![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Entry tags:
rant, asuka, rant!
... it buuuuugs me. I haven't said anything about this directly to anyone, though, because hey, who am I to crush the hopes of innocent young fangirls, but when it's more mature, supposedly smarter people who should damn well know better...!
I am so fucking tired of "sasunaru CAN become canon damn it, if you don't agree you're just a homophobe!!!!"
One of the arguments is that some shounen manga DO have homosexual characters!
Yeah. Let's look at them. But first, let's look at shounen itself as a genre.
Shounen is actually an umbrella term for a SHITLOAD of manga types. Some aimed at 12 year olds, some aimed at 18 year olds... Sometimes cracktastic humor, sometimes revolving around a harem and therefore romance in general, sometimes more psychology-based, sometimes uncomplicated adventure/action/friendship -- perhaps with some romance sprinkled on. Differences about age level being in the level of fanservice and graphic violence, often, but also in the degree to which the characters and the story's morale lean away from black/white good/evil dichotomy and depth of the characters' psychology.
I think we can all agree that Naruto is fairly low on fanservice (there's the sexy no jutsu, once every, oh, six or seven novels or thereabouts. Sakura is cute but flat as a board and Hinata wears huge, all-swallowing jackets that make her look fatter than she is in order to hide her boobage. Tsunade has awesome cleavage but her breasts sag in a very realistic way instead of being plastic-perky, and she doesn't actually use them to flirt, they're just kind of there.) It's also very low on graphic violence -- shit happens sometimes but even if we see bone and guts they're never rendered in a lovingly detailed way. So, not aimed at older teenagers, yes? Okay.
There's humor here or there but we're not meant to find the story itself a joke. (It does happen anyway! but it's not the authorial intent.)
Naruto also doesn't go very deep with characters' psychologies. "He's naturally Good, just sometimes cute-annoyingly socially impaired!" "she's bitchy but she really cares! sometimes she lies to spare people's feelings, that's bad" "she's super shy but very brave and completely good!" "he's a creepy man whose reason for evil seems to be WOOHOO YOUNG BOYS AND IMMORTAL LIFE!" "people killed his dog so he's going to kill them all, but in a self-righteous way!" "He's a bored old troll who wants to punish people for not worshipping him enough!" The most complicated they have is probably Sasuke, who sometimes doesn't seem complicated so much as contradictory. XD "He was a good boy and a loving brother! He had Evil Trauma, so now he acts Evil but the Light can still reach him! ... really!!"
The next fucking time someone tells me "but Kaworu was canongay for Shinji in Evangelion, so Naruto can totally be canongay for Sasuke!" I will choke a bitch.
Evangelion was a mindfuck with really creepy events that dealt with, for example, the hero at some point masturbating over his comatose teammate and also getting in strange positions over the naked clone of his mother. His and Kaworu's relationship was never actually realized, either, though they had a deep impact on each other (if Kaworu had lived I like to believe Shinji might very well have accepted him in a romantic way, but he was never meant to live in the first place! Just to break Shinji's mind and will and heart a little more.) There were a lot deeper and more complex themes and psychology in Evangelion (realistic in the sense that real people, even the good ones, have dark impulses, and a fucked up situation means people react in even more fucked up ways) and a much darker, no-happy-endings mood than Naruto would EVER get.
Naruto is aimed at ages 12-14 and its message is something like "if you try hard enough and never let go of your friends you can make everyone in the world see the light and become nicer to each other and end all war forever". I don't know how the two series are even remotely comparable.
But Evangelion is only the latest ridiculous argument I've been given. I've seen others around.
"There's a gay crossdresser in Rurouni Kenshin!"
Yes, and his sexuality and gender was used as a source of humor, and at the end people had to lie to him about how the person he'd loved wanted him to do X so he would have a reason to keep living and not commit suicide, when the person he'd loved was busy gallivanting happily in Hell with the woman who'd died for him, without having given Kamatari a second thought. He'd never emotionally mattered to Shishio at all.
I could find a dozen other examples. Give me one shounen manga which has the main couple in a happy homosexual relationship, instead of the gay person in a hopelessly one-sided crush, or using his sexuality to creep out the hero (either as a joke or because he's a bad guy and the gayness is just there to make his bad guy-ness worse), or in mutual, or at least confessed, love -- and *dying for it*.
But aha, Kishimoto himself...!
"Yaoi no jutsu! kiss!"
Humor purposes. Kishi knew the fangirls would draw doujin where it happened, so he did it first. Hurts me to say it but neither time was it welcomed.
"Orochimaru is gay!"
Orochimaru is coded as "strange/abnormal" (speaks like a woman, suspiciously intense about young men's bodies, wears make-up, long hair and long flowing clothes, inhabits a woman's body for a time) in order to increase his creepiness as a villain. It's a common tactic.
"Haku and Zabuza were gay! Kishimoto supports gayness!"
Haku and Zabuza might have been gay (or at least in a shudo relationship.) It wasn't text. Subtext that comes clear if you know the social context of Japan samurai a couple centuries ago, maybe. But HELLO DID YOU FORGET THEY HAD TO DIE BEFORE RECIPROCAL FEELINGS COULD HAPPEN AT ALL.
But anyway.
Naruto isn't a series that's ever been psychologically subtle enough to make the main simplistic plot of "save your friend from The Darkness!" into a homosexual love story powerful enough to break down the barrier between yaoi manga (which is a subset of shojo, btw) and adventure/action shounen. It's not a seinen, it's not a shounen like Death Note where the mindset and psychology of the characters was important, it's not a harem manga. It's a manga where people kick ass and become heroes because of a very simple "in the name of brotherhood!!" reason -- so simple it was never needed to explore it any deeper. "He's the first friend I've ever had! Like my brother! I'll be a better brother to him than you've ever been!" was the most we've seen Naruto develop his motivation. (fairly ironic when we consider what Itachi did in Sasuke's name -- how Naruto is going to top that, I'm not sure, but that's he goal anyway.)
Naruto and Sasuke have amazing chemistry. Naruto is completely crazy and obsessed for Sasuke. But Kishimoto tagged them as "brothers" to justify/excuse the intensity. Personally I think that makes it kinda incestuous, or like Naruto is in denial, but that's my personal subtext. The text doesn't support the idea that Naruto is in denial of what exactly Sasuke means to him at all. Not only is he attracted to girls, but he's way too self-assured and unhesitating about it, and no one ever doubts him.
In fic it's easy to make a "secret bisexual + denial" case. In the manga it's like "but you CAN'T prove it's NOT here! Underneath the underneath!" well, no, but I can't prove Kushina didn't have an affair with Danzou and Karin is the result of that, either.
As for Sasuke being gay, that's an easier case to make from the amount of "no thanks I'm too busy to look at your boobs" he's doing, but so would be asexual!Sasuke. So does "no, seriously, I'm TOO BUSY. Come back in five years and if I'm still alive and halfway back to sanity we'll talk."
Gay in manga = either humor or tragic end, it's never just there as a character trait like left-handed or hates coffee. Let's go with tragic because Sasuke being used as the butt of a massive joke just doesn't fit the plot and Kishi's deep and abiding love for him very well. If Sasuke is gay and in love with Naruto (I wiiiish), he will die (I... don't wish.) Presumably in a tragic self-sacrifical way.
"I want Team Seven to laugh together again, Sasuke included!" and "How can I become Hokage if I can't even save my friend?" come to mind. Whoops, the main theme of the whole friggin' manga just kicked the bucket.
(Also let's mention very quickly that Sakura's crazy love for Sasuke had been thrown a LOT of roadblocks, but never ever was it hinted that it couldn't happen because Sasuke was just too gay to see her from the very beginning. Too obsessed by revenge, determined to break his bonds, finding her lack of purpose and ability irritating, finding her useless and bothersome baggage, yes, but never a hint toward "just not physically compatible". Not only would she look utterly ridiculous for going so far and getting so much heartbreak and scorn and pain for a love doomed from the very start and which could have been cut off long ago, but for such a major plot point as Sasuke doing a heel face turn specifically because of his deep romantic love for Naruto to have NO foreshadowing... really?)
SasuNaru is never going to become canon.
It doesn't matter that Sasuke stared at unconscious!Naruto in the Valley of the End and "died" in his arms against Haku and stood WAY too close in the first part 2 reunion, it doesn't matter how Naruto angsts about him face-down on his bed. The suspiciously intense friendship is only suspicious in subtext. The text doesn't support it, but that's not even half the reason it's not going to happen.
Shounen manga is VERY formulaic, especially for Shounen Jump, and there are some things that even if his ~artistic vision~ wanted it, Kishimoto's editors would go "hey, who pays your paychecks, bitch" and make him change it. He hasn't been hired for the kind of powerful, difficult story that would have a shounen-type main character turn out to be homosexual. The prevalence of the yaoi genre might give you a false impression on how accepted homosexuality actually is in Japan. Japan is not a paradise of sexuality equality, it can actually get fairly homophobic (though not in the same way as the West, yay cultural differences.) As a fantasy for girls, whatever, it's kinda dirty and some people are as shocked as they'd be around here! but that's why it's a fantasy; as a joke, haha, funny; as an occasionally recreational activity in real-life, only "okay" as long as it's kept a secret, and you'll likely still be expected to marry at some point. Hell, marry and then have a gay lover on the side if you insist, just don't talk about it in public for god's sake.
In a manga, it's still a huge issue to write in a serious way, something kind of shameful and problematic, which a lot of people disagree with in real life and which would require a lot of deep thought to pull off.
Shojo can have emotional "I don't care about the obstacles, I want to be with you no matter what!" as the main theme of a story -- it's what the genre is all about. Shonen can't. Side plot, yes. A man being manly and going to the end of the earth to save his damsel/princess/whatever, why not, helpless women make great ready-made shortcuts to an actual motivation. But "yeah so our 12 years of friendship and nakama-ship centered story was really an epic gay love story in disguise"? noooot happening.
I would be over the moon if Naruto and Sasuke did become a couple. I DO think it's an epic love story at its core. But gay romance is not what this manga is about. That's not what Kishimoto is writing (he likes writing power-ups and kickassery and self-sacrifice and powerfully-archetypal-to-the-point-of-simplistic. He isn't writing a romance, which he has said he sucks at anyway); it's not what Shounen Jump is publishing; it's not what his main readers (teenage boys around age 12-13!) want to see. Maybe deep down Kishimoto himself believes they should be lovers, I could imagine that, but it's never going to stop being subtext and become actual canon.
That "But maybe Kishimoto WILL make them actual lovers! he showed he didn't mind the idea of yaoi after all! you can't know what Kishimoto is planning anyway so stop denying there's a chance, I know there's a chance damn it" argument just ... no.
It's not a matter of me being anti-yaoi (the fuck, also fuck you, I loved yaoi when you were barely learning your alphabet and now get off my lawn). It's a matter of looking at what he's actually writing -- an action/adventure novel about friendship with fairly simplistic morality issues, not an epic treaty on how gay people can SO be manly and kick ass and take names and have wholesome adventures of brotherhoody yayness (ahhh i want that manga like burniiiiing), because you can bet your ass some parents would be up in arms thinking "young boys should become gay, because gay is awesome!" is what he's suddenly trying to slip to their kids after luring them with easy, formulaic adventures for a dozen years.
A serious gay romance as part of a story that is NOT a shojo would be difficult to handle, require deep thought, because it would by its very nature be controversial. It would therefore be marketed as such.
This is not the target audience Kishimoto has been writing for. The great majority of 12 year old boys might want a touch of "wow, that pretty girl is in love withmeNaruto, so cool #.______.#" amongst their "So strong and kickass and respected and admired!! Also, friendship is awesome, I hope me and my friends are together FOREVER too" glee. They don't want "I'm in deep, mature, desperate love with another boy and that's the secret reason why I did every single thing I've done from the very start." Even if a boy is gay himself, at twelve he's more likely to be interested in adventure than in serious business romance anyway, AND Shounen Jump would never want to "advocate that lifestyle" anyway. Can you spell "boycott"? I can. They've let Naruto run so long because the series brings them money, not because their board of directors believes in furthering the homosexual agenda.
(... oh yeah, just in case that didn't come across clear enough, yay for text not having tone of voice and eyerolls. that was sarcasm. irritated, tired, "i can't believe some people actually believe gay people truly have a secret agenda to turn their kids" sarcasm. the asuka does not endorse homophobia. not gonna pretend it doesn't exist though.)
... Anyway. NaruSasu is not going to ever be anything more than subtext. Ever. Ever. Ever. Stop wailing that it can SO happen!!! and trying to make me say "oh, it has a chance" just so you have wiggle room, because, no, it can't, it really can't. I'm not being a meanie who just wants to depress you. I wish it could happen, too. But in conclusion: no.
I am so fucking tired of "sasunaru CAN become canon damn it, if you don't agree you're just a homophobe!!!!"
One of the arguments is that some shounen manga DO have homosexual characters!
Yeah. Let's look at them. But first, let's look at shounen itself as a genre.
Shounen is actually an umbrella term for a SHITLOAD of manga types. Some aimed at 12 year olds, some aimed at 18 year olds... Sometimes cracktastic humor, sometimes revolving around a harem and therefore romance in general, sometimes more psychology-based, sometimes uncomplicated adventure/action/friendship -- perhaps with some romance sprinkled on. Differences about age level being in the level of fanservice and graphic violence, often, but also in the degree to which the characters and the story's morale lean away from black/white good/evil dichotomy and depth of the characters' psychology.
I think we can all agree that Naruto is fairly low on fanservice (there's the sexy no jutsu, once every, oh, six or seven novels or thereabouts. Sakura is cute but flat as a board and Hinata wears huge, all-swallowing jackets that make her look fatter than she is in order to hide her boobage. Tsunade has awesome cleavage but her breasts sag in a very realistic way instead of being plastic-perky, and she doesn't actually use them to flirt, they're just kind of there.) It's also very low on graphic violence -- shit happens sometimes but even if we see bone and guts they're never rendered in a lovingly detailed way. So, not aimed at older teenagers, yes? Okay.
There's humor here or there but we're not meant to find the story itself a joke. (It does happen anyway! but it's not the authorial intent.)
Naruto also doesn't go very deep with characters' psychologies. "He's naturally Good, just sometimes cute-annoyingly socially impaired!" "she's bitchy but she really cares! sometimes she lies to spare people's feelings, that's bad" "she's super shy but very brave and completely good!" "he's a creepy man whose reason for evil seems to be WOOHOO YOUNG BOYS AND IMMORTAL LIFE!" "people killed his dog so he's going to kill them all, but in a self-righteous way!" "He's a bored old troll who wants to punish people for not worshipping him enough!" The most complicated they have is probably Sasuke, who sometimes doesn't seem complicated so much as contradictory. XD "He was a good boy and a loving brother! He had Evil Trauma, so now he acts Evil but the Light can still reach him! ... really!!"
The next fucking time someone tells me "but Kaworu was canongay for Shinji in Evangelion, so Naruto can totally be canongay for Sasuke!" I will choke a bitch.
Evangelion was a mindfuck with really creepy events that dealt with, for example, the hero at some point masturbating over his comatose teammate and also getting in strange positions over the naked clone of his mother. His and Kaworu's relationship was never actually realized, either, though they had a deep impact on each other (if Kaworu had lived I like to believe Shinji might very well have accepted him in a romantic way, but he was never meant to live in the first place! Just to break Shinji's mind and will and heart a little more.) There were a lot deeper and more complex themes and psychology in Evangelion (realistic in the sense that real people, even the good ones, have dark impulses, and a fucked up situation means people react in even more fucked up ways) and a much darker, no-happy-endings mood than Naruto would EVER get.
Naruto is aimed at ages 12-14 and its message is something like "if you try hard enough and never let go of your friends you can make everyone in the world see the light and become nicer to each other and end all war forever". I don't know how the two series are even remotely comparable.
But Evangelion is only the latest ridiculous argument I've been given. I've seen others around.
"There's a gay crossdresser in Rurouni Kenshin!"
Yes, and his sexuality and gender was used as a source of humor, and at the end people had to lie to him about how the person he'd loved wanted him to do X so he would have a reason to keep living and not commit suicide, when the person he'd loved was busy gallivanting happily in Hell with the woman who'd died for him, without having given Kamatari a second thought. He'd never emotionally mattered to Shishio at all.
I could find a dozen other examples. Give me one shounen manga which has the main couple in a happy homosexual relationship, instead of the gay person in a hopelessly one-sided crush, or using his sexuality to creep out the hero (either as a joke or because he's a bad guy and the gayness is just there to make his bad guy-ness worse), or in mutual, or at least confessed, love -- and *dying for it*.
But aha, Kishimoto himself...!
"Yaoi no jutsu! kiss!"
Humor purposes. Kishi knew the fangirls would draw doujin where it happened, so he did it first. Hurts me to say it but neither time was it welcomed.
"Orochimaru is gay!"
Orochimaru is coded as "strange/abnormal" (speaks like a woman, suspiciously intense about young men's bodies, wears make-up, long hair and long flowing clothes, inhabits a woman's body for a time) in order to increase his creepiness as a villain. It's a common tactic.
"Haku and Zabuza were gay! Kishimoto supports gayness!"
Haku and Zabuza might have been gay (or at least in a shudo relationship.) It wasn't text. Subtext that comes clear if you know the social context of Japan samurai a couple centuries ago, maybe. But HELLO DID YOU FORGET THEY HAD TO DIE BEFORE RECIPROCAL FEELINGS COULD HAPPEN AT ALL.
But anyway.
Naruto isn't a series that's ever been psychologically subtle enough to make the main simplistic plot of "save your friend from The Darkness!" into a homosexual love story powerful enough to break down the barrier between yaoi manga (which is a subset of shojo, btw) and adventure/action shounen. It's not a seinen, it's not a shounen like Death Note where the mindset and psychology of the characters was important, it's not a harem manga. It's a manga where people kick ass and become heroes because of a very simple "in the name of brotherhood!!" reason -- so simple it was never needed to explore it any deeper. "He's the first friend I've ever had! Like my brother! I'll be a better brother to him than you've ever been!" was the most we've seen Naruto develop his motivation. (fairly ironic when we consider what Itachi did in Sasuke's name -- how Naruto is going to top that, I'm not sure, but that's he goal anyway.)
Naruto and Sasuke have amazing chemistry. Naruto is completely crazy and obsessed for Sasuke. But Kishimoto tagged them as "brothers" to justify/excuse the intensity. Personally I think that makes it kinda incestuous, or like Naruto is in denial, but that's my personal subtext. The text doesn't support the idea that Naruto is in denial of what exactly Sasuke means to him at all. Not only is he attracted to girls, but he's way too self-assured and unhesitating about it, and no one ever doubts him.
In fic it's easy to make a "secret bisexual + denial" case. In the manga it's like "but you CAN'T prove it's NOT here! Underneath the underneath!" well, no, but I can't prove Kushina didn't have an affair with Danzou and Karin is the result of that, either.
As for Sasuke being gay, that's an easier case to make from the amount of "no thanks I'm too busy to look at your boobs" he's doing, but so would be asexual!Sasuke. So does "no, seriously, I'm TOO BUSY. Come back in five years and if I'm still alive and halfway back to sanity we'll talk."
Gay in manga = either humor or tragic end, it's never just there as a character trait like left-handed or hates coffee. Let's go with tragic because Sasuke being used as the butt of a massive joke just doesn't fit the plot and Kishi's deep and abiding love for him very well. If Sasuke is gay and in love with Naruto (I wiiiish), he will die (I... don't wish.) Presumably in a tragic self-sacrifical way.
"I want Team Seven to laugh together again, Sasuke included!" and "How can I become Hokage if I can't even save my friend?" come to mind. Whoops, the main theme of the whole friggin' manga just kicked the bucket.
(Also let's mention very quickly that Sakura's crazy love for Sasuke had been thrown a LOT of roadblocks, but never ever was it hinted that it couldn't happen because Sasuke was just too gay to see her from the very beginning. Too obsessed by revenge, determined to break his bonds, finding her lack of purpose and ability irritating, finding her useless and bothersome baggage, yes, but never a hint toward "just not physically compatible". Not only would she look utterly ridiculous for going so far and getting so much heartbreak and scorn and pain for a love doomed from the very start and which could have been cut off long ago, but for such a major plot point as Sasuke doing a heel face turn specifically because of his deep romantic love for Naruto to have NO foreshadowing... really?)
SasuNaru is never going to become canon.
It doesn't matter that Sasuke stared at unconscious!Naruto in the Valley of the End and "died" in his arms against Haku and stood WAY too close in the first part 2 reunion, it doesn't matter how Naruto angsts about him face-down on his bed. The suspiciously intense friendship is only suspicious in subtext. The text doesn't support it, but that's not even half the reason it's not going to happen.
Shounen manga is VERY formulaic, especially for Shounen Jump, and there are some things that even if his ~artistic vision~ wanted it, Kishimoto's editors would go "hey, who pays your paychecks, bitch" and make him change it. He hasn't been hired for the kind of powerful, difficult story that would have a shounen-type main character turn out to be homosexual. The prevalence of the yaoi genre might give you a false impression on how accepted homosexuality actually is in Japan. Japan is not a paradise of sexuality equality, it can actually get fairly homophobic (though not in the same way as the West, yay cultural differences.) As a fantasy for girls, whatever, it's kinda dirty and some people are as shocked as they'd be around here! but that's why it's a fantasy; as a joke, haha, funny; as an occasionally recreational activity in real-life, only "okay" as long as it's kept a secret, and you'll likely still be expected to marry at some point. Hell, marry and then have a gay lover on the side if you insist, just don't talk about it in public for god's sake.
In a manga, it's still a huge issue to write in a serious way, something kind of shameful and problematic, which a lot of people disagree with in real life and which would require a lot of deep thought to pull off.
Shojo can have emotional "I don't care about the obstacles, I want to be with you no matter what!" as the main theme of a story -- it's what the genre is all about. Shonen can't. Side plot, yes. A man being manly and going to the end of the earth to save his damsel/princess/whatever, why not, helpless women make great ready-made shortcuts to an actual motivation. But "yeah so our 12 years of friendship and nakama-ship centered story was really an epic gay love story in disguise"? noooot happening.
I would be over the moon if Naruto and Sasuke did become a couple. I DO think it's an epic love story at its core. But gay romance is not what this manga is about. That's not what Kishimoto is writing (he likes writing power-ups and kickassery and self-sacrifice and powerfully-archetypal-to-the-point-of-simplistic. He isn't writing a romance, which he has said he sucks at anyway); it's not what Shounen Jump is publishing; it's not what his main readers (teenage boys around age 12-13!) want to see. Maybe deep down Kishimoto himself believes they should be lovers, I could imagine that, but it's never going to stop being subtext and become actual canon.
That "But maybe Kishimoto WILL make them actual lovers! he showed he didn't mind the idea of yaoi after all! you can't know what Kishimoto is planning anyway so stop denying there's a chance, I know there's a chance damn it" argument just ... no.
It's not a matter of me being anti-yaoi (the fuck, also fuck you, I loved yaoi when you were barely learning your alphabet and now get off my lawn). It's a matter of looking at what he's actually writing -- an action/adventure novel about friendship with fairly simplistic morality issues, not an epic treaty on how gay people can SO be manly and kick ass and take names and have wholesome adventures of brotherhoody yayness (ahhh i want that manga like burniiiiing), because you can bet your ass some parents would be up in arms thinking "young boys should become gay, because gay is awesome!" is what he's suddenly trying to slip to their kids after luring them with easy, formulaic adventures for a dozen years.
A serious gay romance as part of a story that is NOT a shojo would be difficult to handle, require deep thought, because it would by its very nature be controversial. It would therefore be marketed as such.
This is not the target audience Kishimoto has been writing for. The great majority of 12 year old boys might want a touch of "wow, that pretty girl is in love with
(... oh yeah, just in case that didn't come across clear enough, yay for text not having tone of voice and eyerolls. that was sarcasm. irritated, tired, "i can't believe some people actually believe gay people truly have a secret agenda to turn their kids" sarcasm. the asuka does not endorse homophobia. not gonna pretend it doesn't exist though.)
... Anyway. NaruSasu is not going to ever be anything more than subtext. Ever. Ever. Ever. Stop wailing that it can SO happen!!! and trying to make me say "oh, it has a chance" just so you have wiggle room, because, no, it can't, it really can't. I'm not being a meanie who just wants to depress you. I wish it could happen, too. But in conclusion: no.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif){kind=small}
Page 1 of 2