Love is Not Around

Wandan-likes & Narratives of Self-Actualisation

Authors

  • johnathan Harrington Hong Kong Baptist University

Keywords:

wandan, masculinity, china, chinese games, romance, bishojo, dating

Abstract

In this paper, I will analyse Love is All Around (Intiny, 2023, also known as Wandan! Wo bei meinv baowei le) and other wandan-likes. Wandan-likes are one-male manyfemale dating games which present short video clips with branching narrative choices and multiple endings (Cao, 2024), emerging from (mostly) China over the last year. They generally employ a saccharine tone, as the male protagonists are treated with an undeserved longing often stemming from serendipitous encounters.

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Published

2025-07-22

Bibtex

@Conference{digra2685, title ="Love is Not Around: Wandan-likes & Narratives of Self-Actualisation", year = "2025", author = "Harrington, johnathan", publisher = "DiGRA", address = "Tampere", howpublished = "\url{https://dl.digra.org/index.php/dl/article/view/2685}", booktitle = "Abstract Proceedings of DiGRA 2025: Games at the Crossroads"}

Proceedings

2025: Abstract Proceedings of DiGRA 2025: Games at the Crossroads

Section

Abstracts

License

© Authors & Digital Games Research Association DiGRA. Personal and educational classroom use of this paper is
allowed, commercial use requires specific permission from the author.