Untouchable Relationships: The “Safe Desires” Chosen by Female Otaku
Stories that do not depict romance are quietly increasing.
Even if falling for someone is depicted, there is no conclusion of “becoming lovers.”
They are simply together. Watching over each other. Supporting each other.
The relationship continues, but it does not become a romance.
BL, dream novels, idol training games—
Many of these works focus on depicting “untouchable relationships.”
They are within reach, yet they intentionally keep their distance.
Within that distance, there is peace of mind, freedom, and a touch of sadness.
Perhaps the era where romance explains everything has already ended.
When people are drawn to someone, what is there is
not necessarily “love”.
It is simply the feeling of wanting to be closer.
But there is also a premonition that if they touch, it might break.
An “untouchable relationship” is an emotion born between such anxiety and sincerity.
It is not that they avoided romance, but that they found another narrative outside of it.
That form of quiet relationship is becoming established as a way of storytelling within female otaku culture.
From “Avoiding Romance” to “Transcending Romance”
Stories that do not depict romancedo not necessarily deny romance.
Rather, by stepping outside the format of romance, they seem to be trying to reclaim the breadth of emotion itself.
Once, romance was the “goal” in stories.
Meeting, missing each other, conveying feelings, and becoming a couple.
The process leading up to that was the drama, and the moment they became a couple, the story reached its “end.”
However, in recent female otaku culture,
romance has become nothing more than “one form of relationship.”
Rather than becoming lovers,
“how to interact” and “how far one can see it through” become important.
Romance has changed from an emotional destination to one of many expressions.
What is there is not an attempt to “avoid romance,” but an attitude of trying to depict relationships beyond romance.
Without confining the act of caring for someone to the word “love,”
whether it is friendship, trust, or even feelings for an idol,
it has become possible to speak of them as equally important.
In the background of this change
is a small sense of discomfort with “narratives centered on romance.”
When it becomes romance, the relationship with the other person becomes fixed.
Divisions like “dating” or “breaking up” are created.
However, real emotions are not that simple.
That is precisely why, within the distance of “not touching,”
continuing the relationship itself has become a sincere choice.
Transcending romance does not mean discarding love.
Rather, it may be about bringing the “longing for connection” that love held
to life in a softer form.
When the format of romance is let go,
the narrative of emotion finally begins to reclaim its complexity.
The “Safe Relationships” Depicted by BL
While BL is a genre that tells stories of romance, it is simultaneously a story that looks outside of romance.
In it, the social expectations and role consciousness that cling to male-female relationships
seem to be temporarily removed.
This creates room for romantic emotions to be depicted more abstractly and freely.
Many readers are not projecting “their own romance” onto it.
Rather, through the relationships between others,
they seem to be verifying the movements of emotion itself and the forms of interaction.
That gaze changes romance from an object of “possession” to one of “observation.”
The format of BL secures a distance where desires and impulses that are difficult to talk about in real relationships
can be handled without direct expression.
It seems to function as a device for suppressing desire, while simultaneously acting as a space for thinking about desire itself.
What is seen in many BL works is
a relationship that wavers between “wanting to touch” and “must not touch.”
That tension is not merely conflict, but supports the very structure of the narrative.
By not touching, the emotion lasts longer, and by not reaching the act, the relationship does not break.
Within that “distance,” readers can safely project their emotions.
What BL depicts is a structure where one can understand romance without having to engage in it.
Romance is not a rite of passage in life, but is depicted as a metaphor for thinking about human relationships.
There, romance exists not as an act to “gain” something, but as a perspective to re-examine the difficulty of interacting with others.
A “safe relationship” is like a time for organizing emotions.
During that time, readers find words that allow them to touch their own desires and pains without having to speak of them directly.
What exists in the world of BL may be less about forbidden pleasure and more about a margin for re-verifying the sincerity of interacting with others.
The Pleasure of Care—The Path of “Love That Does Not Become Oneself”
In stories that depict “love that does not become oneself,” such as dream novels and otome games, the form of romance had already changed.
There, thinking about the relationship becomes the goal, and eventually, the act of “supporting” itself turns into pleasure.
It is not a mechanism to gain another through romance, but a system to observe and understand the structure of romance itself.
Beyond that flow, what many women are finding now is a new form of desire centered on “caring.”
If romance was a 'story of getting closer,'
the stories women have created are, rather, 'relationships of not breaking.'
In them, the goal is to maintain the relationship rather than to win love.
Within that gentleness, desire transforms into the 'pleasure of caring.'
The act of empathizing with characters, supporting someone's growth, and continuing to cheer for one's 'oshi' (favorite).
It is not romance, but it certainly involves passion.
Within fiction, women find peace in being 'the self that wishes for the other's happiness.'
It is a form of desire that finds more meaning in 'continuing to love' than in 'being loved.'
In this structure, one can see the shadow of the 'emotional labor' that women have borne in real society.
Reading the other's feelings, softening the atmosphere, and adjusting the relationship.
In stories, this unpaid care can finally be reenacted as a 'rewarded act'.
Contributing to one's favorite, supporting characters, backing stories—
all of these are ways to affirmatively redo, within a safe context, the emotional labor that is difficult to get recognized in reality.
Here, 'safe' refers to an environment where one can pour out love without seeking anything in return from others.
It is neither domination nor dependency, but simply entrusting everything to the single point of 'continuing to think of the other.'
Such relationships are accepted in this era as the most gentle and sincere form of desire.
However, that gentleness also comes with pain.
A love that cannot become a reality, a relationship that cannot be touched, efforts that go unrewarded—
even so, people try to find meaning in it.
'Safe desire' might be a form of quiet labor that remains after letting go of the fulfillment of love.
When romance becomes an object of 'thought' rather than 'action,' what is born there is not an ideal, but a margin.
Within that margin, women are retelling emotions that cannot be spoken of in reality through the gentle forms of 'labor' and 'care.'
This is likely not a denial of romantic impulses, but an attempt to change how they are handled.
The expanded relationship opened by an 'oshi'
The structure of observing and thinking about romance eventually expands the framework of romance outward little by little.
One of the most symbolic forms of this might be the relationship with an 'oshi.'
'Oshi' is closer to the act of confirming the state of one's own emotions through someone's existence than it is to falling in love with someone.
It seems like romance, yet it is slightly different.
One does not try to possess the other, but simply watches over them, cheers for them, and continues the relationship while sometimes keeping a distance.
There, romantic tension and impulses gently fade, and instead, 'continuing to be involved' itself becomes the goal.
What idol training games and streaming culture depict is precisely that structure.
Players and fans exist not as 'lovers' but as 'observers,' witnessing how their actions influence the other's growth and changes.
What exists there is not achievement or possession, but the feeling of 'sharing time with someone.'
The relationship is not fixed; it is constantly updated.
This format acts as a mechanism to make the discourse surrounding romance even 'safer.'
No matter what choice is made, there is no ruin, and no matter what emotion is held, there is no rejection.
Within that stability, emotions can be sustained with peace of mind.
The 'oshi' relationship has become one way to replace the tension and anxiety that romance once held with a different form.
Such relationships with an 'oshi' are spreading regardless of gender.
Even so, the reason this format took root so strongly in feminine discourse might be because there was an awareness of trying to reconstruct emotions surrounding romance in a safer, more sincere form.
Rather than abandoning romance,
one finds the form of a 'being together' relationship outside of romance.
Within that soft sense of distance, people are searching for a place for their emotions while traveling between security and loneliness.
Rather than 'falling in love' with an oshi,
one maintains the state of 'being able to love' the oshi.
That act quietly reverses the purpose of romance.
If romance is a 'story of getting closer,'
the oshi is a 'story of keeping distance.'
It is precisely because of that distance that emotions can remain unbroken.
Being unable to touch becomes, rather, a condition for sustaining the relationship.
The structure of 'oshi' did not push romance away, but is likely keeping romance alive in a different form.
Where 'safety' breaks—extreme love and its structure
'Safe relationships' always collapse quietly.
Outside the discourse that was designed so that no one would get hurt,
only the suppressed emotions begin to run wild in other places.
The more the discourse surrounding romance is organized,
the more people try to handle their desires correctly.
However, if suppression continues for a long time, desire eventually changes its form.
One of the destinations for that is the existence known as the 'extreme fan.'
They are more cautious than anyone, and at the same time, more intense than anyone.
Their appearance as they support idols or actors
looks like selfless love at first glance.
But behind that, there is the frustration of being 'unable to touch' and
the impatience of 'wanting to be closer than anyone else.'
Instead of romance controlled by reason,
within the fandom, desire survives in a different form.
On social media, words like 'privatizing the oshi' and 'refusing to share the same favorite' overflow.
This is not mere jealousy, but
the flip side of the anxiety that 'my emotions are not reaching anywhere.'
Because they cannot be touched, the words become extreme.
At the root of that extremity is the pain of being bound to a relationship that is not romance, even while carrying romantic heat.
Modern 'safety' creates distortions on the flip side in this way.
In a society where everyone behaves correctly, there are fewer places to vent one's true feelings.
That is precisely why people, within a safe distance,
want to dare to release dangerous words.
In places where that is not permitted, it only appears as 'madness' or 'running wild.'
The figure of the extreme fan is not merely an anomaly.
It bears the traces of how much an era that excessively demands safety
has confined desire.
The 'impulse to touch,' eroded in the name of safety, is overflowing into reality in search of a different narrative.
This excess lurking behind 'safe romance' is perhaps another truth held by modern relationships.
The more peaceful romance becomes, the more words become harsh and emotions overheat on the outside.
Safety is not built on tranquility, but on a balance of tension.
The Sincerity Within 'Safety'
Women have spent a long time finding ways to 'speak safely'.
In romance, they explore distances where they won't get hurt, and in fiction, they entrust their desires to relationships that cannot be touched.
This was not an escape, but a strategy for handling emotions without breaking them.
BL, otome games, and the relationship known as 'oshi' (a favorite character/idol).
What they have in common is a structure that keeps emotions flowing while maintaining distance between oneself and others.
That distance itself is the mechanism of 'safety' that allows everyone to remain intact.
'Safe storytelling' might look cowardly.
However, it is not to deny desire, but
a form for living with desire.
Women have entrusted their feelings of attraction to stories while avoiding domination and violence.
The figure of the extreme fan is also an extension of this.
In a world that is too well-ordered,
it is simply that impulses that have lost their place have overflowed.
It is not a breakdown,
but another expression of the wish to truly believe in someone.
Now, feminine storytelling is oscillating between the two extremes of gentleness and excess.
Amidst that swaying, the word 'safety' continues to be updated.
Not to suppress impulses, but to re-examine them.
Within that caution, sincere storytelling breathes.
Romance, and 'oshi' alike, were all forms
for continuing to think of someone within 'untouchable relationships'.
That distance might be
the quietest form of desire in this era.