#オ��ヤマくん

[chromatic-lamina]

when is a mountain not a mountain?

I mostly just retweet art on Twitter. I don’t get involved in so much discourse (aka shit-storms), but for any Twitter folk who come over here, Japanese artists (not all) are still posting art of Yamato and tagging it (when they do)  Yamato-botchan ヤマト坊ちゃん (can be read as boy, young master, son). The screen cap below is from jisho.org. I’ll put the link in the comments.

Yamato-sama was used in the anime for Yamato’s introduction (the Beast Pirate underlings are using it, before urging each other not to let him get away). The English translation in the manga says: “Master Yamato!”, “Is that young Master Yamato?!”. I’m figuring that’s where the Botchan comes into it. (Just remembered I have that volume! Yes! Botchan is used—chapter 983, page 16).

It’s different from Doflamingo’s  “waka(i)sama” (that man ain’t innocent, nor all that young!). It is true that sometimes a female heir of a samurai family will be addressed with male suffixes, but other discussions on the tweet-board are using ヤマ男 (Yama-O, the ‘o’ is the ‘o’ of ‘otoko’, male), with the 男 kanji, as opposed to お or オ which are phonetic. This is also used with Law: Tora-O (トラ男 ) and Kid: Giza-O (ギザ男),  ヤマ男  is what Luffy has called Yamato. Like, that kanji means male. As a heads up, the One Piece wiki page includes 男, but not an explanation of it.

[Here Luffy says “Mate Yama-o,” or “Wait, Yama-o”]. Chapter 986, p. 12

[待て(imperative) and 待って(polite) (the things I learn. But both are kinda straightforward in that form).]

Anyway!, mostly people seem to be talking about whether Yamato’ll be joining the Strawhats or why there is such a strong connection to Wano (I’m not reading in-depth, and just reading in software translation). 

Of course, if I’m googling by the terms above I’m not going to get anyone who doesn’t recognise them, but as they are the actual terms in the manga, they are being used.

Yamato-kun (ヤマトくん) is used on some of the artworks or discussion too …

…(occasionally young girls are called this and in some other situations too, when they are older, but it’s pretty rare and usually reserved and used for boys). Also, Yamato-chan, but chan is not exclusively female, and it’s not unusual for this to be a friendly suffix for a boy’s name (Crayon Shinchan), although the artist might not be using it that way, or might be remaining neutral. 

Like, my level isn’t that high, so I don’t know if there is debate or not, and I’m looking at art, not meta, but I think people are still letting the story unfold and working with the information they have from the manga. Of course there will be a variety. Lots of folks don’t tag on twitter, and it’s also pretty difficult to search.

I’m not saying that—seeing as how the merch has, and other products have, basically confirmed it—that Yamato won’t ultimately identify as female, but I am saying that fanart/fic is transformative, gender can be fluid, and this is all of the story that we have so far, really. I also know some people feel invalidated, especially on twitter, and with good reason, so if that’s you, I dunno, maybe this is s little something. I’ll tag this yamato discourse if anyone wants to filter it out. Hope I haven’t added to anyone’s stress levels. Also, if I got anything terribly wrong with the Japanese above, let me know. No problem.