O yeah, I was starting reading this manga about a sixteen years old high school boy who sleeps with both his step sisters, and I thought to myself "oh, this is gonna be one of those mangas.", and yeah, we all know the drill of step sisters in romance shonen. The no-blood-connections used as an excuse to have sex, and their family life being non-existant with parents out-of-sight all the time to give the siblings the privacy they need. In practice the characters say they are siblings for the sake of some fetish of the audience, but ate glorified roomates, in their hormonal-teenage-phase with no adult supervision in their lifes.
And it's downhill from here.
What DomeKano changes in the formula is that DomeKano is about family, and off course it is. Because anything incest-themed should be family-themed by definition. What's the point of two siblings doing what siblings should never do, if their siblinghood is not on the theme.
And it truly surprised me. Because not only DomeKano is about family. Is one of the most healthy and positive portrayals of a blended family ever portrayed on media. Avoiding not only all the negative tropes that used to come with the theme, but also avoiding some falacious tropes that are often seen as good.
Rui has a big arc just about her connecting with both her biological dad who left the family, and her step dad, whose affectios she didn't took seriously. By bonding with one she bonded with the other too, and by the end she was calling both of them her father. And the true subversion is that there never were a feud between them or the notion that "Rui has one true father". Most despictions of a loving adoptive father are ofter contrasted with an wicked biological father, and the other way around is also true, but not here It wasn't a feud, both of them loved Rui, and didn't compete for their daughter heart.
And that is important to show. Because family is not a competition. And that is not enough said.
The fact that both Rui and Hina as sexually attracted to their brother, makes an easy answer to just pull the card "we not really related.", but this, that cursed phrase is never once spoken in the entire show. Off couse, they sometimes say "We are not related by blood." but that is not the same to deny they are real siblings, they're just a different kind of sibling. And despite the fact they were doing something really naughty, they never once deny their siblinghood. On the contrary, they want to be siblings, they enjoy being siblings. And the main reason why they must keep their incest a secret so much, is because they are afraid the information can make their parents divorce, and that would make their family break. They don't want this. They want to be a family.
The scene when on Mother's day, Rui and Hina want to meet the grave of Natuo's mother and introduce themselves to her grave as his family. Is really touching. As Tsukiko crying when Natsuo's at the hospital because he is her only son is also touching.
To me the Fuji-Tachibana are the japanese version of the Addams Family. What their doing is weird, and violates all our values and morals. But despire doing that, they are also the model family, that every family should aspire to be.
ps. Yeah, the ending is truly bad, but I don't care. Who Natsuo will choose was never as relevant to me as if independent of who he chooses if the two sisters will be able to get along and dine laughing together in the future as a family should. That being said, how Natsuo did chose his girl was awful, an awful ending. But it matters little to the positive impact reading this had given me.
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