Vampire love stories. Monsters and maidens. Romance and ‘horror’ go hand in hand all the time. Dark romances are endlessly fascinating. We as people have loved dark romance stories in novel form, movie form, and of course–anime form galore. But it’s interesting because the fascination with dark romance anime in particular is something that feels like its a constant–though it was super popular in the early to mid 2000s.
Lolitas, vampires, lolita vampires. Yanderes and other gothic touches. Tragic dark romances have been aplenty in the field of Anime. I remember when there was a time that I felt like most of what my friends watched were only gothic esque romances. I had wondered what the fascination was. Yet at the same time, I too was consuming then. Vampire Knight, in particular, was a widespread phenomenon. The appeal of the vampire love triangle, the gothic art style, and the complicated story touching on trauma in multiple forms, really spoke to the emo in me. I feel that it is often these darker or even gothic romances really spoke to a sense of complicated parts of love in very beautiful ways. Take for example, The Ancient Magus Bride. This story is honestly very dark by premise–the main character is a literal slave at the beginning who is sold to her love interest. It just so happens that the bond they share and the love they develop ends up being extremely healing for them both.
In fact, I think it’s the healing aspect of dark romance anime that becomes the biggest appeal to it. Dark romances are usually very troubled stories–we have characters who don’t have happy lives usually, who have trauma, who are depressed. Characters who seem to have more human emotions beyond just the fantasies of most typical shoujo. And characters that perhaps feel closer and more understood by those people call monsters than the general public. Darker romances have the tendency to sometimes portray healing in certain ways. Take Call of the Night. The main character finds his life so mundane–he’s clearly struggling–depressed, but through the vampire Nazuna, he sees beauty and enjoyment again. On the other hand, sometimes dark romances appeal due to the intense and sometimes messed up love that appears passionate–think for instance anything with the yandere trope. A love that is so obssessive and we’re told is taboo and we know is unhealthy but we sometimes are deeply fascinated by it. A great example of this? The romance portion of Future Diary.
After some thought…I really think there are lots of appeals to dark romance anime. It can be healing to trauma or triggers we may have. It can make us feel seen by letting us sit in our heavier emotions and show us there is still hope for love. It can give us a glimpse into love that we think is taboo. Or love that is too extreme and that we would never find in real life because we know that toxic isn’t good for us but is good for a story. Sometimes, we just love it for the beauty of some gothic art, the allure of a monster, or the darkness of a story that we feel is too close to home.
AishteLOVEru
xoxo
Luna
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