First off: HI! New around here kinda. Been lurking about for a while, but as I generally don't do well in forums I haven't really introduced myself. But this question has been burning in my mind for quite some time, and as I was reading for the Nth time in a yaoi manga with the cute uke become weak with fever for no apparent reason (unless you count fretting a little over a first kiss from the seme)--- Well, I guess it was the last straw that broke the camel's back.

Are the Japanese really that prone to fevers? Do they really feel faint after a short romp in the rain or even just leaving their hair wet after a shower? Or is it simply convinent to use a fever as an excuse to get one of the romantic protagonists to take care of the other? The latter I feel.

The winter before this one I was caught outside in -15 Celcius weather (that 5 F to you Americans) waiting for the train (cancelled) and then the bus (which never came) in crappy clothing (cos I'm a moron) in a burgeoning blizzard FOR TWO WHOLE HOURS. Missed work, but barely got the sniffles from the ordeal. I can also relate many other incidents, but don't worry, I won't.

Clearly, I'm not cut out to be in a manga. At least not as the romantic lead. (weird friend who pops up in frame 3 on page 2 and is then never seen again, that's me ^^😉

I may come off sounding a bit annoyed - probably because I am at the mo' - but don't get me wrong. I've enjoyed the odd fever-propelled plot-line in my day (doing her old-lady routine) especially when it's the dominant, ugh-I-am-caveman-strong-and-no-need-anyone party that's out for the count. But as this is the fourth manga in a row that I've been reading now that has used this plot device, I'm feeling a bit sick of the whole thing.

What do YOU think? And if none of the answers above apply please comment instead! Please be kind; douzo yoroshiku ne! m(._ .)m

It's definitely something I've seen in every shounen romance i've ever read... without fail, they will always have the "fever" chapter(s). It's kinda cliche. Honestly, after reading so many similar manga, I've found that they're all pretty much the same.. Same old, same old...

Yeah, fevers... I have seen more of 'em than days of my life.
I however am okay with it.

There are already people that talk about the fever cliche in the Worst Shoujo Cliche! thread. I guess in the recent manga I've read, it was in Complex (shoujo), but I don't think a bit deal was really made out of it (taken, I almost read all 7 volumes in 1 day. I sort of regretted going through it so fast because I missed the characters and the ending left me wanting more closure). And in Fushigi Yuugi, Miaka gets a fever at least twice. I guess it's an annoyance, but I'm getting annoyed at other things in the story while that's happening so maybe the fever cliche isn't a bit deal.

But 'the fever' I guess, is a plot device needed so that the character that would usually say "Don't come near me!" is usually left with so little energy that he or she can't really protest, or realizes it's hopeless to fend off the insisted nursing. Card Captor Sakura had an extra story that I think was only released the artbook, and it was about Syaoran being ill and of course Sakura helps out a bit by giving him a milk honey drink, but it's not the situation I just mentioned.

And I thought for getting ill, a person has to have caught it from someone else. Being in the cold and that a person is cold in that weather just makes the person more vulnerable to become ill, or have the state of his or her illness worsen.

But how often do you see 'the fever' come up? If you read 10 manga will you find that the "fever" cliche will happen in 9 of those manga? If you read more manga over a short amount of time, I believe just like watching lots of movies over a short amount of time, a person becomes more critical. I think it's because we all get higher expectations.

[color=#990066]My avatar was Yves Saint Laurent's The Black Evening Dress (with big bow) first shown in 1983, photographed from his 2002 retrospective and final show.[/color] [color=#CC0066]Check out some of his collections for free (pre-2008) HERE[/color] [color=#CC0066]courtesy of FirstView[/color].

Well, I don't exactly know anything about yaoi. But I know that when I'm going to read a shounen romance. I am NOT expecting a super ingenious plot. And I'll meet with an uncountable number of stupid annoying clichés...
So when I'm looking for a story with a REAL plot. I just avoid that genre. Actually I really suggest avoiding romance altogether. Romance is the nemesis of a good plot imo.
Anyway, I mostly read seinen when I want to read something with a plot. I don't ever remember reading a seinen manga that used the fever plot device at least.

ok here is what I want to know, why the use of Fevers? I mean seriously, who has had to have their significant other completely stop their day just for a fever. Maybe for a nasty flu or Mono or something, but not fevers. If the fever is bad enough to be useless, generally going to a hospital is necessary. I can understand the whole nursing during sick thing. Everyone enjoys being pampered that way, but I agree with enough of the fevers.

"Let's put a smile on that face."

I agree with what's already been said. I think its a common plot device in shoujo and I guess shounen romance and yaoi.
It is a little annoying but it is usually over in one chapter.
Maybe its common because its a phenomenon that can come up quickly, since the manga-kas usually are allotted only a certain number of pages for each chapter, and each chapter is pretty much a complete story in itself?
I don't really know that much about Japanese culture, but aren't they generally more 'conscious' of germs and the like than say, americans? Like wearing masks over their noses and stuff? If this is the case, do you think this has an impact on the validity of the fever cliche?

Quote from cano435

ok here is what I want to know, why the use of Fevers? I mean seriously, who has had to have their significant other completely stop their day just for a fever. Maybe for a nasty flu or Mono or something, but not fevers. If the fever is bad enough to be useless, generally going to a hospital is necessary. I can understand the whole nursing during sick thing. Everyone enjoys being pampered that way, but I agree with enough of the fevers.

Well a fever it gives one day's worry. If it was something that lasted over the course of the week, it might drag the story down. A character taking care of the other character that is throwing up is probably less romantic. 😉 If the illness is contagious, I don't think you're even suppose to stay too close to the person! I think the only important parts are the character 1 says, "No, I'm not sick!" character 2 says, "Yes you are!" and then character 1 is forced to stay in bed. But with stories where the characters usually revolve or rely on each other, I don't think it's surprising that one of them will be caring enough to drop everything for the other person.

I haven't seen the "Honey, I'm going to be fired if I call in sick today," situation with the fever for manga. (Or maybe I don't remember if I did?) If the caretaker does not have something as important as mentioned and that is why they don't take care of the other character, I don't find the person that was suppose to be the caretaker as nice. And I think with things being in a story, black and white can be cut more easily than how things are more "gray" in life.

[color=#990066]My avatar was Yves Saint Laurent's The Black Evening Dress (with big bow) first shown in 1983, photographed from his 2002 retrospective and final show.[/color] [color=#CC0066]Check out some of his collections for free (pre-2008) HERE[/color] [color=#CC0066]courtesy of FirstView[/color].

Everybody get fevers. So I don't think its a annoying. In Shoujo manga's (which is where I believe most of them are) they are played to make teh character look weak. In shounen though the character is portrayed as a fighter so he probably wouldn't get at fever.

Quote from MitsukiSuzahari

Everybody get fevers. So I don't think its a annoying. In Shoujo manga's (which is where I believe most of them are) they are played to make teh character look weak. In shounen though the character is portrayed as a fighter so he probably wouldn't get at fever.

They do appear in shonen as well, but the out comes of events are quite different.

Quote from ladybrasa

I don't really know that much about Japanese culture, but aren't they generally more 'conscious' of germs and the like than say, americans? Like wearing masks over their noses and stuff? If this is the case, do you think this has an impact on the validity of the fever cliche?

What I know is that they even wear the "masks" that sort of look like surgeons use when they have colds so it won't spread to other people. I saw this in Maison Ikkoku where the manager's father is walking around ill but he's wearing the mask. When I went about a year ago in about March 2006 with my younger sister, I thought there were just a lot of Japanese people that had colds and my younger sister thought something like SARS had happened! 😲

My oldest brother, who's been there for a few years, said it was that those people had to worry about allergies with more pollen flying around. I guess the Japanese are less worried about looking weird or self-conscious since they wear the 'masks' to deal with allergies. I think that people in the USA and Canada would just take some (or lots of) allergy medication over looking weird, but I guess they sort of look weird 'together' so they are less worried of embarrassment?😉

P.S.
Welcome to Manga-Updates, MitsukiSuzahari, since this is your first time posting! 🙂

[color=#990066]My avatar was Yves Saint Laurent's The Black Evening Dress (with big bow) first shown in 1983, photographed from his 2002 retrospective and final show.[/color] [color=#CC0066]Check out some of his collections for free (pre-2008) HERE[/color] [color=#CC0066]courtesy of FirstView[/color].

checks out score I noticed no one's gone squee yet ^^:

Just finished reading the fifth manga of the day with a fever in it. But it might be my own fault as I'm on a yaoi binge and they seem to like having the cute character all helpless and shaggable - because invitably, or at least 7 times out 10, they shag - and a fever is perfect.

Another thing in yaoi is when the uke get's a fever post-shag because of... of... Well, beats me, I'm not a gay man so kung-fu-sed me...shrugs

Quote from ladybrasa

I don't really know that much about Japanese culture, but aren't they generally more 'conscious' of germs and the like than say, americans? Like wearing masks over their noses and stuff? If this is the case, do you think this has an impact on the validity of the fever cliche?

I think that might be the problem actually, the whole germ-conscious thing they've got going in Japan. We have saying in Swedish: "Lite sk*t rensar magen." (look, i censor foreign swear words too!) Translated it's: "A bit of crap cleanses your stomach." ... kinda. It's usally said jokingly when you pick up something off the floor, brush it off and eat it. But it's a bit of a motto of mine; I abhor anti-bacterial soap, I have no problems sharing a glass with someone unless they have something like the ebola virus or, a saner example, the 'flu, etc, etc. I'm not fond of slobber though, that'll make me hesitate more than anything... Anyhoo, if you take away the chance of exposure to various everyday germs, you're just gonna weaken yourself when the real baddies come along. There are such things as GOOD germs too. What we're really doing with all this over-usage of anti-bacterial products is slowly but surely spelling out our doom. No wonder so many kids have allergies...

Enough of the lecture! Now that I've probably convinced you all that I'm a horrible slob that eats of the floor, I will take my leave: adieu! vanishes in a storm of petals

I heard a few years back that a lot of Japanese couples were losing their infants and toddlers to poison. Some couples were even charged with murdering their own babies. It had turned out that the Japanese obsession with cleanliness was going too far. People were steaming their carpets and rugs too much and they never had a chance to sufficiently dry out. Perfect condition to grow poisonous black mold! Then baby would go toddling along on the floor and either touch the floor with hands and put the hands in the mouth or they would eat something off the floor. And that was th ened of baby! To much germ-a-phobia is definitely a bad thing.

Life is tough......but it's tougher if you're stupid.
[img]http://img.userbars.pl/69/13603.gif[/img]

vinceasuma, that's so sad! lip wobble I love babies and I've worked a lot with children... ;.; If my sister does something stupid like that with my youngest nephew I'll kick her in the head. Or something. Thankfully, she's NOT that stupid.

flits off again

Quote from finn-icky

Well, beats me, I'm not a gay man so kung-fu-sed me...shrugs

That wasn't some weird Chinese-word joke, was it? 😉 But I guess it wasn't like Rosie O'Donnell's one (but maybe it's close)...

Quote from vinceasuma

I heard a few years back that a lot of Japanese couples were losing their infants and toddlers to poison. Some couples were even charged with murdering their own babies. It had turned out that the Japanese obsession with cleanliness was going too far. People were steaming their carpets and rugs too much and they never had a chance to sufficiently dry out. Perfect condition to grow poisonous black mold! Then baby would go toddling along on the floor and either touch the floor with hands and put the hands in the mouth or they would eat something off the floor. And that was th ened of baby! To much germ-a-phobia is definitely a bad thing.

I have to wonder if the Japanese love antibacterial products because I wanted a news segment that for the ingredient that makes things "antibacterial", it's not known what the long term side effects of it will be. In laboratories, they don't antibacterial soap but something else and that's what they felt was enough. And antibacterial doesn't clean any better than regular cleaning product for hand soap when they tested the two against each other. And yeah, the Japanese are becoming hygiene freaks, obsessive compulsive, or worse.

I read on a blog (if you'll count that as at least a somewhat reliable source) that Japanese kids are refusing to use the washroom at school. So since the stooping toilets are usually much worse than the Western looking toilets (I was inline at a public restroom several times and usually people would wait for the toilets that were the Western ones over the stooping toilet ones, but when I was at the Kyoto transit/bus station washroom, people caved. But other then the extra trouble of bending down (really bad if you're older, though I'm not there yet), I think a person usually is more likely to get their clothes dirty being so close to the floor and I think those types of toilets/washrooms are dirtier (and if it's a public one it will naturally be dirtier with so many people passing through it).

But as for the food and the 5-second rule (food hits the floor--do you eat it or not?), well, there was an article and I didn't get to read it myself but my sister said that scientists studied food that had hit the floor and they were surprised at how much bacteria could be on floor that hit the floor. 🤣

And as for antibacterial cleaners, well other than it's this potential "danger" with the ingredient, there are places that have several 1000 people going through them and yet cleaning companies don't bother with them. Are people's houses with maybe a few people going through them, and that's dirtier than several 1000 people? I guess it's that city or whatever is being cheap and doesn't need clean, clean or clean like new but...

[color=#990066]My avatar was Yves Saint Laurent's The Black Evening Dress (with big bow) first shown in 1983, photographed from his 2002 retrospective and final show.[/color] [color=#CC0066]Check out some of his collections for free (pre-2008) HERE[/color] [color=#CC0066]courtesy of FirstView[/color].