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At around 18:30 in the 1st episode of Domestic Girlfriend, when the MC is asking for advice from his friend, there is a shot of some books on a shelf:

Twelve books of various sizes sitting on a shelf.

As the well-known novelist Anton Chekhov put it,

If in the first act you have hung a pistol on the wall, then in the following one it should be fired. Otherwise don't put it there.

I suspect that (most of) the books in the shot have something in common, which in fact indicates the route of the whole (or at least part of) story.

Unfortunately, I don't know about these books, let alone their contents, and therefore I can't figure out the meaning of their appearance. However, one thing is for sure, if these books have nothing to do with the plot, the producer wouldn't have bothered to make such a special depiction.

What significance do these books have?

Aki Tanaka
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Michael
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  • oh chekhov's gun you mean? – BCLC Jul 26 '22 at 10:57
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    @BCLC Yep, of course. – Michael Jul 26 '22 at 10:58
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    I feel like this is a (common) misapplication of Chekhov's advice. The quote in question was geared towards plays, and was rooted in minimalism rather than storytelling (i.e. "only include the absolute minimum number of props on-stage that you actually need to tell the story"). It's not always applicable to other forms of visual media, especially in such a strict, literal fashion. Ignoring Chekhov's advice, is there any *other* reason to believe that these books somehow spell out the entire plot of the anime? – F1Krazy Jul 26 '22 at 11:19
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    To me, this just looks like an [establishing shot](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Establishing_shot), probably one of several in a row, all focusing on various different things in the room, to give you an idea of what the room's owner is like. Anime and manga do this all the time, and there's generally no reason to suspect that anything shown in those shots is actually plot-critical in any way. – F1Krazy Jul 26 '22 at 11:20
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    I've just checked the source manga and after comparing with the anime, since the flow and conversation in this scene are a bit different and more importantly, *no books are highlighted/zoomed in*, it looks like a [padding](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Padding) (warning: TV Trope). Might also be an establishing shot as @F1Krazy mentioned. – Aki Tanaka Jul 26 '22 at 11:51
  • @F1Krazy If that's the case (establishing shot), what do these books tell about the character? – Michael Jul 26 '22 at 13:10
  • @AkiTanaka It is probably not a padding. This scene is too short for padding. If they need to lengthen the episode in time as much as this scene does, they can just make any other scene stay a bit longer, no need to draw an extra picture. – Michael Jul 26 '22 at 13:15
  • @Michael I don't know. I can't understand written Japanese, so I don't know what the books' titles are. I *suspect* they're school textbooks of some kind, but I don't feel confident enough to post an answer. – F1Krazy Jul 26 '22 at 13:22

1 Answers1

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The book scene is anime original.

The manga equivalent of this scene is from volume 1, chapter 2, pages 73-75. In the manga, the panels are mostly focusing on both Natsuo and Fumiya conversing, with the addition of Fumiya's mother. For comparison, here is the whole scene with only related dialog from the anime (pages are ordered from left-to-right/top-to-bottom):

While there are books on the shelves, the titles are too blurry that they cannot be reasonably deciphered.

Regarding the books in the anime themselves, the titles are (from left to right):

Almost ―if not― all of these books are historical fantasy/fiction novels, which might imply that Fumiya is a history maniac... which is really contrasting with his hobby in the manga.

Aki Tanaka
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