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[C]Hello Existents of AA! Today I will be doing something very different from what I usually do
and that is talking about Love and it's intricacies as a common emotion. I am gonna elucidate its
meaning with examples from anime and analyse the psychology behind the emotion. This topic
is way out of my comfort zone due to my lack of practical understanding of this topic but I will try
my best. It's gonna be very d33p as usual so good luck reading this!
[IC]Seriously...Good Luck

[BC]#TheMeaningOf
[BC]#TheIlluminatorsSociety

[BC]P.S This is also somewhat based on Sternberg's Theory of Triangular love which actually
matches my views on love itself

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[BC]What is Love?
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[C]According to the site of Merriam-Webster, strong affection for another arising out of kinship or
personal ties. This is nearly correct except it's missing something. After some discussions on
this topic with people here, I have come across a better definition of love than anything provided
on the internet and books at least. I believe that Love is an emotion which involves both
affection AND attraction towards a second party. It does not need to be especially strong as the
Merriam definition says so but the effects of love are usually realized when it's strong. Love is a
very complicated emotion......or so you would think. I think Love is intricate but not complicated
in the least. When I ask people about what exactly do they understand about love, they don't
give a really good answer and say it's "complicated". It's not that complicated as it is hyped after
[C]There are many sides to love and that much I admit. It has a psychological, sociological,
intuitive, philosophical view to it. I will try to unravel each of these views that I have collated from
various sources (people, internet, books and whatnot) through examples from anime. So let's
get on with it!

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[BC]The First Stage - Attraction
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[C]Attraction is the preliminary stage in the process of love and it is usually instantaneous. For
example, one might fall in "love" just by the looks of the other love interest. It is almost a primal
instinct to get attracted to someone's looks based on one's interest. One such example is
Kousei's observation of Kaori's violin performance. He was instantly attracted to Kaori's grace
through her wonderful performance and nearly fell in love. Usually, the initial stage of attraction
doesn't cause that strong of a feeling for the love interest since less information about the love
interest is known. Now you might say that less information about the other ≠ lesser emotional
value. Yes that is indeed true but usually one observes that when perceived information about
the person is less, affinity for the emotion associated with the less information is often less.
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[C]The earlier example was mostly pure admiration. There is another kind of attraction and it is
sexual. Lust is a natural emotion that happens quite often if one's sexual tension isn't relieved
that well. It's often involuntary. One such example, is Kuzu no Honkai. Hanabi, the main
protagonist and a dude called Mugi participated in a relationship which was purely based on lust
and was targeted towards the process of relieving a shallow sense of loneliness which is
caused by lack of sexual stimulus. Usually it's observed that attractions based on pure lust
progress much faster than attractions based on pure admiration in the context of emotional
stability and mutual affinity of both parties. One can also observe this in anime if you juxtapose
the characters and their situations of Kuzu no Honkai to Your Lie in April (even though YLIA had
a stronger emotional impact due to the factor of impending demise of Kaori, the comparison still
works).

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[BC]The Second Stage - Affection
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[C]This is easily one of the most important stages. This can make or break the feeling of love
towards your love interest. Once the stage of attraction is cleared, for a developed sense of the
emotion, one usually tries to check if their values and the other's values and interests match.
The most important part is usually the matching of values. Even if interests never match, similar
values usually give a better sense of feeling towards the other. You might ask why values are
more important. You see, similarity in interests can be usually observed with many kinds of
people and that includes strangers, friends, family and workmates etc. But matching values is a
seldomly observed thing so it's importance is much more highlighted from the point of view of
the person observing said values. The generic importance of values can also be associated with
the longevity of the relationship itself.
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[C]A great example of matching values is Okabe and Kurisu. Both have great minds and are
intelligent enough to have gained a stable apotheosis to their emotional interaction. Their values
regarding the time machine's effects matched and their values regarding living also matched
greatly albeit that occurence not happening in the initial moments of their very meeting. Their
values regarding friends also match as we can observe them valuing their friends at nearly the
same level of compassion. All their efforts to counteract any issue was related to saving their
friends from trouble and the issue was usually associated with the said friend's wellbeing.
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[BC]The Third Stage - Intimacy
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[C]Intimacy is the most interesting stage in the process of love in my opinion. It's wonderful how
either sexual intimacy or just intimacy with sharing opinions and experiences within two parties
can lead to very consummate relationships. But intimacy can go wrong easily and it's similar to
a balancing rod metaphorically speaking. How does it go wrong? Sexual intimacy is very much
addicting and this usually involves activities like kissing, hugging and uhh s*x (Totally needed to
censor that so that kids here don't understand what I mean). Realistically speaking, this sort of
thing is hugely observed. The contrary is also observed where the peak of sexual intimacy
required by either of the parties isn't achieved and the relationship just breaks off. I believe that
lack of sexual intimacy is a very shallow reason to break up a relationship based on strong
foundations.
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[C]An example of this is Yosuga no Sora (in case you haven't watched it please don't. It's
absolutely crap). In Yosuga no Sora, sexual intimacy was favored more than emotional intimacy
and that lead to subsequently rapid ending of relationships. Yet ironically, the main protagonist
gets along well sexually with uhh his sister but that's because of existing emotional foundations
to their "relationship". As disgusting as the whole incest thing sounds, it is true that any
relationship with emotional foundations preceding sexual intimacy is stronger than a relationship
with solely sexual intimacy or a relationship with sexual intimacy preceding emotional
foundations and you also observe that in real life a lot.

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[BC]The Final Stage - Commitment
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[C]Commitment is very important for the sustainability of any kind of relationship. Without
commitment all the other stages I mentioned before become obsolete. This is easily the most
important stage out of them all. Commitment isn't easy to handle or create for oneself since we
are easily distracted by many things and it's unfortunately a definite factor of our psychology no
matter how focused you believe that you are. Commitment is also something that sustains
societies since strong societies are ultimately a collation of a variety of relationships which have
different foundational emotional value which is usually love (can also be platonic).
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[C]A perfect example of efficient commitment is Hana from Wolf Children. Despite her husband
being away for long durations, their love and commitment towards each other never fluctuated
much. Her commitment towards her kids is even more incredible. Considering the fact that her
kids were anthropomorphic wolves which lead to less accessibility to basic resources and
facilities for humanistic needs, her determination targeted towards caring about her children is
truly admirable even if you try to be critical about it. This combination of commitment towards
her children and her husband is almost similar to most mothers in the real world and the movie
does an excellent job portraying that. I believe that the strongest form of love is definitely due to
a mother for good reasons. One of the reasons other than excellent committal values is also a
Mother’s psychology which is very common among the genefolk.
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[C]A mother’s psychology is a very interesting one because the transition from an adult to a
nearly pure caregiver is just so abrupt that it’s almost confusing to comprehend. I believe
evolutionary reasons come to play but in the form of something very much altruistic. There are,
of course, mothers that falter in terms of altruism but it is usually due to having the responsibility
at the wrong time of mental state or just bad personality in general or just simply a forced
responsibility due to an “accident”. Though in comparison to the majority of near-altruistic
mothers, the numbers of the type of mothers I mentioned above are actually pretty less. It’s
amazing how motherly love can be so precious due to its very strong emotional value and it’s
definitely better than the relationships you otherwise normally see (this is just my view) because
it exempts sexual intimacy. Why my view is phased like that? I did mention the drawbacks of
sexual intimacy and it holds here as well.

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[BC]Why Has Love Prospered So Much?
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[C]The historicity of love is extremely extensive and it is fair to assume that it has existed for a
great number of years. Even animals showcase a form of love albeit somewhat primitive and it
has continued to prosper as a concept for sustaining humanity that has evolved from these very
animals. But a point to note here is that even if a concept exists for very long, it doesn’t
necessarily make it right. Even love has its own drawbacks and it’s most definitely not perfect.
Love can be expressed for literally anything and it has creeped into bad areas of interest. But
still why has it prospered so much? Even in anime, love thrives a lot as a concept and is hugely
liked actually. Most of the widely accepted “good” anime usually feature some form of
romance/love. It has prospered so much because humans like the sense of fulfillment or
Eudaimonia that comes through the feeling of love. People also like love due to the
unpredictability of garnering it as a feeling. Love is a very abrupt feeling. Also sociologically
speaking, the better societies out of them all usually have interpersonal compassion even if the
multiple parties are pure strangers to each other (however with strangers, the first stage, that is,
attraction is mostly the reason for said compassion). Love is a good form to make peace and
not war which is kind of ironical when we think about the phrase-

[IC]”Everything is fair in Love and War”

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[C]However this quote is extremely wrong if you want to think about the wellbeing about the
whole race called Humanity. As a quote targeted to selfish desire, it is very much right. The
perfect exemplar of such a thing are all the yanderes that exist in anime. One good example of
a yandere is Yuno Gasai who killed plenty just to reunite with her love interest due to her
unfounded obsession for it (unfounded because her reasons for loving her love interest were
extremely minimal practically speaking). Such a kind of love is obviously bad for most except
Yuno herself.

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[BC]What About People Who Are Incapable Of Love?
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[C]By incapable I mean on an emotional level. I am talking about people with Schizoid or
Alexithymia or any other sort of mental deficiency which which inhibits basic cognitive
processing (like an extreme form of autism). As a person with Alexithymia, I have to say I
actually don’t practically understand love good enough and I do know that it would be beneficial
for me to love someone because I have often observed that relationships can lead to self
improvement. It’s like an efficient way of gaining and applying criticism of self. Right now, I just
suck internally speaking but I have learnt well to be able to emulate emotions at least in public
to avoid annoyances but it isn’t true in any way.
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[C]An anime character that actually exemplifies a similar kind of condition to mine is Violet
Evergarden. She is the embodiment of what I call self-love. Initially she was quite attracted to
Gilbert but I believe that most of that attraction was purely due to maybe pheromones of Gilbert
or just a hormonal reaction of lust of some kind (not necessarily lust but something similar along
those lines). When Gilbert congratulated her on her discharge from the hospital and attempted
to give her some stuffed animals, which is usually preferred by handful of females as a gift, she
showed no interest. Her expression also remains the same throughout the entire 10 minute of
the first episode. That indicates indifference and possibly a sense of Adiaphoric Morality (read
my blog on that [here|http://aminoapps.com/p/7vibfd]). However, Violet's indifference to the
vicissitudes of life is basically due to traumatic events that happened in the past. She is
basically incapable of mutual love or even trust for that matter because her empirical belief that
people are not trustworthy is very strong. Sometimes she even starts hating herself and
deprecates her own purpose. In fact, I believe that Violet tends to Schizoid instead of
Alexithymia and I actually somehow relate to her on a very deep level.

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[BC]Forbidden Love
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[C]This is a very interesting topic to write on. What is Forbidden Love? Basically a type of
tendency towards another creature (...yeah) which isn't socially acceptable. A good example of
this is Incest and unfortunately it's a very common theme in Anime. A good example of Incest is
Oreimo which is just terrible I must say albeit somewhat enjoyable. The MC literally discards all
the other girls who were actually (at least in my opinion) better than the MC's sister by lengths
yet the MC chose his sister to "marry". Now why is this idea of Incest disgusting? Well simply
because history has shown that incestual relationships are much prone to health issues and can
almost destroy a whole ancestry. However, this isn't a colloquial view. The colloquial view is that
Incest is disgusting/wrong/something bad because our psychology has evolved in such a way
that has discarded Incest due to its evolutionary/inheritable disadvantages. Statistics prove my
point but that's not the focus here.
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[C]Pedophilia is also a common theme in anime where lolis are sort of glorified but the sense of
Pedophilia here is very mild. Why are lolis so popular? Because they are super cute according
to many and their innocence becomes an excuse for the adults to do uhh "things" to them since
children aren't mature enough to complain to higher authorities like police and the folks.
However Loli isn't always associated with children. It is also associated with uhh midget adult
women I suppose. Women that are actually old enough to engage in sexual activity but are
physically small and possibly emotionally unstable as well. Still that doesn't remove the issue of
the proclivity towards child-like bodies.
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[C]I think a simple reason to this is failure with adult relationships since rejection is not handled
well by many since most adults are at least conscious of the love they experience and are able
to assert their possible reluctance to sustain the experience of the same feeling. So who is left
then? Children. Children don't have the ability to assert good enough to refuse an adult who is
most plausibly stronger than the child. That's my view at least but I am not sure if this is actually
true but the probability of my view being true is pretty high but it's definitely not the only reason.
[C]An example of what I mean is best shown by the anime Saikin, Imouto no Yousu ga Chotto
Okashiinda ga. The anime is the perfect mix of lolicon culture AND a notion of incest. It's sort of
sexual as well too and it's kind of weird to even watch it considering how much I don't like the
notions of Incest or Loli Culture (Lolis are cute however, not gonna lie but I don't have sexual
proclivities towards them). The anime portrays sexual love shown by the sister towards her
brother and I accidentally watched it because it was romance ( I like romance since love is the
one of the few things I don't actually understand that well practically speaking).

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[BC]How Love Can Create Bad Intentions
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[C]Nothing is wholly positive in any opinion if you include the facts from the real world. Love is
also not always good for everyone. Love can make good people do bad things. Some people
even exploit the power of love through psychological manipulation and you know what I am
talking about. An excellent example of what I mean is Happy Sugar Life (A friend recommended
this to me). Satou, the main protagonist, murdered the man that she lived with for Shio, Satou's
love interest because she was infatuated innocence with Shio's innocence and ultimately fell in
love. Ever since then she has made sure no one harms her happy sugar life even if it means
exploiting them in the harshest ways. Shio was the perfect symbol for Satou to relieve herself
from the trauma she has experienced. It's clear how the murder was influenced through her love
for Shio. This is what happens when one gets obsessed with another person. Another similar
example is Mirai Nikki which I talked about above in some section.
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[BC]Realism and Idealism in Love
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[C]What is Realism and Idealism? According to Wikipedia The Great Sage, Realism, sometimes
called naturalism, in the arts is generally the attempt to represent subject matter truthfully,
without artificiality and avoiding artistic conventions, or implausible, exotic, and supernatural
elements. I agree with this definition and am a Realist myself. Idealism is the exact opposite of
Realism and it is inclusive of utopic and supernatural elements or artistically conjured
imaginations.
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[C]But What is Realism and Idealism in Love? It should be pretty clear from the preceding
paragraph of definition. Realistic love is something that is formed without any supernatural
expectations from the other and Idealistic Love is the extreme opposite of that. A good example
of Realistic Love is Tsuki Ga Kirei. As slow as the anime is, the process of the formation of love
corresponds very closely to anime. The four stages I mentioned before were included in this
process mixed with the element of mutual confusion because of their mental state as
adolescents. It is wonderful to see Realistic Love being portrayed as cinematically as done in
the anime. What is Idealistic Love? Well love towards things that aren't physically tangible and
aren't at least living is Idealistic. For example, a lot of people in the Anime community have the
culture of waifus where they proclaim their “love” for them and obsess over it. This is, of course,
not true for everyone but it is almost pathetic to observe since it's basically an excuse to escape
reality and that isn't practical at all. It's almost dangerous I would say to be honest and that isn't
an opinion. There have been multiple dangerous cases of this and you can google them as well
(They are funny as f*ck).

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[BC]Ending Thoughts on Love in Anime
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[C]Love is truly an inexplicable thing but most of it is deterministic. I am usually fascinated by
Love and I often watch romance anime to understand it better (I also observe real life
relationships too). Sometimes it's cringey and sometimes it's genuine but Love is truly a
wonderful thing and it's historicity of existence is amazing. It has sustained for so long for a
reason. I don't understand love empirically speaking that well because I have never exactly felt it
(however my hormones are fine so I can at least sense lust), but I have observed a lot about it
and I hope this blog was good enough to give some insight on it and provoke thought. Thank
you for reading this blog!

[BIC]I would like to thank [Mizu|http://aminoapps.com/p/6k3ru4] for her help in this blog. She
helped with great examples. (Btw she is adorable)
[BC]TEEHEE~