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ikeoji-subs · 8 months ago

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Zettai BL Ni Naru Sekai VS Zettai BL Ni Naritakunai Otoko 2024 - Episode 1 Eng Sub

VS PHYSICAL CONTACT and VS HALLOWEEN

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about Mob’s eyebeams (3:47)

Maybe I just think I see tokusatsu references everywhere, but I think there’s an Easter egg of sorts in episode 1. After Mob comes back to himself and celebrates having escaped L’ing a B, he runs through a field beside the airport and some sort of laser beams shoot out of his eyes. The beams are two different colors: red and blue. I suspect this is a reference to Kamen Rider Build, in which Inukai Atsuhiro played the lead rider (also called Kamen Rider Build). Build had a number of forms (different suits, basically) that had different colors and features. The one he’s best known for (the one that comes up at the top of your results if you google “Kamen Rider Build,” among other things) is his “RabbitTank” form, which is half blue and half red, with one blue eye and one red one.

Kamen Rider Build in RabbitTank form

It’s particularly appropriate for them to reference Build in this show since Inukai’s character on that show, Kiryu Sento, had a pretty ship-y relationship with Banjou Ryuga, a character played by Akaso Eiji from Cherry Magic. At the time, the phrase “a heated relationship between men” was used to describe how they related to each other, and Kamen Rider fans have referenced it ever since when things between two Kamen Rider dudes seem “heated.” The fact that both actors went on to be BL legends is very fitting. And it makes this reference even more appropriate for Zettai BL.–Towel

Inukai Atsuhiro and Akaso Eiji as Kiryu Sento and Banjou Ryuga, toku boyfriends

about “pretending to be possessive” (07:08)

Mob actually says that Ayato is pretending to have a “brother complex,” sometimes abbreviated (as Mob does here) as “brocon.” While this concept is somewhat Western due to its roots in psychoanalysis, it has a specific meaning in Japanese culture that you don't find elsewhere. It describes an obsessive attachment to one’s brother that may include possessiveness and jealousy toward the brother’s romantic partners. Brother complexes are classically associated with sisters, but it’s no surprise that a brother might be expected to have a brother complex in BL World.

To be clear, though, Mob doesn’t believe that Ayato actually has a brother complex. He thinks he’s pretending to have one so that he’ll have an excuse to act out his actual possessive feelings about Toujou, brought on by Toujou touching Mob.

Instead of assuming all viewers would be familiar with the idea of the “brother complex,” we decided to describe what Mob is saying in terms of Ayato’s pretending to be possessive. But knowing the specific reference Mob was making here should help to get a more nuanced sense of the meaning of this line.–Towel

It's also relevant to say that in spoken Japanese almost anything can become a "con". Such as brocon, siscon, lolicon, etc.–Snow

about “fair prince” (6:18)

Snow explained to me that Toujou was described here using a word that's associated with classical and poetic Japanese. Historically, it was used to refer to lords and ladies, and it's particularly common in classical Japanese literature. In modern media, it's often used in period dramas and may be used in contemporary settings to describe the person being referred to as admirable in some way. Since it has multiple meanings with specific connotations and various points of reference in Japanese culture, there was no direct equivalent of this in English. Translating it literally word-for-word wouldn't get the point across at all.

I tried to think about what an equivalent type of literature would be in an English-speaking context and what sorts of words or phrases would bring those things to mind. I tried to see if I could get one or two Early Modern English words in there (the kind of English Shakespeare spoke). I also looked for a link to Toujou’s rose motif by checking some famous rose-related quotes from older literary periods. But neither of those methods yielded anything that fit.

Then I started to think about fairy tales, which gave me the idea of calling him a “prince.” I added “fair,” not for any reason related to his coloring (though it’s somewhat appropriate given his blondness) but because it made the description sound a lot more antiquated and fairy tale-ish. Later in the episode, when a similar description was applied to Toujou in his vampire costume, it made perfect sense to make him a “dark prince” instead.–Towel

Tag list: @c1nto @my-rose-tinted-glasses @twig-tea @sorry-bonebag @porridgefeast @bengiyo @lurkingshan @wen-kexing-apologist

#zettai bl #zettai bl 3 #zettai bl 2024 #zettai bl ni naru sekai vs zettai bl ni naritakunai otoko #a man who defies the world of bl #kamen rider build

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emotionallychargedtowel · 3 months ago

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what's different about Hatano, part 4

Part 1 is here, part 2 is here, and part 3 is here. This is the last post in this series. It's possible I could have other thoughts to add on this subject down the line someday, but this covers all of the factors I set out to discuss when I started.

As in my other Hatano posts, all of these gifs were made by @my-rose-tinted-glasses. I'm so grateful that I'm able to benefit from her detailed and discerning work.

I wrote in part 1 about how Hatano cuts to the chase and immediately confesses to Mob, cutting out the usual preliminaries that Mob uses as warning signs that show he needs to escape a situation. In part 2, I talked about how Hatano seems to have some degree of awareness of Mob's fourth wall-breaking/almost nonstop voiceover-using tendencies, along with how Hatano relates to Mob's relationship to the audience. In part 3, I wrote about Hatano's perseverence, his strategy of making a move and then running away, and the way the age gap factor functions in his favor. I'm going to conclude by talking about a couple of factors that are a bit more profound.

Hatano sees Mob as a three-dimensional person and treats him as such and Mob does the same for him, at least some of the time (something only one other pursuer, Kikuchi, is able to say).

There’s one area in which Hatano differs from most of Mob’s suitors, but is comparable to Kikuchi. Both Kikuchi and Hatano are treated with real consideration by Mob at times, for reasons that have important implications.

Mob usually doesn’t give much thought to the feelings of the people who try to wrangle him into a BL situation. In a way, he flips character statuses on their heads. Mob aims to be a side character, but he treats the typical BL suitor as if they’re a kind of NPC. Their feelings don’t matter—he doesn’t even seem to see them as real.

This makes sense given the way the other characters treat him. When they don’t see Mob for who he is, even a little bit, he doesn’t grant them that consideration either. In the opening theme of season 3, Mob says that one of his objections to Boys’ Love is how absurd it is. This might sound like he just doesn’t like it because it’s cringe as hell, and that’s a factor. But the absurdity of L with a B is bigger than that. (It has to do with something I alluded to in part 2.)

Let’s think about some of the things that form the basis of some of Mob’s close calls in season 3. One guy starts to fall in love with Mob because he slips on his stray tennis ball and almost falls. Another wonders aloud if they’re soul mates because they use the same shampoo. Mob has to be careful how he responds to a guy who tickles him in order to avoid having him fall for him (and the tickler ends up going for the guy he tickles right after Mob). These are absurd reasons to fall in love, and part of the problem with that is that falling on a tennis ball, using shampoo, and being tickled don’t say anything substantive about the person who does them.

Nobody wants to be loved for some random circumstantial reason that renders us interchangeable with pretty much anyone who might have stumbled into the same situation. We want to be loved because of who we are—because we have certain qualities a person values, because we did things that meant something to them, because they saw something special in us. We want to be loved for specific reasons that matter. The absurdity of those thin excuses for falling in love is related to how meaningless they are. Mob says he’s simply opposed to falling in L with a B, no matter what. But it could also be accurate to say that he avoids falling in L with a B who doesn’t value him for any specific reason or see him as an distinct person.

Only two people give more thought to Mob and seem to see him as a fleshed-out human being: Kikuchi and Hatano. Both could stand to know him better, but by the standards of the world of BL, they're remarkable.

Kikuchi’s original reason for liking Mob, the kindness he showed him when he helped him use a copy machine at their university, is only a tiny bit more complex than the reasons other characters become interested in him. But over the course of the first two seasons, Kikuchi shows more depth of thought about Mob than anyone else has. In season 2, when Kikuchi watches Mob from afar, he notices things. He even says that part of the reason Mob inspired him to study to be a veterinarian is the concern Mob shows toward cats. It’s a really neat sort of turn in the story. Up to that point, the viewer, like Mob, sees cats as showing up in fateful moments to send Mob into story traps. But the only reason Mob falls when a cat walks in front of him is the fact that he cares enough to try not to hurt cats. Kikuchi notices this and actually cares about it. I’d argue that he reads too much into it, which is a bit reminiscent of Mob’s more absurd pursuers. But at least he notices real things that Mob does, which the others seldom do. (At the very least, Mob really does care a great deal about cats in the manga. That version of Mob not only has a family cat, who he dotes on, but he also looks at cat photos on his phone when he’s bored.)

Hatano doesn’t make note of specific actions Mob takes in the present or the recent past very much, in the way Kikuchi does. But his feelings for Mob are still based on something he did: the time he helped him out when he was stranded with a broken bike as an elementary-schooler, back when Mob was in middle school. (Mob cuts Hatano’s story off before he says what Mob did to help, going into voiceover mode over Hatano’s dialogue, but it's clear that Mob at least helped Hatano fix his bicycle. It seems likely that he also provided some degree of comfort, since Hatano says he was in tears at the time and Mob compares the incident to the one he just witnessed with the sad middle-school boy and the refreshingly handsome grad student who reassures him.)

There’s one thing in this vein that Hatano does that Kikuchi doesn’t, and that is that he tries to protect Mob. This comes up around the risks posed by an age gap relationship. When Hatano asks to temporarily rescind his confession after learning how strongly people would disapprove of their relationship, he isn’t worried about the social consequences for himself—all he cares about is how they might affect Mob. In fact, he works himself up into such a state worrying about him that he imagines him being sent to jail even though it’s perfectly legal for a guy in his early 20s to date and even have sex with a 17-year-old in Japan. So backing off—for a while, at least—from pursuing Mob is something he does purely out of solicitude for Mob’s safety and well-being.

Both Hatano and Kikuchi see Mob as a specific person, not just some guy who slipped on a tennis ball and so forth. And at least some of the time, he returns the favor. He remembers details about them. He tries to spare their feelings, at least up to a point. When he goes to a bar with Kikuchi in the last episode of season 3 and assures him there’s nothing going on between him and Hatano, it may be the most consideration he shows any of his suitors in the entirety of the series. But he acts similarly toward Hatano after Kikuchi first approaches them. When Hatano starts to take his leave, Mob protests that he doesn’t have to go, denies that he needs to have a talk with Kikuchi. You could argue that he’s just trying to avoid being alone with Kikuchi, but I don’t think that’s the case. He seems genuinely concerned, at least to some extent. In this regard, Kikuchi and Hatano have a related kind of status in Mob’s mind.

There’s another context in which Mob interacts with Hatano, where he’s cordial, even chummy. It’s a context that’s unique to Mob’s relationship with Hatano: their time acting in a BL together.

Acting in a BL together shifts the dynamic between Mob and Hatano, quieting Mob’s fourth-wall-addressing side and heightening emotions even when they aren’t in front of the camera.

I talked in part 2 about Mob’s tendency to break the fourth wall/make constant voiceover commentary to the audience and the way that Hatano has a unique ability to sense that, or at least some part of it. When Mob and Hatano are cast opposite one another in a BL, Mob's voiceover habit simply goes away for a while. It’s not as if this happens because Mob doesn’t need to worry about flags coming up while he’s filming, because they definitely do. Maybe the show-within-a-show premise is too conceptually complex to accommodate it. Regardless, it is hard to imagine how they could have made it work here.

The absence of Mob’s voiceover affects the tone of this part of the series quite a bit. I found myself wondering what he was thinking at times, in an uncomfortable way, because I was so used to having that spelled out constantly. But it also allows for some other possibilities that aren’t normally present in the show, which I’ll talk more about in a moment.

The show-within-a-show thing has other effects as well. Obviously, it brings Mob into closer proximity to Hatano and causes them to spend a lot of time together. They act out romantic tropes together and Hatano has a few excuses to touch Mob. They also end up chatting in a friendly way between scenes. In those moments, Mob seems sincerely comfortable with Hatano, like they’ve built at least some degree of platonic intimacy. In these ways, it seems like the BL-filming plotline works in favor of Hatano’s relationship with Mob.

But it also works against it. One of the reasons plots like this are appealing is that characters are put in the position of acting out a romance with someone they would like to be involved with in real life, someone they inevitably think is out of their reach in actuality. A kind of “so close yet so far” dynamic is inherent to the concept (even though in a standard romance it invariably turns out that the object of their affections is more within reach than the person realizes).

Hatano experiences the “so close yet so far” thing in spades. At first he mostly just seems to be glad to have a reason to be near Mob. The melancholy feelings his character goes through might hit home more than he’d like, but at least he has plenty of personal experience to draw from for his performance. He does succeed in getting better acquainted with Mob, who never would have casually shared a drink with him before in the way he does after filming. But there’s one moment that occurs during filming that's undeniably excruciating.

You know those “angle kisses” that actors sometimes do in dramas, where a couple is shot with one actor seen from behind and the other’s face partially blocked by their costar’s, so that they appear to be kissing but may not be touching at all? Mob and Hatano do an angle kiss in their show and it’s downright heartbreaking.

At the beginning of the scene, Hatano’s character finally tells Mob’s he has feelings for him. In the process, Hatano gets to look Mob right in the eye and say exactly how he really feels about him. Not that he’s struggled to do so as himself in the past—after all, this is the guy who just ran up to Mob and said “Suki desu” when he saw him for the first time in eight years—but it’s an opportunity regardless. Hatano’s character then gets up to leave as if he’s so certain his feelings aren’t returned that there's no point in waiting for a response, Mob’s character grabs his arm, stops him, and tells him he likes him back. This moment is already bound to be a horrible mixed bag for Hatano. The man he loves is looking into his eyes and saying he has feelings for him, but it’s all for the cameras.

Then Mob tugs on Hatano’s arm and he stumbles closer. Mob moves nearer and holds Hatano by the shoulder as he comes in for the angle kiss and it’s devastating. It’s not just that they aren’t really kissing. It’s way worse than that. When shot from the side, it’s possible to tell just how far apart Mob and Hatano really are, to see how their faces are turned in entirely opposite directions. Hatano doesn’t show a ton of super obvious emotion here—after all, he’s being filmed and he’s supposed to be in character as someone who is having a real first kiss with the object of his affections—but his expression is unmistakeably strained.

That’s the last shot of the BL, so production wraps. Hatano starts giving Mob lovey-dovey looks before they’re even done being presented with their end-of-the-shoot flowers, and Mob starts wincing and looking stressed out. The more serious, less self-consciously reflexive tone of the BL shoot still lingers for a while longer, intermittently. Mob’s voiceover comes back in fits and starts at first, then re-establishes itself near the end of the finale.

There are a few ways to look at the effects of the BL-filming storyline. If you think about it from Hatano’s perspective, by the end of shooting he has grown a bit closer to Mob in some ways and has had a chance to do things with him on camera that Mob wouldn’t do with him in real life. But he’s also undergone some seriously painful instances where the closeness his character has with Mob’s is a sad reminder that Hatano hasn’t achieved, and may never achieve, the same degree of intimacy with Mob. Then, while he’s still processing that whole situation, his attempt to confess again is thwarted when some guy shows up out of nowhere who appears to have some kind of history with Mob (i.e. Kikuchi). When he ends up at such a point after all of his efforts, he might conclude that the whole thing was a net loss.

But if you take a step back and look at the way Hatano functions in the story, there are some signs that it could work in his favor. Basically, during the show-within-a-show portion of the finale, Hatano is put more in the role of a typical BL protagonist than he ever was before. The fact that Mob’s voiceover commentary pauses gives the audience a break from being inside Mob’s head, set up to closely identify with him all the time. It allows our affiliations and sympathies to be more free-floating. Meanwhile, Hatano is in a good position to attract our attention and garner sympathy. His role in the BL parallels his own situation with Mob (there are still differences, but the overall theme of pining for a guy who looks exactly like Mob is pretty strong). As we watch the scenes he and Mob act in, we can’t help but feel for his character and then for Hatano himself as we inevitably recall those parallels. And of course, that angsty angle-kiss scene is the pièce de résistance.

Does it actually matter that Hatano is able to appear more like a relatable BL protagonist to the audience? It’s hard to say. Mob believes that main characters have certain attributes and that they make things happen in his world, including making the people they’re interested in more likely to return their feelings. It’s a little unclear whether it has this sort of effect when we, the audience of Mob’s show, see Hatano more like a protagonist of a BL. But it might. If so, you could argue that experiences like this increase the chances that Hatano will manage to rope Mob into a romance eventually.

If Hatano really is different, does it matter?

So, I've been talking this whole time about what makes Hatano different from other guys who have pursued Mob. There are a few important ways in which he and Kikuchi both stand out from the crowd. Most importantly, both continuously pursue Mob over time and both have had specific experiences with him and notice actual attributes he has instead of liking him for absurdly random reasons and forgetting about him after one attempt to attract his interest. Both Hatano and Kikuchi have an appropriately greater kind of status in Mob’s life as a result of these differences and Mob treats them accordingly.

Hatano also has some distinctions Kikuchi doesn’t. He has a few strategic advantages. He’s bold, he makes moves and then runs away before Mob can respond, and he makes use of the advantages of their age gap. There are also some more important considerations. Hatano has loved Mob longer than anyone else, by a large margin. (It's not as if you can call "dibs" on a person, of course. But it does mean something.) He seems to be at least partially aware of the way Mob breaks the fourth wall and even pulls Mob into his own daydream somehow. We don’t know why these things happen, but one explanation is that he has a particular kind of connection with Mob. His protagonist-like qualities when he films the BL with Mob may also suggest that he has the kind of main character powers that could overcome Mob’s attempts at resistance.

But does this mean that Mob, a character whose entire reason for existence is eluding L with a B, is actually likely to get together with him? Would that be a good thing? Both questions are debateable. Personally, the main thing I want is for Hatano to continue to give Mob a hard time. I want him to really put him through the paces for as long as Mob continues to resist him. And if Mob does ever get caught, then unless another character comes along who is at least as compelling as Hatano and has comparable claims on Mob's affections, I hope Hatano is the one who catches him. If the series ends at a point where the show's creators are able to intentionally write a series finale, I think it's possible that having Mob finally get caught by a worthy opponent could be a good ending. But I hope he continues his fight against the world of BL for at least a good while longer. At least...for three more years.

#zettai bl #zettai bl 3 #zettai bl season 3 #zettai bl 2024 #zettai bl ni naru sekai vs zettai bl ni naritakunai otoko #a man who defies the world of bl #absolute bl #sekoguchi ryo #ryo sekoguchi #inukai atsuhiro #atsuhiro inukai #hatano x mob

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