Okay, seriously, though, I adore all three of the 'fruit salad girls', and I don't like the idea of anyone bashing them for any reason. And that is the furthest thing from my intentions in writing this part of Tainted Love. I simply believe that, for a number of reasons Otaru should not, cannot, and never was intended to settle down and marry any of them. And the fact that I am a yaoi fan who likes Hanagata is the least of my reasons. Evidence in the series, however, is the greatest of them.

I know what you're going to say. "But he loves those girls to death!". "But there's no way in hell he could ever pick Hanagata over them!". "But (insert your favorite marionette here) is just perfect for him!" "But evidence in the series clearly indicates that (insert favorite marionette here) is the one he loves best and wants to marry!". I've listened to these arguments and more for months and while most of them are extreemly interesting and even thoughtful, I personally don't happen to agree.

For starters, let's consider the following: the classic Tenchi syndrome. Part of the problem with shounen animes in which several pretty girls fall for the male protagonist is their authors(s)' inability or outright refusal to definitively pair said protagonist with any of them (said from my female view point, of course *nod nod*). And while fans always have their favorite couples(Ryoko and Tenchi, Ranma and Akane (or Shampoo) and in this case Lime and Otaru), said couples don't usually end up one-hundred per cent together, even though the series often hints who the favored female is. Since Otaru professes to love all three marionettes equally (in spite of his obvious preference for Lime), he, like Tenchi and Ranma, is placed in an interesting connundrum. On the one hand, he can't or won't choose and on the other, his marionettes almost insist he should and even quarrel among themselves for the right to "win" him for most of Saber Marionette J, J Again and J to X. That is, save for the times when they aren't insisting that he love all three of them equally. So, unless one wants to argue for an Otaru-Lime-Cherry-Bloodberry foursome (not that several fans haven't O.o;;), it seems Otaru's inability/refusal to choose coupled with the marionettes' own apparent ambivalence over any show of favoritism leads me to the conclusion that no decision is possible or even intended.

Otaru's indecision aside, events in SMJ to X also seem to go against any Otaru/marionette couple. After Yang Ming steals the girls' memories in the middle of the series, Cherry and Lime find happiness in Xi'an in lives where Otaru plays no role aside from a few vague memories. Lime becomes a nurse at a local clinic and the apple of the patients' eyes. Cherry simultaneously finds fulfillment as a nurse at an orphanage, and when a young boy professes his love for her, she even seems to reciprocate his feelings. While Bloodberry is significantly less lucky than her sisters (she becomes the lacky and sex toy of a group of thieves), she falls in love with Akashi, an Otaru look-alike, in Episode 6. If the girls are capable of having fulfilling lives without Otaru, or lives in which Otaru plays a less significant role, then it seems their love for him is mutable. While Otaru means the world to the marionettes, they can live without him, and they can survive even as their love for him grows and changes.

And perhaps the greatest change in the girls' love for Otaru comes at the tail end of SMJ to X. Although I have warned against spoilers elsewhere in the site, I advise those who have yet to see Episodes 25 and 26 of SMJ to X to skip the rest of this paragraph. After confronting Dr. Hess back in our own Solar System, the girls steer the Neo Mesopotamia back through the wormhole and their ship ends up crashing into the planet. However, true to his promise, Hess enables their personalities to be beamed into the bodies of three female clones, therefore effectively making them human. Upon finding the babies, Otaru embraces Lime and promises to make her and her sisters truly happy. He does this by raising them as his daughters, and we see scenes from their domestic life together throughout Episode 26. Although the marionettes retain practically all their respective personality traits, have difficulty refering to Otaru as "Dad" and (in Cherry's case) still occassionally fantasize about him, it seems that the final word on their relationship with their former master has been spoken. Incest fan fiction aside, it seems the girls will not consumate a romantic or sexual relationship with Otaru, despite some vague desires or memories. For one thing, considering their former memories of Otaru have been erased or altered (which they seem mostly to have been), it is doubtful they will ever have the concrete desire to love him as they used to. And even if they did have such a desire, Otaru would never allow it to be fulfilled.

Agree with me? Think I've missed the boat? Have your own opinions in favor of or against an Otaru/Marionette relationship? Please send them to me at [email protected]. I'd be happy to put them up here.