Cultural Context my Bruhs

jumpinglamps:

This is gonna be a long post and I’m on mobile so incorporating pics is hard – sorry for all the words.

So I’ve seen a lot of posts relating the “cannon-ness” of Yuri and Victor’s relationship to the exchange of the words “I love you.” But here’s the thing – this anime was written and produced in Japan, by a Japanese person who, clearly, wanted to convey a very realistic and normal romantic relationship. Allow me to elaborate.

The Shoujo and BL genres are full of grandiose love confessions and large public displays of physical affection, but those types of things are considered a sort of fantasy – Japanese culture, and real romance in the culture of Japan, is very reserved. Many couples might never exchange the words “I love you” and displays of physical affection are VERY private and considered embarrassing in public. This shows largely in Yuri’s character – the only physical affection we see him initiate in public (aside from actions driven by intoxication) is hugging, and then only when he is overcome with emotion. His proposal was very Japanese in nature – not direct, but in his mind, very clear in intent. In fact, the only reason we, the audience, ever get any clear signals of romance is because of Victor – Victor is the one to say in so many words that they are engaged. Victor initiates a public kiss, which was censored, I believed largely in part for the sake of privacy, even in this moment of extreme public affection. And this is only because Victor isn’t Japanese, and wouldn’t have the same reservation with being more straightforward. Victor is a very large part of what makes their romance so globally accessible.

Now, to circle back to my earlier point – that this anime tries very hard to convey a realistic, healthy relationship as opposed to a dramatic, fantastical one. This is important, again due to cultural context. Relationships between two people of the same gender are not considered normal or positive in Japan. They are stigmatized, fetishized, blemishes to a family name. They are popularly a fantasy in fictive story-telling, and even at that they are a fantasy for straight women, not queer individuals. The creators of this show wanted to convey, not necessarily an everyday romance, but one that would be more grounded, healthy an unfetishized. A romantic subplot you might see between male and female characters. The evidence of this is very largely in the quietest scenes of the anime – the beach scene. Had this been a Shoujo or BL anime, this scene would have played out very differently. It would have been a moment of confession, of fluttering heartbeats, of blushy eye contact but that’s not what we got. We got a true heart-to-heart, two characters coming together and building trust with each other in a moment of vulnerability. We see this again in their little spat in episode 10. This scene played out very realistically. They argued a bit, got frustrated, and well of course we know how the rest of the night went. In a romantic genere, this might have lead to a breakup scene, but little spats like this are common in relationships and are hardly ever signs of a couple wanting to break things off. There are so many more scenes I could point out but those two were my favorite examples and you get the idea.

In conclusion I love this show with all my heart and I love all the attention it’s getting, but while it is very globally digestible thanks to the high diversity of character, you cannot remove this show from the context in which it was written, from the person who wrote it. Victor and Yuri’s relationship IS 100% cannon, but you cannot impose western expectations on the way in which the story unfolds.

Thanks if you made it through all those words!