First of all, hello. Not too sure if there is a topic this specific... but I'll give it a try (tried searching through forums beforehand).
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I've been reading one josei lately. Through chapter 13, I slowly started rolling my eyes and in the next, they went completely inwards. I am very close to dropping the whole mangaka's effort when the storytelling goes frenzy with using a second lead to push the story forward.
In this case, the second male lead is a persistent specimen, on par with female lead, who lacks "special" impact through panels and goes hugging her in some random situation (accident on the crossing) and amidst it tells her she may love the male lead yet he will still pursue her. !"#$%&/ Okay, now you see where I stand. Pretty simple.
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So... For a while I've been wondering about this... Tell me, maidens and wandering.... gents? -- anyway, if you've suffered that famous second lead syndrome, could you politely describe how and why it started?

(As I see, many, many have fallen prey to it... I have too. Once in my life.)

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Hello! Very interesting post this is, since I have fallen prey to second lead syndrome many times in my life, but the one which hit me too hard was when watching the Korean drama Boys over flowers( I am bad at explaining things though)
So in that, the main girl was initially in love with the cool second lead, but he's in love with someone else. The main girl gives up and encourages him to pursue his love, to which he agrees. In that due course the main girl and first lead fall in love(although the first lead behaved with her initially like a jerk and bullied her terribly) and become a couple. This was what I initially wanted. But the doom came, when second lead realized he actually loved the main girl and only comes back to his home country to discover the shocking truth. I never liked the second lead, because he was sooo indecisive. But then he started acting so sad and lonely(plus he had no parents D: ) I broke down completely. Every time, I used to see this guy I cried oceans and cursed the lead girl for choosing the bullying, evil, first lead jerk. I also listened to the second lead's theme song almost 5 times a day, and cried curled up in a corner(The song's lyrics were equally sad ) Finally, deciding that both main girl and the first lead were idiots, I dropped the drama. I still feel sad when his name is mentioned, though I am better now What is the name of the josei you mentioned though?

I definitely know that one. I read manga first and watched the whole J-drama. I'm still not too sure why... K-drama, only first three eps.
Josei manga name was Douse Mou Nigerarenai. I had to look through browsing history for the date of my post to find the title. So much trauma.
Thank you for the insight.

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Lol, most of the time for me, when i like the second lead over the main, it's when the second lead is clearly the better person. Or, what I feel is the better person. The one that treats the main girl like a person rather then some pet taken for granted. The one that treats the main girl with common sense, listening to her side of the story rather then pushing his own opinion onto her. But, alas, so many in shoujo pick the one who mistreats her, the one who takes her for granted, because the main guys is "misunderstood", his words are harsh, but he means well. Etc... Oh, for the nice guys to win the heart of the maiden even once!