Loveless is the prime example of "Wtf did I watch as a teen"

My abusive girlfriend cosplayed as sobe and had me cosplay ritsuka and walked me around a con with a leash and collar. I thought it was great at the time, but then I went to therapy 😂

Age of consent is 18 now. So even Japanese ppl thought 13 was bad. Also "cultural differences" is a bad argument. Child Marriages are legal in the states. What gonna say there? Are those ok then?

that "im not interested older people" made me sick. This whole thing is makin me sick. Why.

I remember watching this as a KID and finding the cat ears a great idea, I grew up Christian, so the idea of having a way to show how "pure" I was had me over the moon. Then I grew up, left the religion and realized how horrible would this actually be. Also I never got that he was 12, I thought he was in university because I don't remember anyone wearing a uniform, an where I come from, only university students don't wear them.

1:09 honestly the whole cat ear virginity thing horrifies me, like imagine seeing a baby or toddler without the ears that would be horrible (to say the least

I DIDNT KNOW HE WAS TWELVE😢😢 I was so innocent lol

I thought Soubi was going to act like Ritsuka’s big brother/ protect him as a promise to his late friend. Then the kiss scene happened … What are you doing, step-Soubi?

I didn't realize the gap was so big as a kid. I though subi was like 17... I just didn't like the vibes and stopped at episode 2 or 3, glad I did

The "culture" part person is stupid asf

Do ya think there'd be a market for fake cat ears and tails in this universe? Conversely, I wonder if folks would be able to hide their ears and tails (sorta like Sucrose from Genshin).

Oh, the Yaoi back in the day was like a total wild wild west, everything goes and the more toxic it was the more popular it seemed to be. Okane ga Nai, Junjou Romantica, Loveless, that other weird one with the teacher, you name it... But hey those were basically the only things a little weeb like me outside of Japan could get their hands on so, I couldn't complain.

I never read this, but it was EVERYWHERE. It's another one of those manga/anime that got by on *aesthetics* mostly instead of story. Teenagers love edgy romance manga with frills like cat ears, angel wings, devil horns, especially when it's drawn with pretty boys and dark shades. Another one that comes to mind is D. N. Angel

Heard of it but didn’t touch it thank god as a young 12 year old. Sadly my awakening was Black Butler and High School Of The Dead especially Saeko as a lesbian

As teens we don't see the bad of the age difference. But as an adult... I'm shocked this manga is still going though, the most shocking part to me hahahah

As a teen Loveless was my permanent Asexual awakening.

"Not to judge something based on how icky it makes you feel" Me every 2 second to my sapphic friend while showing her Utena. I KNOW NANAMI'S AND TOUYA'S RELATIONSHIP IS CREEPY , THAT'S THE POINT , WE'LL GET TO THE POINT OF ACKNOWLEDGEMENT SOON.

Loveless... the weird grooming bl anime that my 13 year old self was too dense to realise what a creep Soubi was. 3 or 4 years later I got that "wait a minute" moment. Honestly poor Ritsuka and all the abuse and manipulation he has to put up with.

"The manga gets better tho" an adult man still kissed a child on the mouth in a romantic way. I DO NOT understand how that is defensible. I remember my friends going crazy for this manga. I thought it was creepy then and I still think its creepy

Please review "Tyrant falls in love" Even as a teen the whole story was very icky to me. Poor guy gets assaulted by his younger friend, and then when he tells him no more that, his friend leaves him for few weeks without a word. And when he comes back he blackmails the guy that either they are lovers or he will leave for good. And yet the assaulted guy is somehow the titled tyrant?!

I read what was translated of the manga in middle school. The impression that I got was that it *was* a commentary on dysfunctional and/or abusive relationships. It’s very exploitatively framed for weird BL reasons, but like, I felt like it was leading up to a point that ‘just because you love/care about/feel like you’re soulmates/are family with someone, you still shouldn’t endure abuse or toxicity. The manga might have pivoted away from that after the point that I read it, but I was genuinely under the impression the big ending was going to be ‘the acknowledgement and breaking of generational trauma’ that the fighting organization represented I came to this conclusion when I was like 13 however, so take it with a boulder of salt

That comment about how you prolly weren't alive when "it was peak" cracked me up because only extremely young people talk that way.

I was 14 years old when I saw him. Most of the relationships of these characters are very creepy, not to mention Ritsuka's parents (abusive mother and absent father), Ritsuka and his unhealthy obsession with his brother, Soubi also suffered from Gromming as a child, Seimei is a first-class manipulator. The truth? I think that was the essence of the story, Ritsuka living in a hostile environment and Soubi not really knowing what love is, just following other people's orders because that was instilled in him. By the way, the manga has been on hiatus for years. Fun fact: The author made an illustration of Ritsuka as an adult where it says that he "lost his ears" at age of 21. The story is still one of my favorites. Although you must take into account that it is a twisted one.

When Ritsuka said "Soubi..." the flashbacks began, I fought for this series so hard back in the day and I still think the manga art is gorgeous honestly, but no no nope no The fact that I cosplayed as Ritsuka at 14, this brings back too much but thank you for covering this wild series

i have a fun memory about reading a fan translation of loveless. they really made a kid in modern japan say 'why are you looking at me like lenin at the bourgeoisie?' 😭 funny that THIS manga had an official russian release considering the latest events i don't remember how i found loveless but it was in the middle school and i secretly bought a whole 4 (four) tomes along other series on the money my parents gave me for a school trip. they are still hidden somewhere at my family's house. lmao thought the uhh. 'romance' part was kinda dumb but kept reading online because the plot was so wild i had to find out what seimei was cooking. i've read it twice years apart, ending on the same cliffhanger. this was wild indeed

Shame this was one of my first exposures to queer rep. I watched this before I realized how normal and common queer relationships actually are, so I saw the anime as a “double taboo” instead of “oh wow this boy is being groomed”

5:01 is not targeted to girls but to women/adult, is a Josei manga. Even back then it was a late night premiere. And...that is all i'm gonna say. Story is about abusers, groomers and codependency (manipulative poeple), all this stuff by no means targeted to little girls. I just feel i'm seen the whole Killing/Stalking shit renew with material not mean for actual minors. Edit: because typos.

When I saw the thumbnail, I was like "ah yeah, that exist". I was never into this story, I tried reading the first couple of chapters in middle school and just felt uncomfortable. Now that I'm an adult, I understand why I felt uncomfortable, since I may like BL, but I was never a fan of age gap couple in romance story when a minor was involved. So I was never into love story like that, especially if it was a teacher student relationship, the concept made me uncomfortable, although I understood why people liked it, it just wasn't my thing. I thought I was weird for that, since back when I was in school I among the few girls who didn't like this type of romance. I was also really into BL, GL, Yaoi and especially Yuri, but stories that showed adults going out with teenagers or kids in any media was never my thing. I'm glad to know it wasn't just me who couldn't really get into the "Loveless" manga/anime hype. Loved your video by the way and I'm looking forward to your review on the manga. Honestly, I didn't know if the manga was any different from the anime, since I only read a bit of the mange and wasn't interested in the anime. I'm still not interested in reading or watching "Loveless", but I am curious to know your opinion on it.

okay cool... but what's up with having FOUR ears?? that's kinda unintentionally unsettling 😭😭

My weird headcanon is that this is the Loveless that Genesis was obsessed with in Crisis Core.

I cannot speak for the anime, nor the entirety of the manga, but from what I remember it was about abuse. Not really BL at all. I don’t think they tried putting the little boy and older guy together, rather the older guy was in an abusive relationship with the kid’s older brother. And it seems more of the focus was on the kid reevaluating their relationship. Of course, that’s just my memories.

I used to love this as a very closeted, mentally ill teen, and over-sympathetized with ritsukas worldview 🙃 I remembered this anime a few months ago and was like “wow this was revealing about who I was as a teen 😬” Now I *try* to see it in the same way you mentioned, that it just shows kind of a perfect storm of ways that a traumatized child can be taken advantage of. If they didn’t frame the kissing and “romance” scenes between ritsuka & soube as so aesthetically beautiful, it would be much easier to read that way.

It is about grooming and toxic love, but gives me a weird solace in that -because I identify with Ritsuka a lot. It sort of helps, finding a character that goes through as much hurt, distress and loneliness as I once felt. All characters are messed up, nothing makes sense, love is dangerous and wrong, but also the one thing one craves. This is about abuse, and it’s oddly cathartic to me. I can’t defend it as a whole, just state it resonates in me even as an adult.

The mention of MadK was like an uppercut to my jaw, the memories of me in middle school in the throes of a gender identity/sexuality crisis. My only solace- bl gore smut. Honestly thinking about reading it again. Also, thanks for informing me about/ summarizing this gross and creepy anime. I don't think I'll be watching it, even I have limits. 👍

"Its been going for over 20years" ... *giggles in One Piece

If you ever get the chance, please do Tyrant Falls In Love. MC gets raped by college classmate and when MC confronts him about it, he’s gaslit into thinking it’s his fault for being raped and classmate disappears for several days. Then classmate comes back and blackmails MC into having sex with him again.

Oh no….I remember this. How did I miss he was underage?!

wasn't there a kid who was wearing fake ears on his head because he had lost his virginity?

man, I remember literally /squeeing/ about the last ep of the anime with a girl in the school anime club, and god, I still HAVE the first four volumes of the manga floating around my house from when i was a teenager. I tried putting them on depop but, quelle fuckin' surprise, NOBODY WANTS EM 😂😭 and i'm torn between wanting to rehome them bc I was raised not to waste stuff and just... not wanting to inflict these things on anybody else - I did read a lot further online for a while, tho I don't remember shit about what actually happened, I can't believe it's still going??? def gonna give resuming it a pass

Actually this does have a US DVD release

Loveless??? As in the hit play from final fantasy vii

Stares at my English localization DVDs of Loveless... like "you don't exist?!"

omg you always bring up the anime i’ve been thinking about, I SWEAR I READ THIS AS A KID AND NOW IT HAUNTS ME

This was technically the first anime I saw not counting the 90s childhood ones like Dragon Ball (R.I.P) and Sailor Moon. I know there’s something f’d up about that.

I have a vague memory of reading some of this manga. The thing I remember was the cat ear concept, dead brother, and weird relationship.

Yang: "So there's this manga called Lovel-" Blake: "My ears won't fall off after we do it."

I feel like this started my love of toxic relationships. The story always felt very fucked up and kept getting worse in a good way. Like it was beating the readers over with how fucked up it was. I really hope you will make a video on the manga. If you want to deep dive into something similar I recommend Yami no Matsuei (Descendants of Darkness).

My sister got me the first book for my birthday in middle school. She knew I liked anime and manga so picked a book with a pretty cover. Oh little did she know😅. The other was the second volume of Hibakis Magic( I still dont have the first volume, lol). Bless my sisters soul, it's the thought that counts

Maaaan I remember this was so many “baby’s first BL” for people, or should I say kids cuz it was teens and tweens, tried SO hard to justify and rationalize what was going down, mainly because they hadn’t learned red flags yet. When I saw it I knew Ritsuka was young but I didn’t know he was 12!! ICK

Dude. I think is saw a casting call for a Loveless dub or something like that on the site I use for voice acting gigs. I was never gonna do it cause it wasn't paying and I'd never heard of the manga/anime but I still feel like I dodged a bullet

The fact that this anime was on "best BLs to watch" lists back in the day boggles my mind

I NEED you to do a video on Therapy Game and Therapy Game Restart when you are done reading them. They are so good! My favorite BL series of all time.

Man, I think I must have blocked out a lot of the key elements of this show, because this is *not* what teenage me remembered until you started explaining it. 😂 Thank *god* I never watched most of it and that it faded from recollection (unlike Vampire Knight 😬)

I did not expect Therapy Game and Secret XXX to be mentioned. 2 of my all time favourite BLs!!!! Such beautiful art and lovely cast.

i really struggled to get through this video. i'm currently recovering from covid and i feel like watching this made me regress back into the worst of it LMAO

Most of the time when people protest that “we can’t judge *insert asian country here* by our western views” they don’t actually know or care about the views of people in that country. Like sorry buddy but feminism isn’t just a western idea. Age of consent has changed and people have been trying to have it changed for a while. I never read this but I knew about it. Even middle me could see that this series had red flags. I think there can be value in problematic media but that media needs to be self aware that it’s problematic and avoid glamorizing the problem. It’s a bold move to try to get people to support a romantic relationship that starts when one of the characters was 12 and the other was an adult. Like simply making it so that they were both adults even with the gap in ages would have been less problematic.

Of course I know this one...😭 And I was way to young when I read this..

Your makeup is always so pretty! I hate makeup on myself feels uncomfortable but yours is always pretty

MADK mentioned! I'm interested to know what others make of it, i found the story really interesting till the last volume went in a direction that was a no for me.

shoutout (police call to) the upperclassmen that suggested this to me when *I* was 12 years old

I thought this was the book that Genesis was always reading

My favorite arch was when chris hansen showed up and told Sobe to take a seat

I remember reading and watching this as a teen just freshly into manga/anime because it was in its peak. With a few friends even wrote some RPs in the universe because we liked the wordplay. I don't remember much of it, don't think I ever realised how icky it was. I drifted off reading the manga because they were taking too long to progress the story. One thing I remember liking about anime was the music though. I remember liking it. I look forward to the manga breakdown though, I am curious what they did.

I read the manga before I watched the anime; I was extremely disappointed. The anime is total trash and, as you said, doesn't explain anything. If my memory serves me correctly, the manga at least explains things a bit more

Why did everybody complain about the ending to Usagi Drop but nobody addressed how creepy this was for 17 years

You’re reading MADK?? NIIIIICE! That mango is so morbid I like it

I remember the manga being sooo different, but I read it so long ago and I was also 13 xD please do a comparison of it, I’m staying tuned to see what’s up

Who remembers sekaiichi hatsukoi and junjou romantica 🤣🤣

i'm from ukraine and i have honestly never heard of this title before, it kinda evaded my anime-obsessed teen self hearing you talk about it just brings so many questions of "WHY?" even in age difference enjoyer as myself like... 12 y.o. is just before the puberty hits and your brains get scrambled by hormones i can't imagine a more vulnerable person that this boy tbh it's real creepy and gross af

Oh my God, I cannot believe you have read MADK!! it’s so good. And the last volume was definitely something, let’s just say that. Are you by any chance, considering doing a Video on it? Because if you are, I think the reaction to it would be absolutely amazing.

This and Gravitation was my first anime ever. I remember renting the entire show from redbox (back when you had to have them mailed to you.) I had every book until Volume 10. I was in 5th grade being OBCESSED with it. I swore for a while that the anime never existed.

If you want a GOOD show/manga from this older Era of BL, I highly recommend 'No.6'

I remember this! I was a fan too when i was a kid, did fanart and fanfic. Looking back I understand how weird it is. When i travelled to the US it was the first manga i bought haha. I thought the manga was on a long term hiatus??

I didn't know that this anime/manga existed until I watched Gundam 00 and heard that the mangaka did the character designs for that show. Trivia that totally trips me out!! Looked the manga up mainly out of curiosity, immediately got red flags from the description & didn't really look further.

I remember being in so deep in this shit that i read the manga and now that i look back and see how bad it was i want to cry Also i remember being so hypnotised by it i searched for content on it on youtube but i never rlly found much so i assumed its smth nobody knew about who would have thought smth like this would acc be somewhat popular (but honestly i coundlt even finish the manga and i dont remember anything about it only thing is im pretty sure i hated the brother for something and they there was a plot about somebody not having a name but i dont remember why or who so its probably pretty forgetable

omg would you ever cover Gravitation? I remember watching it around the same time I was watching Loveless (regrets)

Man, I remember this. I didn't realize it was a romance until I found the box set years later. Kid me grew up in a very religious setting and didn't know anything about boy love. I thought it was a really weird mystery story. The anime was definitely worse, but I can't remember the manga too well, and I no longer have it to check. The art was really good, but after watching the series, I was too icked out to continue. I'm really shocked to hear they're only on book 13. I could have sworn I got to something like book 11, and that was like a decade ago.

God I remember watching this for the first time in my family living room. Luckily no one was home, but I was too mortified that someone was going to walk in while I'm watching this to ever watch this again.

I have a question, is this supposed to be fucked up on purpose? I know writers who go very far without addressing anything because it's supposed to be problematic in the first place

Almost forgot this anime, one of the first BL I saw as a teen...but yeah I remember bring so annoyed that the cool stuff was kinda shoehorned in the last episode. Neve read the manga but honestly props to you for taking in that task!

Wait did you want the court of thorns and roses to be smut?

Yeah, I mostly only know about this from a few AMVs and some videos saying how bad it was. But when a media genre becomes so infamous that it's replaced by a pron tag, to escape the negative connotations, you know something went really wrong.

hell.yes Therapy Game mentioned! Hinohara's art is so beautiful!

Im in love with your analizys videos. Can you do one on Heaven official's blessing? (Tian guan cifu) has two seasons, a visual novel, and the original novel.

"Is this the reason why I like being collared and tied up?" Ayo...?

Happily, I never watched this in my Yaoi phase. I think I'd heard a KZfaqr call it predatory and luckily decided not to touch it upon hearing more about it. I went deep into Doujins instead. Also, yesss, the Therapy Game shout out, it's so good.

I went into the anime knowing nothing about what happens in it and when I found out about their ages in the 3rd episode, I immediately dipped out and never looked back.

“Gay awakening” for sure! I remember this from middle school. 🤣☠️ I’m old ☠️

Dear god wtf were we watching in the early 2000’s 😭 this age gap is heinous

this was one of the first BL animes I watched, and I could not get through the first episode because of how gross it felt. I didn't know their exact ages, but it was clear there was a big age difference and it made me very uncomfortable. I don't know how good or different the manga is compared to the anime, but I'd definitely be interested in seeing your video on it!

So embaressed that I owned the full series in middle school and didn’t get rid of them until very recently, we barely had money growing up so if I asked for manga for holiday gifts I’d rarely get any because my parents had to get cheaper gifts like cheap clothes at thrift stores or dollar tree items, so getting rid of them took a lot of effort 😢

As someone who used to love this Anime & Manga, someone who even went as far as to write FANFICTIONS (Fluff never Lemon), I even got the DVD series for Christmas, and I even still like this Anime/Manga (FML, lol). I do recognize this as a HIGHLY questionable anime/manga. Anyway I absolutely loved this video and laughed tons, thank you! XD

the "cultural context" take made me get a headache

UGH! I just was dusting off my manga library, and found the first 4 volumes. Gosh darnit middle school me. Like the magic system, with words having power; could do without... the everything else :/

When I was a kid I made my own writing project called Loveless, and I only found out in recent years that there was something already called that, but I didn't know it was like THIS!?!?!

Oh god... this... The amount of shame and nostalgia I felt while watching this. I used to be ok with so much bad shit back then. Ugh. Excuse me while I go find a hole to crawl into.

7:04 🤯 YOU DO NOT UNDERSTAND I HAD TO PAUSE AND TAKE A MOMENT TO APPRECIATE THAT YOU APPRECIATE MADK IT IS LITERALLY MY FAVOURITE BL AND I HAVE NOT SEEN A SINGLE PERSON EXPRESS THE SAME YOU EARNED A NEW SUBSCRIBER 💯

I just remember seeing the first few episodes of this at like 13 and being so uncomfortable that never finished it. As an adult I fully get why I had the ick, but I'm wondering how the story is supposed to progress.

I watched this in sixth grade 😭😭😭 THE MEMORIES THIS JUST UNLOCKED.

i only read a little bit of the manga before getting a weird vibe as a kid so i had no idea there were more fantastical elements other than the virginity cat ears oh my god 😂