#the world is a multilayered dimension and some people can see/interact with the other layers

[zefive]

some baby ocs i’m thinking about-

[kaytranslates]

Some observation on the Japanese side of YOI fandom

Hi! I guess I never posted on Tumblr and I should introduce myself. I’m Kay, and I’ve been in YOI fandom since 2016 fall. I was more or less a lurker here, liking and reblogging arts, fics and meta (I’m more active on Twitter). My main thing is the translation of fanfictions (you can see the list of works I translated here). I’m a native Japanese speaker, born and raised in Japan (spent 25+ years there) but have been living in the US for the last eight years sans 2017-2018 I was back in Japan for work.

During my time in Japan, and interacting Japanese friends on twitter before and after, I’ve got a sense of how Japanese fandom understand YOI and in particular Victor and Yuuri’s relationship. I’m not a researcher, so don’t expect this to be a comprehensive study. But I have a few observations and thoughts that might help those who are interested but not necessarily want to or have the skills to engage with them.

Some observation on the Japanese side of YOI fandom (canon relationship, and how to describe Victor and Yuuri together as a unit)

Japanese fans understand the canon relationship of Victor and Yuuri is open.

This includes BOTH possibilities that they are canonically romantic AND canonically not romantic.

Yes, it does feel like a cop out, but this has to do with at least: 

Mainstream nature of anime as a genre in Japan and not a marginal subculture; 

Japanese LGBT politics has very little traction compared to the US and not a mainstream politics (it may come up in the mainstream politics but not supported as much as it is here in the US); 

sense of suffocation to the American style identity politics that assumes one’s gender identity and sexual orientation as a basis for any conversation; 

different views on ideal relationship and the forms it might take, under the context of low marriage & birth rates and declining population, and the sense of “marriage is overrated” i.e. suffocating sense of ideology of marriage and family in the conventional sense; 

common practices of drawing layers of distinctions between what they think and what others think, which I’ve mentioned below. 

Maybe there are more, but these are some of them.

Japanese fans all agree YOI was a story that “saved” them, gave them the light of hope.

As much as YOI was our -English speaking fans- story, it was their story too. Note that I was in the US when it aired and I wasn’t in Japan until the summer of 2017. I know the context of the US and how we experienced YOI. It was a bad time, and YOI literally was the only light of hope. I don’t know the Japanese context of fall/winter 2016. But they seem to agree that YOI helped them pull themselves out from the darkest place when they are going through a hard time. Also, I feel that the majority of the people have watched after it is aired, on Japanese streaming sites, so that makes the contextual generalization difficult.

The more vocal ones in the Japanese fandom are the ones who feel comfortable if the relationship was not canonically romantic.

Note that they are the vocal ones. Not the only ones.

This might be something to do with the status of BL works in Japan as much more mainstream, although labeled, and connotations it carries. Might also to do with the fact that LGBT movement as labeled such does not have the same traction, even though many people live outside of heteronormativity, those who live what we might call queer lives.

Also note that quite a few the non-canonically-romantic camp (for a lack of a better term) do engage with fanfictions and fanarts that depict Victor and Yuuri romantic. This is to do with the layers of distinction, a part of the common practices among anime fandom in general.

As much as English speaking fans feel anxious about how Japanese fans and the YOI official think and feel about YOI, Japanese fans are also anxious how “overseas” fans understand and interpret YOI.

(Personally, I don’t like Japan/oversea distinction. Anything “foreign” and non-Japanese are “overseas” 海外. This distinction erases the complexity and differences in contexts of the fans outside Japan experience.)

Any case, the point here is that Japanese fans can and do sometimes overreact, especially when, just like our side of fandom, when our interpretation feels “threatened.” We (both Japan and non-Japan side) feel that way because we both are anxious about our own interpretation. I’m not saying all of them are, but there is a dimension in any fan activities - whether meta or fanfiction or fan art- that reflects our anxiety over interpretation. (I’m talking about over a half of the Japanese reactions to the English and French language media was negative to how these “oversea” media decided to call YOI as an LGBT work. I’ve written my thoughts in Japanese here on my understanding of audience reception and importance of sociocultural contexts: https://privatter.net/p/4225254)

(Sidebar: Sometimes it manifests through translation because no translation is free from interpretation and translation is an act of power to claim the interpretation. So, as a translator, my job is to be open where I’m coming from, invite all interpretations, and through the discussion enriching the understanding. Translation can never be done without sociocultural understandings of both sides, of language being translated from and into. That’s something to keep in mind when you encounter a translation.)

Japanese fans, especially of those who are deeply familiar with other fandoms, bring into YOI the cultural practice of fandom, such as clearly demarcating canon and headcanon. This includes shipping terms (called coupling or CP) and differentiates their “ship” as headcanon and from canon.

(Note that at least half or more people in Japan/Japanese people I have interacted are not familiar with the fandom culture until they were in YOI fandom. It’s kinda cool how they describe YOI was an entryway into a whole new world.)

Japanese fanworks, called derivative works 二次創作 as a culture has been around since at least 1970s. If you want to know the history, I can point you to some sources in English. 

One big thing about Japanese fan culture as a whole is the distinctions that they make for themselves, of fantasy/reality, canon/headcanon, my interpretation/other interpretations, etc. They understand and talk about YOI in multilayered discourse, and often when they claim something they are not making a grand claim that applies to all or the Truth.

My tweet is about the connotations of names for calling both Victor and Yuuri together. The most common one in Japan is “teacher-and-student” 師弟 (shitei). I tweeted I personally don’t like this term for talking about Victor and Yuuri’s relationship before they became teacher-student and after episode 12 (because teacher-student is not the only thing that defines them). I also said I’ve been using “Victuuri” for 1) coupling (CP) terms, implies as assumes romantic relationship, and 2) two individuals whose relationship is undefined. And then I tweeted, I’ve also been using the term “Victuurio” to signify the main three characters, but I found this term is mostly used in a sexual (threesome) way (please correct me if I’m wrong here). So I concluded that it seems to be difficult to have the second meaning (two individuals) with the term that shortens their names.

My tweet is a reflection on other people have mentioned that they are conflicted when they see a good meta that they like and the meta describes the two using the shipping name (CP) even the meta doesn’t include the connotation that they are romantic (i.e., the meta is independent of they are romantic or not).

You can see the tweets here: https://twitter.com/_kay_0_0/status/1093353355949289477 and https://twitter.com/_kay_0_0/status/1093365799358738437