Abberance

In the very first season (S01E04) with the second skit “Let’s Become Independent,” Matsuyo and Matsuzo are filing for divorce after a huge fight. The brothers are devastated, not because their parents don’t love each other, but because they can’t handle taking care of themselves. So Matsuyo specifically gives the boys an interview to see who will get to live with her, which they all prefer, since she cooks and cleans after them. We have our usual hijinks while each son makes their case. Choromatsu is last, as by the time he spoke, Matsuyo already picked three out of the six. So his strategy is simple; appeal to her motherly instincts.

What I find very interesting about this exchange is that it directly contrasts with how Choromatsu feels about his chances of marriage and children in the latest episode (as of November 9th, 2020). Here, he is very confident in being the most “responsible” of the six, the one most likely to “graduate” from NEETdom and enter “civilized society.” In “The Way Home,” there is a lot more uncertainty in his voice. He looks down, wondering out loud if he will get married. When Jyushimatsu asks him, he seems almost startled by the question. The “Huh?” at the beginning, with him finally picking up his head to look back at his younger brother, seems to imply that his comments were more towards himself than as a reply to Jyushimatsu. He ends it with a “Well, yeah... someday.”

So what changed? Let’s jump forward to episode nineteen (S01E19) with the closing skit, “Choromatsu Rising.” If we know anything about Choromatsu, he isn’t the most self-aware compared to the rest of his brothers. The segment begins with Osomatsu and Todomatsu lazing about, doing nothing. Choromatsu enters the room, looking for everyone to announce that he is going to quit being an idol fan in order to start living a “proper” life.

Obviously, this isn’t taken very seriously by his brothers. They ignore him at first, only for him to start repeating his spiel. Totty is the one who is very vocal and abrasive about calling out his bullshit.

The thing is, Todomatsu is right. Choromatsu says that he intends to change, even going on another spiel about his plans to study abroad and find a girlfriend... I’ll probably put some examples down, but everyone who has watched this show, even if it was one episode, knows that validation and acceptance are VERY important to Choromatsu. He said these things because it makes him feel better about himself and his status as a NEET with no romantic or sexual experience. Even though he puts on this mask of being the most “put-together” brother, he is no different than any of them. I would argue (and I think this episode makes a clear case of this as well) that he is actually the WORST out of the six given how much he denies being who he is. He puts on an air of confidence in order to, or I guess attempt to, convince himself that he is fulfilling the role society wants him to play.

We see that in the skit “Dayon Tribe” (S01E23), the one directly connected to the previous segment “Kerosene,” he doesn’t REALLY think he’s the shining example of what the brothers could be. After Choromatsu was sent to get more kerosene for their space heater after a long mental showdown, he fails his task to go get drunk at a nearby pub. Each of the older brothers were sent separately to find out what was going on with Choromatsu, only to ALSO fall victim to the warmth and pleasure of alcohol. Eventually, the elder trio pass out and get eaten by an extremely drunk Dayon. They wake up inside of Dayon and find a whole tribe of people living inside of his body with his exact facial features. They get found out and surrounded by Dayon villagers. Choromatsu straggles behind due to being a lightweight and is taken by the villagers. The younger trio are stuck behind in absolute chaos, Jyushimatsu freaking out while Totty is crying on the floor. After some time has passed, Ichimatsu, Jyushimatsu and Todomatsu all go out to find their brothers and they also get eaten. They walk in on a wedding ceremony where Choromatsu is marrying the village woman that found the older trio. Totty is NOT HAVING IT (he really does have a pattern on calling Choro on his bullshit, huh?).

Osomatsu and Karamatsu appear, explaining that they want to stay here because of how great the Dayon world is. Everything is provided for them, since Dayon has sucked in everything they need. There’s no reason to work in exchange for food and shelter because they already have those things. They can essentially stay NEETs forever. The other thing, which is very important, is that there are no class systems or expectations in the Dayon world. There is no societal pressure to start families, have good jobs, get an education, et cetera. Everyone is the same and everyone is happy.

Todomatsu and Choromatsu go back and forth for a bit before Choromatsu breaks down and cries in front of everyone, revealing his true feelings.

Choromatsu finally is honest with himself and his brothers, and we see his deepest insecurities. He feels burdened by societal expectations, wanting desperately to become the person that he feels he should be, but feels trapped in a cycle of mediocrity. I think most of all, he puts those expectations on himself. He feels that he needs to make his parents proud of him, and that it is his responsibility to pull his brothers out of NEETdom through his successes.

So, going back to “Let’s Become Independent,” I have a couple theories. One theory could be that Choromatsu only said these things to get into his mother’s good graces and that he didn’t truly believe what he was saying. The other is that Choromatsu truly believed that to be the case for him. He was the only brother most willing to go job hunting, after all. He didn’t WANT to be a NEET. It only made the most logical sense, or so he thinks.

Now you’re probably thinking “okay, but how does that imply he’s gay?” Well, I’m getting to that. Patience is a virtue. Before we get to that, I want to talk about Choromatsu’s relationship to the women in his life and how I think it is affected by my previous points. Let’s go back to “Choromatsu Rising.” After confronting his self-awareness ball, Choromatsu asks his brothers for help. So, since he said he wanted to get a girlfriend, why not go find some girls? Osomatsu points out different girls for Choromatsu to talk to. Each one, however, ends up with him shooting the idea down.

No matter what woman, even if she is perceived as attractive or not, Choromatsu refuses even the idea of approaching her. It isn’t even that he HAS to find a girlfriend, this is so he can just... TALK to a woman. He adamantly refuses, believing that he is so far beneath any woman he sees, despite moments ago he was planning to turn his whole life around. With each idea being shot down, his self-awareness grows in size until he becomes fully delusional and he turns into a pathetic version of his ideal self.

Now, I want to talk about two of the most prominent women in his life: Totoko and Nyaa-chan. I’m going to be honest here, and I say this as someone that adores Choromatsu SO MUCH that I’m willing to write a whole essay about why I headcanon him as not straight for fun: he’s a misogynist. Just straight up. His affection for both of them is entirely superficial and is based solely on how “cute” he thinks they are. Nothing that he likes about them is based in their individual personalities. He doesn’t like them as people, he likes the IDEA of them. This also ties into his obsession with idols and idol culture as a whole.

Idol groups are manufactured to be absolutely squeaky clean and desirable. Young girls (yes I really do mean girls... like literal children) are recruited based on their physical attractiveness and then trained to gain those social, musical and dance skills afterwards. Idols have a quick turn around rate, as they “age out” of idol entertainment by their late 20s’. Being young and desirable is the idol industry’s bread and butter. Agencies hyper-micromanage their idol’s appearances and social life, even forbidding idol’s to drink, smoke, or have relationships in public in order to maintain an aura of “purity.” Some idols come forward about their mistreatment and abuse, but overall, calling attention to your mistreatment is a big social faux pas.

THOSE are the qualities that Choromatsu finds attractive; innocence and availability. When those qualities are no longer in a woman, he’ll become less attracted to them, as we see in “Unit Formed,” (S03E04) where Nyaa and Totoko form into a wrestling duo.

So, now I want to get to the good stuff. The thing you’ve been waiting for if you even bothered to read this far (MS Word says I have over 1.7k words last I checked lmao)... Why is he gay, specifically? What evidence do I have to support my reasoning? Let’s go back to “Jyushimatsu and Comiket” (S01E17), a skit that is a part of a collection of Jyshimatsu-centered shorts. In this one, Choromatsu is in Comiket (it’s basically Japan’s version of Comic-Con) and find Jyushimatsu with his own artist’s booth selling doujinshi (fan-made comics)... Of BL.

Oh, it’s Baseball.

What I want to bring attention to is how knowledgeable Choromatsu is with BL pairings and terms, which is very interesting to me. Yes, I know he is a part of otaku culture, but there is no requirement to know these things just because you’re an otaku.

He actually even ends up buying something! Sure, it’s probably just baseball, but still. With that, I want to talk about Choroko, Choromatsu’s Girlymatsu counterpart, introduced in the skit “Girlymatsu-san.” (S01E13)

Immediately, we know as the audience that Choroko is a fan of BL. While fujoshis are a subculture within the larger otaku umbrella, it’s an odd choice for Choromatsu’s “girl version.” Choromatsu is never implied to be someone who is into yuri, which some might say is the “inverse” of BL. In fact, none of his fantasies involving Totoko or Nyaa-chan revolve around the two women being with each other, only him. So why is Choroko a fujoshi, specifically?

So, let’s wrap this up by going back to “The Way Home” and “Let’s Become Independent.” What changed between these two scenes and why?

My theory is that Choromatsu, pressured to become the perfect son, doubled by the fact that he and his brothers are all NEETs, has ingrained the idea that what he wants is a picture-perfect life. That includes getting a well-paying, respectable job, a wife, children, a home and most of all, conformity. He WANTS to be part of a life where everything expected of him is fulfilled. Just like in “Dayon’s Tribe.”

When he promised his mother grandchildren, he was confident in that claim while ALSO saying it in order to get in his mother’s good graces, confirming that his parents want grandchildren and by proxy, him to have a family capable of producing grandchildren.

In “The Way Home,” Choromatsu has finally had a more serious discussion about his future with his brothers after seeing an old classmate get married. It’s then that his subconscious tells him that maybe it’s not possible for him to be married, although he isn’t sure why.

I’m arguing here that Choromatsu is not aware of his identity and his superficial attraction to women is a symptom of compulsory heterosexuality, as he only finds the IDEA of women attractive. His ideas of women are all based off of marketing and pornography, shaping what he deems desirable by the most milquetoast definitions. I could argue that his fixation on idolism is because it is a “safe” and acceptable environment to fetishize young women, reaffirming his status as a heterosexual man.

Choromatsu does not know who he is because he never gives himself the opportunity to think about what it is he truly wants. He THINKS he knows himself as he stays within his role as the “responsible” one. However, we KNOW that he deludes himself into thinking a certain way, just like in “Choromatsu Rising.”

He is pressured by conservative Japanese society and his family to be the perfect Japanese man. The two eldest brothers, Osomatsu and Karamatsu, are not in any way conforming to the standards society has laid out. Osomatsu is VERY content with who he is and does not let his status as a NEET pressure him to become a “better” version of himself. We even see that Osomatsu’s self-awareness is the smallest of the sextuplets, showing how aware he is of his shortcomings and failures and just accepting that part of himself. Karamatsu also dresses and acts outside of the norm, as he is comfortable with his fashion choices and flowery prose despite the backlash he gets from his siblings. Neither of them show any desire to become “better,” so Choromatsu puts that responsibility onto himself as the third eldest son.

Even with his otakuism, he sees that as a flaw rather than a character trait. He WANTS to let that part of him go, finding his hobbies “shameful.” Otakus, despite what many Western fans may think, are heavily looked down upon in Japan. Things like anime and manga are considered “childish” mediums, as most people who watch anime are children and young teens, with most adults only enjoying anime and manga casually.

He truly thinks that the only thing “wrong” with him is his status as an otaku NEET. He has repressed his true desires so deeply that he doesn’t even think he has any hidden feelings in the first place.

While same-sex marriage is still illegal, there is hope for progress in the future. Dentsu, an international advertising and public-relations firm conducted a poll in 2018 reported that 78.4% of participants aged 20–59 reported that they “approved” or “somewhat approved” of gay marriage. Activist groups have been working tirelessly to organize events in order to bring people together and reduce the stigma against LGBT+ people.

“Someday” indeed. Let’s hope for brighter tomorrow.

Also, here’s a little brief regarding LGBT+ legislation and consensus in Japan I found here that I thought was very helpful.

I hope you enjoyed reading if you did!!!!