[Adultery Song] A forbidden song about an affair that sings of an impossible love

No PromiseChara

No Promise

A song by Chara that portrays the aching feelings of a woman torn by a relationship without promises.

She longs to hold on to someone who seems about to leave, yet she can’t secure any promise for the future.

That inner conflict is delicately rendered in a whisper-like vocal.

Featured on the album “Soul Kiss,” released in July 1992, the song captures the frustration of being unable to stop loving someone—knowing it won’t be reciprocated, yet unable to let go—which perhaps only those who’ve experienced it can truly understand.

A love in which only one person suffers is something that, at some point, we probably ought to bring to an end.

Unraveling Loveyama

yama 'Unraveling Love' MV

A song that tightens your chest with yama’s faint, heartrending vocals.

It portrays the complexity of love and the pain that can’t be avoided, delicately depicting two people who hurt each other yet still love one another.

Wanting to be together but being unable to say it honestly reflects an awareness that someone is being hurt and that the relationship should not go on.

It makes you think deeply about whether happiness awaits a love forged at the cost of hurting many, and its quiet, lingering ache of unrequited love pierces the heart.

This is a track I especially recommend to those struggling with clumsy, awkward love.

PuzzleBAND-MAID

BAND-MAID / Puzzle (Official Live Video)

A connection that felt like destiny, yet a relationship that could never be.

This BAND-MAID song portrays the struggle of a forbidden love.

The way the narrator tells themselves it’s okay not to be someone special to the other person may resonate painfully with anyone in an unrequited love.

These helpless emotions are sung with delicacy over powerful beats and a passionate sound.

The track is included on the album “Just Bring It,” released in January 2017.

Even knowing it won’t be reciprocated, the feelings won’t stop—this is a work that stays close to that complex state of mind.

distress (at sea/in the mountains); being lost; stranded; a disaster situationToukyou Jihen

Tokyo Incidents – Distress

When it comes to Tokyo Jihen songs that depict forbidden love, “Sounan” (Distress) comes to mind.

It’s also popular for the unique world Shinji Ringo creates, but if you look at the lyrics, they convey feelings of utter helplessness—as if the lovers had committed double suicide.

Even so, you can’t stop how you feel, and in the sense of staying true to love, perhaps that really is what it means.

It’s hard to treat meeting the one you love as a true love story without sugarcoating it or lamenting it too much, but when you listen to this song, don’t you feel, “I don’t want to regret meeting my destined person”?

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sasashina

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nightSakamoto Maaya

MAAYA SAKAMOTO – Night (yoru)

This is a song by Maaya Sakamoto that evokes the protagonist’s aching emotions in a room after their lover has gone home.

Even as they desperately try to grasp the lingering fragrance of those happy moments, the memories slip through their fingers and vanish.

That elusive, fleeting quality seems to symbolize the poignancy of a forbidden love, making a deep impression.

The track is included on the acclaimed 2003 December release “Shōnen Alice.” Created during a period when Maaya Sakamoto was honing her expressive power as a stage actor, her vocals here exquisitely portray delicate emotions.

If you’re troubled by a relationship you can’t tell anyone about and find yourself savoring the loneliness of a solitary night, you’ll surely resonate with the protagonist’s solitary heart.

But… But… But…sonā poketto

Sonar Pocket “But... But... But...” [MV Short]

“Demos…

Demos…

Demos…,” released in 2012 by the male vocal unit Sonar Pocket, is a song I’d recommend to both men and women struggling with an affair.

The lyrics, which convey the man’s feelings as he makes promises he can’t keep out of sheer honesty, alongside the words spoken by the woman, are probably the most relatable part.

Even so, the time the two share doesn’t belong to anyone else, and it makes you want to cherish it.

When you’re going through something painful, try surrendering yourself to this song.

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Kado(guchi) Shichigatsu

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Crime and PunishmentShiina Ringo

Shiina Ringo – Crime and Punishment

A song by Sheena Ringo whose heartrending cry—wanting nothing more than to hear her own name—pierces the chest.

The figure who seeks only the certain “now,” even at the cost of abandoning the future, seems to portray the agony of a heart falling into a love it knows is forbidden.

This work was released as a single in January 2000 and was also included on the classic album Shōso Strip.

It apparently wasn’t originally slated to be a single, but there’s an anecdote that its release was decided due to strong demand from fans.

When you listen to it at times when your heart feels like it’s about to break between the pure desire to be with someone and the reality that such desire is a “sin,” you may feel as if the song affirms your pain along with everything else.