[manga] Which was more influential, Urusei Yatsura or Kimagure Orange Road?

[Shay Guy]

Possibly the two most popular shonen romance manga of the 1980s, featuring two of the most iconic female love interests in manga history, Lum Invader and Madoka Ayukawa. I've seen both characters called the prototype for the modern tsundere (interestingly, I think Hikaru may have just as much Lum in her as Madoka), and the manga that spawned them the ancestors of basically all modern shonen rom-com. Which would you place as the more influential, though, and why? Or would you put some other manga above both in this territory?

(Considered making the poll options "Uruguay" and "Korea" for UY/KOR; decided against it for the sake of clarity.)

 

[Shanejayell]

VERY hard to answer. *lol* KOR is pretty much THE ancestor of all the 'realistic' love triangle style harem series. While LUM pretty much is the grand-mother of all fantasy harem series, of which there are many.

 

[Ford Prefect]

I definitely think that Urusei Yatsura is more iconic, and has been some pretty noticeable effects - basically any romance or harem show with non-human heroines owes it all to Lum. However Madoka might be more influential than we realise because of how she might have influenced the development of character personalities in ways that are not immediately apparent.

 

[Synthesis]

That's a tough one, especially as someone who (purely for my own taste) kind of dislikes romantic comedies (I used to be all over them when I was younger). If I had to say, I'd be leaning more towards KOR for romantic comedies as a whole, even though I think UY was ultimately more influential on overseas audiences in Latin America and probably also the Anglophone world because of its re-broadcast (and being tied to Ranma 1/2 which was very successful in Latin America).