#zettai bl meta

[emotionallychargedtowel]

What's different about Hatano, part 2

(Part 1 is here; part 3 and part 4 were posted later.)

The second thing about Hatano that isn’t like other characters who’ve chased after Mob is the fact that he has a unique relationship with…well, let’s say Mob’s equally unique experience of reality. So first, a little background on that. 

Mob’s version of reality

Most people in Mob’s world don’t experience it the way he does. It’s not just that he’s one of the few who realizes they’re all living in BL World, though that’s a big part of it. (The only other person who does, as far as we know, is Mayama, the mangaka who has some degree of control over Mob’s story. Though, interestingly, he actually didn’t realize he lived in a BL manga world until Mob told him in season 1.) 

In most of his relationships, Mob is completely inauthentic. His priority is remaining a side character, and sincerely connecting with others not only doesn’t serve that goal, it has a lot of potential to undermine it. He does seem to care about his family somewhat, particularly Ayato. But that’s about it. 

Except that he has one other relationship, of a sort: his relationship with us, his audience. It’s kind of strange, when you think about it. Mob’s whole thing is being a side character. And yet, he narrates his own story to us in a way that’s unmistakably protagonist-like. Maybe he justifies it through his emphasis on advising us on how to evade story traps like him. He may not have anyone else who shares his awareness of how BL World operates, but offering advice on how it works and how to avoid L with a B implies that maybe one of these days, someone else will embrace side character status like him. Maybe someday he won’t be alone. 

For now, his voiceover comments are a big part of his personality, and they’re very distinct. Sometimes Mob goes so far as to overtly break the fourth wall, like in the first episode of season 3, both when he brags about escaping the situation with Kikuchi and boasts that he’s BL-proof (above), and later in that episode, when he asks us if we’ve guessed yet why he’s exercising (below). (And of course, every single time “Bubble Mob” appears in the corner of the screen, he does nothing but directly address the audience.)

The rest of the time, he does this in a more subtle way. His voiceover commentary isn’t like a typical voiceover in a show or movie that’s less self-aware. If we watch a something that uses voiceovers in a typical way, the person speaking doesn’t acknowledge who they’re speaking to, or even that they're speaking to anyone. In most stories, unless some kind of context is used to explain who is being addressed (e.g. a frame story), calling attention to the fact that the voiceover implies that someone is being spoken to would undermine the realism of the story. Mob never acknowledges that he’s the protagonist of his own TV series, and in fact doesn’t seem to be aware of it. (Well, except when he does things like speculate about whether there will be another season.) But he constantly acknowledges the viewer through his advice and narration. He may not know how or why, but he knows there’s someone out there listening to him. 

So Mob goes through his world with this important knowledge that practically no one else shares, pretending to have friendships and so forth but never forming any sort of authentic bond with anyone (with the possible exception of Ayato), and the closest thing he has to a real friend who he can be honest with is the audience. 

And the other characters he interacts with don’t seem to notice any of this, even when he shows outward signs of how he’s experiencing this world. Sometimes he makes his observations out loud instead of in a voiceover, but no one seems to bat an eye. He regularly says and does things in front of Ayato that strike him as strange, but when Mob shrugs them off, Ayato does too. 

Hatano’s relationship to Mob’s experience

Most of the time, Hatano seems to be like the other characters in Mob’s world. Despite his keen interest in Mob, he usually doesn’t seem to see how he’s different from other people. Except that occasionally, he does! Every so often, he sees into Mob’s reality in a way that other characters can’t. 

The first time we see this happen, he hasn’t even met Mob since the interaction they had when they were children. At the end of episode 2, Mob’s voiceover tells us, “What I didn’t know at the time was that a destined age-gap love was looming just around the corner.” Hatano stands in the foreground watching a blissfully ignorant Mob walk away in the background. Then “Bubble Mob” appears in his little green circle in the lower left corner of the screen to talk about how more will be revealed in the next episode. That’s when something weird happens. Hatano turns his head and looks right at Bubble Mob, who is seriously disconcerted by this. “Why are you looking at me?” he asks. Then he hastily wraps up the episode, as if he’s eager to do so in order to escape from Hatano. 

This is the most overt example of Hatano being able to perceive things other non-Mob characters don’t, but it isn’t the last. 

The next time happens in episode 3, when Mob is desperately trying to think of ways to put Hatano off. “In order to squash a flag that was raised in the past,” he thinks in a voiceover, “it might work if I tell him I’m a different person from this guy he remembers.” Immediately, before Mob has said a single word out loud, Hatano says, “I’ve always liked you. I could never mistake you for someone else.” It’s as if he just heard Mob’s voiceover. He clearly doesn’t hear it all the time, unless he’s incredibly good at pretending otherwise. But it almost seems like for Hatano, the boundary between Mob’s reality (the version of reality that we experience as viewers) and the reality inhabited by Hatano and the rest of the people in BL World occasionally becomes more permeable. 

The third time happens in the other direction—instead of Hatano seeing what things are like for Mob, Mob sees something through Hatano’s eyes. Specifically, he experiences a daydream of Hatano’s. 

It isn’t completely unprecedented for Mob to see something from someone else’s mind as if he’s seeing it himself—but it is unprecedented for someone with Hatano’s role in Mob’s life. The type of thing he sees through Hatano is also unique. 

The one other person whose eyes Mob sometimes sees through is Ayato. When Ayato tells a story, not only is the viewer able to see a flashback of him having the experience he’s recounting, but often, it’s clear that Mob can see it too, in a very literal sense. We see a perfect example of this when Mob asks Ayato what kind of guy Hatano is and he tells the story of what happened when a girl confessed to Hatano at school. We know that Mob actually sees this flashback because he identifies the specific type of flower that surrounds Hatano (the same way other BL main character types that he encounters have some kind of accompanying burst of flowers). Mob sees Hatano’s face ringed with gerbera daisies, which he’s able to identify despite Ayato saying nothing about them (and not seeming to perceive them at all). Mob’s face is even lit by a mysterious light as he comments on the gerberas, as if Hatano’s “sparkling aura” has been conveyed through the story into Mob’s bedroom. 

So it’s not completely unheard-of for Mob to be able to see what someone else is picturing. But in Ayato’s case, he has only seen flashbacks connected to stories Ayato tells. (I’m not counting fantasies about Ayato that are clearly just Mob’s imagination, which Ayato is completely unaware of.) That makes Hatano the first person besides Ayato whose eyes Mob sees through, for starters. More specifically, he’s the first of Mob’s suitors to have that effect on him. And it’s also noteworthy that the narrative of Hatano’s that Mob sees 1) isn’t narrated—he’s not picturing it because Hatano is telling him a story, he’s just spontaneously inside of it without warning, and 2) isn’t a memory, but a scary fantasy—a daydream about something he’s worried about. Specifically, Mob finds himself inside of a scenario from Hatano’s mind in which Mob is arrested for “deceiving a minor” due to their relationship. Hatano goes on to talk about how he heard something on TV that led him to believe that people wouldn’t accept their relationship if they dated, but the fantasy clearly swallowed Mob up independently of that. Hatano only comments about the TV thing after the fantasy has ended, and he’s just talking about social disapproval, not Mob getting arrested. Nothing he says here would lead Mob to picture the jail daydream, and anyway, the daydream happens before he even raises the topic.

The fact that Mob found himself inside of this fantasy is remarkable enough that he’s clearly thrown off by it, commenting “Hang on, was that Hatano’s daydream just now?” He doesn’t dwell on it, but he gets that it’s weird. 

There’s something else about this fantasy scene that I only noticed after seeing it a ridiculous number of times for the fansub project. I’m not certain that it’s significant, but I think it’s worth mentioning. Mob mentions in the scene that he’s a “mobu,” an anonymous side character. Specifically, he asks the guards for a trial and then, more specifically, “a trial worthy of a side character”—basically, the kind of trial that would befit a “mobu.” Now, you could justify this in a few ways. Maybe Hatano’s fantasy is just a setting that Mob is dropped into, and he says what he would say if he were actually thrust into that situation. We don’t know if Hatano is even aware of what he says. But this is Hatano’s fantasy. It seems like the things the police officers/prison guards say to Mob come from Hatano’s mind. Maybe the things Mob says do too. If so, it suggests that Hatano knows about Mob’s “mobu” status. Again, it’s hard to say how to interpret this, but it’s a possibility. 

A brief digression about characters who engage in direct address

In the next part of my post I'm going to be comparing Mob to another character who sometimes breaks the fourth wall, but first I want to situate Mob in the pantheon of characters who use direct address for a second. I'm not going to try to do an overview of this whole topic. This post is going to be long enough as it is, and plenty has been written before on this subject. But I want to stop and think for a second about what fourth wall-breakers tend to be like and why they do what they do.

Direct-addressers are almost always funny, often sardonically. This takes different forms. Sometimes you get Garfield, other times you get Deadpool, other times Clarissa Darling. Sometimes they’re douchebags, like the Woody Allen character in Annie Hall. Sometimes they’re actual sociopaths, like Patrick Bateman in American Psycho. They’re almost always at least a little bit cut off from their world, as if they have one foot in the audience’s world and one in their own and this gives them the perspective they need to make trenchant comments on the people around them. It can be as simple as the fact that the people around them are a bit absurd, or as stark as the fact that they believe themselves to exist on a different moral plane from everyone else. But it seems pretty much universal that there's some kind of difference between them the the people around them.

Mob is certainly cut off from his social world. Most of the time, this is simply a result of his trying to avoid falling in L with a B. But he can also be a creep. He constantly spies on his peers, manipulates them, and lies to them. For example, in season 3, he causes two friends to fall in love as a sort of experiment, then gloats in the distance while cackling to himself. Though that last part isn't so remarkable for him, since he’s always laughing at everyone behind their backs. 

One big subcategory of fourth wall-breakers is, well, smug buttholes. Ferris Bueller is the archetypal example. Parker Lewis was created to be the off-brand Ferris Bueller. Zack Morris is the absolute bottom of the barrel in this class. Basically, these dudes (and they are always dudes, in my experience) seem to talk to the audience because they feel so superior to everyone around them—even their supposed friends—that when they want to talk about what they really think and feel, only an unseen adoring public will do. 

Mob is hardly the opposite of this. He has a real smug streak and he can definitely be a dick. But he's more anxious and more alienated than the typical smug butthole type, and he has a kind of low-key but profound ennui just below the surface. In other words, he's a bit like a really stressed out, subtly despair-filled Ferris Bueller.

Another fourth wall-breaker who found someone who noticed

The first time I saw Hatano look at Bubble Mob, it made me think of another example of a character who habitually broke the fourth wall, then encountered another character who, on some level, noticed her doing this. I’m thinking of Fleabag and the (Hot) Priest. 

Directly addressing the audience is Fleabag's raison d'être. In the first season of Fleabag, she does it continually, sometimes at times that would shock or offend the other characters if they were aware of it (including while she's having sex). None of the people around her notice this.

Then, in the second season, something different happens. Fleabag meets the Priest, starts to bond with him, and then he starts to do something that takes her completely by surprise: he notices when she's addressing the audience.

During one of their first times hanging out alone, she addresses the audience like she normally does, and he shocks her by noticing this and asking her about it. “What was that?” he asks. “Where’d you—where’d you just go? You went somewhere.” When she tells him “nowhere,” he accepts it and backs off.

In another scene, when she does it again, he once again comments on it. “That thing you’re doing,” he says, “It’s like you disappear.”

When Phoebe Waller-Bridge, the creator, writer, and star of Fleabag, was asked about the Priest’s ability to sense when Fleabag is breaking the fourth wall at a BAFTA event, she said that the Priest can tell what Fleabag is doing because of his relationship with God. She said that Fleabag "has a relationship with the camera the whole way through and it was interesting to have somebody who has a similar thing. He's mirrored 'cause he has God. And she's witnessed by the camera the whole way through…I just felt like it would be a really good way to mirror each other's journeys."

Respectfully, I don’t buy this explanation. It may be what Waller-Bridge was thinking about when she wrote season 2, but it doesn’t resonate at all with my experience of the series. I vastly prefer the explanation given by Kathryn VanArendonk in her piece “Fleabag Breaks the Fourth Wall and Then Breaks Our Hearts,” written for Vulture. 

Fleabag’s sly, secretive, sometimes resentful tendency to break the fourth-wall of her own story is an escape hatch. She dissociates from her own life whenever things get to be too much….The Priest feels her leave him, even though he can’t quite see that she’s leaving him so she can speak to us….But when he notices Fleabag talking to us, he’s barging into our secret relationship with her, pointing at exactly the place she assumed no one could see — pointing at us, her distancing strategy, her audience who can’t ever speak back to her. That false intimacy she shared with us? Suddenly it’s real, and it’s not between Fleabag and her silent viewers. It’s between Fleabag and the one person who can still see her whenever she tries to take a step away.

This is a profound kind of engagement with Fleabag’s attachment to her “secret camera friend” (Waller-Bridge’s term for the audience Fleabag addresses), much more profound than what we, as Mob’s secret friends, ever see from Hatano. But it does tell us something about what the stakes are in this kind of situation. 

While VanArendonk analyzes Fleabag and the Priest, she ends up saying some things that could easily apply to Mob. 

It’s tempting to think of Fleabag’s compulsive habit of looking to the viewer as a form of intimacy.…But that sense of intimacy, however effective it may be for the viewer, is only ever one-sided….Her intimacy with us is also a way of distancing herself from anyone who could actually speak back to her. The scene where Fleabag sees a therapist played by Fiona Shaw underlines that idea very directly: The therapist asks Fleabag who she confides in, who her friends are, and Fleabag turns to us once again with a knowing, happy smile. We are her friends, because we are the recipients of her private disclosures. That scene is thrilling and crushing at the same time. It’s so flattering to be her confidant, and so sad. Her closest relationship is with a presence she can neither see nor hear.

But Mob isn’t Fleabag

Mob’s situation is very different from Fleabag’s in most respects. Her situation is realistic; his is fantastical. Her history is traumatic; the worst thing that has happened to Mob is the realization that he lives in a fictional universe. (Though to be fair, if you give that enough thought, it’s fairly horrifying.) He isn’t avoiding engaging with the people in his world because of psychological turmoil or alienation of the sort Fleabag deals with…well, not the psychological turmoil part, at least. 

There are two kinds of distance that Mob puts between himself and other people. Often, he simply avoids relating to others. This is mostly due to his calculated assessment of the risks involved. Sometimes he gives people a wide berth and sometimes he only avoids certain types of interactions with them, but either way, he’s not engaging because he can see that there are certain risks involved. This is very different from what separates Fleabag from those around her, both in type and in magnitude.

Except when he kind of is

At the same time, the fact that he’s realized that he lives in this contrived sort of universe and that he has to watch everyone around him allow themselves to be buffeted about by it without noticing it, much less attempting to fight it, does have an effect. I’m not trying to dig too deeply into the implications of realizing you live in a fictional world. If you were to go deep enough, it would have some pretty disturbing existential implications that might be more fitting for a Philip K. Dick novel than a BL parody. But that’s not the story being told here. Still, the emotional distance Mob maintains between himself and the people around him is clearly caused by his alienation from his world and their lack of awareness about it. How can he get close to anyone who is so far from understanding his daily experience? How could he even respect them enough to relate to them authentically at all? So Mob’s inability to authentically bond with others does have some of that existential dimension to it. And in that respect, his alienation bears some resemblance to Fleabag's.

Whatever the cause, VanArendonk’s statement above applies as thoroughly to Mob as it does to Fleabag. Like her, “[his] closest relationship is with a presence [he] can neither see nor hear.” And by the same token, if someone was able to see him clearly enough that they noticed the ways he disconnects from the world, as the Priest sees Fleabag, that would represent a kind of closeness that would mean something, that might even be enough to make relating to a person in his world more worthwhile than always prioritizing his “secret camera friend.”

Hatano isn't the Priest—but they have some things in common

As I wrote above, Hatano's ability to notice Mob's fourth wall-breaking and his tendency to act on it aren't nearly as profound as what we see the Priest doing with Fleabag. Nevertheless, that more concentrated example of the phenomenon does tell us something about what it means, even in smaller doses.

It means that a person who notices fourth wall-breaking is attuned to the fourth wall-breaker to an extent that others aren’t. Maybe they’re just more attentive or perceptive when it comes to that character. Or maybe they’re also alienated from their world in some way, and that puts them on the same wavelength as the other person. If, as Waller-Bridge says, the Priest’s relationship with God has something to do with it in his case, it’s a possibility that someone like Hatano could prove, on further investigation, to have something or someone outside of himself that he’s somehow in dialogue with.

In any case, it seems unequivocally true that such a person is poised to relate to the fourth wall-breaker in a more meaningful way than the other characters they typically encounter. After all, having some understanding of how someone sees the world is a prerequisite for really relating to them, much less having feelings for them in a way that actually means something.

Mostly, this tells us something about how Hatano's feelings for Mob are different from the feelings most of Mob's suitors have for him. But this might point to the possibility that Mob's feelings toward Hatano differ as well (though not necessarily in the way Hatano would like). Mob seems to treat people's feelings toward him with the most contempt when they're unfounded, seemingly random. After all, as he says in the opening theme, "this Boy's Love is too absurd." It's hard to respect someone whose feelings are so ridiculous, when they have so little basis in anything. Kikuchi seemed to touch his heart in part because he was quietly observant, noticing things about Mob and basing his feelings on actual information about him instead of pouncing on him on some thin pretense the way most of his pursuers do. If Hatano also shows that he sees Mob in a real way, a way that no one else has before, it has the potential to make a difference in how Mob sees him, too.

Next up, part 3, followed by part 4.

Thanks to @my-rose-tinted-glasses for helping me out with gifs and by being a sympathetic sounding board.

[twig-tea]

Zettai BL S3 Was an Absolute Delight

Huge thanks to Snow (@nieves-de-sugui) and Towel (@emotionallychargedtowel) of @ikeoji-subs for making this watch possible. They've posted all of the episodes as of a couple of days ago, so go enjoy and then thank them for their hard work!

I love the Man Who Defies the World of BL, and was so thrilled to get to watch a third season. Critically, at the end of S2 Mobu struggling with the possibility of losing Kikuchi seems to get him to the place where he's finally willing to embrace the BL lifestyle, right before the standard season cliffhanger. In season 3, Mobu is prevented from confessing to Kikuchi before he goes by the mangaka, and so we get a season where Mobu continues to note and avoid BL tropes.

There are so many notable things about this season, from Mobu's imagination getting steamier, to the reccuring Cinderella trope (used with the Halloween episode, and again in the school play episode multiple times) Mobu more proactively ushering couples into getting together--not just to protect himself from the tropes, which he's done in previous season, but just because he seems to want folks around him to be happy.

But for me the return of the mangaka is the most notable and exciting thing, because the mangaka's presence is our best window into the lore of what's actually happening in the World of BL that the series takes place in. I want in on the lore!

This guy keeps showing up to cause the most chaos. He prevents Mobu and Kikuchi from getting together easily at the start of S3, but instead engineers an overcomplicated love triangle at the end of the season (which may account for some of what Towel notes in her "What's different about Hatano" part 2 post) to keep things interesting. I love the fourth wall breaks he always causes, and the way he forces Mobu to reflect on the situations he's in. Hatano appearing in what seemed to be a timeskip was so funny, it reinforced the absurdity of the world so well even as they gave a more rational explanation in canon for it.

In amongst this, we also had Yutaro nibbling on carbs every scene they were in (which I am in full support of), gay christmas (aka Halloween), the incredible horse scenes that were very funny but also really great brothers content, and so many instances of my favourite visual gag, the flower petals and blinding light accompanying every bishounen in the world. And of course a million microseries, all of which I would want to see in full. I loved visiting this world again, and I'm grateful for the opportunity. Thank you again to the incredible sub work of @ikeoji-subs, as well as @my-rose-tinted-glasses for making beautiful gifs of the season!

[ikeoji-subs]

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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translation notes:

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

[guzhufuren]

where are Zettai BL s3 files :( please i need my silly meta gays

[acastleintheair]

oh i just saw it, ao3 wrapped qs - 2, 5, 10, 13, 20, & 29!!!

2. What is the latest fic you're reading?

I just finished if this is a romcom, kill the director by shaekspeares which is a my hero academia todobaku fic based on the premise of one of my favorite manga (Zettai BL ni Naru Sekai Vs Zettai BL ni Naritakunai Otoko or A World Where Everything Definitely Becomes BL vs. The Man Who Definitely Doesn't Want To Be In A BL) where the main character is aware they're in a BL manga world and try to avoid getting caught up in the tropes and pairings. The fic (and the manga) is just very fun and meta.

5. How many tabs do you have open with fics "for later"?

I've gotten a lot better about this so I only have 17 😌

10. What's the longest fic on the last page of your history?

It's Peter and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good... Very Best Day by beetle (Deadpool/Spider-Man) that is 7,489 words! I've just rolled over onto having 620 pages of history so I only have a few short one shots I read when I first got my account on that page.

13. What's your favorite tag on a fic on the latest page of your bookmarks?

Hehehehe it is Absolutely "what the fuck is the ace non penetrative version of the magical healing cock" on Blink, Snow, Corduroy by Brezifus which is an absolutely incredible Silent Hill fic focused on Henry and Eileen from SH4 healing from their trauma.

20. Favorite fic you've read this year?

I'm cheating and giving two because I'm indecisive. I really loved That First Spark by kenyizsu which is a fun Diablo 3 fic imagining what could've happened after the end of the main game and dlc. And I also adored Gold Heart by gardengalaxy which is a PJO time travel fic focused on Percy and Kronos and it's so fun and cute.

29. Favorite author you've discovered this year?

I'm also cheating on this one and giving two - IzzyMRDB for their great PJO fics and deadwriter16 for their my hero academia fics.

[heretherebedork]

Favourite shows of 2022 (so far)? (Multiple choices appreciated) (Not so subtle request for recs since we tend to be in the same ballpark of what we enjoy 😅)

There are a good number of choices for this!

Triage is definitely one of my favorites. Oh, what a glorious show. I distrust time loops and they handled it so well. And I liked the main couple and the side couple and it was just... oh, it was a good show. And even had a fairly good ending!

What Zabb Man is one of my favorites because I am easy. It's cute, it had a good ending, it felt more adult than a lot of other attempting to be adult Thai shows and, I mean, it's got Bank and Bonus as the secondary main couple and I love them and they worked very well.

Absolute BL 2 came out out and it was just as good as you'd expect!

Star In My Mind is something I loved but a lot of people don't. I just... man, you give me a piner who can't speak his feelings and mutual pining with one person trying to stop pining and I just... love it. I eat it up. And the ending was just all fluff. NOTE: Sky in Your Heart is not recommended.

Old Fashion Cupcake is glorious and amazing and one of the best shows out ever let alone this year. Japan hit it out of the park with this one. Soft and mature adults and love and the idea of changing and growing at any age... oh, so good.

My Ride more soft BL from Thailand! So good, so darling, so fantastic. Just... super soft and gentle and more with the idea of adults finding romance. Love this show.

La Cuisine is soft and gentle and slow and adorable and it just... it has almost nothing, it's like Tossara only they added a pointless villain plot so over the top it served no purpose whatsoever... but the rest was just super soft and sweet?

Mr. Unlucky Has To Kiss! is adorable. Honestly, I really did like this one. Japan's been doing good this year.

Love Stage!!! is adorable and fun and cute and I just really enjoyed the whole thing though I wish it had been more easily accessible when it first came out. The end drama was pointless but it rarely isn't.

Cherry Blossoms After Winter I love this show, the only one of Korea this year that really knocked my socks off, honestly.

Cutie Pie I mean, yes. The arranged marriage BL got me. Ending is a bit weak for the main couple but, eh, overall good.

Also, currently airing, gotta add Minato Shouji Coin Laundry to this list. Because it is just that good.

[throwing-roses-into-the-abyss]

I’ve seen exactly 10 minutes so far of zettai bl ni naru sekai and already I highly, highly recommend this

[absolutebl]

BEST OF 2021 - BL Edition!

Hella subjective utterly erratic awards of little import and no impact. But I love them, okay? Only includes shows that completed their runs in 2021. 

BEST KISS 2021 

THE WINNER: TharnType 2

There were some killer kisses in BL this year, but basically no one on earth (let alone in BL) can beat out MewGulf in this category. I’m a big fan of the soft sweet candy kiss in the final TT2 episode, but really any of them were great and there were A LOT. (Episode by episode trash-watching recap here.)

BEST DEBUT KISS 2021

THE WINNER: We Best Love

For first timers, this category goes to SamYu of We Best Love, who did a magical job at first kisses in a short run series. (The shorter the run, the less chance the actors have to establish intimacy and become comfortable with each other. Although, Taiwan is generally better at enabling actor intimacy than any other country, possibly because it’s a queer-friendly culture with good workshopping techniques.) 

Anyway, tears running down their faces, post baby’s agro shouty confession, on a bridge (another trope) who doesn’t love this kiss? Plus they breathed into each other (how to act a kiss 101 that so many BLs don’t do.

I have to say, the contentious drunken sobbing kiss Sam gave us in season two almost took this whole category, if it weren’t for the struggle beneath all those tears and passion and consent... But really, THAT KISS (and you all know which one I’m on about) wasn’t so much romantic as it was pained and desperate, and it didn’t take this category because that kiss wasn’t about love, it was about loss and failure and regret.

It was, possibly, one of the best kisses in all BL, but it’s not the right kind of kiss to win a romance trope category.

I hope that makes sense.

I’m gonna throw a little love Thai BL pulps way, they gave us a number of charming kisses this year, but I was most taken with Second Chance’s PaperFah. 

To My Star’s very final kiss was also in contention (Korea, who knew?), but We Best Love beat that one out because I’m a sucker for tears and SamYu... just GAH. 

BEST DOCUMENTARY 2021

THE WINNER: Absolute BL AKA Zettai BL ni Naru Sekai vs Zettai BL ni Naritakunai Otoko  AKA A Man Who Defies The World of BL 

Honestly tho, it was also the only entrant in this category (unless you count Call it What You Want and Lovely Writer). Look, this was a work of genius. A meta commentary that can only really be thought of as Japan taking itself to task for its own tropes, pulling them out, examining and gently mocking them, but still bucking under the weight of expectation and history. I hooted with laughter. It’s insightful, charming, and AMAZING. (Full review here.) 

BEST THEME SONG 2021

THE WINNER: Light on Me 

A.C.E’s song Spark for Light On Me wins OTS. I have to say I also really liked both of Color Rush’s 2 entrants and Wish You’s cute little song, but as a K-pop enthusiast I was really happy to see an actual K-pop song sung by a legit group in a Korean BL. It legitimized all K-BL in a weird way, ya know? 

BEST CASTING, DIRECTING & SCRIPT 2021 

THE WINNER: A Tale of Thousand Stars 

The story and execution were great, but the cast really elevated this show into something special. Everyone seemed to perfectly suit their roles and GMMTV made the most out of its stable. Combined with excellent production (and post production) values, 1000 Stars is without question GMMTV’s most mature, charming, and smart BL series. I think it should go down as one of the top BLs of all time. You should feel safe recommending this one to friends and non BL watchers. 

BEST USE OF BL TROPES 2021 

THE WINNER: Light On Me 

Light On Me who drops multiple BL tropes with its two different seme’s for expert love triangle reasons but also uses them for pristine pacing, plot, and character development. Korea is the most strategic user of tropes and I love that they deploy them explicitly to serve narrative a not just to tick boxes. Light on Me is a master class in this technique. (If you write fanfic or romance you should study this show.) 

Their best versions included (but were not limited to:

Minister the Artful Injury (for the love triangle) 

Meet Me in the Library (for the love triangle) 

Crash Into Me (for the love triangle) 

That’s MY BOYFRIEND - Public Claiming (to show character’s seme traits and attractiveness of identity ownership and honesty) 

Put Your Head On My Shoulder (to show seme character’s pining traits and softness) 

Boys on Phones (to advance plot and tension) 

Symbolic Gift Exchange (as a twist to show interest and call-back coupledom)

and Touch My Face (that subverted version of the ADORABLE squeeze thing they did to each other)

2021′S MOST UNEXPECTEDLY SOFT SERIES

THE WINNER: Be Loved In House: I Do 

By far Be Love In House: I Do’s best quality was that the tsundere uke’s tsundere-ness was entirely sympathetic, he was utterly likable from the start. This BL cleverly leaned on great acting and beautiful trope execution to carry a rather weak story, but the two leads being impossibly soft with each other in the home absolutely slayed. Grumpy/tsundere is HARD to execute well, so I was impressed, especially from Taiwan who, let’s be fair, doesn’t really specialize in soft or clever BL. BLINID was both. 

Honorable mention to Golden Blood. 

Only Thailand would DARE be this soft with a bodyguard romance. I didn’t expect SunSky and their side dishes (PitchBank) to be so tender and sweet with each other.

BEST MICROFILM 2021

THE WINNER: A First Love Story 

Look I adore Hey Rival: I LOVE YOU! but it was still very Vietnamese and so rather flawed in execution. Korea’s Strongberry, on the other hand, have been perfecting the BL microfilm genre (and, let’s be fair, kind of OWN it) since 2017. They are true masters of their craft and yet A First Love Story is still one of the best things they have ever produced. It’s two episodes of about 8 minutes each that manage to perfectly portray the sweetest friends-to-lovers confession ever. It’s joyful, and gentle with its characters, and a little hot. 

How on earth do they manage to leave us yearning for more yet completely satisfied at the same time? It’s like the perfect amuse-bouche, that one finger food at that one cocktail party that you will never forget. You are a ridiculous human if you haven’t spent 16 minutes with these two boys. Go watch it now. Or go watch it again. It’s time VERY well spent. 

BEST UNIVERSITY SET BL 2021

THE WINNER: Nitiman

This Thai BL pulp had sympathetic characters, a solid tsundere uke redemption arc, and a fantastic pining seme who yearned without bullying, grooming, or gaslighting. Plus when they were together, they were ridiculously soft. But it also had a realistic portrayal of university life, bisexual awakening, and friendship groups. Bummer about the ending. (Full review here.)

BEST HIGH SCHOOL SET BL OF2021 

It’s a tie! 

THE WINNERS: Light on Me & Kieta Hatsukoi

Korean BL Light On Me managed to portray the angst of high school, social media, and coming out in a refined almost elegant way with all credit given to the uke character for honestly and brutal communication. It had a great friendship group, good teacher character, and even managed to treat Plot Device Girl with integrity. Also the white blue color pallet throughout was very pleasing and classy. 

Japanese BL Kieta Hatsukoi AKA My Love Mix-Up! snuck in under the wire to tie Korea’s gem at the VERY end of the year. It was also all teen angst and dramatic crisis over haircuts and text messaging but it was so Japanese slapstick extreme about it. It was a one-show meme-generator and Aoki’s face was a picture of comedic mobility. It was charming origin yaoi in a way that represented for the manga roots of the genre where as LoM was basically showing us how far we have come. Also Kieta Hatsukoi was so Japan’s style where LoM was so much Korea’s, it’s fun to watch two countries separated by the same genre. These two shows exist in equal, if opposite, flip sides of the same coin. How could I decide between the two? The award goes to both. 

BEST QUEER REP 2021

THE WINNER: My Lascivious Boss

While it did have pacing issues and some questionable content at the beginning, MLB’s unabashed queerness carried it though and ultimately elevated it with camp. It never felt like mockery or punching down, it felt joyful, and very new wave BL. It’s as if Vietnam is starting a process of handing out HEAs to all the letters of LGBTQ+ in BL style - I love this look for them. (On YouTube - full review here.)

BEST WARDROBE 2021 

THE WINNER: We Best Love: Fighting Mr. 2nd 

Mostly I’m classifying WBL as one series aired in two parts, but for this category the second half really takes the gold. THOSE 3 PIECE SUITS on Shu Yi. How Liu Bing Wei always coordinates his tie to Shi Zhe Yu’s suit. It was an absolute pleasure to watch. I never winced once. 

BEST HISTORICAL 2021

THE WINNER: Nobleman Ryu’s Wedding 

A historical setting allowed this BL to use some seriously old fashioned romance tropes (arranged marriage and evil step-sisters) but also modern BL stylings like fake relationship and secret identity (drag) plus some cute gay panic. It was a lot more gentle than any historical BL to date, which is Korea stamping the sub-genre with its mark and standing up to China’s darker traditions. It reminded me of 12th Night more than anything else which just happens to be my favorite Shakespeare play. For all these reasons, I adored it. (Full review here.) 

Most Honest to BL’s Roots 

THE WINNER: Utsukushii Kare

Given, Utsukushii Kare, and Kieta Hatsukoi all could have released in 2015 as live action yaoi and absolutely no one would have been surprised. They were seriously old school in a PTSD flashback kind of way (if reading yaoi and watching the first live action versions gave you PTSD, which it certainly could have if you were young enough.) 

But Given and Kieta Hatsukoi leaned slightly softer, and therefore felt a touch more modern, because Japanese BL is so rarely soft. On the other hand, Utsukushii Kare was harsh as all get up, angry with us and itself, reminding us about whipping boy, and attack dog, and spoiled prince. 

This is what an entirely unreasonable tsundere really looks like. 

This is what a weird obsessed stalker seme really looks like. 

This depicted the collateral that any relationship involving these archetypes causes to everyone around them. 

It was exactly as weird and as messed up as any 2000′s yaoi: emo af and hella warped, entirely true to itself with no attempt made to modify its POV for modern sensibilities or current BL fandom. It didn’t pander to us in anyway, and I fucking loved it for that. This is not just live action yaoi in its purest form, it’s Japanese cinema, uncompromising. 

LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT AWARD 

MaxTul

Starting with Bad Romance in 2016, MaxTul are one of the longest running, funny & game, and apparently healthy actor pairs in Thai BL. Never once did they sail their ship astray, miss a port (or a pun), or fail to raise the rainbow flag to honor the queer community (for queens and country).

We are deeply grateful for their service to fandom. 

We of the BL navy salute you. 

(I’ll stop now.) 

BEST BL THAT WASN’T A BL 2021

THE WiNNER: The Devil Judge

For a show that was meant to be a dystopian court thriller, these two gents got awfully domestic. Is Korea taking its tips from China’s bromance tradition now?

Anygay, these two were husbands by about episode 3. 

Everyone agrees. 

Even them. 

MOST CHARMING BL 2021

THE WiNNER: To My Star 

This little series was quirky as all goddamn getup, but so cinnamon roll adorable out the other side I forgive it all my initial confusion. The grumpy chef and neurotic actor (human puppy) pairing really worked for me. Both actors were great, the kitchen and cafe settings were lovely, and the ending was a peach. Utterly charming.  

MOST REWATCHABLE BL 2021 

THE WINNER: We Best Love

We Best Love is amazing, just the chemistry alone holds up to multiple rewatches, and THAT drunk scene in part 2! There’s some pretty epic pining in BL, but Gao Shi De pines for Olympic gold, and I happen to love watching a seme suffer. Again and again. 

The story is weak but the performances are so good they entirely sweep away a flawed plot, thin narrative arc, and time jump character development. It’s rare for me to like a show DESPITE the story, We Best Love stands with To My Star as one of the few. All told this series is GREAT, I am probably rewatching right now. I want a Viki movie version yesterday. (Full review here.) 

BEST BL 2021

THE WINNER: Color Rush 

In a surprise upset Korea stole the gold from top contenders Taiwan (my beloved) and Thailand (the power house). Under STRONG competition from We Best Love, To My Star, Lovely Writer, and 1000 Stars, Color Rush took the top spot. 

What can I say? I absolutely LOVE this BL. 

What really won it for Color Rush was the brilliant allegory and the ultra clean concept, not to mention Korea’s pitch perfect production values and a heavy dose of classic yaoi filming technique. 

Color Rush managed to be both ground-breaking, nostalgic, and charming all at once. I could write a thesis on it. I kinda did. 

Winners based on my definition of BL. 

(source)

[yaoi-sekai]

I have this headcanon (or like,, a mini au i guess) that the zettai bl universe is sentient and the reason mob became so self-aware is bcs he's supposed to be THE main character and all the other couples we see are just supposed spin-offs that stem from mob's story. Hatano is the first love interest candidate but as we know it doesn't happen until mob's in college so mob before hatano's introduction is literally just him getting a feeling that there is supposed to be SOMETHING happening and locks in on the fact that every man around him is suddenly very attractive and being attracted to the same gender and goes "ive connected the dots!" he didnt "everyone's gay bcs this is a bl world!!!" and goes "not me though" so now the universe just sends one flag after the other in hopes of keeping him in the plot but mob just wont quit!

As someone who's very into meta BL stories (read scum villain), this is actually a very interesting theory. I don't know if the manga will ever go so deep, but I share your idea that MC isn't supposed to be a mob character, otherwise the world wouldn't use so much power in sending him flag after flag.

At the very beginning, MC is convinced his family is supposed to be full of mob charas, but instantly after we learn that Ayato's already involved in his own BL story, so there's obviously something faulty with MC's logic.

If we think about it, his insistence on not becoming gay is rather tame (I mean, he's the one that keeps noticing attractive men, that seems pretty fruity to me). MC's biggest issue is being manipulated by the world designments, that's why he's so adamant in not becoming a BL protag. I don't think he really has a strong sentiment against homosexuality, and if he really gave it a thought, without wondering if he's being forced to feel one thing or another, he'd realize he isn't as straight as he believes.

So what I'm saying is MC can be bi.

[bleachbleachbleach]

meme!

I was tagged by @magical-girl-coral for this meme! Thank you!! idk if @ippoddity is going to answer it here or on her personal, but I decided to answer it here, since this is the space/fandom we share. That and some of my answers have to do with Bleach and none of them are about Lightning McQueen, LOL. 

I made a fresh post instead of reblogging the original one because I do not know how to shut up.

--

Favorite color: red, but I wear purple and greens/blues/teals.

Currently reading: I just finished Elizabeth Miki Brina’s memoir, Speak, Okinawa, and around the same time also finished @recurring-polynya’s Portions for Foxes. Speak, Okinawa has a lot going for it that’s really well done, and is about Brina’s life growing up in whitebread part of New Jersey with a military father and an Okinawan mother, and the ways that her and her parents’ lives have been informed not only by World War II and US-Japan relations, but also by Okinawa’s colonial histories at the hands of the US military, Japan, and China. I’ve been reading a lot of Okinawa-related things for work, and I think it will go well with them.

Portions for Foxes is a post-TYBW fic in an alternate timeline where Byakuya dies (DX), and it is absolutely fantastic. It’s Renji POV and is just an exquisite tapestry of multifarious forms of grief and trauma, but is also about moving within and beyond these things, and working through a postwar daily life where you still have to deal with division work (and Leading Division work) and Kuchiki family politics that involve political marriage and strategic pregnancies (but also real love of each other, and real love of the coming baby). If you have not already read it, you are in for a treat if you do.

Last song: Songs That Make You Feel Badass, which is a 19-minute YouTube mix track, hahaha.

Last movie: Technically we watched the new Natsume Yuujinchou movie, if that counts? It was more like a double feature OVA. Outside of stuff like that… Fast 9? Fast 9 was majestic and beautiful in too many ways. I was legit in tears only 10 minutes in, lol. What I love about Fast is that it’s fantastic spectacle even for the casual action-blockbuster-viewer, but if you actually care about the series, all the callbacks and easter eggs reveal that they’re such a careful labor of love. Mind you, absolutely none of that care has anything to do with the dialogue or the plot or the logic. But listen. In the Fast 6 extended cut there’s a scene where Vin Diesel shows Han an orange Camaro and Han replies, "Nice color." And this foreshadows 1) Han’s orange RX-7 in Tokyo Drift, but also Han comes back from the dead in Fast 9 and he’s got another orange car, this time a Supra, which is a model that WAS ALSO REVIVED FROM THE DEAD in the years between Fast 8 and Fast 9, IN THIS ESSAY I WILL—

Last series: Zettai BL ni Naru Sekai vs Zettai BL ni Naritakunai Otoko, inspired by this gifset that @magical-girl-coral reblogged. (ty!) It’s about this guy who determines that he is living in a BL manga because he keeps witnessing the tropes manifest in his classmates. Initially, he thinks he’s off the hook because he’s boring and plain-looking, and then he reads on the Internet that often the boring guy ends up being the main character of BL series. This sends him into an existential spiral because of how badly he emphatically does not want to be a main character in a BL series, LOL. It’s a very meta, and very much a tongue-in-cheek love letter to the BL genre.

Coffee or tea: Tea >>>>>>>>>>>

Currently working on: A fic whose in utero name was originally "Gotei 13 goes to the ocean" but is now "Gotei 13 goes camping," because it kind of seems like they’re going to spend more time trying to get to the ocean than actually doing anything there. I haven’t decided whether I should change that or not, because on one hand the original inspo for this fic was "where’s the ocean in Soul Society?" but the first scene that came to mind was a shinigami having to bushwhack their way around Mt. Koifushi, and that’s really all I want in life.

The premise is that post-TYBW, Soul Society is in a rush to assert to various other parties who might want to invade them that they are indeed alive, and they won, and no one else should want to invade them. One of these parties is the Western Ocean. The problem is, the last person to have taken on this job of establishing diplomatic terms with the Western Ocean was Kaien, on account of Nejibana and his being from a noble family. But obviously, Kaien died, and apparently did not... leave notes... And if there are notes from any of the people who did this job before him, no one can find them, because far be it from Soul Society to write reports that can ever be referenced again.

Soul Society is basically just like… welp! Rukia is Kaien’s most recent protege, and is also conveniently of a noble family, and ice is ****basically water**** right?? So even though literally no one knows what she’s supposed to do, what lies within the Western Ocean, or who/what she’s even supposed to be negotiating with in the first place, this task becomes Rukia’s problem.

To ease the burden, Soul Society sends Rukia off with what proves to be a very dysfunctional assortment of Captains/VCs, with the intent that such a high-ranking entourage will make it look like Soul Society respects the negotiations and, possibly more importantly, has their shit together. (They do not have their shit together.) And that’s the story of how Akon ends up technically being the mission leader, LOL. 

Other than that, er, the "plot" is that everyone is real sad and kind of fucked up about TYBW. I am not a strong plot-writer, so I dunno how well that’s gonna pan out. But I really wanted to know where the ocean was!

--

Oh no I forgot to tag people! Uhhhh I’m not sure who our mutuals even are and of those, who likes memes. O_o @backwardshirt, @ulkoilla, @crysuzumushi, if you’re into it? <3

[emotionallychargedtowel]

BL meta master post

I've had an Utsukushii Kare master post as my pinned post for a while now, since I've posted so much about it. But I think it's time I do a general BL meta post instead. All of the links and information from the Utsukare post are here, too, but so are links to my other BL meta posts.

It's going to take a while to get everything in here so I'm going to go ahead and publish it even though it isn't entirely complete. I'll continue updating it until it is complete, and I'll add newer posts as they come.

Posts covering multiple BLs

The pursuer-distancer dyad & how it applies to the world of BL - a primer on this psychological concept and how it applies to BL generally, touching on how it applies to Utsukushii Kare, Semantic Error, and To My Star 2

BL ask game: Long-term pining and grumpy/sunshine

My top 5 rewatched BL scenes, responding to an ask by @wen-kexing-apologist (Spoiler: it's still mostly Utsukare)

Zettai BL season 3

What's different about Hatano, part 1 - In short, Hatano isn't fucking around.

Part 2 - Hatano's awareness of Mob's fourth wall-breaking and other ways he sometimes senses Mob's reality in a way no one else has

Part 3 - Hatano's perseverance, his strategy of hitting Mob with a flag and immediately heading for the hills, and the way he uses the age gap to his advantage

Part 4 (the final installment) - The way that Hatano treats Mob like a specific human being and has specific reasons for liking him, unlike the vast majority of his suitors, and the way the BL-within-a-BL storyline changes not only the way Mob relates to him but the way the audience does

25 ji Akasaka de

Prying off the shell - In episode 7, Hayama's friend Mihara makes a an interesting observation. He says that Shirasaki doesn't seem to have a "shell"--his way of talking about a social self, a persona that a person experiences as separate from their core self. Then he points out that Hayama not only has a "shell," he has multiple layers of shell, so many that it's essentially impenetrable, like a neverending set of matryoshka dolls. I wrote here about what these shell metaphors really mean psychologicaly, how Hayama's family of origin played into his multilayered shell, and the implications of both their personalities on how they relate to each other.

Nominating a runner for 25 ji - If someone has to do the traditional JBL thing of running through the streets to get to the other person, who should run? That's a question @my-rose-tinted-glasses and @lurkingshan discussed, and it got me thinking.

Hayama's mask finally slips - Looking closely at Hayama's affect in the opening scene of episode 9--and trying to process the level of blorbo distress that entails

Over-analyzing the finale trailer in a vain attempt to try to manage my pre-finale angst

The Eighth Sense

The Eighth Sense e5 & e6: Portraying trauma with nuance

On The Eighth Sense episodes 7 & 8

The Eighth Sense episodes 9 and 10: All we can do is try

Bokura no Shokutaku/Our Dining Table

Thoughts on the "spinoff" (bonus episode) and how it's a logical extension of the leads' character arcs

Old Fashion Cupcake

I had a realization about Nozue's constant, somewhat inappropriate complimenting of Togawa while looking at a gifset and reblogged it with my thoughts

To My Star

Notes on a gifset by @jimmysea - Nerding out big time on that one season 2 kiss

Only Friends

Sand, compulsive caregiver - On Sand's documented history of parentification and how it relates to his relationship with Ray

Only Friends characters' fragrance preferences - Assigning each of the lead characters a favorite fragrance based on their personalities, with some made-up backstory

Minato's Laundromat

About that Minato's Laundromat season 2 storyline... - Commenting on a certain character's traumatic brain injury and its effects from a psychology perspective

Kiseki: Dear to Me

Chu chu chu; or, intimate scene tips from the Kiseki cast

Brief commentary on a reblog of some behind-the-scenes footage

HIStory 3: Trapped

A reblog of the "chu chu chu" post about Kiseki that adds similar information about how intimacy was handled on the set of HIStory 3: Trapped - featuring a helpful linguistic note from @nibupei

and, last but not least...

Utsukushii Kare meta

The psychological paradoxes of Utsukushii Kare

This is a series of posts (the current plan is to write three installments) about what it says on the tin: paradoxical psychological dynamics in Utsukushii Kare. These are things about the characters that may seem contradictory at first but can be accounted for by digging deeper into some psychological concepts. These posts are focused on the series (both seasons) but will draw from the movie and from the novel and related stories when they illustrate points about the series.

Part 1: Covert grandiosity and finding status through idealization - A pretty deep dive into 1) the subtle ways Hira shows that while his self-image can be highly negative in some ways, in other respects he feels superior to others and 2) how by elevating Kiyoi’s status and humbling himself in comparison, Hira attains a different kind of status.

An addendum of sorts to part 1: Hira's parents and his self-defeating tendencies - Some guesswork about how Hira's parents could have contributed to his self-defeating personality, with some further discussion of specific self-defeating strategies he uses in his relationship with Kiyoi and elsewhere.

Utsukushii Kare through the lens of pursuer-distancer dynamics and related psychological concepts:

The pursuer-distancer dyad & how it applies to the world of BL - a primer on this psychological concept and how it applies to BL generally, with a brief reference to how this concept applies to Utsukare (also touches on Semantic Error and talks in detail about an example from To My Star 2). This one isn't super focused on Utsukushii Kare but is pretty de rigeur for understanding my UK posts on this topic.

Paradoxical roles; or, I think I finally figured out the pursuer-distancer dynamic in Utsukushii Kare - This post comes after some of the posts listed below but I recommend reading it first as this is really where (I think) I cracked the code on this aspect of the story.

Pursuer-distancer roles & attachment style in Utsukushii Kare, Part 1: Hira - In-depth discussion of Hira's role in the pursuer-distancer dyad, his attachment style, and his personality

Pursuer-distancer roles and attachment style in Utsukushii Kare Part 2: Kiyoi - In-depth discussion of Kiyoi's role in the pursuer-distancer dyad, his attachment style, and his personality

Re-evaluating pursuing & distancing in Utsukushii Kare season 1 - super detailed post working out my thoughts about pursuing and distancing in season 1

On the way Sakai Mai (the series' director) uses seme left, uke right framing and its significance in BL and other Japanese media:

Using an example from the s2e1 with the girl who hits on Hira at a party (via a reblog of a gifset from @nanons)

On the way Sakai flips Hira's and Kiyoi's position in the frame in two versions of the same scene and what it tells us about its significance

How the persistent/cute trope plays out in Utsukushii Kare season 2, plus related overanalyses of the big season 2 finale kiss:

The persistent and the cute (how "persistent" and "cute" are code words with specific meanings in BL/yaoi/other drama and manga genres/Japanese culture more broadly)

Analyzing the season 2 finale kiss in light of seme left/uke right framing and the persistent/cute trope (in a reblog of a gif post by @nanons)

Reblogging @bl-bracket to lobby for the season 2 finale kiss, with more overanalysis

Fragrance nerd discussion:

This bittersweet fragrance - on the significance of osmanthus/tea olive in Utsukushii Kare season 2, with additional information on the possible significance of the fragrance of osmanthus and perfumes that are either osmanthus soliflores or feature prominent osmanthus notes

Posts on specific season 2 episodes:

initial thoughts about S2e1

Additional (informal) thoughts on s2e1

S2e1 rundown

Hira's incongruous/misaligned affect at the end of s2e1

S2e2 rundown

on S2e2, including pursuer-distancer dynamics and seme left, uke right

Utsukushii Kare S2E4: “face me straight on” (mostly discussing relationship dynamics pointed out in topic-specific metas)

on Utsukushii Kare: Eternal:

Kiyoi and Anna: on Kiyoi’s friendship with Anna and its significance for his personal growth

[tsukiyadori]

Such a feeling, that might be a first ever since back then... (Tsubaki in Fudanshi Kazoku chapter 32.)

This series is hilarious in so many ways, just so comfy and supportive in a multitude of others, but ultimately it's also just so, so endearing at times.

(Also had to eventually do one for this one after my long pitch on Nagiko no Hanashi.)

You get this family of a single father Tsubaki and two teenage boys Kaede and Sakura (and a late mother Katsura in heaven), all who happen to be BL fans and so it's getting to have its fun with otaku fandom antics, specifically the BL niche. Kaede is the closeted fan embarrassed by his hobby struggling to find the courage to out it to his friends or to even buy a more racy book in the bookstore, while Sakura is that very deep in the hole who even draws doujinshis himself much like his late mother. And then there is Tsubaki avid consumer of BL, who's an adult man in a regular office job, even in a leading position, known as amicable and capable, whilst helming raising his two sons. And he's absolutely deep into his hobby, much deeper than his sons, he's been at it for decades already after all. It's refreshing because while the borderline creepy fujoshi has become a stock comedy stereotype in otaku fandom depictions, this one prowls the same sort of self ironic fun on it, but the focus here is on the mostly male mains and one adult to boot. It also has a very practical lens on that fandom from somebody clearly stuck right inside that fandom. (The series itself started as a doujinshi.) In that vein, what you get is something like Wotakoi, but just BL focused with a family of varying age groups social circles in their school/work life. It's about having that hobby, struggling with it or being crafty and unapologetically about it or just enjoying it in a sort of glass house closeted solitude, but all of them finding their peers and enjoying it even more.

Which is cool, and in parts can also hit home in many basic streaks of the adult anime/manga fandom. (Like Tsubaki feeling awkward whilst standing the Animate at his age? But also have the very real advantage over his sons in having a wallet?) But that alone is hardly groundbreaking. There are already plenty out there about the same topic.

What, however, I've seen rarely to as good as nowhere else are the elements of its subplot.

So you have these three out of this BL family, and they are all into it and it's so silly with its self-ironic tone - Sakura even literally tries to prolly force a BL brother trope into reality in some dubious ways that makes even Tsubaki worried at times - you start to wonder: Is this going to be just about BL, or will it also feature one? Surely that would be the height of its self-irony?

About a dozen of chapters in marks the debut of Hiiragi, a subordinate at work to Tsubaki. Tsubaki spots some BL convention merch on his wallet, and he's dying to breach onto that topic to find a fellow fan, but doesn't really dare. Until one day Hiiragi has a confession to make, that he likes (Tsubaki), but Tsubaki mistakes it and just blurts out enthusiastically that he too likes (the BL stuff). Tsubaki realizes his mistake right the same evening and is stomped, but despite all overthinking, he doesn't get to clear that misunderstanding up. The narrative fairly quickly explains why: Hiiragi just happens to be really Tsubaki's type. And he clearly gets the hots all the time. It's so strong that Tsubaki veers constantly into imagining silly (spicy) BL tropes with Hiiragi when it's even still completely harmless, and keeps telling himself to keep his head cool while the narration keeps doing hilariously dry commentary expressing how he's stuck in a losing war with himself and the rules of a BL world. (This is the closest thing I've seen out there in terms of that hilarious meta commentary satire of Zettai BL ni naru Sekai vs Zettai bl ni Naritakunai Otoko.)

The most fascinating part for me starts there. You have this character who's really (really) deep into all that BL stuff - he has always been, but he's also a widow with two children. And his past and still lingering relationship with his late wife makes for quite the juxtaposition with what is being bubbling up in Tsubaki for Hiiragi.

The series regularly sheds some light on his and Katsura's past and even present relationship, as Katsura has a number of appearances as a ghost with a halo. (Which may or may not be her real self or just a figure out of Tsubaki's dreams and imagination.)

Tsubaki and Katsura knew each other already in their school days. They were both closeted fans deep into their fandom and eventually wound up marrying and just continued what they always did even then. Like art talentless Tsubaki helping her out in her doujinshi productions. They were besties in their hobby, partners in crime in being "rotten", they were having very different natural dispositions and characters and yet a perfect match in being able to handle one another, they knew each other's best and worst inside out, tolerated, respected, scolded and complemented each other for any of it. They were best friends, partners, soulmates, family, and they clearly have a lot of attachment and love for each other even beyond Katsura's early death. Katsura's presence still lingers, and it comes back regularly to show that her departure has left a deep hole in Tsubaki's heart. He really misses her very much and dearly, to the point she's the one he's yearning for when he's drunk and feeling lonely, pleading her to not leave him alone.

And if you left it at that, probably nobody would have doubted they just loved each other like married couples would do, they'd just be a bit of an eccentric pair. Simply because all that and omission would imply both that there could only be that one sort of love and the straightness default assumption. So when as early as chapter 4 a flashback like this shows up…

(Katsura talks about having "marriage blues" even before they had their wedding, Tsubaki has to remind her that this is quite something to talk to her spouse. She replies, "Don't worry. It's not your fault." She's just thinking about how there ought to be a man more suitable to Tsubaki than herself, where Tsubaki just goes "ah right the usual fantasies" and then she's also more thinking about her ships which she'd like to see married off with each other much more than herself. And Tsubaki just jumps on the same bandwagon, agreeing that he's more fussed of seeing his favorite BL ship on a wedding than himself, and they decide to just postpone their wedding.)

… it still all seems like a silly joke that just throws shade on the fandom and their dubious priorities rather than anything else. Except it continues like that. There is zero, absolutely zero indication of anything like romantic or sexual attraction between them.

Meanwhile, this is Tsubaki when it comes to Hiiragi:

And the man goes all silly about trying to find explanations with his reactions. He's just totally looking like his favorite type of fictional character (in the idol sense), that's why his heart is pounding, and his face is red, he's just feeling guilty about this misunderstanding that he has trouble looking him in the eye, he just doesn't want Hiiragi to be hurt when he shies away from clearing that misunderstanding by "break up", because clearly he's so just so earnest, pure liking him... and just keeps being so cute and handsome. Or consulting BL books like how that tropey first love struck maiden consults her romance drivels in Shoujo series. Tsubaki is much too busy having him way too busy to even keep his face up, but would even get as far as to holding hands with him and admit to himself that he really doesn't dislike it.

This looks so ENTIRELY different from what his and Katsura's relationship looked like. There's even a chapter where Katsura got physically really close to Tsubaki and there isn't remotely such a reaction coming from him (or her).

You know what this between Tsubaki and Katsura is? It's one out of two only somewhat fleshed out picture perfect, grounded example depictions of queerplatonic feelings and relationships I've ever seen in any media I've encountered so far.

And as the development of Tsubaki's perception of Hiiragi progresses, early chapter jokes of Katsura's like this:

(Kaede asks his father if he has no plans to remarry, that reminds him how Katsura once (before their own marriage!) told him what sort of partner she'd allow him to have if he were to remarry, and she goes to describe in detail exactly his type, which is what Hiiragi winds up literally being.)

… as well as the Marriage Blues from above suddenly take up entirely new connotations. Katsura is, despite her fujoshi antics, a very perceptive person about Tsubaki and cares deeply about him and her sons. This is clear across all the flashbacks featuring her. And it's not far-fetched to assume that she knew more about Tsubaki than the man knew about himself and set up all the foundations that if he found somebody who'd stir him up that way, she was going to do anything but stand in his way.

In fact, the first thing after the misunderstanding happens is Tsubaki having a dream of her shipping him with Hiiragi.

And his only complaint about that is that it's kinda a bit too fast to make that into a book.

Katsura even cheers for him and Hiiragi in heaven, when silly BL tropes literally drop on him:

This is also part of another thing this series just does so well. Having examples of how to just casually throw in support for queerness without being on the nose. As well as how you can still kinda have fun with this trait, so it's not necessarily this super heavy to stomach coming to terms suffering sob story drama plot while also not being the hurtful butt of jokes discrimination. (There really is very little like that out there, imo.) Katsura long since laid out her supportive attitude for that, hidden behind her clowning. Sakura who is just as keen in seeing things through like his mother quickly catches on between what's going on with his father and Hiiragi. It's also not quite below him to put that whole plot into a doujinshi of his own. But he also knows to ask the right questions and points out the obvious behind Tsubaki's flailing excuses to get his father to think about this more soberly. Entirely making clear that regardless of his decision he's fine with both (even rooting for Hiiragi), all the while joking that the misunderstanding would resolve itself perfectly fine, if he just went for it. Kaede is too dense to notice anything yet, but it's clear he goes along with Hiiragi well just like Sakura, and given his character would not oppose about it even remotely. And Tsubaki has a very accepting attitude that comes out when he gets to voice his personal opinions on some occasions. (Which are seriously great examples, since they are actually supportive and even educational, much more than what snippets you'd usually get if you even get them at all.)

The little idiot just has to realize what's even going on with himself first, before he could start embracing it as a possibility for himself.

Surprisingly, even before he does, he already manages to get sober enough to end this misunderstanding. But clumsy as he is, he just "breaks up" with Hiiragi rather than explaining himself. That's the ongoing arc right now, but the thing that starts to make him the realization finally sink in is what the head picture of this post depicts. That loosing him feels about as bad as loosing Katsura.

How great is that?

It would have been so easy to make him come to realize that this is romantic/sexual crush, something entirely different from what he had with Katsura. And to have it, as it would notoriously go, be delegated as something along the lines of "this is now the real deal", because obviously that love has to stands supreme above everything else. But no, here they get ranked on equal terms despite being clearly depicted as entirely different, and that's kind of just awesome to see being clearly stated like that.

Now, just give me one tale someday where something like this is depicted without having one of the parties already dead and buried, please. T_T (Since Nagiko no Hanashi has kind of the same constellation.)

[ikeoji-subs]

Ikeoji Subs Zettai BL 3 Masterpost

You will find here all the links to the subtitle files for each episode along with the various translation notes and other useful info.

Fansub group introduction

Here’s where we got the video files we used to make the fansub: [link]

The subtitle files should also work with other raw files if they share the same timing.

Download the srt files to your computer. If you keep them in the same folder as your video files and make sure that both file types have the same names (except for the file extensions, of course), most video players should attach the subtitles automatically. For example, if your video file is called “episode 4.mp4” and your subtitle file is called “episode 4.srt,” opening the video should cause the subtitles to appear without requiring any additional steps. If this doesn't work, your video player should have a subtitle menu where you can add a file manually.

We ask that you not upload our subs to streaming sites. Sharing with friends is fine. We’re also OK with folks sharing them in other ways as long as they aren’t public. Please use discretion when talking about the fansub outside of tumblr, but don’t hesitate to get the word out in other ways, and feel free to promote it here. Please credit ikeoji-subs whenever possible--we put a lot of time and effort into this.

Feel free to use the fansub for fandom purposes. Gif-making, meta-writing, and other fandom-related creative endeavors made using our fansub are not only welcome but encouraged

Links to posts:

Episode 1

Episode 2

Episode 3

Episode 4

Episode 5

Episode 6

Opening Theme Lyrics

Translation notes on the entire season

We also have a transcript document containing all of our subtitles for every episode in season 3. Towel put it together for meta-writing purposes. We'd be happy to share this transcript on request if anyone else thinks it would be useful.

[harborpointeblvd]

another rec list no one asked for

I read more good stuff, so I’m doing this again. Here’s my first rec list if you’re interested. I’m going in order from most lighthearted to most likely to have you writhing in pain, so here goes.

Cool Doji Danshi - ongoing

Or, Play It Cool, Guys

This one is not a romance, just a comedy, but it is still cute as hell.

Four guys with very different personalities have one thing in common. They're all total space cases. You know when you do something embarrassing like realizing you’re walking the wrong way and have to do an awkward 180 on the sidewalk? I try to unlock my house with my car remote on a fairly regular basis. Well that’s these guys’ entire lives. They all handle their clumsiness in different ways, and as they start to encounter each other by chance, they learn from each other’s actions, and it’s just fucking delightful.

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Zettai BL ni Naru Sekai Vs Zettai BL ni Naritakunai Otoko - ongoing

Or, A World Where Everything Definitely Becomes BL vs. The Man Who Definitely Doesn't Want To Be In A BL

This is not a BL (yet?), but it’s definitely for people who’ve read BL. A plain-looking man knows he lives in a BL universe, but believes himself to be a background character. Until his plain-looking younger brother gets a confession from his best friend, and our main character learns that nobody is safe. He spends his days avoiding BL tropes so he doesn’t get caught up in a BL romance.

If you like parody and meta humor, you should check this one out.

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Karasugaoka Don’t Be Shy!! - complete

Izuhara Sou and Shinba Tetsuji are the leaders of two rival crime prevention groups (good guy gangs!). Izuhara admires Shinba, who came to his rescue once when he was a kid and inspired him to help others. However, anytime he comes face to face with Shinba, Izuhara gets nervous and acts like an asshole.

This is a short one, so I can’t say much more about it, but it’s hella cute and you should go check it out.

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Three Men, One Chinchilla - ongoing

It’s complete in Korean (54 chapters), but only 13 chapters have been translated so far. I actually bought the raws. I paid actual money to read a comic in a language I don’t know. It was too weird for me to even guess what was going on, but it was worth it just for the facial expressions.

Ham Un comes home to find a chinchilla in front of his door, and it gets weirder from there. After finding the chinchilla, he meets the adorable Seung and the sketchy Namhae, and hilarity ensues. I don't want to spoil the experience of reading the first few chapters so I'm not gonna say anymore, but it does have supernatural elements.

Seung calls Un “Onion”, so their ship name is Seunion. No one else is talking about this comic here, so I get to make that call. This webcomic has everything you could want in a BL. Cute nicknames. Comedy. A chinchilla.

But.

It hasn’t updated in over a month. *update - This manhwa has been picked up by another group (and I’m in the group, not that that makes a difference)

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March Third - ongoing 

I think this one is complete in Chinese, like 150+ chapters, but it’s only translated up to chapter 97, and hasn’t updated in a while. I still have hope that another translator will pick it up.*

A historical comedy that follows military officer Mr. Buddha as he tries to woo the stage actor Mr. Red.

This is one of the funniest comics I’ve read, for serious. Someone suggested this one when I asked for recs similar to 19 Days, and this one is it. Don’t ask me how a historical comic set during a war is like 19 Days, it just is.

*Update: It’s been picked up! It’s translated up to 107.

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A Strange Joke - *complete

Or, Just Kidding. I started reading under the title A Strange Joke, but I’m now reading the official English translation, and they call it Just Kidding.

Min is an unremarkable college student who is firmly in the closet. Jun is a heartthrob who, for some reason, has taken an interest in Min. Sehun is Jun’s friend who is also on all of the cover art. I’m sure he plays a major role later on. It’s only translated up to chapter 18 right now. But it’s so funny, I had to give it a mention. Min and his friends are a bunch of drunken dumbass college students in the best way, and Min is the dumbest of them all.

The official translation is on Pocket Comics, and you get a bunch of free points just for creating an account and daily gifts for logging on.

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Fools - complete

After overhearing a fight that new student Jeongwoo had with his boyfriend, college senior Eungi finds himself becoming increasingly confused about his feelings toward Jeongwoo. Jeongwoo, meanwhile, fresh out of a long and rocky relationship, isn’t ready to act on his feelings toward Eungi. Commence awkward not-dates.

This is the most relatable depiction of the uncomfortable early stages of a romance that I’ve ever seen. It also shows how trauma from past toxic relationships can affect new, healthy ones. But it’s never too heavy-handed about it. It’s really funny at times, but also has its fair share of angst. It’s also my favorite on this list, and I adore all of these comics.

In the official English translation, their names are Edward and Justin, but I think it's weird when they do that.

Update: Fools is being remastered in full color with an updated art style, but I still recommend the original.

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Unintentional Love Story - *complete

I’m pretty sure this one is complete in Korean, and has something like 55 chapters.

Wonyoung is fired from his job after being falsely incriminated in a corruption scandal. By sheer luck, he happens to run into the company chairman’s favorite ceramic artist, Yoon Taejun, who has been living under an alias. He’s told he will likely get his job back if he could get Taejun to partner with the company, so he tries to get close to Taejun without revealing that he knows his true identity. What he doesn’t plan on, though, is falling in love with Taejun.

This one is where the DRAMA is at. The story doesn’t ignore the fact that the relationship was built on a lie. It addresses it, and then addresses it, and as of chapter 35, is still addressing it. It hurts so good.

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How to Hate Mate - complete

Or, Hate Mate

Two years ago, Subin drunkenly confessed his feelings to his straight roommate, Hyunwoo. After that, Hyunwoo left for his mandatory military service, and Subin hasn’t heard from him since. Just when Subin is finally ready to move on, Hyunwoo reappears and things get complicated.

Listen. Hate Mate hurt me in a big way. Don’t read this if you’re looking for the warm fuzzies, because you will not find them here. I loved this story for its realism. All the characters are seriously flawed, and even though it ended the way I hoped it would, nothing feels fully resolved. This comic will hurt you and skip the aftercare. Anyways, have fun.

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A Shoulder to Cry On - complete

Or, Cheer Up Boy. Or, Comfort the Boy. There are too many alternate titles, but I like A Shoulder to Cry On best.

When Dayeol is framed for assault by Taehyun, he nearly loses his archery scholarship. But instead of feeling the least bit remorseful for nearly ruining Dayeol’s life, Taehyun starts to torment Dayeol even further.

So a LOT of fiction will do this thing where a character will just be truly horrible, but when their tragic backstory is revealed, they’re supposed to be absolved of all guilt. I HATE that. I hate it to the point where just introducing a tragic backstory actually makes me hate the character more, because I anticipate that happening.

That being said, Taehyun is one of the biggest assholes I’ve ever seen as a main love interest, and his backstory got to me. It made me like him, and I’m ashamed for not standing by my principals. It helps that he’s not immediately forgiven for bullying Dayeol just because he had a bad childhood, but still.

What I’m saying is that this is fucking sad and you should read it. But I’m recommending this with a big fat trigger warning for self harm.

[ikeoji-subs]

Zettai BL Ni Naru Sekai VS Zettai BL Ni Naritakunai Otoko 2024 - Episode 6 Eng Sub

VS SHOOTING and VS FALLING IN LOVE

It's the season 3 finale!

For downloading instructions and where to find the raw files, please check our masterpost.

[Subs link]

We ask that you not upload our subs to streaming sites.

Sharing with friends is fine. We’re also OK with folks sharing them in other ways as long as they aren’t public. Please use discretion when talking about the fansub outside of tumblr, but don’t hesitate to get the word out in other ways, and feel free to promote it here. Please credit ikeoji-subs whenever possible—we put a lot of time and effort into this.

Feel free to use the fansub for fandom purposes. Gif-making, meta-writing, and other fandom-related creative endeavors made using our fansub are not only welcome but encouraged.

This is the final episode of this season! We're both going to miss working on this project. When it comes to plans for the future, we're still figuring that part out, but rest assured that we'll keep everyone posted here if we have another project in the works. For the moment, we once again want to thank everyone who has spread the word or had a kind word for us in the tags and elsewhere.

Big big thanks to our pal @my-rose-tinted-glasses for letting us make use of her talents and helping our posts and translation notes look special.

translation notes:

about “acknowledge the way I feel” (20:27)

The first, more literal translation of this line, which Hatano says on the bridge, was, “Can you accept my feelings?” That line definitely gets something across, but I knew we’d be leaving it open to varied interpretations–some of them inaccurate–if we didn’t make it more specific. I might go a little overboard in the specificity department sometimes. I think it’s probably due to a combination of my ADHD-related quirks and having spent too much time picking apart variables as a researcher. Whatever the reason, this time I was kind of in overdrive because this line seemed pretty important. 

I asked Snow some questions about what “accept” meant in this instance. In English–and in the American cultural context I’m used to–there are lots of specific ways to talk about a situation like this one. Someone in Hatano’s position in the US would have a plethora of options for inquiring about Mob’s thoughts and emotions and/or making requests about how he might respond to their feelings. Is Hatano asking Mob to simply believe that he has these feelings about him? To let him show these feelings toward him openly, even if he only allows this passively, without offering anything in return? To receive them in a way that implies he returns them or that otherwise implies some degree of connection between them? And so on. 

I was expecting cultural differences to come up around this line, but they came up in a way I wasn’t expecting. Snow responded by telling me that there wasn’t a really specific meaning behind the Japanese wording of this line and that that was characteristic of the Japanese language around such things. I knew that I was more intense than the average American about wanting to pinpoint the meanings of things, but it would seem that the average American is more intense about it than the average Japanese person. 

That was a really interesting insight (one that I’m still thinking about), but it still left me with a conundrum when it came to this line. I could stick with “accept,” since it had a kind of vagueness to it (which was part of the reason I started trying to reword the line in the first place). But I thought “accepting” feelings sounded closer than I’d like to possibly reciprocating them, and I knew from my conversation with Snow that that shouldn’t be implied here. 

I started looking at thesaurus entries and going down different synonym paths. I wanted a word that, in its broadest sense, would be asking very little of the other person. I figured if the Japanese wording was open to being interpreted as either asking for very little or asking for more, then the English wording should be something that could at least be taken as not asking for much, because the implication that Hatano wants more than that from Mob is already clearly present. 

When I came across “acknowledge,” it fit the bill. At first, I just thought of its meaning on a smaller scale. It’s not much to ask of someone to simply acknowledge something, in most contexts. 

But after just a little bit of thought, I realized it also had a useful kind of vagueness. Acknowledgement can be as small as a barely perceptible nod, but it’s also used to talk about thanking someone, giving credit, commending or honoring someone, even giving someone a reward. In a romantic context, depending on the specific story, you could imagine “acknowledge” meaning anything from “yeah, I see you over there” all the way to someone’s devotion being rewarded in all the ways they’ve hoped for. 

Some of these uses are more of a stretch and would only work in just the right context. The default meaning of the word is clearly on the more modest side. But that works well, too. I took this request as coming from a pretty humble, unassuming place and I figured “acknowledge” was reflective of that. 

I ended up being really happy with this word choice. Hopefully, it’ll get the right idea across to folks who watch the show with our subtitles, even if they don’t read this translation note. But I hope that reading this gets it across even more effectively.–Towel

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

[ikeoji-subs]

Zettai BL Ni Naru Sekai VS Zettai BL Ni Naritakunai Otoko 2024 - Episode 5 Eng Sub

VS THE START OF A ROMANCE and VS HELPING

For downloading instructions and where to find the raw files, please check our masterpost.

[Subs link]

We ask that you not upload our subs to streaming sites.

Sharing with friends is fine. We’re also OK with folks sharing them in other ways as long as they aren’t public. Please use discretion when talking about the fansub outside of tumblr, but don’t hesitate to get the word out in other ways, and feel free to promote it here. Please credit ikeoji-subs whenever possible—we put a lot of time and effort into this.

Feel free to use the fansub for fandom purposes. Gif-making, meta-writing, and other fandom-related creative endeavors made using our fansub are not only welcome but encouraged.

Thank you so much, as always, to everyone who has left nice comments in the tags and such. Y'all really make the hard work we put into this worthwhile!

And big big thanks to @my-rose-tinted-glasses for gifs and spreading the word about the fansub.

translation notes:

About “naresome”

As tends to happen when translating Japanese, this is one of those words that don’t exist in English. Its literal translation is “the start of a romance.” So, while we’ve chosen to translate it as “get together,” it would be more accurate to give a more extensive explanation. It is a noun that specifically refers to the moment that love begins. So when we’re talking about “naresome” we’re talking about the thing or situation that triggered the romantic relationship or romantic feelings.–Snow

about casting Tominaga Yuya as a guy who gets busy when it rains

I think this is another tokusatsu Easter egg. Tominaga Yuya, who plays Jouji in the “Vs. The Start of a Relationship” chapter, was also on Avataro Sentai DonBrothers, a Super Sentai series that ran from 2022 to 2023. His character, Sonoi, was the agent of a culture from another plane of existence whose members feed off of the brainwaves of human beings. At first, he and his associates Sonoza and Sononi were enemies of the DonBrothers, but they eventually joined forces with the Sentai. A big reason this happened was that Sonoi had a special connection to the leader of the DonBrothers, Momoi Tarou. Their relationship reads as pretty darned queer to a lot of viewers, myself included.

Momoi Tarou and Sonoi bonding, before they found out they were nemeses

Many JBL fans know Higuchi Kouhei from My Personal Weatherman/Taikan Yoho, in which he played the titular meteorologist, Segasaki. Part of the premise of that series is that at the start of the story, Higuchi’s character only has sex with his partner on sunny days. Jouji, Tominaga’s Zettai BL character, does the opposite: he and his “sex friend” only do it on rainy days. 

Basically, the writers of Zettai BL 3 have made Higuchi’s toku boyfriend’s story into a reverse Taikan Yoho situation. What are the odds that’s just a coincidence?–Towel

Also, he gets his own “Zettai BL” title card moment (and he’s the only one out of the secondary cast who get to have that).–Snow

That’s right!

I’m going to put this in context a little because I’ve given a lot of thought (probably too much) to who’s been featured in the opening credits of the different Zettai BL seasons. For every season of the show so far, Inukai Atsuhiro has had four other actors perform with him in the opening theme dance number. (All of whom also get a crack at some of those title card moments.) For two seasons, three of the four spots were taken up by Yutaro (Ayato), Shiono Akihisa (Toujou), and Itou Asahi (Kikuchi). The fourth spot was taken up by different actors in the first two seasons. It was the guy who played the attractive dude from the goukon in the first season, and it was Izuka Kenta, who played Kikuchi’s ex Igarashi, in the second. 

This time around, I had hoped that Sekoguchi Ryo would take the fourth spot, because he’s my blorbo and of course I wanted to see him in a retro dance number (boy was that wish ever granted!). But I hadn’t expected Shiono not to appear this time. Maybe there were specific reasons for this, like a scheduling conflict or an injury. It’s not like Shiono appears less in season 3 than he did in the others, so that’s not the reason. It’s hard to say. But in that context, it seems even more significant that they gave a spot to Tominaga Yuya. We don’t know the reasons for this. But it’s possible they featured him more heavily in this way because of his tokusatsu backstory and the inside joke it allowed them to make.–Towel

about “pudding relationship” and “prince and princess”

This part was tricky to translate. As you might have noticed by this point, Mob likes to make puns. In Japanese, pudding is written as “purin” and it is used to refer to pudding as well as custard. Mob goes on to follow with “prince and princess”, which in Japanese are pronounced as “purinsu” and “purinsesu”. In here, there’s wordplay with these similar sounding words and the image of the ToujouAyato couple.–Snow  

about “cuteness overload”

Japanese is a language that uses a lot of onomatopoeia. There’s 4 types, iirc: animal sounds, object sounds (like rain, creaking and the like), things that don’t make noise (smiles, stares, silence, etc), verbs turned onomatopoeia (I unfortunately cannot remember this properly but it was something like that). In this case, Mob says “Kyun ga tomaranai” (which literally means “the kyun can’t be stopped”). “Kyun” is an onomatopoeic word to refer to a “momentary tightening of one's chest caused by powerful feelings,” usually tied to a romantic context but not exclusively. Taking this into account, we thought “cuteness overload” might be the closest expression in English.–Snow

It’s worth noting that Mob is also saying “kyun” right after the “cuteness overload” line. I really thought at first that he was saying “cute,” since it sounds so similar, it would make a lot of sense contextually, and English loan words are so common in Japanese. But no, it was “kyun.” There was no way we could get across the meaning of “kyun” in one or two syllables of English, so we went with “adorbs,” which is just another word for “cute,” but at least it has a cutesy pronunciation that steps it up a notch.–Towel

about bouhan buzzers (16:06)

The translation note shown onscreen during this scene reads: “a bouhan buzzer is a security gadget carried by Japanese schoolchildren.” We did our best to summarize the meaning of this term briefly, so that it would be readable in the amount of time it was possible for us to keep that caption onscreen. But here’s a longer explanation for those who might be curious. 

It took a while for me to understand what these things were. At first I pictured something like a hand buzzer–the kind that people used to use to prank people. But it’s nothing like that. They’re sometimes referred to as “personal security alarms.” They’re little doodads that you can clip onto a backpack or carry in your pocket, and if you activate them (the most common mechanism for which seems to be pulling some kind of tab or string), they make some form of alarm-type sound. I found a video, below, that shows someone activating two different types of buzzers, showing the sound they make. 

These two make the same sort of beeping/chirping noises you’d associate with an alarm protecting a car or the entrance to a building–not really a “buzzing” sound, or anything that resembles the sound Mr. Cheerleader makes in this scene. But maybe there are other types that are more buzz-like, or sound more like the sound our buddy is imitating. 

According to some things I read when I looked these up, children often play with their bouhan buzzers, making it somewhat less likely that people will be on alert when they hear them go off. I don’t think I could have resisted setting off a gadget like this if I’d had one as a child. They seem to be available with all sorts of characters on them and in all sorts of colors and shapes, which is cool but might make them seem even more toy-like. 

From what I’ve seen, these things are most commonly used by children, but adults sometimes use them too. If you look for them for sale online, there are more adult-looking versions available (say, a rose-gold blob instead of something with cute characters on it–though of course, adults might want those too). One listing I saw advertised that they’re useful for kids, women, and the elderly.–Towel

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