#but i'm glad at least that tenko's importance to himiko is always brought up on the same level as momota's to maki or kaede's to saihara

[oumakokichi]

Tenko's undeniably very important to Himiko and her character development, but isn't there some plausible deniability to Himiko's supposedly romantic feelings for her? To be honest, they're my V3 OTP! But I see a lot of people getting their hopes up, thinking they'll get a "mutual gay feelings" ship, and I really don't want them to see them getting disappointed or heartbroken once they've played the localized version, so I kind of wanted someone else who's played the game to confirm this.

It’s certainly true that there’s room for some plausibledeniability, yes! Despite the fact that ndrv3 is the installment in the DR franchise which mostincludes confirmed romantic feelings, pretty much all of them are onlyconfirmed one-sidedly, and the rest is left up to interpretation.

I agree that it’s important to not count a ship as confirmedcanon representation when it’s not. It can be a let-down to fans who expectedmore, and also damaging to consider something as really good representationwhen it’s actually more about subtext or open-ended interpretation. When theEnglish localization comes out in September, it would probably make people sadto have expected a canon wlw ship, only to realize: 1.) one member of this shipdies midway through the game, and 2.) the second member of this ship neverexplicitly says that she reciprocated or loved the other member the same way.

However, I’d like to make a point that this kind of one-sidedconfirmation with room for reading the other person’s feelings however you’dlike is hardly the first we’ve seen of this in DR. While Juzo’s feelings forMunakata were made very explicitly clear in dr3, Munakata’s feelings weredefinitely fudged without any direct confirmation. Similarly, Ouma’s feelingstowards Saihara are made transparent throughout ndrv3 whether you play his FTEsor bonus mode content or not, because they’re plot-relevant, but whether youfeel Saihara does or would ever reciprocate or not is something left veryopen-ended.

Ships getting a definite one-sided confirmation has beensomething of a trend in DR lately, and this includes gay ships. Before Juzo anddr3, I wouldn’t have thought Kodaka would actually confirm there even being acanonically gay character whose gayness was important to his character arcwithout being treated as a joke or some “extra” unlockable line in a throwawayFTE. I definitely didn’t expect for Ouma to be yet another canonically gay character who was treated similarly—I waskind of resigned to probably having to wait a few more years before Kodaka didanything else of this sort, so it was a pleasant surprise.

And while I definitelywould like for there to be a canonical gay ship where both parties areconfirmed to feel the same way and reciprocate, moreso with a wlw ship, I feelthe need to point out that this room for interpretation is at the very leastnot limited to gay ships only. Fandom tends to take the fact that Maki andSaihara have canonically confirmed romantic feelings for Momota and Kaede asword-of-god absolute stamp of approval that momoharu and saimatsu are ships inwhich both parties reciprocate, but…well, these ships too are ones in whichromantic reciprocation is up to interpretation, rather than confirmed.

It’s always been this way in the DR franchise. Naegi andKirigiri have perhaps the most strongly, near-explicitly confirmed relationshipin the whole series, and still you can read into it that they are just really,really important to each other as friends. There’s never been a single “I loveyou” or “I have romantic feelings for you” on either part.

Hinata and Nanami are the same. While they are bothundeniably important to one another, and while Nanami is certainly someone whohas left a lasting impression on Hinata and stayed “within his heart” eversince her death, there’s literally never been an instance of romanticconfirmation. Everything is just FTEs, school mode, or cute little moments ofsubtext that can be interpreted as either a crush or a sweet moment betweenfriends.

Maki and Saihara are some of the first characters in themain game installments to talk explicitly with one another about havingromantic feelings for other people (Momota and Kaede). Their feelings areundeniably there, and real, and important to the plot. Maki’s feelings forMomota drive her to do many things, both good and bad, for the sake of actingon the one thing she feels she’s chosen for herself. Saihara’s feelings forKaede help motivate him to become stronger and to reach the truth. Both of themrely on their romantic feelings for motivation and strength, and that’sprecisely why Tsumugi takes those feelings and turns them into a weakness inChapter 6 when she’s trying to crush their spirits.

Momota and Kaede are never once confirmed to haveromantically reciprocated Maki’s or Saihara’s feelings. Momota certainly knew,at the very end before he was executed, how Maki felt about him. He even seemsto have been thankful that she would feel that way “about a mess of a guy likehim.” But considering his illness, and the fact that he treats Maki roughly thesame as he treats Saihara, there’s plenty of room to read in that he justthought of her as a good friend.

Kaede was only around for one chapter. She clearly likedSaihara’s company, wanted to see him become braver, and trusted him about asmuch as she could in a situation where trust was almost impossible. But thefact remains that she could not trust him completely and explicitly untilalmost the very end of the school trial; she never could bring herself to tellhim about the plan and the trap she had set for the mastermind. She trusted himat the trial to carry on her will and reach the truth after she was gone, butthis is very different from explicitly stating a love confession. Saihara fellin love with Kaede the moment she grabbed his hand in the classroom, but howKaede felt about him is very much a matter of fan interpretation.

This brings me back to Himiko and Tenko. Tenko, whilecertainly nowhere near as plot relevant to the story as these other characters,nonetheless has pretty open, canonically confirmed feelings for Himiko. I wouldsay that with Tenko at least, there’s no room for debate on this front. She’sgay, and she loves Himiko, and while she certainly starts out idolizing Himikotoo much and clinging to her way too much for Himiko’s comfort, this issomething she corrects and adjusts later on, and her feelings of wanting tosupport Himiko and protect her are as genuine as can be.

Much of Himiko’s character arc revolves around how sheactually treated Tenko while she was alive vs. how she would like to treat herif she were still here now. There’s a lot about regret with Himiko, and notsaying the things she could when she had the chance “because they were tootiring,” or “because she was too scared of her emotions.” After Tenko dies,Himiko is devastated, and withdrawn, and keeps bringing up feeling sorry forTenko, and this is something she gets called out on by the narrative andparticularly by Ouma, as she always used to brush Tenko off or treat her like somethingof a pain initially.

But feelings can grow and change and develop. There areplenty of ways to read into the lasting impact Tenko has on Himiko and hercharacter growth and development. You can certainly read into it that Himikojust thought of her as a very good friend! But it’s also entirely possible toread it as a story of Himiko realizing her feelings and that she perhaps couldeven have reciprocated the way Tenko felt about her, but only far too late,after Tenko’s already dead. And since she can’t tell Tenko how she feels abouther one way or the other, either as a friend or romantically, she nonethelessresolves herself to change her way of life and become stronger, more active,and more honest all around.

I wouldn’t say that the idea of Tenko being gay for her everdisgusted or bothered Himiko, either. Her initial problems with Tenko were thatshe felt she was much too clingy, and that it was a pain to be around her.Himiko is someone who is introverted by nature, and who gets tired out easily.The idea of having to constantly spend time with someone ooh-ing and aah-ingover her, and who came across as somewhat condescending or overprotectivedespite her good intentions, is what bothered Himiko about her, and it’s why ittook her so long to realize that Tenko actually was trying to get to know thereal her.

Even if you’d like to read into it that way, I’d just liketo say as someone who’s always been gay and who didn’t actually come to terms withit until I was well into my late high school years/early college years, thatthere were plenty of times in which I reacted very negatively to the idea ofanyone being gay for me, due to my own internalized homophobia, living with an extremely homophobic guardian at home, anda number of other factors. I’m not proud of it, but I definitely said and didhomophobic things back when I was younger, and I was still gay at the time—justin denial about it, and closeted.

My point is that while Himiko’s feelings for Tenko arecertainly not confirmed, and himitenko should not be taken as a 100% reciprocated, canonically gay ship any morethan saiouma or munasaka should, there’s still a lot of room forinterpretation, and I’m glad that Himiko and Tenko got at least a few more babysteps in the right direction. This is progress even compared to Aoi and Sakura,who had a similar line of development and relationship with one another in dr1.And even though it’s always frustrating when canonically gay characters die orgay ships are just left rather open-ended, I’m at least somewhat appeased bythe fact that DR by and large leaves mostof its ships open-ended and unconfirmed, so at least they’re both on somewhatmore equal footing.

I hope this clears up some of the thoughts I have on it! Ireally don’t mind whether people want to interpret Himiko’s feelings for Tenkoas either friendly or romantic, because it’s definitely left open-ended! I alsounderstand people’s feelings of really, reallywanting a confirmed wlw ship in any kind of media, because they’re so hard tocome by and so often get brushed under the rug or played for fanservice only. Ithink as long as people keep in mind that himitenko isn’t something directlyconfirmed and don’t go into the game expecting it as such, they’ll still havean enjoyable time playing when the English release hits. Thank you for stoppingby, anon!