Case (
case) wrote in
fandomsecrets2017-03-23 07:10 pm
[ SECRET POST #3732 ]
⌈ Secret Post #3732 ⌋
Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.
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Notes:
Secrets Left to Post: 01 pages, 12 secrets from Secret Submission Post #533.
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.

Re: Lol this wank ALWAYS comes up!
(Anonymous) 2017-03-24 02:57 am (UTC)(link)Now, you do make a good point on female-gaze in general. Yaoi is a protest made by Japanese women to tackle toxic tropes as hentai and at some point it just got popular elesewhere but the idea was 'let's subject dudes to same tropes we see'. 90s had most of plotty gay manga - some not realistic like "Fake" and some a tiny bit better like "Banana Fish". The one that a total mix was "Cruel Got Reigns". Forgot who made "Devilman" but that's been very male-gazey psychological horror - did not read as drawing style bothers me for some reason.
Now, what's that author being ignored that you mean? Hopefully someone I didn't see but most stuff goes into bara territory and here my vanity kicks in - absolutely can't read any comic where muscly dudes are mains ... or watch such film or show or cartoon. I like guys with long, glorious locks; tall and slim and a bit nerdy *sighs*. Why yes, that's also my husband - within first week we known each other, he sent me a photo of his back with hair flowing down it. Bagged him right there and then :| .
Re: Lol this wank ALWAYS comes up!
(Anonymous) 2017-03-24 03:30 am (UTC)(link)Hey, another married queer guy on here! :D
I don't know enough about pro-skating as a sport to comment on the technical aspects of it, but considering it's been proven that stuff they've gotten praised for about the technical aspects of things have been plagiarized (the stripping scenes have been traced directly from licensed photos they don't own the rights to, a bunch of merch features it too, etc, there's a whole website in Japanese that shows a bunch of these issues), I'm surprised they messed up the technical aspects if only because I would have thought they would have just ganked it from somewhere else. o.O
Also, Banana Fish! Boy that's a name I haven't heard in awhile. While I think the ending was bonkers and stupid because the author admitted that she ended it that way because River Phoenix, the guy she based Ash off of, died and not because it was originally going to end that way, I also think Banana Fish was pretty progressive for the time. It was a fragile gay love story with a kid who was badly abused and still had enough trust to reach out, and Eiji was endearingly authentic and neither ever fell into "yaoi trope" territory. The fact that Eiji never really got over Ash and hoarded his memories of him in the epilogue makes things even more bittersweet I think. (The only part of that clusterfuck of an ending and epilogue that I can forgive is that Sing and Akira (the young girl) meet for the first time, and Akira later becomes Sing's wife, Yoshida provided "wedding photos" in some promotional material.)
While I think Banana Fish had a whole lot of "WTF" moments about it, I will say I think it's a good example of how to make a gay love story that doesn't have a "female gaze" to it. The narrative felt very neutral, it had many things that both male and female fans enjoyed. There's a reason it's considered a cult classic by many in Japan.
Someone mentioned Sorairo Flutter above. It's a manga that's based off of a webcomic done by a gay male author. I haven't gotten a chance to go through it yet, but I'll likely get a private translation done of it. It certainly doesn't "baraish" to be though:
https://www.mangaupdates.com/series.html?id=139385
https://myanimelist.cdn-dena.com/images/manga/3/190455l.jpg
https://myanimelist.cdn-dena.com/images/manga/1/192611l.jpg
The main kid is a little on the chunky "cub" side but I think he's neutral as far as that goes, and the other boy is downright pretty.
I feel you about bara. I like some bara-lite authors (Naop and Mentaiko represent) but generally I'm not into hardcore bara either. It doesn't need to be bara in order to not have an explicit "female gaze" thing about it. Hell, look at romance novels, those guys are all ripped as fuck (it's a guilty pleasure to read trashy romance novels for me, whether heterosexual or homosexual), but there's still an immediately ascertainable "female audience" feeling, you know what I mean? The "look" of the characters is only a part of the issue here for me.
I would like more "normal" looking guys in gay representation though, a happy medium between "they're all roided up baras" and "they're all whispy willow bishounen and saucer-eyed ukes".