#ask puff

Make it SO gay they start to hate it until it's an us thing.

I have done it bois #bland is a magical girl and i don’t know what to do with it

@raccoonsinqueen

Wow… this is a lot to unpack. A normal person would just ignore this, but lucky for you, I’m a bitch when I wanna be, and I happen to have time on my hands right now.

1) “Shonen was written for young boys to help them to get stronger and find a purpose in life”

Shonen is literally just a genre that directly translates to “young men.” But I think you’re trying to define the meaning of story telling as a whole, and even still, that’s a very narrow way to view an entire genre.

Stories meant for young men, most of the time, are meant for entertainment. You have anime’s like Dragon Ball and Naruto that’s almost nothing but action scene after action scene with very little thought provoking plot, because at the time, they were written for young boys. Like, they were aired on children’s channels back in the day, young boys. And while I won’t deny that there are definitely some good lessons in both (I can’t speak much because I never finished Naruto and only got about 20 episodes into dbz) they’re not meant to make a boy “stronger.” Lessons in early shonen were meant to broaden world views and increase emotional intelligence in a way that’s easy to understand. I guess it depends on your definition of what strength is, but I feel like strength is built from personal experiences, not watching an anime.

That being said though, the shonen/young boys genre has evolved over the years in the east and the west. Jujutsu Kaisen, Chainsaw Man, and Attack on Titan, are all shonens, with aot being also classified as a seinen. Those are most definitely not meant for the same age group that Dragon Ball and Naruto and One Piece were written for, given the amount of gore and heavier themes presented. Now, that’s not me looking down upon those stories at all, that’s me pointing out the obvious difference in tone, despite them being classified as the same.

As the genre evolved, authors approaches have also evolved. Literally read any interview from any modern shonen author and you’ll see how unserious they are when it comes to their own stories. Gege didn’t even like writing his story past a certain point and was just trying to push through it, because it wasn’t the story he originally wanted to write. Horikoshi has always said he just wanted to tell a story with no real goal towards the audience. Chainsaw Man is literally about a guy wanting to touch some boobs??? What about any of that screams, “I’m writing this to raise the new generation of young boys into strong husbands and fathers who know their purpose in life!”

Shonen as a whole has grown into a genre meant for young adults, with heavier themes and becoming increasingly more political. It’s not the same genre it used to be, and trying to say that it is, isn’t fair and is lowkey insulting towards authors with a more progressive world view.

2) “Japan’s birth rates are dropping each year and you guys want to see Deku and Bakugou get together instead of Deku and Ochaco getting married and having kids?”

Yeah… you’re right. I’d rather see a well written relationship come to fruition than watch another male author completely disrespect their female lead and ripping away her development. Why the fuck would I, an infertile acespec queer person, give a fuck about using two fictional characters to inspire young people to get married and start a nuclear family…

Also the birth rates are dropping all over the world, don’t pretend it’s only a Japanese issue. In Asia specifically, the birth rate is going down because women are tired of men’s shit and refuse to bare their children, and I’m actually happy as fuck that other parts of the world are following in their footsteps.

Women have been treated like shit in every corner of the world for so fucking long, and we all just dealt with it because that’s what we all thought we were supposed to do. It’s about fucking time we actually put our foots down and protest in the ways that we can, which is practicing our rights to autonomy. Why tf should we be responsible to bear the children of men most of us barely even like? And why is having children a mans responsibility, when women are the ones who have to carry the babies? Besides, why the fuck would anyone want to bring a kid into the shit show that is the world right now?

We’re over populated, have a really fucked up consumption and capitalism problem which causes us to depend on disgustingly unethical ways to find resources to appease everyone, there’s fucking flowers blooming in the arctics, there’s several genocides happening in the world as a result of neglectful and corrupt governments, a literal ethnic cleansing happening, and a carton of eggs costs 12 fucking dollars while the minimum wage stays at only $7.25 and the cost of living isn’t affordable unless you’re making nearly triple the minimum wage. I don’t even wanna be subjected to this shit and I’ll be damned before I subject a child to it against their will. Most of us can’t even afford to take care of ourselves without our parents help right now.

Also, what does a gay pairing have to do with the birth rate at all? Is Deku gonna carry that baby? Or are you seriously just narrowing down Ochaco to nothing more than his incubator? If Ochaco decides to have kids one day, why should it have to be with Deku? Oh and I hate to break it to you, but Ochaco becoming a mother isn’t going to solve any of the issues you presented.

3) “The stories and media we consume has to match the standards of real life you know”

…you’re talking about a story where one of the background characters has a god damn spray bottle for a head…

It’s fiction. Superhero media, at that. None of it has to follow the “rules” of real life, and most of the time, this kind of media does the exact opposite of following societal norms. And you thinking otherwise probably made Stan Lee roll in his grave.

Also, what’re your standards for real life? Because everyone’s standards are different. If yours is to get married and live in a traditional household with five kids and one source of income in this economy, then I think you’re the one being unrealistic here.

We shouldn’t burden children with adult responsibilities. Having kids and being a “good husband” isn’t something a child should have to think about until they’re older and only if they want to. Believe it or not, not everyone’s goal is to get married and produce offspring. We should be encouraging children to do the things they like doing without having to worry about adult shit yet. Not indoctrinating them into believing that the only way for them to be a successful adult, is if they have kids.

Using shonen and other conformative media that is dead set on maintaining the status quo to brainwash kids into wanting to be parents before they even know how babies are made, is weird. Don’t be weird, anon. You sound like one of those “alpha males” with a red pill podcast, convincing young men that crypto scams are a perfectly ethical way to make quick cash.

Literally just say you’re a misogynist, and move on. And get tf out of my inbox.

P.S.

And i'm not hating on her, just the predatory marketing.

SJ (and really the entertainment industry in general, ESPECIALLY towards queer people) is always pretty predatory. They purposely cater towards fujoshis and queer people really heavily because they buy the most merchandise. Honestly, if bkdk didn’t have so much extra official content and figures and posters and shirts focused around just them, it probably wouldn’t have been as popular as it’s become. But SJ knows exactly what they’re doing because they’ve done it so many times before, only to rip the rug from underneath people to give the larger part of the fanbase what they want. They literally just use it to manipulate people into buying more stuff… which works (I say, gesturing to my completed manga collection and several official figures…)

Ik that’s not really what your ask was about, but I’m just pointing it out I guess? There’s so many things that should’ve made it into the epilogue but didn’t or things that just don’t make much sense. All Might didn’t show up at all, and wasn’t even really mentioned. Izuku doesn’t seem to be very close with Iida or Todoroki anymore despite there being so much focus on their friendships. His friendship with Aoyama was complete brushed under the rug tbh. And where tf is Stain? I’m gonna keep asking until I get a real answer because there’s no way he saved All Might only to never be thought of again…

It seems like, even though a major theme was about paying attention to people who may need help to prevent villains from becoming villains, the villains were cast to the side pretty easily despite us all being under the impression that they would’ve been saved in a more meaningful way. The “it’s too late / they’re too far gone” crap as an excuse to kill them all off doesn’t sit right with me and probably never will. Shigaraki and Himiko only being brought up in wingman format is such a weird choice, especially for Shigaraki. Oh and Touya’s death being off screened completely seems gross too. What were his last words at least? Did endeavor keel over and die too? Where tf are Spinner and Compress? We’re supposed to be more compassionate towards villains, and yet, they were hardly talked about in the end.

But yeah you’re right… instead of getting a proper conclusion to anything, we got a nothing burger about Ochako and Izuku rekindling their boring relationship. Like, I’m not mad at them for catching up, but the entire chapter leading up to that as a grand conclusion feels so underwhelming when there’s so many other things that fans wanted answers to. But, like I’ve said before, I think the epilogue (and honestly like the last 15 chapters) were very heavily monitored by SJs chief editor and/or they just told Hori how they wanted him to end it which is why it doesn’t even really feel like his writing.

Eh, they’re more like two parabolas on opposite sides of the graph that were forced to suddenly cross after ten years of unknowingly relating to each other.

The thing about bnha, is that nearly every character has at least one similarity with every character, but they’ll relate in one aspect and ultimately go their separate ways.

In Himiko and Katsuki’s case, they definitely have things they can empathize with each other with, like Katsuki’s societal pressure to be a strong hero because he was born with a strong quirk, and Himiko’s societal pressure to be a cute, “normal” girl because she was just expected to be. They were both born with quirks that made everyone around them assume that they were going down certain paths, which they both did. Other than that, they’re practically opposites to me. But like, parallel opposites.

And then out of nowhere, their lines crossed because their words were destined to be misconstrued for the sake of pushing together the people they’d die for… apparently

“If everyone is special, then no one is…” is Katsuki so obviously talking about himself. He said it right after inviting Izuku to his agency and being rejected. He’s saying “I want to be special to you as much as you are to me,” but the way Izuku interpreted it just felt like Hori was telling us that Katsuki was never meant to be special to Izuku… which is bullshit. I don’t think I have to elaborate on that.

“I live and love as I please…” is supposed to be an allegory about Himiko’s queerness, and no one can convince me otherwise. The way she loves is outside of the norm, and is seen as ‘weird’… and that’s ignoring the fact that she’s canonically bisexual. Living and loving as she pleases, is her accepting her queerness, and ignoring the way society views the way she loves…

I love Ochako, but trying to create a parallel between Toga accepting the way she loves after years of being taught to hide herself and to be ashamed of how she loves, to Ochako accepting her feelings for Izuku is so tone deaf to me. I have no problem with her feelings for him, but it’s not the same thing.

Suffering years of queerphobia and forcing yourself to conform so much for the sake of seeming “normal” to the point that it explodes out of you and what you’ve been through has radicalized and scarred you so much that you’re literally killing people, shouldn’t be compared to a girl having an internal battle about whether or not she actually likes the boy that everyone keeps telling her she’s supposed to like. But that’s what chapter 431 essentially did in my eyes.

Look, you don’t have to see bkdk or tgck as romantic at all to recognize how inconsistent and disrespectful that whole chapter was towards the queer characters in the series. That gay shit got swept under the rug so fast after 100s of chapters of build up and even after hinting at Katsuki’s queerness/straight up confirming Himiko’s bisexuality. It just-

This is Deku and Yoichi I’m pretty sure? Idk what chapter specifically this is from but I recognize the fog around Deku’s hand as being in the vestige realm.

This is Kudou and Yoichi

This is Deku and Inko (I think? Correct me if I’m wrong)

This is All Might and Deku

I think these were drawn specifically for this MV. Either that, or they were edited together, but I’m almost positive it’s the former cuz I don’t recognize either of the drawings at all. If it is, I think it’s neat that Hori just drew their hands, or just had drawings of their hands on standby for something like this ajdbejdb