Reviews in Brief: Yun Kouga's Loveless, Anime

I've avoided jumping into this one because it is not only very complex and sometimes surreal, it is also a potential minefield of issues. It's huge, and I'm leaving a lot unsaid here. The manga series develops, as it goes on, a very dark edge; the anime, which was begun just before volume 5 of the manga came out, is not quite so dark but still fairly edgy. Both have been quite controversial for a number of reasons.

Aoyagi Ritsuka (and please note that since both the manga as translated and the anime adhere to Japanese naming conventions, for this commentary I will as well) is twelve years old and doesn't remember anything that happened before he was ten. His mother is convinced that an imposter is occupying her younger son's body and regularly brutalizes him. His father is in denial and largely absent. His older brother, whom he idolizes, has recently been murdered -- his burned corpse was found in Ritsuke's chair in his schoolroom.

The story opens with Ritsuka's first day in his new school, where he meets Hawatari Yuiko, who decides to become his friend, and Shinonome Hitomi-sensei, his homeroom teacher, who is concerned for him, given his history. At the end of the school day, Ritsuka is accosted by Agatsuma Soubi, a twenty-year-old college student, who introduces himself as someone who knew Seimei, his brother: he was Seimei's Fighter Unit, and is there at Seimei's orders, because Seimei's orders are absolute, even in death.

The mystery that propels this story starts when Ritsuka, at Soubi's urging, discovers Seimei's "will" on his computer, telling him that he was murdered, that something called the Seven Moons is involved, and that he is bequeathing Soubi to him. Ritsuka is determined to find the Seven Moons and find out what happened -- and exact revenge.

The fascination here is the complexity of the characters, which does come across in the anime quite well. Ritsuka is an independent boy, in some respects -- but not all -- far beyond his years, and strong-willed. He's a loner who is reluctant to allow others to get close to him, and doesn't understand the concepts of "liking" and "love" -- in fact, he finds them terribly confusing, particularly in relation to Soubi, who says early on that he loves him -- although he doesn't want to have sex with him, at least not until Ritsuka is older.

And Soubi is unreliable. He says he is under Ritsuka's orders, and regularly ignores Ritsuka's wishes, although he insists he wants nothing more than to be dominated. He's a liar, and one gets the feeling that he has his own agenda. He admits to Ritsuka that Seimei ordered him to love his brother -- but admits only to himself that he has come to love him in his own right.



A note about milieu: the setting is contemporary Japan, and the fantasy elements are not explained. Thus, the battle pairs -- Fighters and Sacrifices who share a name (Soubi and Seimei were "Beloved," Ritsuka himself is "Loveless") -- engage in spell battles, but we don't know why. (In larger terms, at least: in the immediate context, the battles that Soubi engages in are to protect Ritsuka from other pairs sent to bring him to Seven Moons.) Also, equally unexplained, people have ears and tails until they lose their virginity -- they are kemonomimi (lit. "animal ears"), a fairly common image in manga. To any hardened veteran of fantasy literature, explanations are not really necessary: just accept it as part of the setting and stop worrying about it.



The relationship between Ritsuka and Soubi, as far as I'm concerned, is the core of the story, and it's to the credit of the studio that it comes across in the anime almost as strongly as it does in the manga. It's also the complexity and nuance of that relationship that for me makes it acceptable: Ritsuka is in love with Soubi, but he's at an age where he feels it but can't yet name it, so he's terrifically confused, saying over and over again that he doesn't understand. Soubi loves Ritsuka, initially because Seimei told him to, but soon because Ritsuka is worth loving for himself. We tend to fall back on immediate, unmediated reactions when presented with something like this, but, as I responded to one correspondent, these are fictional characters, not real people, and you have to look underneath the surface to discover what's really going on: all else being equal, they are symbols, with all that implies. It's instructive in this regard to note that battle pairs --and Soubi is holding himself out as Ritsuka's Fighter, now that Seimei is gone -- are bonded, and that Ritsuka and Soubi are not, in the normal -- or I should say extra-normal -- way. Thus the story is also about the two of them finding their own connection -- outside of others' expecations. Soubi says at the beginning of episode 5, "Between Ritsuka and I, we'll destroy all the rules of this world." I think we have to take that as important to the meaning. I also found it illuminating of Soubi's character, a hint of that subtext I found in him. (And just to give you some indication of how substantial I find Loveless, as much as I've been thinking about it, that insight just occurred to me.) There's a great deal of tenderness between Ritsuka and Soubi, and that alone would make me reconsider any designation of "abusive" for that relationship. I'm certainly not going to buy into a snap judgment of Soubi as "child predator" without a lot more thought.

Needless to say, there is a huge amount of ambiguity built into this, as there is in the manga. It's problematic whether the final episode answers enough questions: it's strong, and I think it ends on a very positive note, even considering the personalities involved, but there's also the consideration that the producers obviously wanted to leave room for a continuation. (Note: production on the anime began shortly before volume 5 of the manga was released; therefore, the producers created an ending. The manga is now at volume 8, and I, at least, hope there is a continuation soon.) With that consideration, I found the ending almost satisfying enough.

I should also note that some of the criticism I've seen of the anime is that it's not the manga. Well, of course not, and I can't think why anyone would expect it to be: it's an adaptation into a different medium of a story begun in another. Another point raised by one reviewer (who hated it, pretty much) is that it's not BL. From her point of view, I have to take that as valid, but that is based on attitudes in Japan, which apparently rely more on source than content for definitions, and I am necessarily commenting as a Westerner. In my frame of reference, it's definitely BL, based on my reading of what the content actually is -- not yaoi, but certainly shounen-ai, as I understand it (which is to say, the emphasis is on the emotional context, not the physical relationship): the whole story rests on the growing connection between Soubi and Ritsuka, and it is, undeniably, a romantic bond, although not a sexual liaison.



As a watching experience, this one is superb: absorbing story and characters (and the character designs are wonderful, fully in keeping with the manga); excellent voice characterizations ( Katsuyuki Konishi as Soubi is particularly effective: seductive, understated, almost completely irresistible, and if anything, Junko Minagawa as Ritsuka is even more on target); wonderful character designs (Ritsuka is possibly the most appealing character ever, and Soubi is what they call a "quiet beauty" of a very high order, extraordinary even in a genre devoted to beautiful boys); the music is perfect, even the themes -- evocative and perfectly apt; and it's just plain beautiful -- luscious, almost impressionistic at times, and moving into hard-edged passages with never a flicker -- the battle scenes I found particularly well-done.

A footnote: If you're wondering why I am subjecting a cartoon show to this kind of examination (and trust me --I've barely scratched the surface here -- I have pages of notes on both the manga and the anime), I can only say that I don't give any particular credence to the separation between "high" art and popular forms, particularly when you take into consideration the degree of cross-fertilization between the two throughout history. The same standards apply to both, at least within genre boundaries (and even that's subject to change), and the same bases for evaluation. So as it stands, Loveless I found substantial enough and provocative enough to merit that kind of attention. And after thinking about it at length, it still does. It's certainly one I recommend investigating for yourself.

Loveless is licensed in English by Media Blasters.

Staff and Crew:

Director: Yuu Kou
Series Composition: Yuji Kawahara
Screenplay: Yuji Kawahara
Music: Masanori Sasaji
Original Manga: Yun Kouga
Character Design: Kazunori Iwakura
Art director: Rie Ota
Chief Animation Director: Yumi Nakayama
Art Supervision: Shichiro Kobayashi
Editing: Masahiro Goto (Tabac)
Prop Design: Hideki Tachibana
Sound director: Masafumi Mima, Yuuko Seki
Theme Song Arrangement: Masayuki Sakamoto (ED), Sousaku Sasaki (OP), Takeo Kajiwara (OP), Yuki Kajiura
Theme Song Composition: Yuki Kajiura (OP/ED)
Theme Song Lyrics: Yuki Kajiura
Theme Song Performance: Kaori Hikita (ED), Reika Okina (OP)

Cast:

Junko Minagawa as Aoyagi Ritsuka
Katsuyuki Konishi as Agatsuma Soubi
Jun Fukuyama as Yayoi
Kana Ueda as Hawatari Yuiko
Ken Narita as Aoyagi Seimei
Akari Higuchi as female student (ep 8)
Ami Koshimizu as Ai
Asuka Tanii as female student (ep 1, 2, 4)
Aya Hisakawa as Goddess
Emi Shinohara as Katsuko-sensei
Hiroki Takahashi as Kinka (ep 5)
Hiroyuki Yoshino as Youji
Ken Takeuchi as Kaidoh Kio
Kiyotaka Furushima as male student (ep 3)
Mamiko Noto as Shinonome Hitomi-sensei
Mayuko Takahashi as committee chairman (ep 7), friend (ep 8), Natsumi
Mitsuki Saiga as Natsuo
Motoki Takagi as Midor
Rie Kugimiya as Sakagami Kouya
Rina Satou as Female student (eps 7,8)
Sanae Kobayashi as female student (ep 1), Nagisa-sensei
Satomi Arai as female student (ep 1, 2, 4), Natsumi's Mother
Shintarou Oohata as teacher (ep 1)
Takehito Koyasu as Ritsu-sensei
Tamaki Nakanishi as female student (ep 1, 2, 4)
Tatsuhisa Suzuki as boy (ep 7), male student (ep 3), Natsumi's Father
Tsuguo Mogami as male student (ep 3), teacher (ep 1)
Wakana Yamazaki as Aoyagi Misaki
Yui Horie as Ginka
Yumi Kakazu as Nakano Yamato