't have this problem, but I really disliked parts of the anime because of that. The uke also cry a lot in addition to yelling, which can get annoying.
Also, while each story is different from the others, they all share some similarities in the character stereotyping - strong, quiet seme with loud flustered uke. Junjou Romantica does follow very cliche BL character types (though its not just BL, many romance genres all follow this kind of cliche with a strong and a weaker character in a relationship).
Another "failing" is that while it deals with some serious issues, it never really deals with the issue. Since it focuses on the characters themselves and their thoughts, it doesn't tell us anything about the external world that they live in. You're following the first person POV of the main character basically, which means there is very limited knowledge of the world outside his inner thoughts I put "failings" in quotes because this is not really a problem, because overall its a comedy, not some deep soul-searching social commentary. It may be interesting to know more about the rest of the world that the story is set in, but it doesn't make the story bad in any sense. In a way you can interpret it as that the characters live in their own little romance world without care for the rest of the world (which is somewhat true, they worry about it but it's a fleeting worry. One of those Love can conquer all type of story). However, I do feel that the romance may be doomed to fail in the future because of the social problems they face. As a romance comedy, it doesn't take serious problems as seriously as it should. For example, there is very little chance that people would accept a relationship between a professor and a high school student if they wanted to take the relationship public.
If you are a fan of cliche romances (whether gay or straight), then you will enjoy this. If you don't, then this may not be the best. Definitely, you will have to have an open mind towards BL to really watch the show. I don't think this is a story only for the fangirls (it's focused on romance between two guys, not just some gay porn without plot), I do believe someone who is neutral towards BL may also enjoy it purely for the entertainment value of the story. If you dislike male on male relationships, then you shouldn't be watching BL at all. If you're interested in finding a good romance story staring males, then this is for you.