Cousin Marriage is not even considered Taboo in Japan

I'm not making this post to claim that’s why it shows up in Anime sometimes.  Most Anime is Niche even in Japan and in fact does feature Taboo subject matter frequently.  In fact Cousin relationships show up less in Anime then more actually Taboo forms of Incest do.

But when an Anime or a Manga or a Light Novel or a Visual Novel/Bishoujo Game deals with Brother-Sister Incest the fact that it’s Taboo is relevant to how it’s framed.  Maybe it’s being presented as Toxic and unhealthy, or maybe they’re actually defending it, or maybe it’s just for shock value or fetish fuel, but it’s definitely relevant

Cousin Relationships however when they do show up are treated much more casually, the framing doesn’t acknowledge it as a Taboo or even comment on it as noteworthy which is why a lot of Anglophone Anime viewers get all confused and baffled by it in a way they don't for actual Incest.

One of my favorite Visual Novel YouTubers when talking about Kanon assumed Nayuki being the MC’s Cousin must be some compromise between Key wanting no weird Taboos and the Otaku audience who want a Sister option in everything.  But it’s not, the reason narratively Nayuki is his Cousin is to explain why he has childhood history with this remote town that isn’t his hometown.  Which I relate to actually as someone who’s mostly only ever left my Hometown for Family related reasons, which includes visiting small towns I wouldn't otherwise know existed.

In Elfen Lied I imagine it’s easy for some viewers to just think the Cousin relationship is only a nonissue compared to all the other transgressive madness in that show.  But it’s not, their budding Romance while essentially adopting all these traumatized kids into their family is the source of the show’s Wholesomeness.  If anyone in Japan was willing to raise even the slightest eyebrow at Cousin Marriage it couldn’t have played that role.

Explanation Point really exposes his lack of research in his horrible Mushoku Tensei video when he acts like it’s a given anyone from our modern world should know you shouldn’t bang your Cousin, when referring to a relationship that isn’t even First Cousins and which the framing of the show clearly sees as a non issue.  Another Western critic assuming Western values are more universal than they actually are even though they make their living critiquing non western media.

It’s not just Japan though, in the grand scheme of Human History most Cultures for most of their Existence have seen no issues with marriage between Cousins.  The most prominent exception is “Christendom” or “The West” or whatever you wanna call it.   

And even there it was a late development, prior to AD 380 there was absolutely no Jewish, Christian, Greek or Roman precedent for there being any objection to Cousin marriage.  But then Theodosius I made the first laws against Cousin Marriage and Augustine of Hippo became the first Theologian/Philosopher to argue it was a Sin.  This time period is usually viewed as a period of either Rome being Christianized or Christianity being Romanized but this sudden problem with Cousin Marriage just emerged whole cloth from nowhere, even Plato’s Laws say nothing about Cousins.

The Bible not only never condemned Cousin relationships in it’s three chapters coving Incest (Leviticus 18, Leviticus 20 and Deuteronomy 27), it even encourages them sometimes like with the Daughters of Zelpohehad situation.  Or if like the Catholics you consider Tobit to be Canon, that book is entirely about a Cousin Marriage.

So to me the biggest unanswered question in the history of Sexual Morality is why this sudden surge of anti Cousin Marriage sentiment started in the Mediterranean in the late Fourth Century?

Inbreeding doesn’t result in deformities, that’s a myth.  The kinds of issues that Incest increases the risk of have a 2% of risk occurring no matter what, between First Cousins the risk is only increased to 4%.  And I kind of consider it Eugenics to make laws about such things to begin with.

Sometimes you’ll see someone say all those generations of Cousin Breeding is why the Habsburgs died out.  But they didn't die out, they still exist.  Karl von Habsburg is in the European Parliament right now and has children.  They stopped being sitting Monarchs because they were on the losing side of WWI.

To many in the west who have been conditioned to be grossed out by Cousincest almost as much as any other kind of Incest, it can feel like seeing someone defend Cousin relationships is a gateway drug to defending all Incest.  For me while as a Social Libertarian I would prefer it all to be legal I definitely consider Brother-Sister or Ancestor-Descendent relationships to be ill advised.  

But Cousin Marriage being viewed as Taboo is absurd, I can’t understand why so many people refuse to see how silly it is.