* EnsembleDarkhorse: Asada. Not even named in the original manga, you know her as the girl with the constant cat mouth.
* FandomRivalry: ''Genshiken'' fans tend to be at odds with fans of ''Series/TheBigBangTheory'' for taking more or less the same idea and making it less inherently geeky and more about sex and relationships.
* FanPreferredCouple: If the proportion of fanfics is anything to go by, Kasukabe and Madarame.
* GermansLoveDavidHasselhoff: ''Massively'' more popular outside of Japan than in.
* HollywoodHomely: According to Kugayama, Ohno is an "ordinary person who's cute", while Kasukabe is like "a model". Like you could tell the difference.
* HilariousInHindsight: Sasahara brings up in a job interview that he didn't like how ''Anime/KujibikiUnbalance'' continued on after the main cast had graduated, ''to the editor who came up with the idea.'' Though this was more likely a reference to how all the third years had graduated before him, one can't help but wonder his feelings over ''Niidaime''.
* HoYay:
** Madarame/Sasahara get a lot of doujinshi and fanart devoted to them most likely because of Ogiue's event in the manga and anime.
** In-universe, Madarame gets involved in both Ogiue's and Hato's yaoi fantasies.
** There's a few moments between Kasukabe and Ohno.
** Massive amounts of it between Madarame and Hato, almost to the point of ImpliedLoveInterest in the later chapters.
** Sue and Ogiue in the later half of the manga.
* MemeticMutation: Ohno saying "[[YaoiFangirl This is what I [CENSORED] to!]]", to correct what ''type'' of pornography she likes, gained some memetic status for a while.
* RonTheDeathEater: Kousaka sometimes gets this treatment in fanfics that are Madarame X Kasukabe.
* TheScrappy: Kasukabe, for much of the first season; she's pretty much a hateful bitch to everyone but her boyfriend, who she likes primarily because of his looks. She mellows out a bit as time goes on, but she never really gets called out for any of her past behavior, so it comes across as her getting off light.
* TheyChangedItNowItSucks:
** Because of the 6-year gap in between airings, the third season features an entirely new voice cast, with both Madarame and Kuchiki sounding deeper than last season.
** There are some that view Nidaime as this, since most of the new cast are [[YaoiFangirl fujoshi]] and as a result, a lot of chapters have that as a focus.
* UnintentionalPeriodPiece: The series is a snapshot of the Japanese ''otaku'' subculture as it was at the time it was first published / aired. The references are contemporary, and it notably deals with the ''{{Moe}}'' boom and (to an extent) the "mainstreaming" of otakudom around the middle of the TurnOfTheMillennium. The gap between the old guard and the new generation is [[http://ogiuemaniax.wordpress.com/2011/06/24/the-appearing-and-disappearing-wave-of-generational-change-in-genshiken-ii-volume-1genshiken-volume-10/ increasingly evident]] in ''Nidaime'', where the idea of "otaku" has gone from something of an internalized, somewhat shameful identity to a (relatively) unstigmatized descriptor of someone who enjoys his or her hobbies with a shameless, fiery passion. Likewise, Kousaka playing ''Guilty Gear X'', or at least one of the games in that subseries, specifically puts the series somewhere between 2000 and 2006.
* TheWoobie: Almost every member of the Genshiken can be counted as a woobie; however, the standouts are Ogiue and Madarame.
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