"Loveless" (Anime)

[pkristen]

13 Episode TV Series. Originally reviewed December 2, 2007

Summary
An anime based on a manga series that focuses on an elementary school catboy Ritsuka, who’s recovering from the mysterious loss of his older brother. Things change to the bizarre when he meets his brother’s friend Seimei, who’s involved in mysterious, mind/cyber battles.

Review
Why: You can’t be a lesbian otaku when this series was introduced and NOT have heard about it. I patiently waited for the series to be fully released in the U.S., and I have been buying the manga copies. But I didn’t finally carve time to do a full viewing of the anime series until now. Yaoi-centric stuff has to be very good to get my attention and priority.

Basics: I had challenges getting into the beginning episodes of the series because I am not an angsty, insecure school-age individual – so such subject matter was more than a little tedious for me. But once the intro episodes were done, I was able to find the series to be interesting, despite the distraction of the artsy yaoi aura of the series that flirted with not being legal by U.S. standards.

Lesbian Analysis
The most interesting concept story-wise for me was the idea of humans having cat ears and tails until they’ve sexually matured, presumably in the sense of actually having experience, not just natural bodily maturation.

So when the lesbian couple of Kouya and Yamato are introduced, I was especially intrigued by the point that they were “earless”. In the anime, there are not any implications of either of them being interested in boys, and therefore having sexual experience with them. This treatment of equality of lesbian sexuality with that of hetero or gay male is a big plus for me.

Now having said that, I honestly love their storyline as being one of the most emotional and romantic depictions I’ve seen in anime – though not surprising given that the intended audience is female. It was refreshing NOT to have comments about questioning their gender or orientation as a cheap means to justify their love for each other. It was even MORE refreshing to see that their relationship is used as the perfect model of a Sacrifice and Fighter in terms of connection and commitment.

On a side note, my eyebrows did raise slightly at the site of the adult teacher and therapist hanging out in a “women’s only” bar. I’m just going to assume it’s a hang-out place that’s just very Japanese and very heterosexual. (I’m certainly not aware of any equivalent in the U.S. – at least that advertises itself like that.)

Now having written this review, reading the manga series will probably be even lower on my list. And a looong list it is.