#cuz i’m literally gay and i’ve experienced basically everything kanji has in this story

[silent-partner-412]

One thing that bothers me about a lot of discussion surrounding Kanji and people who have problems with his arc is that a lot of people think the problem queer people have with the writing is simply that “Kanji isn’t gay/his arc isn’t about him being gay and that’s bad” because honestly that’s a really uncharitable way to look at people who have problems with it.

Honestly, to me, Kanji’s canon sexuality is irrelevant to this conversation, rather it’s more about how the game treats the concept of gayness. It’s heavily stereotyped in an extremely unflattering way, used for shock value, and not really ever brought up again after the arc unless it’s for bad jokes. In essence, they used the aesthetic of (stereotypical) gayness for a moment in the story without really giving a lot of care to the implications, which is really not great if the plan wasn’t to incorporate Kanji questioning his sexuality into his character more. I get that being insecure about the possibility of being gay is a very real thing; it’s a product of toxic masculinity (which is what Kanji’s story is actually about) and I literally experienced it myself when I was younger. It’s honestly a part of why I find Kanji relatable in the first place. But the way the game is written, it still treats the idea of Kanji being possibly gay as a bad thing, or at least something to be shocked or surprised by, and even with charitable readings of the story it still rubs me the wrong way.

To me, I can personally overlook all this to a degree. I still think Kanji is an awesome character, I can view a lot of the writing decisions as a product of their time, and I heavily relate to him no matter his sexuality. Would I like it if he was written as more explicitly queer? Of course, but considering the game came out in 2008 originally that was probably never going to happen anyway. That said, it really isn’t unreasonable to have problems with the way the game handles the concept in my opinion, because even if the game isn’t outright homophobic (mostly), a lot of the subtext and imagery as well as the concept itself feels like a product of homophobia in some way, which can understandably be problematic for a lot of queer people!!