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hxhhasmysoul · 1 year ago

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You've frequently said that Yuuji is like a shoujo protagonist. Could you elaborate on that? I don't read shoujo and the last shoujo anime I watched was years ago so I'm not very familiar with it but I'm very fascinated as to why you think Yuuji's like a shoujo heroine. I don't think I've ever heard anyone else describe him as such.

I think I've seen some people talk about him in the context of a shoujo manga, though it might have been more in the context of him being a shoujo love interest which from what I recall of shoujo isn't really apt, Megumi with his aloof personality fits that bill more. but maybe others compared him to a protag too.

As you can see I'm also not some shoujou manga, or any manga category, expert. And I'm sure there's at least one, but more likely several, in-depth academic analyses of shoujo as a category, or what a shoujo protagonist is. And as with any such broad category there are surely exceptions, possibly even very popular ones.

With the above caveats, what I mean when I say "Yuuji is a shoujo manga heroine" is that he kinda fits the bill of what I picture when I think of a shoujo heroine. But also it's a bit of a sad joke, because, le sigh, patriarchy.

So historically, and maybe even today, not an expert, the manga categories were very strongly targeted at very particular demographics. Which any form of media like that, you of course get a lot of stereotypes baked into it. Stereotypes about what these groups may want to see which are based on societal norms and expectations for these groups. And the main manga categories are gendered and divided by age into shoujo - manga for adolescent women, josei - manga for adult women, shounen - manga for young men, seinen - manga for adult men.

From what I've gathered, the adult categories, I think especially the seinen category, are more flexible in what they allow for in terms of topics. Like adults can be interested in whatever they want, especially when it comes to men.

The categories directed at the youth feel more rigid when it comes to what they should depict. In gross simplification, girls should be exposed to relationships while boys should be exposed to action.

It's not like you don't get any action in shoujo, like you can get a lot of it, but it's framed differently than what you get in shounen and I will get to that. But the relationship will be at the forefront, and there's usually romance as an important part of the story.

You also get relationships in shounen, the already cliche power of friendship and so on, though rather no romance. It's a running joke that we get epilogues where we find out the protag who had the most dramatic and kinda romantic moments with his male friend/rival/enemy is happily married to one of the girls that cheered on him from the sidelines. Heteronormativity needs to be maintained. It's also a cliche that any romance that happens in shounen is played for laughs and kinda cringe, or downright laced with some really creepy shit like pedophilia (older women taking interest in young boys usually but it's "just a joke" or even depicted as cool) or incel shit (like male characters harassing and stalking female characters).

Gege doesn't do any of that, and will be very good about it if they stay on course and not make the "and they were all heterosexual" epilogue. I wrote a more detailed post about it, one that also delves into a lot of gender stuff, though it's a bit of a questionable one due to its origins and it's a bit old, etc. etc., proceed with caution if you choose to check it out. (A side note too, Hell's Paradise is quite interesting with it's premise of the protag loving his wife even if it's not executed well. Generally Kaku tries a lot of interesting things, though doesn't always manage to stick the landing).

A shoujo heroine often isn't the brightest when it comes to school stuff, or strongest in terms of physical strength, if there's magic involved her powers usually don't seem to be the most devastating in their effects. What she will usually have is an ability to deliver moments of very high vulnerability. She will also usually have a huge heart and ability to bring people together. These 3 combined is how she usually will win fights. A shounen character often can also have the last two, but usually the vulnerability he delivers is a bit one note, sometimes feels almost performative with the "I'm not strong enough". (also I'm sure that there a plenty of shoujo that also fail these). And the shounen character uses his vulnerability moment to charge the final attack while a shoujo heroine can win just through being vulnerable. (There's obviously shounen which has done this too, like categories this big will have everything, Killua wins with Palm through showing vulnerability, he does that with Illumi too.)

You might already see where I'm going with this.

Yuuji is built around his very strong humanity, his compassion. It's in his name. He is extremely good at delivering moments of devastating vulnerability, moments that are not power ups for him at all. He's also built around his loneliness and desire for connection, for being surrounded by people. He's very people oriented, has a warm personality and brings people together. He's capable of deep compassion and love. He has very high emotional intelligence. And he's capable of winning a fight through that alone, actually.

I started to call him a shoujo heroine after the Junpei battle, because he literally wins that by making himself vulnerable in front of Junpei and talking Junpei down. That's why what happens next is all the more devastating. He makes himself vulnerable in front of Higuruma.

If you apply shounen logic to JJK you get all those fans shitting on Yuuji because he's not the strongest. Because he doesn't have flashy powers like Gojou or Sukuna or Megumi. The cold takes like: "he loses several battles, omg he's not really the protagonist", or "he doesn't get amazing power ups", or "he's not driven to be the strongest, he's not proactive in achieving some lofty goals, climbing to the top of the hierarchy", etc. etc. blah, blah.

However if you apply a more shoujo logic to JJK, Yuuji is the clear and only protagonist. He's the heart of the story, he's the most people-oriented, relationship-oriented, vulnerable character. People are drawn to his warmth, not his power (Toudou's fanfiction about Yuuji is about Yuuji being his emotional support, about Yuuji letting Toudou be vulnerable together!).

All of the themes of the story converge onto him. He's emotionally tied to both major villains, and to their victims. His subtle personal, highly vulnerable goal, screams shoujo manga.

That's why I call him a shoujo heroine.

Why I say this is all a bit of a sad joke. While everything I wrote above, I stand by with my full conviction, the joke is that it all hinges on buying into patriarchy.

The division between shounen and shoujo is based on the societal norms for the gender binary. The idea that girls should like certain things, should behave a certain way... boys should like other things, behave in a different way etc. etc. In a system like that even personality traits are gendered. Men are stoic, calm, collected, decisive, forward, intellectual, high-minded, practical, project strength, they should feel comfortable taking up space blah blah. Women are emotional, fragile, caring, supportive, they don't care about practicality but are interested in the trivial and pretty things, they should be shy and quiet, feel good in the background, blah blah blah.

One of the principal traits of a shoujo and shounen protagonists is their gender. Because girls should read about girls and boys should read about boys.

This is why it's a bit of a sad joke, because calling Yuuji a shoujo heroine feels a bit like calling him a girl. And while I do it with love, and with my highly internally processed views on gender, I do it in public. I do it on this website where so many people perform a lot of feminism or queer activism in ways that are full of internalised misogyny and queerphobia of various stripes. In a patriarchal society calling a boy a girl is an insult, it's a form of devaluing him because girls are seen as less than. It's implying that he's failing at being a man. And Yuuji gets a lot of shit from the fandom for not being strong enough, for failing as a shounen protag. For failing to be that idealised, aspirational version of a boy. One that can overcome anything, one that's always strong, that is always driven.

I will quote here what I wrote about Yuuji in the post I linked above not to repeat myself:

"Yuuji is written more like a female character than a male one if we take the gender stereotypes into consideration, especially those that pervade the shounen genre. He’s built around compassion, cooperation and orienting himself towards others. These are stereotypically female coded traits. He doesn’t have a self aggrandising goal like so many shounen protagonists. His goal is intimate, it’s about his emotional needs. I forgot to mention that Yuuji is quite passive compared to a typical shounen protag. He rarely takes action on his own and only when the situation really forces him to do it. He’s reactive not proactive. He has this goal of eating all fingers but he waits for instructions, follows them. He doesn’t go out in the world seeking out the fingers. Same goes for his missions to kill curses. The reality had to hurt him real bad for him to become more active and still even now he falls in line, he’s not driven in the way shounen protags usually are. Passivity is associated with the concpet yin, which is also associated with femininity. Why do I mention this concept? Because jujutsu sorceres are kinda the successors of onmyōji, or more literally the yin-and-yang masters. He doesn’t have much of an ego. He knows he’s good at fighting but he’s not arrogant about it like Gojou or Sukuna are. He’s tactile, he has an open body language. His best friend is Nobara. The way they are close is astounding. All their idiot to idiot moments. All their physical contact. The way they complement each other while fighting. The way Nobara can just text Yuuji to come and he does. Nobara being gone really affects Yuuji deeply, to the point where he uncharacteristically lashed out at Hana. And it’s completely not sexual or romantic. Compared to that his friendship with Megumi is pretty shit and not really close. He’s been very clearly socialised as a boy in a pretty misogynist society on shit like shounen manga. He has “a type” when it comes to girls, that he can invoke instantly because that’s how young boys are socialised, it’s expected of them. And yet that type is just an aesthetic preference. It’s not really what he’d even want from a potential girlfriend. He treats women like people. Naturally, instinctively not in the fake “nice guy” way. He’s such a well rounded role model of young masculinity. He is that because Gege doesn’t build him on the stereotypes of what masculinity should be according to the conservative patriarchal viewpoint. Yuuji is a human who’s entitled to emotions, who’s not a total victim of his socialisation, who doesn’t strive to live up to societal expectations. No status quo, the mantra of JJK."

In a world not steeped through with patriarchy this wouldn't matter. In a world without such rigid standards as to what is masculine and what is feminine, calling Yuuji a shoujo manga heroine wouldn't stand out. Because it wouldn't feel like a thing. Yuuji wouldn't draw anyone's disappointment or ire. There wouldn't be a feeling of him crossing gender norms because the norms either wouldn't exist or would've been very very wide and flexible.

_____

tldr: Yuuji is a shoujo manga heroine because he also has pink hair and is capable of extreme cuteness, and have you seen him holding the bunny so adorably? Very Usagi coded.

#answering asks #jjk #jujutsu kaisen #yuji itadori #yuuji itadori #jjk yuuji #itadori yuuji #my ramblings

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