Meliodas99

This is the same user who made this post 8 years later. I’ve seen several replies to my post and I’m happy im not alone out there in the universe when it comes to understanding this show on a deeper level. I’ve since moved past feeling guilty for enjoying the story during the last route (in my poorly written post I was trying to sell the first 3/4 of the show) and actually think the last route was what made the anime stand out truly. I don’t think there is another romance anime like this. I’ve rewatched this show at least five times in the past few years. Each time it has never bored me. I even gave the visual novel a play recently and uncovered that although it doesn’t steer away from the anime adaptation, the plot was much more fleshed out than the 12 episodes did. So things in the anime straight up didnt happen in the visual novel at all. Like Haruka getting with Nao in the Sora Route, he didn’t get with her at all in the visual novel. Instead, there was resolution similar to the Nao Route that happens. Sora coming around to accepting Nao. I just sent this ramble to my friends about the visual novels impact on me after playing through the entire Sora Route:
“The anime didnt do the visual novel justice. Haru had so much internal monologue during the Sora part. We got the see what the character was thinking opposed to merely watching his actions in the anime. He literally felt eternally stuck when Sora revealed her feelings for him. They had only family that would take them if they separated. Their parents just died. The only person in the world she cared about was him. He tried to get her to go to school and make friends. But she really just wanted him. He didn’t reciprocate those feelings back until he felt cornered. She kissed him on the lips when he allowed her to sleep with him one night while he was half-asleep. By the time he started to wake up, she had already kissed him and told him she loves him. He primarily gave in to her to make her happy (although there was a sexual attraction there, Haru had seen her a girl as well) and because doing so made her a lot more lively. When he eventually crashed out on her and told her that the kind of love she wants the world would never accept. They would be ostracized and everything. She said she didn’t care. Nothing else mattered to her except for him. He told her that her views on the world are skewed and unrealistic and naive. Told her that they needed to care about what the world thought of them, that he cared. He had an entire genuine friend group and community he didn’t want to lose.  Sora had spent most of her early life hospitalized from an undisclosed illness. Only seeing Haru come visit her and tell her of the outside world until she was better. So because she had such a sheltered and limited upbringing, she cared not for the world’s judgement, she wasn’t raised in society. She never had friends in the hospital. Only Haru. So she saw him, saw their parents, and thought she wanted the same thing with Haru. Love him the way she saw her parents love each other. Haru knew if he got them separated, sure maybe it would be for their own good, but he couldn’t trust that she wouldn’t off herself. They just had lost their parents. Losing him would send her over the edge. Eventually he decided he would make that ultimate sacrifice but before he could reach her, she ran to the lake.
She literally tried to get him to drown by moving into the lake. Because she wanted to believe the fable about being reborn to a new life when one drowns in the lake. When he started drowning, he decided he would kill her and grabbed onto her. Trying to take her with him. She didn’t want to accept anything else except for love as mates. He knew the world wouldnt accept them. So he made the call. The visual novel didnt really give vibes that they died like the anime did. So who knows but the next thing he knew, they were at the side of the lake. They both admitted to trying to kill each other, decided that after almost losing one another just then that they would love each other in the way beyond siblings. Had sex and then moved away on a trip to Northern Europe where they hoped they could find a place where they could belong and wouldnt be immediately ostracized after being found out. 
Sure the concept of taboo twincest and everything is gross. But the moral lesson that this story provides the audience is something no other romance comes close to accomplishing. It’s Romeo & Juliet but a forbidden love on another level. The visual novel was even more profound. Haru was a tragic character in the end. I’d never seen a male romance character end up so cornered in an impossible moral dilemma like that. It was amazing to read.
Just wanted to share this ramble on top of my old post. I agree with user itllbeokay, give this show an open-minded watch. There’s nothing else like it.