The Kiyosumi Katou fan

Kinda a nothing burger post but look at this oc exercise I did! The heads of the assassin family spanning back 12 generations. Our beloved Reiya is the 11th, and his daughter, Haruna, is the 12th

I haven’t really done an established lore drop. (I prolly should) it’s important to note that each head is male!! Excluding Haru of course

Reiya, Haru, and “Chiyo” are the only ones named because……they’re the important ones. Chiyo is the progenitor, the very beginning of it all. Reiya expands the family business by the most ever. Haruna is representative of change and the future

I’m still working on Chiyo’s backstory, but I do wanna talk about what I’ve been workshopping bevause I find it interesting. I’ve been doing some research on the Tokugawa/Edo period and what things were like for the working class. Not just that but researching the history of homosexuality and gender nonconformity in Japan. It’s been fun!

My goal for the backstory is to take the character “Chiyo” and another character, “Ume” and bring them together. I don’t talk about the family a lot, but understand that they’re not just a business but a DYNASTY. They’re not just renowned in the underworld, but also the high class underworld. But yeah, gotta figure out an origin story for a family like that.

Chiyo is kinda meant to be like.. the boy who never had anything, subjugated to abuse on the basis of his birth sex (unfortunately, at the time, the predation upon young boys was very popular) . Ume is supposed to be the girl that had everything and had it taken away on the basis of her birth sex (married off). This is an oversimplification— I want the narrative to focus on a variety of topics:

- perception of children (and women) as possessions rather than people

- what pushes someone to murder

- the fluidity of sexuality and gender

- gender nonconformity as a form of self preservation as opposed to identity

- the weaponization of femininity

- the big Baki topic of it all. Strength. In this case it’s strength forged in blood. At its heart it’s about the reclamation of autonomy. Being able to be strong

Pretty basic but this is stuff I care about so I wanna go deep with it. To put a long story short however. This is about two tainted kids. Chiyo and Ume’s separate circumstances send them towards a life of killing for survival. This eventually evolves into organized assassination. As it becomes more of a job and reclamation of power, they eventually encounter one another. They bond over their shared experiences and perceived “taintedness” and this sets off a domino effect that ultimately results in the creation of this massively known “business”.

……..and keep in mind these aren’t the Baki relevant characters. This is just the pre story! I needed to explain reiya’s existence somehow!

It’s like it never comes from a place of "let me rep female fighters" or

"let me have a well written character that just happens to be a woman".

No, it's always "omg she's a girllllll and she’s small and shyyyyy a-and she's dating one of the guysssss" it's like idk it feels weird. Like you make a female oc just for her to be infantilized compared to the men around her? Like “oh look at her be petite and only wear pink blah blah” or “oh she’s a stereotypical bad bitch that don’t take no disrespect” …..even tho she’s still written in a sexist way, cuz her only purpose is to be shipped with one of the guys.

Most are just made to be about the contrast “ow she’s ultra girly and tiny he’s a big buff MAN. Isn’t that different and ground breaking???” I guess 🙄. A lot of these Baki ocs are never written to be worth something within the narrative, just “girl” and that’s it. Who’s whole purpose of creation is “shipping”, aka getting fucked on by whatever Baki character.

It's like said oc is never a character but a....idk the word but hmmm….object. Not even a character but an object for the male characters to react to/ interact with.

Even tho realistically the Baki characters wouldn’t interact with them like that. They wouldn’t gaf. But people end up changing their characterization to pander to this weird misogynistic “big strong man little baby woman” fantasy.

It’s so weird to impose such a traditional and toxic depiction of masculinity when a lot of Baki focuses on deconstructing what’s traditionally masculine. It’s reductive because the characters aren’t written to fit this mold. And it just turns the characters into cookie cutter versions of each other. Like “My oc is Baki’s girlfriend and she’s small so he’s protective and possessive over her”, “My oc is Hanayama’s girlfriend and she’s small so he’s protective and possessive over her”, “My oc is Katsumi’s girlfriend and she’s small so he’s protective and possessive over her.” Like why are we ignoring their individuality just to turn them into the standard “man” archetype?

Most of the guys are shown to be relatively normal when it comes to women (except yujiro) so making a female ocs for the core reason of "owww she a girl and they're all men owwww what will happen"' is so ew. You make a female oc just be a piece of flesh for you to write the male characters lusting for. Having your female character be an incubator for whatever male character you pick.

How is that any different from how women are perceived under the patriarchy ?? Everyone get woke rn

oh my god, thank you. THANK YOU FOR SAYING THIS. No, Baki wouldn't cheat on the love of his life with a woman he'd just met, purely because shes pretty. No, Kaoru would not hit on you and hire a random civilian woman as his sexy secretary. No, Katsumi would not bdsm punish you with bloodlust in his eyes.

Ignoring how a lot of relationships with Baki characters realistically would be draining, lacking of affection, and stressful as a regular civilian is insane.

Drew this last night. You can kinda see where I ran outta steam because the best thing here is the rendering on that bald ass baby