We Need to Talk About Love Stage

Disclaimer: I talk about rape here, so if you're triggered by it, it might be a good idea to skip this post. Sorry!

This is a touchy subject.

I don't know why I'm writing it so soon when I said this would be a video game blog but this just doesn't sit well with me.

I just finished an anime called Love Stage! this afternoon and to be honest, I'm surprised I did. The general themes pulled me in because let's face it - I love boy love. I adore it.

It's my thing.

I have a paid account on Crunchyroll and I know that the boylove available to me isn't a very big list. People awhile ago started telling me about Love Stage, so I thought I'd check it out.

I watched the first one, and it was very sweet. 

These two cuties are Ryouma (left) and Izumi (right), the stars of the show. When they were kids they were cast in a tv wedding commercial and then didn't see each other after that for ten years. During those ten years, Ryouma has been pining something serious for Izumi, thinking he was a girl because young Izumi played one, and it wasn't exactly necessary to discuss the sex of the children, also there's the whole lack of masculine/feminine pronouns in Japanese language, so it was unnecessary. 

Ten years later and Ryouma is a TV star, well known, etc, etc. Izumi is an eighteen year old otaku student who spends his free time at the manga club and working on his own manga because he dreams of one day becoming a great manga artist like the artist of his favorite series.

The wedding company who Ryouma and Izumi did a commercial for wants to do a follow up commercial for the ten year anniversary, but only on the condition that they get the same actors who played the kids from back then because now it's 'their happy wedding'. 

Ryouma's in, obviously, and Izumi reluctantly agrees, not realizing what he's getting himself into.

They shoot the commercial, Ryouma doesn't know Izumi's male, finds out a little later and has a crisis. Also, calls Izumi a 'cross-dressing freak'. Hmm.


It takes Ryouma a few days to calm down, and then before we know it, he's at Izumi's house to 'once and for all' get it out of his head that he's in love with Izumi because he can't love a boy, why would he love a boy? He demands that Izumi take off his clothes to 'prove' he's a boy, and then forces himself on Izumi.

You know what Izumi does? He cries. He cries and says 'stop' and 'no'. You know what happens? Ryouma KEEPS GOING.

Hi friends, let's talk about rape culture. Let's talk about consent.

Oh wait, let's not because we don't do that, this is anime where consent doesn't matter because they're animated? That's not how the real world works, people. Consent matters no matter where you are, in video games, in anime, in REAL LIFE because people need to be shown that this is how it's supposed to be. Anything other than an enthusiastic yes is rape, is unwanted. 

Anime needs to stop perpetuating the idea that because he's weepy and submissive looking means that he's just shy, but he still wants it. NO.

NO NO NO

Let me tell you what happens next. 

Izumi's amazing older brother happens to be in the right place at the right time and pushes Ryouma off of him, threatening him. 

Shougo is gayer than Christmas. He's a pop star idol, has loads of fans, and is super protective of his little brother because 'he's just so cute!' Shougo is a light in the darkness. He cares about Izumi, who his friends are, if they're good to him.

He knows Ryouma is up to no good. He tells Ryouma to get lost.




Ryouma leaves, Izumi stays in bed for two days, ashamed, crying, victimized. He convinces himself not to talk about it because it's not a big deal. 





In one of the only redeeming scenes of this entire show, Ryouma pursues Izumi if only to apologize for his horrible behavior. He then publicly bows low on the ground, his face in the dirt, as he asks for forgiveness for his actions.

Izumi reluctantly forgives him, and then they shake hands and agree to be friends. 

Ryouma turns a new leaf and starts behaving like a better person. He helps Izumi with his manga project, texts him casual things, friendly things. Izumi starts to trust him again, and it's genuinely good. I am pleased. 

Then Izumi gets some bad news and goes crying to Ryouma for comfort. Ryouma tells him to take a bath, and then makes him some food and washes his clothes for him and leaves him some pajamas to change into when Izumi decides he need to stay at Ryouma's place for a few days to cool down.

In what I can only describe as garbage, Ryouma pushes Izumi down onto the bed and demands that Izumi tell him how he feels because if he's gonna stay over for a few days, Ryouma can't be expected to behave himself for that long without touching him.


I raised my hopes for nothing.

Izumi concedes defeat, claiming "Fine. Do whatever you want to me. I don't care anymore."

His eyes are dead. His voice is monotone. 

If Ryouma cared about this kid at all he'd pay attention to this and not think with his dick, but NO. He carries on doing whatever he wants, and is like...stripping Izumi down when he finally realizes Izumi is crying again.

Again with consent. If Ryouma cared about consent at all, he'd stop and be like "Woah, hey this isn't you."

Shougo isn't there to save Izumi that time. It's all on Ryouma. Thankfully he stops himself.

More apologies, Izumi kind of...hermits himself away for awhile, wondering about if he's really attracted to Ryouma, and what he should do about it. He even asks his manager, Rei, for advice.

Spoiler alert: Rei is sort of involved with Shougo, which is THE ONLY THING I'M 10000000% OKAY WITH.

 Rei gives Izumi some sound advice, knowing that the kid's curious, and lets him figure the rest out for himself.

Huge plot points later (not really, it's a 10 episode series) and Izumi finds himself in an alleyway, accosted by three men who have him trapped. All three of them have threatened him with some form of sexual assault. When he resists, they find it 'cute' and it makes them want him more (?????). 

Izumi finds himself thinking about Ryouma during this scenario, and gains the strength to fight off his attackers and manages to escape Rape Attempt #3. 

His reasoning? The only man he wants touching him is Ryouma.

So he runs to Ryouma, throws himself into Ryouma's arms and demands that they 'do it'. 

He realizes after they have sex (because they do, and it appears they weren't even properly prepared for it because hey, classic gags on how much pain Izumi is in later lawl) that he didn't even confess back to Ryouma, he'd just greeted him with "I want you", and Ryouma ran with it.

So they exchange their I love you's and what have you, which you know, would be nice. If Izumi hadn't just been assaulted in an alleyway.

That's it, that's the show.

To be honest, all I want out of a boy love anime is something simple. Boy meets boy. Boy falls in love with boy. They pursue each other. They kiss. They build up to the relationship. 

You know what anime gives me? A pushy, aggressive rapefest that I'm not in any way okay with. 

As explained on the Wikipedia Yaoi article, "Rape scenes in yaoi are rarely presented as crimes with an assaulter and a victim: scenes where a seme rapes an uke are not depicted as symptomatic of the seme's "disruptive sexual/violent desires", but instead are a signifier of the "uncontrollable love" felt by a seme for an uke." 

I watched all of Love Stage! hoping it would get better, hoping that Izumi (while he did tell Ryouma to get lost after the first incident) would tell Ryouma to either leave him alone, or to slow down, or to respect him, though to be fair no one should ever have to demand to be respected.

It should be common courtesy.

Love Stage! was a disaster when I wanted so much more from it. I'm told I have too much faith in anime. I suppose the people who tell me so are right.

Let's look at some examples of mainstream boylove.

• Gravitation
• Junjou Romantica ("Did we have sex last night? I don't remember.")
• Sekaiichi Hatsukoi
• Loveless (Also known as 'let's pretend Ritsuka isn't twelve years old')
• Drammatical Murder (Don't get me started)

These exhaust me. I've seen/watched/read them all, and the only one that I was remotely interested in was Loveless but that's because the art is absolutely gorgeous... But I had to give up on it. 

"But Rainey," you might say, "There's plenty of boylove available online!" 

Yeah, I know. But it's mostly hardcore porn, which...looks weird animated (it's hard to animate that kinda stuff, I get it, it's like sex scenes in video games. You're trying not to laugh but...you can't just easily animate that stuff.).

If you know of boylove that's less aggression and more romantic, that would be stupendous. 

Send me a message, hit me up on Twitter, leave a comment, whatever.

I'm tired of getting my hopes up.

Thanks for listening. :(