I want to find some manga where the "nice guy" love interest gets completely wrecked by some arrogant asshole who swoops in and woos the heroine.
Some examples:

Kaichou wa Maid-sama! - Usui eviscerated Shintani (those flashbacks made it particularly brutal)
Nana - Takumi ntr'd Nana (bad Nana) away from Nobuo in like 3 gut-wrenching pages
Seimaden - Literally the entire plot
Honey Bitter - Rapist ex-bf steals her from nice guy (who she can't have sex with because of the trauma rapist ex-bf inflicted on her)
Strobe Edge - The very first chapter
Please Save My Earth - Gyokuran got absolutely broken during those flashbacks. It was delicious.

Not too many of those smutty josei "w-why can't I resist?" oneshots please. But stuff like Anata no Koto wa Sorehodo is fine.

Rule of thumb: the more smug and flagrant the "bad guy" is, the better.

Are you a cuckold?

Well... in The Pale Horse the nice guy does get wrecked, but...waaaay more brutally than what you meant maybe.





Last edited by piranha at 3:07 pm, Aug 9 2016

Hoshi wa Utau
Given, eventually Chihiro does become less of a jerk, but that still doesn't justify why he's the main love interest.

I guess this one might count too
Torikagosou No Kyou Mo Nemutai Juunintachi
Yusei isn't the nicest of guys, yet the girl (of course) falls for him

I'm confused. Do you like assholes, or is there something else going on here?

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http://fightingdreamersscanlations.wordpress.com/

There's an entire subgenre called Netorare that is basically what you are looking for, usually from the point of view of the guy who gets his love interest "stolen". If instead the point of view is of the one who "steals" , then the category is Netori. I find it really weird and disturbing, but hey, as long as it's fiction.

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My current top 3:
Fullmetal Alchemist
Pandora Hearts
3-gatsu no Lion

Yeah but it's got a totally different vibe when it's in shoujo or josei manga. Netorare/Netori would be the fetishization of what I'm describing. It's much more interesting written from the perspective of a female author and you get a subtler sort of vibe through the POV of a female protagonist. The crushing jealousy and inferiority is more detached from the reader, it's basically the logic behind the "tragic clown" in the sense of storytelling.

@animalia for all intents and purposes, you could say that I like hot assholes lacking empathy

@Boku Girl the exact opposite. You'd be a cuck if you wanted to read from the "nice guy"'s perspective. It just happens to be that shounen/seinen romance series, and female demographic with male lead series, never have dark, handsome, sexually potent, assholes as a protagonist.

its not netorare if you are identifying with the female lead. unless the female lead gets her boyfriend stolen from her by some smoking hot double d chick with the booty of an african goddess. id probably search google with "second lead manga romance." You'll find manga where the second lead wins over the first.

By no means I want to insinuate anything, but I think this question comes naturally: does this interest come from you identifying in this type of character, or is it just a peculiar taste about manga you have?

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My current top 3:
Fullmetal Alchemist
Pandora Hearts
3-gatsu no Lion

Dunno, I just had a hankering for manga with this trope recently. I'm really literally running out of english translated manga to read (that isn't BL/GL) and those drawn out love triangles in some of the longer shoujo manga are just killing me. The guys keep trying to "do the right thing" and it's so annoying. They go back and forth and eventually for "muh drama" some prick guy appears and gets further with the heroine in a single chapter than they could in 10 volumes. For some reason when this happens I'm feeling really refreshed.

I guess I'm just tired of earnest and am leaning in favor of passion. It's somewhat misdirected anger towards those authors who pad out their manga with indecisive male leads and inaction/return to the status quo.

@qwaszx second male leads are always super nice guys though. They're always really patient and probably suffer the most of all, since they won't do underhanded things to influence the heroine's decisions and only strike after she's being rejected or something. Well unless they appear in the first chapter, but then they're not really a "second lead". Sometimes you have a manga about the "nice guy" sweeping the heroine off her feet too like in Kurohyou to 16-sai (which is annoying by the way)

Last edited by Rozzak at 2:46 pm, Aug 9 2016

Something like Bunbetsu to Takan, but
In the case of Koi no Memai Ai no Kizu and 8-banme no Tsumi Both mangas have the typical rebellious playboy, so I dunno if that works.

And Hatsukoi wa Marude Yaiba no You ni , though is a small part, it is quite impressive. I really like this manga, but too bad many pages are disordered.

I just read a series of this premise yesterday. Here it is Sono Rokudenashi ni You ga Aru.
The "nice guy" only has like 5 pages of screen time total throughout 4 chapters, so the "nice" part is completely subjected to my opinion. And the NTR-er or whatever... the guy stealing the girl basically, isn't all that 'bad' per say. But, yeah....