By: Peggy Sue Wood | @pswediting

Disclaimer: MATURE CONTENT WARNING – This post contains content that we at The Anime View do not think is suitable for everyone. Possible triggers include: grooming, references to potential pedophilia. By clicking “Read more,” you understand that you may encounter such content. Viewer/reader discretion is advised.

Loveless is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Yun Kōga. It was first serialized in Square Enix’s Monthly GFantasy magazine in 2001 and ran until about 2017/2018. The series is, supposedly, still ongoing but we’ve not seen an update in several years so the end may not be near.

As a quick summary of the premise, the series is set in a world where all children are born with cat ears and tails, symbols of their virginity and innocence. As they get older, they “shed” their tails/animal ears and become sexually active. The story follows a young boy named Ritsuka Aoyagi, who is a “loveless” child, and one who has yet to shed his tail and ears. When his brother is murdered, he is pulled into a mysterious world where the power of love is used as a weapon in a war between cats and dogs via words.

In the early 2000s, this series hit the shelves of manga sections around the US. I remember reading it in middle school, and found that it was a highly-regarded and well-received manga series among my peers and online during that time. It offered a unique and thought-provoking story to my young mind as it explored themes of love, sexuality, and identity in a way that appeared to match how complex and thought-provoking these ideas were for a younger teen like myself. The characters were well-developed and their relationships with one another are central to the plot, which is driven by an intricate set of twists regarding family relationships, friendships, and developing feelings. What stuck out to me is the overwhelming attachment disorders (not diagnosed) that appeared in the work, and how much those matched the kinds of feelings many of my peers either suffered from or, like myself, seemed to long for in a relationship. I mean, who, at 13, didn’t want a person to love and care for them the way Soubi seemed to care for Ritsuka? Also, who didn’t feel shattered as a fan by Soubi following Seimei’s orders to leave when he did?

The point is, the series made an impact and I would argue that many are still waiting for the finale of the series nearly 20 years later. (Side note: I think Yuiko is the original loveless fighter and that she and Ritsuka will be end-game, but I digress).

However, in reflecting about this series, I’m reminded of a YouTube video I saw a few months ago called, “Did Pretty Little Liars Groom Us?” by Sloan Stowe. In it, Sloan discusses how the series sets up the audience in a way where they are groomed to be groomed and that idea stuck with me.

Because after middle school, when puberty had left myself and many others with a developed body and more life experiences, Loveless started to feel off. It felt much darker, darker than the murder at its opening as I started to view the college-aged Soubi who crossed some physical lines, to be crossing a lot of social boundaries that made me uncomfortable. Before high school was over, I viewed the way adults interacted with children in the work as off-putting at nearly every turn, and the way young teens are depicted as sometimes aggressive and sexually forward with adults was of equal concern causing me to drop the series.

Now, as an adult, I am reminded of discussions I’ve had about how prevalent it is in anime/manga to see teacher and student relationships despite how unethical it is for a teacher to have a romantic or sexual relationship with a student, as it is an abuse of power and a violation of trust. Yet in manga, you can hardly escape the concept, with even snippets of otome-setting reincarnations often having a teacher love interest accusing the villainess at the start of the story.

Then I watched that video by Sloan and I was reminded of the Loveless anime and manga all over again. I can’t escape from how I felt as a young teen. How I felt like the series was speaking to an aspect of my trauma, and to what I was viewing in others, but the depictions were not accurate to those experiences. Instead, the depictions seemed to feed off of the wanting/wishing to be understood and how those depictions made me think that “this is okay.” It’s okay, a middle school me thought, that a college student is wooing a middle schooler because he’s not crossing a that line fully and it’s just a romantic relationship. It’s fine, a middle school me thought, that this adult listens to Ritsuka and protects the abusive mother because Ritsuka loves his mom… but, actually—it is very much not okay. It is anything but okay. It’s grooming and, the more I reflect on this series now, the more I think that this work is grooming the audience to be groomed even if that was not the creator’s intention.

As a grown reader, I want to see the ending, but not the ending that it seems to be leading to. Instead, I want to see an ending that’s undoing these toxic romances. I want to see Ritsuka’s mom in jail; I want to see Soubi rectifying things and clarifying no romantic feelings for Ritsuka; I want Yuiko and Ritsuka to be endgame, to see the other children in healthier relationships, to see the adults be better people, and to see the bad guys punished. However, undoing 12 volumes of that is likely impossible and maybe that’s part of the reason why there hasn’t been an update in five years.

As a young teen, I would have said that this series is about “puberty,” because everything in the work is developing and twisting and complicated emotionally, but as an adult I have to say that this is a work of grooming. It’s grooming the reader to be groomed, and that’s a horrible and sad realization considering how much I loved the series growing up.

With that said, I do want to ask what you reading this may think. Is Loveless about grooming or, is it has been claimed to be, is it about puberty? Do you agree or disagree with me?

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As a complete editorial side note, I drafted this right after I saw that video on Pretty Little Liars drop, was working on clean up in February to post later this year about mid-March, and as I’m loading it into WordPress for review/scheduling. Negative Legend drops their “The Loveless Anime Glorifies Grooming” video. I’m still going to post this because I drafted it and have an emotional tie to the series and this realization, but I just want to be clear that Negative Legend’s video was a total surprise to me and I literally could not believe how closely that video dropped to when I was editing/prepping this post. Also, go watch it. Give the video views. It’s good.

Update: Negative Legend’s second video, “I Read the Loveless Manga So You Don’t Have To” is also good!

Okay, tangent over. #PeggyIsSad

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Copyedited by: Krow Smith | @coffeewithkrow and Katherine Cañeba | @kcserinlee