Just a rant ab the latest episode of Ganbare, Nakamura-kun!
āI knew. I knew, butā¦ I never knew it would hurt this much when it finally happened.ā
All throughout the series, Nakamura was focused on becoming friends with Hirose. His reasoning was because he wanted to become closer to Hirose, though he was very clear on his crush on Hirose and stated in the first episode he is gay and in love with him.
We always got scenes of Nakamura being clingy and cringey and lovey-dovey over Hirose. I mean heās 15ā itās typical for a boy his age to be lovesick with a crush.
But for Nakamura, itās different. Or rather, itās different for society.
(Please correct me if I am wrong as I do not want to be ignorant) Japan is not a place where being LGBTQ+ is like proudly welcomed/celebrated as it goes for many other places. Iāve seen people being told theyāre lucky theyāre bi, because it means they can fall in love with the person of the opposite gender.
Being a gay man in general isā¦ Iām not saying itās game over, but many people will treat a man as an outcast for simply loving another man. People think heās strange, heās disgusting, or heās not masculine enough and the word āgayā is usually associated with ānot being man enoughā for some fucking odd reason.
Nakamura knows his crush would likely never be reciprocated because most other boys in Japan are straight, a majority. Thatās why he said he wanted to be friends with Hirose. He never thought he had a chance. But Nakamura gave in and looked for signs despite knowing what could happen to him at the end. False hope gave him a chance to act like his crush was normal and not frowned upon.
Nakamura wanted to feel normal. Like loving another boy is natural, as a boy himself.
As the viewers watching this, a target audience who most likely is an ally or part of the LGBTQ+ community, we saw this as normal. Nothing Nakamura did seemed strangeā he was just a boy with a crush. Sure he was cringe and had fantasies but many of us have thought that way when we were 15 or so.
And so the episodes were treated more comedically because we thought in the end it would have a happy ending. After all, most main characters get with their love interest in the end.
But we forgot where Nakamura was, what society is, and the reality that a lot of us tend to escape from in fantasies. Like this anime. I watched it because I wanted to see a boy successfully date his crush who was another boy, as I myself liked people of the same gender too. I escaped reality for fantasy (this anime) just like Nakamura is using Kawamura-sanās manga to escape the world he lives in. In which his crush would never be treated as normal, and where heād always be destined to fail more than once no matter what he did simply for the fact he is gay.
Nakamura knew Hirose would likely get a girlfriend at one point, he expected it, but he wanted to hope. Becauseā¦ is it so wrong to want to feel like things are going alright? That itās okay to love the person you love? That itās not abnormal, and that there will be a chance they love you back because of who they are and not because of your gender?
Nakamura doesnāt get why he feels the way he does either because he always expected him being friends with Hirose is enough, because thatās what he settled for at the beginning, despite how much he loved Hirose.
āIsnāt his happinessā¦. Mine, too?ā
It wasnāt fair how he had to settle for less because they are both boys.
And even if we take homophobia and society out of the pictureā¦
The heartbreak is more than enough to make up for the tears that slid down Nakamuraās face.
The fact he wanted to be happy because Hirose was happy was more than enough to show how much he loved Hirose.
āI knew. I knewā¦ā Nakamura couldnāt ever go for a romantic relationship as much as he wanted to and all he could do was form and keep a friendship that was the only thing tying him to Hirose
And that one dialogue in the manga:
āI like you just the way you areā
I also interpreted this in two different ways.
One was that no matter what happened between the two, Nakamura would always love Hirose no matter what. Friends, not friends, something more, he would always hold a special place for Hirose in his heart.
Nakamuraās eyes went over the other dialogue but he specifically stared at that line more than once. He wanted to be liked the way he is. He wishes Hirose, someone, anyoneā he just wishes so damn badly itās okay to for him to be loved. Accepting his shy personality, his awkwardness, his interests, his sexuality, his appearance, his everything.
It breaks me how much someone can be so close to the person they want to be loved by, but nothing happens in the end. Because the possibility was always so slim, so low, it makes them feel stupid for even imagining for a second they could love.
those are just my two cents though.
A few other things I noticed:
There were visible signs he was struggling the days after heād heard that Hirose and Hana were going out.
āIāll read Kawamura-sanās manga againā again. Again. Heād already read it before he ended up crying again.
His red flush on his face from earlier when he asked Kawamura-san to continue the manga indicated he had been crying before too, or that perhaps heād been holding in tears for a while.
His sister Kana asked him if he had to be loud every night, indicating he might have been crying loudly the days prior too. Heās always been loud but if itās consistent even after Hirose and Hana had started going outā¦ then he has most likely been crying.
Kana went up to check on him and get him down for dinner, right? She told him off, paused, and I think she was listening to him cry, before asking him if he had to be so damn noisy every night (again, we know heās loud every night because heās fanboying, but if it continued after he saw Hirose and Hana together, then that mean he must have been crying if the noisiness is consistent) and left
She told their mom to continue dinner without them
And at the end, she said āheās got a lot going onā¦ not that I knowā
SHES BEEN HEARING HIM CRY EVERY NIGHT AND SHE GAVE HIM SOME SPACE AND KNEW HEāS NOT OKAY SO SHE TOLD HER MOTHER TO NOT LOOK FOR HIM BECAUSE SHE KNOWS HE DOESNT WANT HER OR THEIR MOTHER SEEING HIM LIKE THAT. I THINK.
She was trying to look out for him in her own way
Kawamura also noticed he was feeling down and I believe that was why she agreed to continue that manga for him. She could see his facial expression which we couldnāt.
And his octopus, Icchan I think, was tapping on the tank softly but consistently, like it wanted to pet Nakamuraās head and comfort him
germansingergirl
romaincrisis
origamiaround
turnnoffyourmind
jbbartram-illu
vaporwave
kianamaiart
