k

oh FUCK OFF

No one fight him. No one engage him. No one give him the views and money he wants to get off us - I’m serious.

Or if you want to watch it, watch it with adblock, make sure he can’t capitalize off of us, because I’m sorry, but this shit is nasty.

He ran out of ideas and suddenly he’s bringing back Yuri on Ice because “oh hmm maybe I can make some money through “”triggering”” people!” (literally the word he used in his description)

Allow me to remind you this is the man who said about Yuri on Ice that: “the only way I could enjoy this show is if I were a yaoi fanigirl pleb who would watch anything with half-naked Russian bishies going to town on idiots on skates.” (it’s right there in his old video, @ 17:33)

He’s a misogynist who can’t fathom that LGBT people love Yoi because of the good and HEALTHY representation, and also for you know, the great presentation of figure skating, the diverse and complex characters and the amazing music.

And don’t get me wrong, he’s entitled to his opinion, but insulting the fans of something because you don’t like it is so fucking low and sets such a terrible example for his impressionable teenage fans that a YouTuber with over a million subscribers should not be stooping to that level.

BAM!

I’m out of ideas! XD

LOOOK ATT THIIIIS!!!!

LOOOOK ATTT THIIIISS!!!!

80

*O*

OH MY GOOD!!!!!

ThAT’S IT!!!!

Hitting my knee

Traditional style (Sorry the picture quality is really bad) but here is my (super short) update!!

This might seem like an obvious question with an even more obvious answer to some of you:

Yuri on Ice is a feel-good, relatable sports drama with a gay romantic subplot.

Banana Fish is a dark crime thriller with a gay romantic subplot.

But that’s not what I want to talk about today.

It’s the thing that I’m sure shocked people in episode 3 of Banana Fish and made them ask questions.

Yes. It’s about the kiss(es).

Because this is what we saw in Banana Fish

And this is what we saw in Yuri on Ice

Or shall I say, what we didn’t see…?

And I’m sure those skeptic cogs are already turning: “If they’re both made by studio Mappa, but yoi was supposedly ‘censored’ then how come Banana Fish could show a gay kiss just fine? THAT’S IT, YOI IS QUEERBAIT, CONFIRMED.”

Hold your mental horses though because this isn’t that simple, and I will run down a list of reasons why:

1. Yuri on Ice was censored

This is information coming from the director herself, as translated by @gogoeeg from the “Go Yuri Go” fanbook.

Original post here

There is probably no clearer way she could have put it - if it weren’t a kiss, why would “all sides” try to stop it along the way? Why would they want her to remove it from the episode? Yes, Yamamoto was not able to show the kiss in all its glory, but she forced through as much as she could and that deserves respect.

There’s also the thing the producer of Yoi said about how “for our director, it was very important for her to focus on this relationship between the athlete and the coach, and then she wanted to take it one step further by developing it into a romance.” (translation once more by @gogoeeg)

No more doubts on this front, I hope?

2. Banana Fish is a manga adaptation while yoi is an original anime

You might not know this but the general rule of thumb in the anime industry is that making manga/novel adaptations is the safe thing to do, and making original anime is a huge risk.

Anime adaptation are basically just very long advertisements for the source material - it doesn’t really matter how well they sell, as long as they end up promoting the manga and hopefully sell some merchandise too. Even if they don’t - it’s the manga publisher that loses money then. To my understanding anime studios are also paid by manga publishers in order to encourage them to adapt the manga/novel and to cover the huge costs of the anime creation process. And even if the anime does end up making a profit on the DVD and BluRay sales (which apparently happens to only 20% of all anime), I think a lot of that goes to the production committee - which stands above the animation studio and makes a lot of the big decisions and is the one ultimately which makes (or loses) the most money. (I’m basing all of this on this article.)

With original anime, the sales of the discs (and merchandise) is what makes and breaks franchises and often decides whether they will be continued or buried by the sands of time. There is no source material, there is no fanbase to begin with and the anime needs to convince people that it is worth their money, and that may not be easy with how expensive anime DVDs/BluRays are in Japan (on average like $60 for TWO episodes). A failure of an original anime causes trouble for a lot of people, not only for the production committee, but also for the staff like the director etc, whose reputation will inevitably be affected by the failure (or the potential success).

Which basically means this: Studios don’t care all that much about adaptations so they can do whatever they want with them (within reason, of course). In Banana Fish’s case, that means staying close to the source material, and the source material does indeed feature a kiss - so that’s what we’re getting here, nothing more, nothing less.

Meanwhile, in yoi’s case, even the hidden kiss was a huge gamble (as you read above) and most of the staff was worried about how it would be received, so the positive response was a relief in many ways. At the same time, the preorders for the DVDs and BluRays really increased after episode 7 aired, so that could potentially bode well for the future of yoi and perhaps be a sign that they might be bolder with Victor’s and Yuuri’s relationship in future installations?

3. Why Context Matters and Plausible Deniability

If you’re watching Banana Fish, you know exactly why the kiss happened and that it had pretty much no romantic meaning behind it.

If you don’t, and you’ve only seen the kiss scene (which I’m sure is the case for many people) here’s the context: Ash, the blond one, on the right, is currently in prison and needs to get a message out to a friend from his gang. He managed to procure a pill capsule and hide a message in it, but he cannot get it out of prison. In comes Eiji, the black-haired guy with a visit alongside his father, a journalist and a member of the police. Because Ash has a “reputation” in prison (which I don’t want to get into but you can probably imagine what it is), he can get away with being flamboyant and kissing a guy, so he uses this as an opportunity to inconspicuously place the pill with the message in Eiji’s mouth, while also playing the role of “the gay guy saying bye to his boyfriend”.

Eiji, fortunately, understands his role in the plan.

And soon moves on to carry it out as best as he can.

But as you can tell, there’s nothing inherently romantic or sexual here - apart from the act of kissing, but which we know had a purpose beyond showing affection (which arguably isn’t even where they are in their relationship yet, since they only met a few times and were busy not dying instead of actually talking and growing fond of each other). Instead of showing love or lust, and apart from its practical purpose as a way to carry out Ash’s plan, story-wise, the kiss is more of a foreshadowing of what their relationship might become in the future. This part of the story took place only in the third volume of the manga (and third episode of the anime), and we’re talking about a 19 volume manga and a 24 episode anime after all - their bond only begins to develop from here on out.

That’s the context for the kiss in Banana Fish.

Just as a reminder, the context for the kiss in Yuri on Ice is that Victor, in his excitement and joy after Yuuri skates a great program and attempts a difficult jump, kisses Yuuri in an outburst of positive emotions. This is also the 7th episode so there’s a lot of history - we’ve seen them grow closer to each other over the previous episodes, both romantically and physically and the kiss is a sort of crowing jewel of their interactions and an important turning point and confirmation of their relationship. This is the moment where it becomes clear that Victor isn’t just an overly affectionate foreign coach, but that there’s a relationship here, born from mutual love, respect and adoration.

Why was it censored then? I mean, I think it’s clear why - because it was a risky move because you don’t really see men kissing other men in anime all the time, and in a homophobic country like Japan and a homophobic community like the otaku community, so it could have been a major turn off for some of the anime’s fans.

What they needed was plausible deniability - the arm is plausible deniability. The arm allows those with fragile sensibilities to think “Oh, it was just a hug!” while everyone else celebrates the very obvious kiss.

Banana Fish does pretty much the same thing - but instead of hiding the kiss, they hide any potential romantic or sexual meanings as it is revealed that Ash just used it to get a message out to Eiji. In this case, people with fragile sensibilities (who frankly, shouldn’t even be watching this anime, but okay) can go “Ah, it’s not gay! Ash just needed to do it to forward his plan! What a clever bastard!” which, I mean, is true, but you also have to admit that kissing another guy on the lips is pretty gay. But then again - this isn’t Mappa’s doing, this was in the manga (written in the 80s, allow me to remind you).

This hopefully clears things up on why the kisses are the way they are. But there’s one more thing I’d like to address here, and it’s the question that some people have had so far: “Does the explicit kiss in BF mean that yoi will be able to be more explicit in the future?”

And I do think that yoi will be more explicit in the future but not because of Banana Fish - arguably, I think that you could say that Mappa’s adaptation of Banana Fish exists because of yoi in the first place. Because yoi was a success while being an anime with a gay subplot, so the vision of adapting a 30 year old manga also with a gay subplot suddenly stopped being that scary. Also considering that the next installment in the yoi franchise will be a movie, they will also be allowed to be more explicit there - since movies can generally do more since you need to actually buy a ticket to see it and won’t accidentally stumble upon it while flipping through channels at 2 am. Through the sales, they’ve also been shown that people want to see more Victuuri and more explicit Victuuri at that, so I think that also speaks for more open presentation in the future installments of yoi.

Lastly, I would just like to add that I really don’t want to see people arguing which anime between Yuri on Ice and Banana Fish is “a better anime” or has “better representation”. There’s value in open deep kisses which don’t necessarily have romantic meanings (yet), and there’s value in hidden kisses which represent more than the sum of its parts and which are just one part in one wholesome, happy, healthy, mature relationship, even if we don’t see any lips touch.

Both Yuri on Ice and Banana Fish are good anime and are important entries in LGBT representation in anime and we should appreciate both of them, instead of trying to fight for which one is “better”.

Hello, fellow yoi fans!

If you’ve already heard of the upcoming Yuri on Ice movie “Ice Adolescence”, I’d like to invite you to take part in our first ever survey! It’s completely anonymous, it’ll take less than 5 minutes to fill in and once we’ve gathered enough results, they will be published on this blog for all to see.

Hello, fellow yoi fans!

If you’ve already heard of the upcoming Yuri on Ice movie “Ice Adolescence”, I’d like to invite you to take part in our first ever survey! It’s completely anonymous, it’ll take less than 5 minutes to fill in and once we’ve gathered enough results, they will be published on this blog for all to see.

new danisnotonfire video! the countdown of the year is finally here..