Hello, Bella here.
Time for part two of love triangles living rent free in my mind… but the anime version.
Natsu x Lucy x Lisanna – Fairy Tail
The Nalu vs Nali fight turned into a years-long ship war after Episode 95 (“Earth and Sky”) of the anime.
Though the triangle exists more in concept than in the actual canon story, Mashima clearly wanted to create a love triangle here.
He said so himself. Initially, not only didn’t Mashima plan to make Lisanna make a comeback, but when he was convinced to do otherwise by the TV staff, he thought about drawing a love triangle with Natsu, Lucy and Lisanna.
Not that he ever went with it canonically. “I stopped doing that because I thought that romance in a Manga for boys would bring confusion to the story, such as not knowing what is important in the story,” Mashima said.
Of course, the crumbs swept under the rug in canon turn into the perfect dinner for fanfiction.
We all know Lisanna and Natsu were childhood best friends who raised Happy’s egg together like a family in episode 20.
We all remember a young Lisanna jokingly asking Natsu to marry her when they grew up.
The love triangle was greatly set up by adding scenes between Natsu and Lisanna that didn’t exist in the manga.
Despite the fact that her tragic death deeply scarred Natsu, when she returned alive from Edolas, many expected a romance to rekindle.
Personally, I was terrified. Not only is Natsu Dragneel a dumbass, but he certainly has no clue about how love works. I didn’t know if Mashima would have other intentions that could ruin my dearly shipped Nalu.
But then the triangle didn’t go ahead, and Natsu went from waking up from the nightmare of losing Lisanna to barely talking to her after she is alive.
It seems their relationship simply, naturally transitioned into a supportive, platonic friendship.
On AO3, even if there are over 25,000 Fairy Tail fics, close to 6000 fics are tagged under Natsu Dragneel/Lucy Heartfilia. In comparison, Lisanna Strauss’ doesn’t even reach 400.
As a crazed Nalu shipper (one of the few straight ships I can lose my mind over), part of me is relieved that Lucy was and remained the central person in Natsu’s present life.
In fact, after all these years, I’m still completely invested in their heavy romantic subtext, especially as its sequel, Fairy Tail: 100 Years Quest is ongoing.
(But it’s also difficult to see yet another girl character get done dirty like that.)
Most of us can agree on one thing: Lisanna was a better character before we found out she was alive.
New-Sympathy-344, a Redditor since 2020, said: “Lisanna was a better character when she was dead. Had more impact on the story for certain.
“Bringing her back the way he did was clever… if it wasn’t a sign that Mashima can’t commit to big changes for long. Lisanna became nothing more than occasional ‘hey, I am here’ and more fan service than actual character.
“Love triangles are hard to balance right. And Natsu isn’t one for romance, with how he’s written, so that triangle was doomed to fail anyway.”
This love triangle was sure something—risky, full of drama and possibility. In the world of fanfiction, Lisanna is often treated as the evil between two scorned lovers. In reality, a canon triangle could have been interesting for Lucy’s character to have an actual rival.
(Obviously, Fairy Tail clearly has other triangles—Gray, Lyon and Juvia is basically canon at this point!).
Naruto x Sasuke x Sakura – Naruto
Who would I be if I didn’t talk about NaruSasu.
Very clearly, very basically canonically, these guys are the saddest little love triangle I’ve ever seen. Sakura is a fangirl to the core, Sasuke is an edgy emo and Naruto is a clingy idiot.
It’s the worst case scenario if you’re any of them. Wanting someone who doesn’t want you. Being wanted by someone you don’t want. It just sucks to watch.
Shippuden complicated things, but the anime itself made it even worse since Sakura’s character doesn’t match the manga.
If we want to take things chronologically, and canonically, Naruto had a crush on Sakura, Sakura had a crush on Sasuke, and Sasuke had no crush. The original series is based on these simple facts.
From Shippuden onwards, I must admit I will be biased. If I’m very honest, I become biased towards the end of original Naruto, right as the bring-back-Sasuke arc begins.
The zesty yearning is insanely maddening and there’s no way I won’t mention it. The entire series is Naruto chasing Sasuke. Sasuke, distant but constant, shrouded by darkness, following his path with tunnel-vision.
Then we have Sakura, who in her attempt to relieve Naruto of the burden of his promise to bring Sasuke back, ‘confesses’ her feelings to Naruto in Episode 206 of Shippuden (titled “Sakura’s Feelings”).
UFOAyyylmao, a Reddit user since 2021, said something that is quite fair enough: “It is sad, but I like that. It’s realistic you know? Also it’s very slice of life in an odd way.
“These are kids in part 1 and they act like it and their maturity with love is very childish too. Naruto is a pervert who only likes Sakura because she’s hot, Sakura only likes Sasuke because he’s hot, Sasuke is antisocial af.
“In Shippuden they are teens, they still don’t got any maturity but you can see Naruto came to terms with never being with Sakura somewhere along the way.”
Throughout the series, and especially at the end of Shippuden’s War Arc, there’s Sasuke basically asking Naruto so what are we about ten times and this dumbass little sunflower keeps saying you’re my friend.
Sure. You are soulmates, bounded by a deity, different sides of the same coin, the damn moon and the damn sun, one cannot exist without the other, you’ve chased each other’s tails for two or three years while in reality it’s been twenty whole years and so yes, it makes sense, you’re just friends.
The entire fanfiction world utterly disagrees with this, just to say. AO3 sees over 21 thousand fics tagged under Uchiha Sasuke / Uzumaki Naruto out of nearly 160,000 total Naruto fics. Not to say that a SasuNaru story is at the top of AO3 with over 1.5 million hits.
(I guess SasuSaku isn’t too far behind—just over 10 thousand fics under the tag Uchiha Sasuke / Haruno Sakura, but we don’t talk about that around here).
In the end, voluntarily give myself up. NaruHina and SasuSaku shippers can have my head. Here it is. SasuNaru is not canon. It’s a lie. Even if the love triangle is basically real. But they’re my lie.
If, in whatever circumstances, I will find myself in front of Masashi Kishimoto, I shall ask him: why did you lie to us.
He definitely lied to us.
Eren x Mikasa x Levi – Attack on Titan
Disclaimer: both Ackermans are down bad for this Jaeger boy.
We’ve reached AOT, the place where fans have been coping for years.
I can’t put it better than JCkent42, a longtime Redditor who’s been on the site since 2012: “I don’t think Hajime Isayama knows how to write, draw, or depict romantic or sexual tension (attraction) very well.
“For any characters. The closest he came to something good was Armin and Annie, and it was rushed with little development time.
“Eren and Armin have great development. Their brotherly relationship and “seeing each other in hell” stuff is great. But Eren and Mikasa is weak by comparison.”
Isayama has talked about in interviews how stressful it was towards the end, since endings are hard to pull off. And, for many, one of his weaknesses was Eren and Mikasa.
The general argument goes that there was a need for further development besides the vision from the paths (importantly not a founding titan memory power). He needed to have for them to achieve the proper narrative weight.
I don’t think I’ve ever been too harsh on him for how their relationship developed. That isn’t to say I wouldn’t have loved to see some more romance (the scene where he promised to wrap the scarf around her over and over marked my soul forever, imagine having more of that).
But I do understand that since their romance was left severely underdeveloped, like a breadcrumb in an ocean, the fandom moved to fanfic and to someone else: our lil guy Levi Ackerman.
As much as I love EreMika with my entire being, only 6 thousand fics under the tag exist on AO3. Comparably, Levi and Eren Jaeger are close to 20 thousand.
I can’t say I didn’t spend ages 10 to 12 despising Ereri with my entire heart (if you’ve read my gay blogs, you’ll remember I didn’t even know being gay was a thing, but that’s a different story).
But the more I explored dear old Wattpad, the more I thought: mh. This might actually be something. At that age, I knew nothing of age gaps, just hotness. And we can all agree that Levi is the definition of shawty.
I guess I would take all I could during my three year wait for season 2. Even if I quickly moved out of the Ereri era the second season 3 came out.
Crazy love triangles.
Ugh next time it’s BakuDekuTodo’s time, I promise. And Kagami x Kuroko x Aomine. And Kaneki × Touka × Hide. And Boruto x Sarada x Sumire. Guys there’s too many. I might come back to you on this.