I can't really recommend anything, but I do want to add that this subject does bother alot of people. It doesn't bother me, personally (Then again, I am an only child, so thats most likely why).

I want to add that people shouldn't let something like this stop them from reading something.

Angel Sacntuary is one of my favorite series. It is very well done, and has beautiful art. If you let something like this turn you off from it, you're indeed missing out on a great series.

EDIT:
Also, Boku wa Imouto ni Koi wo Suru is excellent. In the beginning I found myself hating the main character (His sister is kind of one of those clumsy types, in a cute way), and he does alot of mean things. But I would also recommend it, highly. The art is very well drawn, and the story keeps getting better.

Last edited by Kaioh at 7:40 pm, Jun 4 2007

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Not quite sure if this counts... but Elfen Lied - cousin-cousin... but only sorta. The anime doesn't actually go into detail about their relationship, but I just found it weird that the girl liked him even though they were more family-ish.

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Well, it's legal to marry your cousin in Japan, so I don't think it would really count as an incest sort of thing ^_^'''

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Yeah, thats true, aswell.

Mahoraba is like that, too, I believe.

Otakubaybay, its considered incest with any family member, no matter how distant.

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Wow, really?! I didn't know that Thanks for telling me!


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NO, it doesn't count. Pearlesque is working on an essay about the fictional depiction of incest in Japanese media and cousins are legally permitted to marry under Japanese law, that's why there are so many relationships like that in anime/manga.


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Into Your Heart Through the Door by Yamada Yugi is very good.

But it's in your list already....err, read it again!

Yes, it does count.

Whether its legal or not is a different story.

Cousin's getting together is incest.

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Angel Sanctuary has a very complicated, convoluted, and pretty darn interesting plot, but it's also a bit disturbing.

In addition to incest, you have several gay relationships, transvestites (I might be wrong about this one, since I read it a long time ago), backstabbing, and insane angels. It is a good manga... but not something that I think everyone would enjoy. Just like how I'm sure some people will say Gravitation is a good manga, but I couldn't get past more than a few volumes of it because of all the angsty gay bishounens.

Looking online (ie. googling "define: incest"), there's multiple definitions of "incest". Most of them are rather imprecise, but the Princeton Wordnet (and a few others) define it as "sexual intercourse between persons too closely related to marry (as between a parent and a child)".

Which would mean that intercourse between first cousins isn't incest in Japan (though it would still qualify in other locations where marriage between first cousins is illegal).

Yes, and considering that most of us live in America, it is illegal.

I love how people like to google stuff and "define" it to me, when I already know the definition.

The questioning of whether or not a releationship between two cousins is incest is a ludicrous argument, anyways. It is incest, plain and simple.

Arguing the point any further is moot.

Now, let us return to the main topic.

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Wow, you guys ROCK -- especially TofuQueen for pointing me to all those titles! Thank you so much!

If there are any incest-related titles that have been missed, I hope that more people come forward with them. Thank you to everyone who does!

I find it fascinating that incest seems to be more common in shoujo/josei and yaoi than it is in seinen/shounen or yuri. Why is this? There are plenty of shoujo and yaoi stories dealing with incest (esp. stepcest), but not so many shounen ones... Or at least, that's the way it seems to me. Am I wrong? If so, please suggest more shounen/seinen titles to me.

I mean, in yaoi it kinda makes sense to deal with incest, since we're already talking about the taboo here -- but then it's strange that yuri doesn't contain as much "per capita" incest. At least the non-hentai yuri I've read doesn't seem to have that much incest in it -- and I've read a LOT of yuri. In yaoi, however, you have brothers, stepbrothers, fathers and stepfathers pursuing relationships all over the place. In fact, incest seems to be a common theme in yaoi.

When it comes to het (straight) incest, though, shoujo/josei seems to have more of it than shounen/seinen manga. How interesting...

Or is it just because romance- or relationship-based mangas are fewer in shounen anyway? Which means that Japanese people (and perhaps us non-Japanese ones) think that females are more interested in relationship-based stories?

Does anyone have any ideas about this? What could it mean about Japanese culture's understanding of incest and of sexuality as a whole?

Hmm. I'd welcome any arguments/explanations/discussions about this topic. Specifically:

1) Are particular depictions of incest more common in manga, and if so, why?

2) Are some genres (e.g. shounen, shoujo, yaoi, yuri) more or less likely to feature incest? If so, why?

3) How close do you think manga is to real life in its depictions of incestuous relationships?

4) What do you think the depiction of incest in manga signifies in terms of Japanese culture?

Let's get a debate started. I love debates!

But please, people, I hope that no one starts ranting about how sick incest is -- because we are talking about FICTIONAL incest here, and about the issues it symbolizes. I mean, most of us agree that murder is wrong, but we still read manga about it -- so I hope that no one here takes the reading of incest-based manga as a real-life approval of it. We don't want to open that can of worms just yet. Let's be friendly and academic, okay? No flaming!

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Another interesting note is that alot of manga that involve incest have female authors.

Brother complex, perhaps?

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YES ZOMG, I have often wondered why! In fact, in the reply I just made above, I note the fact that non-hentai incest seems to be more common in shoujo than in shounen. Very, very interesting. And I don't think it's necessarily because of a brother complex (cute idea, though!) but because the shoujo genre features more relationship-based stories in the first place. So naturally the ratio of incest relationships will be higher, because the ratio of ALL romantic relationships is higher in shoujo than in shounen.

Of course, I might be wrong about this, and I welcome any debate.


I actually think that plenty of male mangakas must have had sister complexes too, lol, but that doesn't necessarily translate into their work... I think the genre ratio of incest stories is more indicative of the Japanese culture's understanding of gender and sexuality.

Or I might just be talking out of my a**. I am an academic, after all...

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