#counter-arguments

First and most importantly, how do we know Riku is possessive of Sora because he is in love with him? Couldn’t he just be jealous of others who claim his spot as Sora's best friend? If Riku was just possessive of his best friend in a platonic way then that would pretty much destroy my theory that he is attracted to and in love with Sora. I would say in Riku’s case, no his jealousy wasn't platonic. Riku’s possessiveness goes far beyond what is normal for a best friend. Let’s look back on the scene where he meets Donald and Goofy. If Riku actually bothered to introduce himself and be cordial with Donald and Goofy and Sora sided with Donald even after he refused to let Riku board the ship then I wouldn’t even be here writing this. Riku would have rightfully been angry with his best friend, angry that Sora chose to stick by a rude duck over his childhood friend of however many years. But this didn’t happen. Riku gave Donald and Goofy a hard look within seconds of acknowledging their presence. Though Donald shows that he’s a jerk Goofy was nice, but neither matter because Riku had already decided he didn’t like either of them. This is not normal jealousy, this is clearly a sign of extreme possessiveness. He doesn’t like ANYONE new to be around Sora or act friendly with him regardless of their intentions.

Some will probably claim "It's Kingdom hearts the writing is just bad". This is something I've seen before and I want to stress that this is not an argument it's an opinion. Some think the writing in the series is good, some say it’s decent, it's all subjective. For the sake of argument, let's run with the idea that someone claims "Nomura didn't know how to properly express Riku's jealousy which is why he seemed possessive" to branch off the "bad writing" idea. I have two counters for this: Sora and Isa/Saix. Sora says himself in KH2 that he was jealous of Riku which is why he always wanted to compete with him and hopefully beat him. Sora exhibited a far healthier form of jealousy, he didn’t care if Riku went off and made new friends, Sora never gave any hard side-eyes to Mickey when he found Riku had started hanging out with him. He didn’t start to hate or dislike Riku, he just wanted to compete with and beat him with his own strength. As for the case with Saix, in KH3 he told Axel that he was jealous of his relationship with Roxas and Xion. His jealousy compares greatly to Riku's, he saw someone he was once best friends with get close to someone else. But Saix specifically says:

This is where he differs from Riku, Saix isn't jealous of Roxas and Xion because he's possessive of Axel. Axel stopped hanging around with Saix, stopped helping him look for their missing friend and started focusing more and more on Roxas and Xion which occurred over a period of time not instantly. This goes back to what I said about rightful anger, Saix had every right to feel upset and abandoned by Axel. His jealousy was reasonable. Sora, at no point, alienated Riku the way Axel alienated Saix. Sora never took Donald's side when he said Riku couldn't come, Sora argued with Donald in Riku's defense. Even prior to that, Sora never abandoned or alienated Riku on the island and even when the darkness was swallowing Riku Sora tried to take his hand and go with him. Sora's and Saix's jealousy shows that Nomura/the KH writers (since they do change) know full well how to write jealousy in several different ways, therefore the argument that Riku's possessive jealousy is somehow bad writing is moot. I believe Nomura knew exactly how he wanted to portray Riku. 

Another counterargument that I commonly see is “Riku wasn’t jealous of people close to Sora, he was jealous of Sora himself he said so in KH2″. First of all, Riku said specifically that he was jealous of Sora because he wished he could “follow his heart” the way Sora did and that could be interpreted in a NUMBER of ways that prove my point but I’ll return to that in a second. Some people took this as meaning Riku was jealous of Sora being a Keyblade Wielder but this isn't possible. Riku’s darkness began on Destiny Islands BEFORE Sora even obtained the Keyblade in fact Riku’s darkness is what caused Sora to obtain it in the first place as confirmed by Nomura.

“That part is also a bit vague. In the Destiny Islands when Riku is swallowed by the darkness, there's a sparkle of light, and next comes the scene where Sora first gets the Keyblade, right? In my setting, the darkness wrapping itself around those two is the darkness of Riku's heart. At the moment when Sora enters that darkness, the light you can see is the light of the heart. Sora, trying to help Riku, struggling in the darkness, touches that light and temporarily the Keyblade goes to Sora. “ - Nomura

Riku could not be jealous of Sora being a Keyblade Wielder if it’s HIS darkness, HIS jealousy that leads to Sora getting the Keyblade in the first place. This point has been debunked.

Now if we look at what Riku says about being jealous of Sora because he’s able to “follow his heart”...I don’t know about you but doesn’t that seem like Riku’s admitting that he’s jealous that Sora can follow his heart to Kairi? Sora literally spent all of KH1 following his heart, searching for his crush. Even before that Sora was constantly thinking about Kairi and sharing a papou fruit with her even going as far as to draw himself feeding her the fruit. Riku would only be jealous of this if he was in a position where he couldn’t follow his heart. This point about Riku being jealous of Sora actually backs up what I said about Riku being attracted to Sora and learning that Sora is attracted to Kairi, Riku literally can’t follow his heart to his hetero (hopefully bisexual) crush. This would yet again explain Riku's initial descent into darkness - he had everything he wanted, the strongest, the smartest, the admiration of the other Island Children, the only thing he didn't have is Sora himself and he grew jealous of Kairi, of Sora's feelings for her. Now I’m not saying this is true, because Riku could also be jealous of Sora’s ability to follow his heart to his friends in general and not just his romantic crush. You know, the whole platonic thing which is the most likely meaning behind Riku’s words because KH is all about friendships which is why I did not use this as proof in my essay because I have no way to prove or even show evidence of which way Riku meant it. I’m just saying it is still possible Riku was referring to the romantic side of “following one’s heart”, he could have even meant both.

Now that we have established that Riku’s jealousy was definitely possessive, let’s head to some of the other arguments. There is usually the “Riku is straight argument” which runs along the lines of "Riku said he wanted to share the paopu fruit with Kairi so the one he is in love with is her." Or "Riku is about to be paired with Naminé , he is attracted to girls and is therefore straight." I already addressed Riku’s feelings about Kairi in the 2nd Part, there isn’t really anymore left to add. Namine is also easy to debunk. Nomura confirmed in the KH3 Ultimania that Riku only helped Naminé obtain a Replica body to act on behalf of Repliku’s feelings. In other words, as of now there ain’t nothin’ between them. Riku’s only reason for ever interacting with Namine was to help Sora retrieve his memories and he hasn’t really interacted with her too much beyond that. Not to say Square couldn't pull this pairing out of their ass but it would leave much to be desired since this ship doesn't have the buildup that Soriku has. I hope they never go down the route of throwing random pairs out for the sake of pleasing het shippers.

The final common argument that I see literally EVERYWHERE, in just about any fandom, is the inane argument that “You fangirls just want to make everything gay. Such-and-such is a Japanese work and the Japanese put a higher emphasis on male bonding and intimacy and friendship but it’s not gay, these two characters could never be gay. Japan doesn’t accept homosexuality - blah blah blah”

And wheeeeeew chile, there is so much to unpack here. I honestly didn't even want to touch this but since I see it so much in the KH fandom I felt compelled to address this. First of all, it irks me when people act like homosexuality doesn’t exist at all in Japan. Statistics from 2018 claim that about 8.9% of the Japanese population identify as LGBT+ between the ages of 20 to 59. That’s 1.1% away from being 10% of the ages 20-59 population, that is a significant number. It is incredibly ignorant to claim that Japanese people do not accept homosexuality, they are all individuals and naturally there will be close-minded people who don’t but there are many who do. The conservative Japanese politicians don’t accept it, but then again neither do most American politicians. Don’t mistake the views of the politicians as the views of the people.

Now, while it is true that those in Japan have different views on masculinity than some in America (ie: men soaking in a hot springs together, touching or even sitting on each others laps isn’t incorrectly labeled as “gay” like it most likely would be here in the States) this doesn’t mean that Japanese people don’t know the distinction between platonic intimacy and romantic intimacy. They know full well the difference between the two, it’s awful to claim with such arrogance that they don’t know as if they’re clueless. Even within the anime/manga/videogame industry Shounen-Ai and Yaoi exists with men kissing, hugging, touching romantically. As a matter of fact, the Kingdom Hearts novels themselves heavily imply that there is more between Sora and Riku and that Riku does have romantic feelings for Sora. There was a scene in the KH2 novel where Axel asks Riku "What is Sora to you?" Riku is lost for words, instead Namine answers that they're "best friends" for him. Read it for yourself below:

This is the official Kingdom Hearts novel by the way, the writer and artist (Tomoco Kanemaki and Shiro Amano) are both Japanese. Not a random "fangirl's fanfic". And let's not forget that Nomura approves these novels and the manga. They seem to have no problem writing/approving of Riku being canonically gay. You can dislike it all you want but it’s here to stay so get over it. Don't be the person who makes this horrible argument.

The one last counter I want to make is this: If you are against Soriku ask yourself if you would accept the pairing if Riku was a girl.