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Wall Pin of Love

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Alice runs into Bob, but Bob is acting very strange today. He may have had a Green-Eyed Epiphany of some sort, is upset that Alice is avoiding him, or just at the breaking point of being repeatedly insisted that he's not a potential Love Interest. Regardless, his emotions have built up to the point he can't contain them. Alice may be Oblivious to Love, refusing to admit how she feels, or just simply unsure. The moment Alice tries to leave, Bob quickly slams his hand on the wall and traps her against it with his body, stopping her from running away. It's a way to intimidate her, but also a way for him to get physically close to her.

It may not have been Love at First Punch, but it does get the message out through and clear. Alice becomes more and more confused about how she sees Bob, and usually it results in a Relationship Upgrade.

This trope is better known to the Japanese public as the "kabe don" (wall pound). It's when a character (usually Always Male, at least in heterosexual pairings) physically corners a Love Interest using the body to block any chance of escape. It's often accompanied with a "BAM!" sound effect from pounding the wall (the "don" in kabe don). The Wall Pin Of Love is often Played for Drama and increases tension between the characters. It may be given with an Anguished Declaration of Love or a Forceful Kiss from the person doing the Wall Pin. May also lead to Wall Bang Her. A well-known parody of this originating in the Japanese Twitterverse was known as the "semi don" (cicada block), uses both arms and legs, and was subject to much Memetic Mutation.

The Wall Pin of Love is a very popular staple in Harem Genre, Shojo and Yaoi romance. Many news outlets have reported that it is the "ideal" scenario for many Japanese women. Despite this, the Wall Pin of Love can lead to Unfortunate Implications because the emotional and physical intimidation is common in domestic abuse. Because of how frequent and popular it is in Eastern works, there may be Values Dissonance involved in how it's accepted. People in the West are more likely to see the Wall Pin of Love as anything but romantic, and even a bit rapey. It is common enough in romantic works that a lot of works will play with the trope, swapping gender expectations, a wall pin over enthusiasm of a non-romantic topic, etc.

Outside of a romantic context, the Wall Pin can simply be used to intimidate people. A Loan Shark might use it when he doesn't get his money. However, if it's simply a Neck Lift applied to a wall or shoving a person into the wall, then it doesn't count. The Wall Pin has to involve someone trapping another with the body. In less serious works, this may be Played for Laughs by having the victim assume they're being flirted with.

Unlike Pinned to the Wall, this generally involves no pointy objects.


Examples

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    Anime and Manga 
  • Ao Haru Ride has one in chapter 25 when Kou confronts Futaba for avoiding him.
  • Parodied in Ayakashi Triangle: Soga tries to charge a Nurikabe and is Too Fast to Stop when Matsuri steps in the way, accidentally braking on the wall with his arm next to Matsuri's head. The romantic implications briefly disturb them, and cause Ponosuke to blush and go starry-eyed at the "nurikabedon".
  • Blend-S:
    • Episode 10 has Dino attempt to demonstrate this with Mafuyu, but it fails due to the height difference resulting from Dino being the tallest member of the cast and Mafuyu being the Token Mini-Moe.
    • Episode 11 is outright titled "Good at Tsundere, Bad at Kabedonnote ". It has Dino attempt to explain the concept to Maika. He is unable to explain it in a reasonable manner, so Hideri pushes him towards Maika to demonstrate it. The stinger of the episode then has Maika pin Dino to the wall and apologize for her earlier behavior.
  • Happens multiple times to Yuki in Cheeky Brat. She often gets flustered when it comes to Sho, because the attraction there's mutual and he tends to do it anywhere and everywhere, but it gets a bit awkward for her when it comes from someone else like Suwa, because she has no idea how to react given that she's already in a committed relationship.
  • The Dangers in My Heart:
  • Food Wars!: Miyoko Houjou does it to Megumi when they first meet, although it's not done in a romantic way. She scares away a bunch of students who are harassing Megumi before pinning her to the wall and ask about her shokugeki with Shinomiya.
  • Hyakunichikan!!: Discussed in the omake for Chapter 11.5, where Chiho asks Shuuto and Aoki what it is. In Chapter 20, Komugi says her big sister reads a lot of shoujo manga and wants it to happen to her.
  • Kaguya-sama: Love Is War:
    • Shirogane advises another student to do this when they come to him for advice on how to ask out Kashiwagi. Shirogane doesn't really have any idea what he's talking about, but it works, and the two of them go on to become the Beta Couple.
      Shirogane: I call this technique "Kabe DOWN". I came up with it myself!
      Kaguya: It's "kabe don"! It's been around for years!
      Tsubasa: Are you a genius?
      Kaguya: ARE YOU AN IDIOT?!
    • One of the final bonus chapters of We Want to Talk about Kaguya has Saburo asking Iino and Ishigami how to get Karen to finally notice him, with Iino suggests doing this just like with what Shirogane did with Tsubasa.note  It almost works... until he turns around to ask the two if he did it right, which leads Karen to believe that he was just acting out some sort of fantasy rather than an actual confession.
  • In Kyō, Koi o Hajimemasu, Kyota corners Tsubaki after she cuts his hair in the first chapter. He does it again when she avoids him shortly after a Near-Rape Experience.
  • Subverted in Little Witch Academia (2017) when Akko is pinned by Andrew (affected by a Love Potion), the Unfortunate Implications are highlighted: Instead of being charmed, Akko freaks out and runs away.
  • Discussed in episode 5 of Miss Kobayashi's Dragon Maid, when a TV show Tohru watches claims this is thing that girls want their lovers to do the most.
  • In Manly Appetites: Minegishi Loves Otsu Minegishi does this to Otsu upon being gifted chocolate from him. In a surprisingly realistic use of this trope, Kunai and Otsu both point out how threatening that sort of behavior comes off and how he'd be in real trouble if he did that to a female coworker. In Minegishi's defense, he was so overwhelmed by Otsu giving him chocolate that he wasn't really aware of his own behavior, but he still heartily apologized to Otsu. Otsu still seems pretty flustered by it.
  • In the anime-exclusive S1E08 of My Next Life as a Villainess: All Routes Lead to Doom!, most of Catarina's friends get trapped in a magical book world where one can act out their greatest desires. In Sophia's case, she pins Catarina to the wall and declares her love for Catarina after Catarina offhandedly states she'd like to live in Sophia's home.
  • In My Senpai Is Annoying, Sakurai’s kid brother Yuto becomes curious about kabedon and decides to try it out. He practices with his sister to see her reaction, but her response is to hug her brother. Yuto ends up on the receiving end of a wall pin with Natsumi, a woman he’s crushing on, only because the train they were on experienced a sudden jolt.
  • Nurse Hitomi's Monster Infirmary: Ken Tatara does this with all four of his arms to Hitomi in his intro chapter, though he's such a Tsundere that it comes off as harassment rather than affection.
  • Gender inverted in chapter six of Omujo Omutsu Joshi, titled "Morei's Kabe-don!!". Morei performs a wall pin on Shouta as she questions him about his feelings for Ichigo, which leads to her own attempt to confess her feelings for him.
  • A Polar Bear in Love: When Seal tries to escape from Polar Bear during his nap, Polar Bear immediately panics and violently slams his claw against the ice. It was unintentional, but it was enough to traumatize Seal.
  • Pop Team Epic pokes fun at this with Pipimi pinning Popuko, her hand hitting the wall so hard that it sends them, the wall, and the floor beneath them flying. The anime version goes a step further by portraying the initial wall-pin via a Tokimeki Memorial-style visual novel interface, followed by the wall traversing a bunch of mining cart tracks Ă  la Donkey Kong Country.
  • The Quintessential Quintuplets: Fuutarou finds himself on the giving and the receiving end of this trope. First, he does it to Itsuki as he declares himself her tutor and that they're "partners", and later he receives it from Ichika when they're hiding in an alley from her manager.
  • Invoked in Science Fell in Love, So I Tried to Prove it: Main protagonists Himuro and Yukimura perform an experiment to examine the effects of this trope, using Himuro's heart rate as a metric. For consistency, the trial is repeated a hundred times in quick succession, but to their dismay, the effects slowly diminish and plateau out the more Yukimura repeats it. Kanade suggests that this is due to the wall pin's shock factor diminishing as Himuro got accustomed to it. Himuro notes that the wall pin goes from looking romantic to outright silly as it gets repeated to excess, and realizes that it starts to resemble a sumo slap at a certain point.
  • She's My Knight: Ichinose does this to Mogami, but it's less impressive when done to a taller person.
  • In Strobe Edge, Ren traps Ninako in the classroom when he suspects she still reciprocates his feelings.
  • Invoked in Wotakoi: Love is Hard for Otaku: Hirotaka Nifuji does this to Tarou Kabakura, but while it appears to play up the Yaoi aspect, it's Subverted as their respective girlfriends Narumi Momose and Hanako Koyanagi are rapidly taking pictures at every angle of the scene. It's implied the guys are forced to do this because their girls are explicit Yaoi Fangirls.

    Films — Animated 

    Films — Live-Action 

    Literature 
  • A subversion occurs in Cold Days between Harry Dresden and Karrin Murphy. It actually starts out as Harry losing his temper because of the Winter Mantle and slamming his hand against the door beside Murphy's head, either as an attempt to intimidate her or just out of pure anger and frustration. Instead of being scared or angry, Murphy gently talks Harry down and takes his hand, turning it into a Wall Pin of Love as she brings him back to himself and helps make the Winter Mantle go away. They're left holding hands and reaffirming their love and support of one another after this bit.
  • Hensuki: Are You Willing to Fall in Love with a Pervert, as Long as She's a Cutie?: Keiki's Unwanted Harem troubles begin when he does a "wall-slam" on his senpai, who he suspects of leaving him an unnamed Love Letter (and a pair of panties). Her rival gets jealous when hearing of this and it snowballs from there.
  • Juni Taisen: Zodiac War: Nezumi once tried to get a girl he liked to out with him using this trope. It didn't go well.
  • Katalepsis: Zheng, a flesh-eating zombie, does this to Heather to intimidate her. It has unintended consequences.
  • My Little Sister Stole My Fiance: After it's been announced that the prince's hand in marriage would given to Luna instead of Eliana, a random creep tells Eliana that he heard rumors about her losing her place as the Crown Prince's bride due to her infidelity. He then pins Eliana against a wall and tries proposition her into going out with him. Eliana manages to break free from his grasp by slapping him.
  • Sophia pulls one on Katarina in My Next Life as a Villainess: All Routes Lead to Doom!, much to another of the LoveInterest's annoyance. It's mostly played for laughs, since Sophia is at least a foot shorter than Katarina, and Katarina is oblivious enough that she doesn't realize what Sophia is trying to do anyway.
  • In book 3 of Lynn Flewelling's Nightrunner series, Traitor's Moon, Alec gets uncharacteristically forceful with his older lover Seregil, pinning him roughly against a hallway wall and kissing him hard after Seregil half-teasingly asks "Are you ashamed of me, my stiff-necked Dalnan prude?" because Alec got embarrassed when one of their guards lightly teased them about having very audible sex during the previous night and because Alec had been shying away from even just mild public displays of affection between them up till this point in the book. In this case, the wall-pinning is not meant to be intimidating at all, but rather it shows that Alec will swallow his discomfort with publicly being out about their same-sex relationship and do something unmistakably intimate where other people could see them, if that's what it takes to reassure his chronically depressed lover that he is still very much attracted to him. And this scene also serves to show that by this point, they have a much more power-balanced relationship than the classic Lover and Beloved character dynamic, despite the fact that Alec is only 19 and shy about sexual matters, at least in public.
  • Chapter 2 of Otherside Picnic opens with Toriko seemingly performing this on Sorawo, to her complete bemusement. As it turns out, she noticed that one of Sorawo's eyes had turned bright blue after their close call with the Kunekune, and she just wanted a better look. There is definitely a Ship Tease angle to it, particularly when Toriko murmurs that the color is "so pretty," causing Sorawo to become flustered.
  • Played with in Sword Art Online Alternative: Gun Gale Online. When Karen/LLENN meets M in real life, he does this to her and asks if she has ever been so deeply in love with someone that she'd give her life for them. Karen says no, at which point M says she could never understand how he feels... about Pito.
    Karen: My first "wall-slamming"... and it's to hear someone confessing their love for another person.
  • Trapped in a Dating Sim: The World of Otome Games is Tough for Mobs: The Alternate Timeline of the series known as the Marie Route, begins with Leon intercepting Marie before she can pull a Hijacked Destiny on Olivia by stealing her Love Interests from the Otome Game Marie and Leon have transmigrated into. He does this by covering Marie’s mouth, carrying her away, and then pinning her to a wall with both arms. Romance ensues.
  • The Villainous Daughter's Butler, I'll Crush the Destruction Flags: Alicia once does this to the protagonist Cyril when she's mad due to his apparent inaction over Sophia’s impending forced engagement to a foreign prince. Despite it surprising him at first, Cyril teases Alicia like usual before leaving.
  • In The Youkai Computer Knows, the twentieth novel of the Tantei Team KZ Jiken Note series, Aya was given this by one of her classmates (which is not part of her Reverse Harem, mind you). The plot relevant point is that Mikado noticed the smell of synthetic cannabinoids that rubbed off from him to Aya.

    Live-Action TV 
  • The infamously satisfying hookup of Castle and Beckett in the season four finale, "Always." Beckett comes in from the rain after the two have previously broken up as partners due to Beckett's refusal to acknowledge that Castle is in love with her and running headfirst into her mother's case, nearly getting her killed. She kisses him and tells him she caught up with the bad guy, but when she faced her own death, she only thought about Castle, nothing else. He reciprocates by shoving her up against the front door and fiercely making out with her, kissing her neck and even the bullet wound on her chest, before they both head to the bedroom.
  • Played straight with Gomenne Seishun's main couple in the latter part of the series. Played for laughs behind the scenes by the actors Koseki Yuta, playing the Trans character, and actor playing his boyfriend.
  • Good Omens (2019): Crowley attempts to do an intimidating version of this to Aziraphale to protest being called "quite a nice person". However, Aziraphale simply stares at Crowley while he rambles, until they're interrupted by Mary Loquacious, who identifies them as having an "intimate moment."
  • Star Trek: Enterprise. Used for Belligerent Sexual Tension in the Mirror Universe episode. The mirror counterpart of T'Pol tells Mirror-Trip how she lured him with a promise of a sexual tryst only to brainwash him as a Manchurian Agent to carry out sabotage (for which he was tortured afterwards). Trip slams his hand into the wall next to T'Pol's head; then it turns out he's activating the intercom there to tell the captain that he's completed his repairs.
  • Ultraman Trigger: New Generation Tiga: Episode 10 sees Darrgon do this in an attempt to woo Yuna, however his massive strength ends up causing him to dent the wall where he attempts it.

    Music 
  • Kabe Don! SONGS ♪ is a whole series of albums that combine Serenade Your Lover and this trope. The premise for the series has the boys interact with the object of their affections until the Slam, and then the boys sing a song to them that conveys their feelings and is meant to seduce them. It has a naughtier sister series, the Yuka Don! SONGS ♪, which have the serenades take place as the singers pin their lover to the floor.
  • Taemin, who is featured in BoA's music video for "Disturbance", does this to her.
  • YeoJin gets cornered by the frog prince with a wall slam in the music video for "Kiss Later".

    Theatre 
  • In the extra improv scene of the first Tsukiuta stage play, Haru does this for his "special talent" — to, of course, Hajime, his partner and the leader of his unit.

    Video Games 
  • La Corda d'Oro, when ladies' man and flutist Azuma Yunoki shows his true colors to Kahoko Hino, he puts his hand against the wall beside her and tells her that she's been pestering him.
  • A Little Lily Princess: Lavinia's route has quite a few Loving Bully elements to it, resulting in her getting Sara trapped between a wall, her body and her extended arms before confessing to her.
  • In Lost Judgment, Yagami can make cowering opponents surrender with an EX action when in Snake Style. If he has an opponent against a wall when he does so, he gives them a kabedon and a Death Glare worthy of Kiryu before the opponent passes out in fright.
  • In the adult Bara Genre game Strange Flesh, the Game Over screen from the Garden of Vice level has a beefy version of Joe pinning a regular Joe against a tree in the background. Yes, it's that kind of game.
  • In the World of Warcraft expansion Battle for Azeroth, the out-of-game cinematic Lost Honor includes the orc Varok Saurfang performing an intimidating wall punch beside the head of human King Anduin Wrynn, who has come to speak to him in his prison cell. Though Anduin is mostly nonplussed by the orc's behavior (which suitably impresses Saurfang) note . Although this relationship is not romantic or sexual, it still counts as "of love" because they very quickly develop a surrogate father-son dynamic.
  • A substory in Yakuza 6, "The Kabedon Prince," has Kiryu learning of the trope after first rescuing an actor known as the Kabedon Prince from jealous thugs, then having it explained and shown to him first hand to his annoyance. The thugs come back and after Kiryu sorts them out again, he gives the leader a kabedon of his own that's more life threatening than romantic, making the guy piss himself, give Kiryu his money and leave. The actor considers Kiryu to be the Kabedon King, which he feels has a nice ring to it.

    Webcomics 
  • Let's Speak English: In "Romance 101", two of Mary's students teach her about kabedon by acting it out after she assumes it's a type of food.note  Mary is amazed that she didn't know there was a word for it until now.

    Web Videos 
  • Since most of the players of Critical Role are well-established anime dubbing voice-actors and longtime fans of the genre themselves, they have occasionally used this trope for early ship-teasing. Interestingly, all of their uses of this trope so far have inverted the usual gender dynamic.note 
    • Campaign 1: During the Whitestone arc (episode 31), Vex'ahlia (played by Laura Bailey) slammed Percy (played by Taliesin Jaffe) against a wall and held him there to force him to look her in the eye while she demanded to know whether he was mentally still in control of himself, so she could tell if he was lying. (Though Laura's Insight check failed.) This was long before either of these characters realized they were in love with each other, but the other players immediately commented that it was a sexy move and it certainly set the tone for these characters' later relationship. Sadly, this scene is not in the animated adaptation - the closest that version gets is Vex angrily yelling at and slapping Percy when he has a moment of trauma-induced despair. But that came across as more abusive than sexily dominant.
    • Campaign 2: Very early on in this storyline (episode 10), Mollymauk (played by Taliesin Jaffe) "gently and socially" pinned Caleb (played by Liam O'Brien) against a wall, ostensibly just to intimidate and talk some sense into Caleb because Molly thought he had not shared some looted money with the rest of the party. But Taliesin was pretty obviously using this trope intentionally to test Liam's willingness to get into a romance subplot with him. (This scene came just a couple of episodes after Molly gave Caleb a slap and a kiss on the forehead as a form of Cool-Down Hug to jolt him out of a Heroic BSoD style trauma flashback.) Unfortunately, Caleb was too traumatized and introverted to react positively (or with anything but shock or discomfort) to such forceful attempts at 'flirting', despite admitting a dozen episodes later that he does find Mollymauk "magical" (i.e. attractive). Instead, Caleb first developed an unrequited crush on the cute and cheerfully unthreatening Manic Pixie Dream Girl of the group. And eventually he slowly formed a tentative and cerebral romantic attachment to a very reserved, demisexual and young-looking wizard who had some issues with touching people.

    Web Original 
  • Japanese Twitter's version of the wall-pin originated from a simple chart drawn by Maki0046 about (mostly) standard examples of kabe-don.

    Western Animation 
  • Arcane: While visiting a brothel, Vi pins Caitlyn against a wall while "convincing" her to pretend to be a prostitute so they can get information, asking if she'd prefer male or female customers. Caitlyn is too flustered to get a response out before Vi just grabs a random (male) customer walking by. It's also Played With, in that Vi has known Caitlyn for less than a day and doesn't fully trust Caitlyn due to her status as an Enforcer and a topsider, so she's mainly doing it to mess with Caitlyn whilst she goes straight to the brothel's madame to get the information they need. However, the Ship Tease is still there; on her way back, Vi takes note of Caitlyn appearing to be much more relaxed and comfortable chatting to a female patron, and seems to be pleasantly surprised by the sight.
  • Steven Universe: In "Alone Together":
    • While showing Steven an example of a Fusion Dance, Garnet suggestively pins a madly blushing Pearl to the wall with both of her hands—then Pearl suddenly stops blushing and nonchalantly looks to Steven.
    • Steven tries to imitate Garnet while dancing with Pearl, which just looks ridiculous because he's barely as tall as her waist.
    • Kevin invades Stevonnie's space by boxing them against the wall with his body, though he only does it on one side.
  • Tuca & Bertie: In the first episode, Pastry Pete accidentally does this to Bertie at one point during the croissant-making competition.

 
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Gaston goes to propose to Belle, so confident that she'll say yes, he already has the wedding ready to go. Of course, she politely refuses him before showing him out the door, which infuriates the entitled and selfish Gaston.

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