Sacred First Kiss



"Mai: Who are you, anyway? Mikoto: I'm Mikoto! Mai: I know that! Ugh...how could I have given up my first kiss to this girl? Mikoto: Fine! I'll give it back! (She kisses Mai.) Mai: No, wait! Mikoto...!"

- Mai-HiME, during a Post Episode Trailer

This is a Japanese cultural trope. Whether they're a boy or a girl, a Japanese teen's first "adult" kiss on the lips is a momentous occasion. It is something to be built up to and shared with a very special person -- something that is remembered for the rest of one's life. A spoiled or stolen first kiss is an occasion for profound angst and even anger. Consequently, in any anime plotline involving teen romance, the first kiss is an important milestone in the development of both self and relationship.

This is mostly because, unlike most Western countries, where kissing is between moderately special and outright mundane, kissing is seen as an extraordinarily intimate act in Japan, almost comparable in intimacy to sex in the West. It is not done in public (anime characters who do kiss in public are either shameless, extremely daring, or Eaglelanders), and parents do not kiss where their children can see them. In effect, the first kiss is the harbinger of a teenager's entry into sexual maturity.

Immature characters will be hesitant to even share drinks or do CPR on someone, for fear that this counts as an Indirect Kiss.

This attitude does exist in the West to some degree, but it is not nearly as significant as it is in Japan, especially for boys. Western culture has the first kiss as a proud "rite of passage" and sometimes a cause for celebration even if it was with a complete stranger. See First Kiss, the parent trope, for more info.

Compare Sex as Rite-Of-Passage.

Anime
"Tuxedo Mask: Unconscious girls can't say no!"
 * Ranma's first kiss in Ranma One Half is the occasion of great violence, as a self-absorbed playboy iceskater steals a kiss from girl-form Ranma. And when we say "violent", we mean 518 punches; by the time he's done, the skater in question is unconscious on his feet.
 * Akane's first kiss was also 'taken' in a similarly crazy fashion, as Ranma kissed her after sitting on her lap while under the influence of Cat Fu.
 * In another episode, to avoid it counting as a kiss, Ranma puts tape over Kuno's mouth. Later, Akane puts tape over Ranma's mouth.
 * This may be why Ranma is unable to bring himself to kiss Shampoo to get the Instant Nanniichuan in the relevant story (or at least the anime version, which does not have the two making their so-called "date" hell on each other).
 * The female-turned-male protagonist similarily has her first kiss stolen by a girl in Ultra Maniac. Gender-swapping unkissed would seem like a particularily bad idea if it ever was a good one.
 * In Love Hina, Keitaro, Naru and Mutsumi all share mutual first kisses while stranded on an island. When an robot invention of Kaolla's goes on something of a... rampage... Motoko gets her first kiss. She doesn't take it well.
 * The series even has an entire episode dedicated to Shinobu's first kiss.
 * In Vision of Escaflowne, Hitomi is about to receive her first kiss when Van first appears and interrupts it. Later, Dornkirk's magic manipulates Allen Shezar, Van's rival, into kissing Hitomi. Dornkirk achieves this in part by having his minions Eria and Folken roleplay what may be their own first kiss.
 * Played straight in the original manga of Revolutionary Girl Utena; The flirtatious Touga steals Utena's first kiss. In the anime, it's played with: Utena speculates that her first kiss might have been from, but she isn't entirely sure when it happened, or if it's even him who did it.
 * The first kiss between Yukino and Soichiro in Kare Kano is a milestone in their often-rocky relationship.
 * On Naruto, Sakura and Ino vie for the affection for Sasuke, and both hope to give him his first kiss. Unfortunately for them, in the third episode Naruto gets knocked into Sasuke, and the two end up locking lips. Naruto and Sasuke are disgusted, and Ino and Sakura (and many of the other girls in class) are mad as hell.
 * In a filler episode, a woman accused Naruto of having no experience in kissing. He felt admitting he kissed a guy would retain his dignity. Probably not the smartest thing he's done.
 * In a post-episode Omake in which Naruto and Lee debate which of them would be better for Sakura, Lee points out that Naruto gave his first kiss to Sasuke, and Naruto frantically tries to cover it up.
 * An example of indirect first kiss: When Nina in Mai-Otome learns that her roommate Erstin administered CPR to her after a near-drowning, the excessively sexualized image of the "CPR" that flits through her mind (and her peeved expression) make it clear that she considers her first kiss lost.
 * Likewise, Mai of Mai-HiME furiously insists to herself that CPR doesn't count as a first kiss after she delivers it to Mikoto. Shiho punches Yuuichi away as he's about to give Mikoto CPR, possibly because she doesn't want him to give Mikoto his First Kiss.
 * Shizuru kisses Natsuki once while she's asleep. Near the end of their fight, Natsuki returns the kiss when Shizuru draws her close and embraces her.
 * More on the topic of CPR: one of the episodes of Blue Seed is titled "Innocence! Love! My First Kiss?!". Guess what it was actually about. Momiji does initially reject the idea that this can count, but in the next episode decides that it was her first kiss -- pretty much confirming that yes, she does have feelings for Kusanagi...
 * Alice is profoundly shocked when Rin spits his gum into her mouth in Please Save My Earth -- it's her first kiss, and Rin is only eight. (Well, sort of.)
 * Actually, he first spits gum into her mouth. Later on, she suspects him of trying to do it again - Rin takes his gum out, though, and shocks her by really kissing her.
 * Nozomi in Yes! Precure 5 likes to go on at length about how she envisions hers, usually involving snow and a Christmas tree.
 * Most of the Kanon scenarios include one.
 * Due to clumsiness on the part of Tamaki, Haruhi of Ouran High School Host Club gives up her first kiss to another girl; Haruhi is not nearly as fazed by this as Tamaki. Later, Benio is shocked to learn that someone else beat her to Haruhi's lips.
 * In both the Tokyo Mew Mew anime and manga, Momomiya Ichigo accidentally receives her first kiss. In the manga she trips and inadvertently kisses her crush Masaya Aoyama. In the anime, this doesn't happen, so she reacts even more angrily when, later on, Quiche just flies in and kisses her without any warning.
 * In the Girls Love series Kannazuki no Miko, the protagonist Himeko Kurusugawa believes to have received her first kiss from Souma Ougami but in reality, it's Chikane Himemiya who steals it while Himeko is unconscious in the first episode.
 * Shakugan no Shana devotes a whole episode to explaining the "milestone" nature to its title character.
 * In Kashimashi: Girl Meets Girl Hazumu and Yasuna share their first kiss, very much to the dismay of Tomari who happens to enter the room at that moment.
 * Souichiro Nagi (Tenjou Tenge) has his first kiss "stolen" by Aya. He spends the rest of the anime pissed off and avoiding her.
 * "First Kiss" is the title of the first episode of Blood Plus, and the event occurs when Haji, faced with Saya's understandable refusal to drink his blood, force-feeds it to her mouth-to-mouth in order to prompt her into an Unstoppable Rage. In a later episode, when asked if she has ever kissed a boy, Saya reflects back to this event, unsure if it counts but blushing all the same.
 * In Kamikaze Kaitou Jeanne, Jeanne/Maron's first kiss is stolen by her rival Kaitou Sinbad,
 * In Code Geass, the Student Council President Milly holds an impromptu school-wide contest: Anyone who manages to catch the cat running around campus will get a kiss from a Student Council member of their choice. Two of the girls on the student council, Shirley and Kallen, team up to try catch the cat, horrified by the thought that someone might steal their first kiss.
 * The odd part is that most of the students are western. Raised in Japan, but a Japan where a lot of the culture has gone away.
 * This might just be the creators either not realising or not caring about the different traditions. Another possible example of cultural wire-crossing comes when the various characters are at, and Rivalz remembers that he had been flippant about it before realising what had really happened. As he apologises he bows in a decidedly Japanese fashion, despite the fact that he's Brittanian, and so is the person he's talking to.
 * In Mobile Suit Gundam 00, Setsuna F. Seiei has his first kiss stolen by the Yandere Nena Trinity but pushes her away violently in response.
 * It doesn't help that Setsuna Hates Being Touched in the first place.
 * In Neon Genesis Evangelion, Asuka forcibly claims her first kiss from Shinji, holding his nose while their lips are locked so that he is about to pass out by the time she lets him go.
 * Subversion: in Ashita no Nadja, Nadja Applefield is mad as Hell at the Black Rose Thief for kissing her... but this isn't her first kiss. That one was given to her by Francis
 * This trope is used to save the world in Suzumiya Haruhi.
 * In another short story, Kyon is offered the sleeping Mikuru's first kiss (not his, obviously) by her older self. It is left unclear whether he takes it or not, but he claims not to have.
 * In the manga Penguin Revolution, Yukari's first kiss occurs by accident when she goes down a playground slide, collides with Ryo, and ends up lying on top of him, lip to lip. It's just as well, since within a few chapters another boy kisses her unexpectedly anyhow, but it gives her and Ryo both a number of uncomfortable moments all the same.
 * Akane-Iro ni Somaru Saka has Junichi, thinking he should act like a man, decide to lay one on Yuuhi, the girl he saved earlier. Yuuhi, being pure Kugimiya Tsundere, promptly kicks the hell out of him. It's not until later that he finds out she was his fiancee. Awkward.
 * In Nadia: The Secret of Blue Water, Jean and Nadia's first kiss happens when the former is stoned by hallucinogetic mushrooms(!). Later, . This reset-pressing moment only succeeds in making this "development" more like a cruel tease instead of a genuine development for either character.
 * Episode 22 of Sailor Moon ("Romance Under The Moon! Usagi's First Kiss"). The nature of this kiss may be a controversial topic, but the scene is clearly supposed to be very romantic (and it actually is, if you are not thinking too hard). Of note, this episode belongs to the few ones that were directly based on the original manga.
 * This is actually parodied in the Abridged Series


 * A later episode revolves around Unazuki trying to save up her first kiss. When the monster of the day steals her pure heart, she tries to give it to Makoto....
 * In Air Gear, Akito takes Ikki's first kiss, much to Ikki and his friends' horror.
 * Make that his first three kisses.
 * In Hyakko, Torako loses her first kiss to her best friend Suzume--which upsets her a lot, even though she said she'd like to give Suzume even more than that.
 * In Full Metal Panic, Kaname Chidori's first kiss is
 * Interestingly, in Sousuke's case, he lost his first kiss long ago while performing CPR on men. Not, of course, that he even knows the difference between a kiss and CPR. "A Turkish soldier who took a bullet to the stomach, an old man from Tajyuku who was caught in an explosion. Some of them survived. Some of them didn't."
 * Mahou Sensei Negima has several; as the kissing is required for completing a magical ritual, it was somewhat inevitable. Asuna in particular notes that her kiss with Negi "doesn't count" because it was done in and an emergency situation, and he's just a kid anyway.
 * Negi has his first non-Pactio related kiss with Nodoka. He notes that it was...more enjoyable when compared to the other ones.
 * I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that  was the first (real, romantic) kiss for both of them.
 * After trying to avoid it for a good chapter or so, this is revealed to be the reason why  was so reluctant to form a Pactio.
 * In Fruits Basket, when Tohru gets out of the hospital, she and Kyo kiss. He then confesses that it wasn't their First Kiss; he had kissed her while she was unconscious. Strong reaction on her part.
 * In Kyo's defense, he didn't know that she was unconscious at the time. She was semi-conscious just a few seconds before.
 * Mikoto from School Rumble kissed a girl!, sorta
 * Miaka and Tamahome's first kiss in Fushigi Yuugi is one of the things that sets off
 * In Hot Gimmick, Hatsumi's first kiss is with, and she tries to convince herself that that didn't count, and that her first kiss is with.
 * In Paradise Kiss, when Yukari and George's first kiss gets interrupted, he nonchalantly tells her that next time they will continue where they left it and he will "kill her with pleasure". Naturally, this being Paradise Kiss, they go from "first kiss on the lips" to  in no time flat.
 * In Kodomo no Jikan, Aoki is rather upset when Rin steals a first kiss from him. Aoki is 23; Rin is a (rather precocious) 9.
 * In Zero no Tsukaima, Louise is forced to complete the Ritual by kissing the totally clueless Saito.
 * The first kiss between Kaoru and Aoi in Ai Yori Aoshi is all kinds of great.
 * Nagasumi in Seto no Hanayome has his first kiss with San's bodyguard, Masa - from that point forward cliche anime love theme music plays over a close up of the bodyguard with a background of falling rose petals every time Nagasumi sees him.
 * Mizore's first kiss in Rosario to Vampire is devastating to her,
 * Nanoka's first kiss in Koi Kaze turns out a little ironically when she initiates a serious kiss with Koshiro and then she yells, "Aahhh! It's gone! My first kiss!"
 * When the Gate -- who looks like a young girl -- forces Peorth, Urd, and Skuld to kiss her as part of her quest for knowledge, Skuld moans that she hadn't even kissed Sentaro (a mortal boy in whom she's shown significant interest) yet.
 * Do you know how Lucia established how evil he was to Haru's group in Rave Master? He stole Elie's first kiss (probably). Elie was devastated, and Haru was pissed.
 * In the Skip Beat manga, it's made a big deal to Kyoko that she loses her first kiss (forcefully) to.
 * In Jo Jos Bizarre Adventure, a First Kiss is one of the main plot points
 * In Axis Powers Hetalia, Italy hugs and kisses his friend Japan on the cheek as a morning greeting. Japan, not used to such physical closeness, freaks out. ("Wha-what are you doing? That was my first time, you know!") Made even funnier in the anime where the kiss is left out, hence showing Japan spazzing out over a single hug.
 * MAR Snow and Ginta shared their first kiss when Snow was freed from the ice prison she'd encapsulated herself in, falling into Ginta, to be 'caught' by their lips. Since they're both 14 at the time, they both freak out as expected (and Ginta gets chewed out later by her guardian).
 * The 'fall into a kiss' is repeated the second time Snow is freed, without the freaking out (though Ginta still gets chewed out for it).
 * Earlier, Dorothy kisses Ginta on the cheek as thanks for helping to retrieve Bappo. He mentally apologizes to Koyuki, who isn't his girlfriend at this point.
 * In Please Teacher, Kusanagi falls into one of his periodic angst comas, and Mizuho kisses him while he's unconscious in an attempt to wake him up à la Sleeping Beauty. When he wakes up and she tells him, he's upset because that was his first kiss--and she confesses that it was her first kiss too.
 * It must be noted that it is not at all uncommon for one or both... participants in a given H-Manga to be more worried about the first kiss than their actual virginity.
 * Martian Successor Nadesico plays with this: when offered a kiss as G-rated Intimate Healing, Yurika stops him with the explanation she's never been kissed; earlier, however, a flashback established she stole her first thirty kisses or so from Akito(who lampshades it).
 * Futaba of There, Beyond the Beyond ruminates over giving away his first kiss in exchange for information, before he realizes that his actual first kiss was from his older brother.
 * Given the Serious Business treatment (ominous music, freeze frame) in Hana Yori Dango after Domyoji kissed Tsukushi in the dark during a party. Its as if everyone just found out that Domyoji was a murderer or something.
 * This comes up in Sasameki Koto when the protagonist's oblivious crush wants to practice on her for her first kiss. Apparently it doesn't count as a first kiss if you're wearing an Ultraman mask.
 * Subverted in the Read or Die manga. When Nenene was facing a minor case of writer's block with a love scene she was writing, she sought inspiration by giving a rather forceful kiss to the first person to cross her path - Yomiko (all she had been looking for was autograph). When Yomiko points out that that was her second kiss, Nenene replies that it was her first, and that compared to finishing the novel, it wasn't that important.
 * in Kodocha, Akito steals Sana's first kiss. Of course (like everything else in Sana's life) this inspires a song.
 * In Full Moon wo Sagashite, Takuto spends a whole episode preventing Mitsuki from sharing this with a boy who just wants to embarrass her, and it turns out.
 * Fujiko from Zettai Karen Children kisses the eponymous Children after she wakes up from her long slumber, which upsets the girls immensely. Especially Kaoru is not amused.
 * In Dragon Half, during Mink's fight with Princess Vina, Mink is knocked into a building... Needless to say, Princess Vina was pretty distraught and Saucer was just confused about the situation.
 * Kind of Subverted in Vampire Knight for fans who shipped Zero and Yuuki are not pleased that Yuuuki's first kiss is taken by Kaname especially But in the end turned out for fans and Yuuki herself,
 * In Hekikai no AiON, Minagi got her first kiss stoled by the resident Lolicon. She starts crying saying that now she'll never could be a bride.
 * Seine got her first kiss stolen in the same way by the same Lolicon. Since she was raised in America, she focused more on the sudden act instead of the kiss itself. Simon points out, while crying, that since she was a little girl, it dosen't count and Shizuki then points out that Simon was the real one hurt by that.
 * In Upotte!!, Funco is taken aback when  takes her first kiss, saying that she had wanted to give it to the person who would register her (she's an anthropomorphized gun, so this is probably equivalent to marriage, or something).   is not at all pleased at this turn of events.
 * Koharu no Hibi: Koharu gropes and kisses Mika in order to "regain" Akira's first kiss.

Literature

 * In Skulduggery Pleasant, Valkyrie gets particularly upset about her first kiss. Not so much because of who it was with (some unseen character from her school) but because, due to a long story involving mirrors and magic, she wasn't there for it.

Video Games

 * Tokimeki Memorial Girl's Side 2 sets up an Accidental Kiss early in the game. If it happens with Hikami Itaru, he worries anxiously that the heroine has "lost something important," clearly with this trope in mind.
 * Seiken Densetsu 3: You can have a scenario where Hawkeye kisses Lise, and she totally freaks out. While Westerners probably found that hilarious, Japanese players probably found that brazen, outrageous and shocking!

Web Comics

 * A recent Eerie Cuties strip has the "accidental kiss ruins it" version. Despite not being a Japan original, it'd likely make a fan not familiar with the anime trope say "'My very precious first kiss?!' What's the big deal?"
 * The current page image comes from Shifters (before it was rebooted)