[ SECRET POST #3714 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #3714 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

01.



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02.
[this was labeled "1984 musical, David Bowie" for some reason]


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03.
[From Star Trek: The Next Generation, "Time's Arrow", parts 1 and 2]


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04.
[Michael Jackson, "Scream"]


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05.
[Misha Collins]


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06.
[Nisio Isin]


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07.
[Yuri on Ice]


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08.
[Caitlyn Jenner]











Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 02 pages, 48 secrets from Secret Submission Post #531.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

Okay, couple things.

Japanese TV has no problem showing same-sex kisses
This is not true. This is like saying "American media has no problem with portraying LGBT people on TV because of Modern Family", except x 100. The fact that Japan has, on rare occasion, had same-sex anime kisses on TV (and I'm talking rare occasion, as BL don't typically get aired) doesn't mean Japanese TV "has no problem" showing it. Gay content is still considered risky and potentially alienating. There have been BL series adapted for TV anime that have literally cut the gay content to make it more viewer-friendly.

Japanese romance just isn't as flashy as western romance.
You can't simultaneously say that Japan has no problem airing same-sex kisses, and then say Japanese romance is always subtle. Most romance anime has kisses (that aren't blocked by hands or masked as a maybe-hug). If Yuri was a female character, the chance that the kiss would've been more obvious is extremely high, ergo, we have a problem. It's annoying to say it's just artistic when it more realistically comes down to, if we show the gay, we narrow our target viewer demographic.

To Japanese fans, the relationship was obvious and didn't need to be directly stated.
The relationship was obvious, but "not needing to be directly stated" might be more tied to Japan being leagues behind on LGBT rights than most Western countries. You can say subtlety is beautiful all you want, but my argument is that anime isn't actually inherently as subtle as people claim. Romance stories are usually made physically clear if they are a leading element of the story and involve the main characters. And talking het doesn't even lead into the issues that Japan, too, has with LGBT portrayal (which is a lot) - where Japan is a country that doesn't recognize LGBT rights, still largely equates being gay with being trans, still associates gay with just being a porn or comedy thing rather than a real life thing - like you can't try to take the approach that Japan just doesn't see this as a problem, because of course as a whole it wouldn't, because Japan has a problem with LGBT.

Telling the creators they need to embrace it or go fuck themselves fundamentally misunderstands the situation. We're not the audience.
I mean okay, you can say because the show wasn't made in your own country you don't get to have an opinion, which I would disagree with. Especially since the show was simulcast and a large amount of its revenue came from Crunchyroll. But I don't see the point of that, it's not like Japan is an alien planet, people can still have opinions and concerns, and it's still important for the creators to be receptive or at least open to criticism.

[(Anonymous)]

" a large amount of its revenue came from Crunchyroll"

This is actually an urban myth. The international streaming revenues for anime come mostly from China, not Crunchyroll. I wish I had saved that graphic explaining were anime money comes from. They had this huge bar just for China streams. But if you have actual numbers for Crunchyroll money, I'd love to see them! Crunchy haters always say that CR barely gives any money back, lovers says that is an important source of revenue, but I've never seen anyone actually backing it up with numbers.

[futuresoon]

All right, I'll give you the "intended audience" thing, and Japan definitely has problems with queer people, but that still doesn't mean the kiss was censored. It's literal fact that same-sex kissing on late night anime has been done several times before--No. 6 is the big "respectable" one, but there's also BL like Junjou Romantica, Love Stage, Super Lovers, etc, and those three had heavily implied sexual content too. Late night anime can get away with a lot, because it airs so late that no one's concerned about children seeing it, or even people who aren't specifically looking for that show. Yuri on Ice was aired at a time slot where showing same-sex kissing is far from unheard of.

One of the creators said she was surprised western fans were asking her whether or not the kiss happened, because Japanese fans were thanking her for it and had no questions at all about it being censored. It wasn't censored. I don't really agree with the artistic decision, but it was an artistic decision. There's no way they could have been intimidated by the prospect of narrowing their demographic, either, because 1) just having a queer relationship period removes a large portion of potential viewers, and they had no problem with that, and 2) that was episode 7, so they'd had weeks of seeing the show's explosive popularity. If it was proven that audiences loved a show that contained heavy queer subtext, there was no need to be afraid that the audience would suddenly go away because the queerness became canon. Hell, the aforementioned creator outright said she created a world where "love is love" and she would protect it no matter what the real world thought.

Criticism is one thing, but saying the kiss was censored isn't criticism, it's misinterpretation. And that does seem to be a largely western thing, for the record.

[(Anonymous)]

"BL don't typically get aired"

OVAs don't, tv series do all the time and most BL animes have been aired on tv.
And despite the lack of explicit sex scenes, most series don't tone down "the gay content" and the ones that do get bashed like woah.

"If Yuri was a female character, the chance that the kiss would've been more obvious is extremely high"

Some not-romantic manga/anime never have the main couple kissing, some not-romantic manga/anime only imply kissing instead of showing it, some dramas never show lips touching when there's a kiss.
Other anime/manga and dramas do show kisses openly, but not showing kisses clearly is just an artistic decision and has nothing to do with the gender of the characters involved.

"large amount of its revenue came from Crunchyroll"

Source? Because as far as I know, the anime industry gets most of its revenue from dvd and blueray sales. Streaming rights are an small extra that doesn't make a big difference.
And does the company buying streaming rights also pays royalties? Because otherwise, it's a one-time transference and the popularity of a show doesn't affect that.