The joys of taboo love

15Feb/0825

The joys of taboo love

You want the truth? YOU CAN’T HANDLE THE TRUTH! - Colonel Nathan R. Jessep

It’s interesting to watch the numerous reactions to Hiromi’s confession in True Tears 06. While many lauded it as excellent dramatic turn of events, upping the emotional ante of the series, there was a small faction of fandom groaning at the injection of an overused theme/fetish – sister complex.

Now, I’ve often been accused of being a siscon but the truth is much deeper and darker.

I enjoy taboo loves

Only in dramas of course. Siscon is merely one of the many taboo relations I enjoy. Not because I’m a sick man but because forbidden loves have the greatest potential for drama. I love the accompanying pain and struggles a character goes through as he wrestles with those forbidden feelings. I love the complex interactions with the object of his affections and the related characters as his inner turmoil boils over. I love watching the reaction, rejection and ridicule by society as a taboo couple set out on the forbidden path. Simply put, I'm a very misunderstood tanuki.

In fact, I personally find most romantic tales to be merely watered down renditions of taboo love. Many play on unrequited/unreached feelings which can never have the same potency as forbidden loves. The common setup of falling in love with your sibling/best friend's beau is actually a mildest form taboo love with correspondingly lesser dramatic returns.

That doesn't mean that any series with an imouto going "Onii-chan, daisuki dayo!" ("Bro, I love you!") would grant you the abovementioned siscon drama. There must first be acceptance within the series worldview that such an adoration is taboo hence ensuing the tension that leads to drama. That is the reason why I reject Sister Princess as siscon drama. It may have siscon but it's a pandering form of the complex that insults the taboo love genre. For those who are willing to go beyond the very superficial "eww, siscon/yuri/yaoi", here's a recommended list of anime with taboo love as a major theme.

Boku wa Imouto ni Koi wo Suru
Canvas 2
Da Capo
Gift ~eternal rainbow~
Kagihime Monogatari Eikyuu Alice Rinbukyoku
Kannazuki no Miko
Kodomo no Jikan
Koi Kaze
Onegai Twins

Actually this is yet another 'form for substance' post to urge the siscon-dissenters to look beyond Hiromi's kinship and into her tears. As Nagisa chan mentioned in Clannad 16 - Love takes many shapes and to bail out of any series for its siscon/yuri/taboo love themes is to potentially miss out on some of the greatest loves the Great Art^TM has to offer.

(That said, I haven't seen many worthy yaoi love save for Yukito/Touya in CCS. Probably because I'm not looking very hard XD)

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Comments (25) Trackbacks (2) ( subscribe to comments on this post )

double
February 15th, 2008 - 08:03

But a siscon is still a siscon, no matter what you say.

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Stripey
February 15th, 2008 - 08:27

I can’t help but think you missed all my points. No matter, to each his own.

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kaz3phyrous
February 15th, 2008 - 08:34

i totally agree that taboo love is nice to watch…
especially yuri and siscon and lolicon…
there’s just something there when you see a couple trying to overcome the rules that society dictates…
it makes your watching worthwhile venturing with the characters watching their as society shuns their relationship…
and imo i believe that taboo love is much stronger than regular love since even though society discourages you, you still go through with it since your heart is telling you…
like how junnichi still went the nemu route despite suginami’s reminder to him that emu is still his imouto even though they’re not related by blood… even at the expense of kotori…
also like how chikane struggled with her love for himeko and how himeko was also subconsciously struggling with her taboo love for chikane as seen in her tears while souma kissed her…

in short i believe that taboo love is stronger an more enjoyable to watch than ordinary love since the obstacles are much greater…

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edogawaconan
February 15th, 2008 - 09:13

I enjoy them too
esp with tragic ending…

/me demands full version of op pic

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Hemisphere
February 15th, 2008 - 09:27

Senomoto Hisashi’s rendition of MagusTale’s Rena and Nina…and I just finished browsing AXL’s PrincessFrontier site a little while ago!

Please post a higher resolution of that first pic Stripey! @_@

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myu
February 15th, 2008 - 09:40

Taboo love is also my favourite. There

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Calawain
February 15th, 2008 - 10:03

I can’t really agree with you that an aversion to siscon is just superficial, I see no point in arguing it because neither of us would change our minds =)

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Beowulf Lee
February 15th, 2008 - 10:20

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Crisu
February 15th, 2008 - 15:02

“Boku wa Imouto ni Koi wo Suru” as a title amuses me. Can’t get any more direct than that. ^_^

And I love anything that’s Valkyrie-like, especially the hairclips in the header pic.

I’ve been told to watch Da Capo many times. I’ve been suggested Kannazuki as well. Kojika is great, great taboo love anime.

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Haesslich
February 15th, 2008 - 16:31

Yuri and yaoi aren’t taboo – they’re just different, s’all. Siscon and its related forms, on the other hand… are. And I don’t find them nearly as appealing as yuri, or even yaoi (at least that one I can understand, so long as they’re both unrelated and of age). Half the time, it’s not even drama – it’s just straight ‘bang-bang’.

Taboo exists for a reason – it’s because some things simply shouldn’t be, for reasons both biological as well as societal (rape as love comes to mind; if one can attack and violate anyone at will, there is no society – just a bunch of armed clans at a state of perpetual war – ditto stealing anything under the sun, or killing anyone you meet without reason…)

I think the title that Crisu named is the only one where it’s REALLY dramatic, rather than just pure squicky.

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Haesslich
February 15th, 2008 - 17:27

And, as a gift for the loli-loving Tanuki…. a preview from Minami-ke Okawari 7:

http://img99.imageshack.us/my.php?image=makocakesrl9.jpg

Enjoy your meido-trap-shota/lolicon.

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Crusader
February 15th, 2008 - 17:38

Indeed taboo love is an great vehicle for drama if implemented correctly. However it is not always implemented well and remains a marketing plot to ensnare unwary tanukis. I disagree that taboo love is stronger than all other forms of love. Simply because you are arrogant enough to baulk at societal norms does not make your courageous or right, it simply means your lusting is great or your lack of brain cells pronounced. There is nothing wrong with yuri or yaoi, however we don’t allow loli-cons to roam free to indulge themselves because the constitute a genuine threat to kids and any resulting relationship will never be one of equals as the older male is in a far superior position to manipulate such a union to his own hateful ends.

As for sis-con there are very good reasons not to do it since it results in the exponential increase in genetic defects in the resulting progeny. One need only look to the Pharaohs of Egypt and their sister marrying ways to see that it is not without attendant risks of delivering a nation into the hands or the mentally compromised. Besides the issue of formidable obstacle to would be sis-cons is easily remedied my moving to parts unknown and lying through your teeth. Thus the obstacles are neither insurmountable or formidable its just that the typical sis-con is a two bit hack that never grasped the idea of using indirect methods to solve problems and rushed head long in some idiot banzai charge into a hail of machine gun fire put up by society. If this si the result of taboo love then clearly it was tobaoo because no one wanted idiots to breed more idiots.

By the way your protestations of innocence will avail you not. As the grand pontiff of sis-con you shall never live down your just label, besides it was thee who pronounced the levels of Isurugi Jun’s sis-con, devourer of Raigomaru.

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maglor
February 16th, 2008 - 04:07

I need to add at least three more to the list of imouto drama

1. The Nonomura Ami Series in Cream Lemon : This deserves a mention

http://www.themanime.org/viewreview.php?id=414

2. Miyuki

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miyuki_%28manga%29

3. Angel Sanctuary

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angel_sanctuary

There are many popular manga with sister-brother relation elements that may soon be animated, so I expect Stripey’s list to double within about three years.

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Owen S
February 16th, 2008 - 06:14

That is the reason why I reject Sister Princess as siscon drama. It may have siscon but it

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Stripey
February 16th, 2008 - 08:33

kaz3phyrous: Ahh, those are 2 anime moments I remember vividly. Thanks for highlighting why we love our taboo drama.

edogawaconan/Hemisphere: Glad to share Senomoto sensei goodness!

http://hontouni.com/taihendesu/images/rants/taboo.jpg

myu: Woah! Alliterative fetishes! Very potent.

Calawain: Heh, actually I’m saying there are gems to be mined from taboo love premises. But I’d love to agree to disagree too

Beowulf Lee: you’re not alone. I have my theories as to why yuri is more wdiely accepted than yaoi even from the female perspective but I wouldn’t discuss it here

Crisu: A word of caution about Kannazuki though. It has a useless mecha component. else highly recommended! I personally think it’s one of Kawasumi Ayako’s best performances.

Haesslich: I think the taboos are defined by a series’ meta-narrative. Kannazuki was dramatic because Chikane’s love was taboo hence her struggles. And thanks for screenie. My viewing of Minami-ke is long overdue. XD

Crusader: I’m into taboo loves solely for the drama, not the inbreeding programs Drawing on the example of the near sibling marriage in UK recently, I’d propose they quietly marry but not have children. I’m with you mostly on loliconism though. Which is the reason why I hated Kouichiro in Koi Kaze. Because I felt it was a gross exploitation of the still emotionally immature Nanoka. However I’m open to the idea that some underage girls MAY (a big may) have the maturity to conduct a relationship responsibly as an adult would. One of the things I failed to mention is that siscon often involved 2 growing teenages who are driven naively by their emotions. I tend to be more forgiving to such struggles

maglor: I hear Marmalade boy has some elements of taboo love too?

Owen S:

>you

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maglor
February 16th, 2008 - 15:05

Marmalade boy does have some taboo love element, but I do not have adequate data to place it in its proper historical place. All three I mentioned deserves some notice in anime or manga history. I also forgot one important series concerning taboo relationship: Rose of Versailles. That series had it all.

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usagijen
February 17th, 2008 - 08:52

Marmalade Boy just added the possible taboo element for the sake of adding more nonsensical melodrama to the show =/ It was pretty forced, and not really necessary for the development of the couple’s relationship, IMO. It was enough to make the fangirl in me go “aww” and be touched by those little scenes though, but that was more than a decade ago lol.

that said, I’m actually drawn to shows with taboo love, because of the drama and tension involved. In the case of BukuImou though (speaking of the lengthy manga counterpart), I felt the story was dragged on too long, with the incest element drama. Then in the end, it turns out that they’re ‘half twins’, which just made things more twisted… =S

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Haesslich
February 17th, 2008 - 11:57

…

Tanuki, there’s a present for you:

Links:

http://img507.imageshack.us/img507/8596/makomaidzm5.png

http://img172.imageshack.us/img172/9829/minamikeokawari7makomaije9.jpg

http://img222.imageshack.us/img222/4848/minamikeokawari7makomaisl4.jpg

http://img412.imageshack.us/img412/1198/minamikeokawari7makomaihw8.jpg

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Haesslich
February 17th, 2008 - 12:03

…

Also, is narcisism considered forbidden? Just wondering, given the way…

Nevermind, you’ll see it yourself. Look up this week’s releases of anime. I’ve said too much.

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Haesslich
February 17th, 2008 - 12:03

Narcissism, even.

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Stripey
February 17th, 2008 - 12:12

maglor: Wait a min, isn’t Cream lemon hentai?

usagijen: Ah it’s interesting that I thought the OVA to be rushed. I felt that Iku came to accept that incestuous relationship a little to easily. And hmmm, half-sibling.. still not genetically sound to have children

Haesslich: Haha thanks for the pics… I’m starting to think that shot-trap is a taboo I may not be able to overcome after all XD

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Haesslich
February 17th, 2008 - 16:47

http://img409.imageshack.us/img409/9704/minamikeokawari7makomailt9.jpg

Mako-chan asks you not to continue that line of thought.

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Tess
February 17th, 2008 - 18:57

Gotta agree with you more than anything… taboo love is probably what seduced me into anime fandom in the first place. : O

Not exactly a good thing considering I was what, 9 years old at the time? Anime and manga has ruined me. ( __ __); But soon I get to celebrate my 10 year anniversary of otakuism!

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Stripey
February 18th, 2008 - 00:34

Haesslich: LOL! Goth-loli-siscon and now.. shota-trap? I’m watching for Chiaki, watching for Chiaki… for Chiaki.. XD

Tess: In that sense you are my senpai! Although I’ve been watching anime since young, I only got ’serious’ with it in 2000, the era of the digi-fansubs. Previously I was at the mercy of the TV stations who played only antiquated series from eons back.

Gratz in advance for your anniversary/birthday!

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Tess
February 18th, 2008 - 01:37

Yeah, I’ve been ‘watching’ since I was just 5… Then things turned for the worse at 9 like I said. XD

It’s still a few months off but thanks XD I’m hoping to finally complete a doujinshi by then. =.=; Let’s hope my story and themes are taboo-ish enough! :O

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