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dangermousieOh my. this is like Grey's Anatomy. On crack. Glorious, angst-filled crack. For those who don't like clicking on links without knowing what it is, this is an English-subbed trailer for an upcoming Taiwanese drama. Yeah, typing in 'Jerry Yan' into youtube search engine in a post Meteor Garden haze will bring up amazing things. And yum, he angsts so prettily. Women keep breaking his heart in these things, no? In fact, I understand it's a TV drama so suspension of disbelief is required, but the whole 'the girl ditched him' thing he seems to have got going is sort of straining it for me. I mean, the guy is bloody hot. I normally prefer blue eyed blondes and even I find him sex on a stick. So the whole 'hurt in love' puppy thing he has going? Unless there is a huge case of severe blindness in Asia I am not aware of? Unlikely.
What interesting lives TV doctors live. All that passion and angst and melodrama. Best Friend, who is a surgery resident currently, really must be lying to me when she tells me she has no news for me as all she does is work horrendous shifts and then gets home to crash. Yeah.
In other news, I have started on the second volume of Hana Kimi. First off, so much cuteness. I adore Sano who, if I were rather younger (and he wasn't fictional), I'd drag off to bed pronto. How someone manages to be both so grumpy and so sweet is a mystery. I am also completely enamoured of the whole 'she likes him but can't tell him because he can't know she's a girl and he likes her but can't tell her because he can't let her know he knows she's a girl' thing.
But you know what HK is making me think of, in more general terms? How fluid gender identity appears in manga and anime. Granted, I've seen it used in Western lit (from Twelfth Night to Heyer's Masqueraders) and it's often used in the anime/manga context the same way it was used in those Western stories, aka to bring women into a mileau they would normally be excluded from, but the prevalence strikes me as interesting. It's also interesting because it's almost as if it's het slash. In HK eg, one of the chracters is having a minor sexual orientation crisis because he is attracted to the heroine without knowing she's a girl (a time honored trope) and everyone assumes Sano has the hots for his new male roommate. But it's not really, because of course it's a girl.
But yes, the prevalence is insteresting. First we have Hana Kimi, where the heroine goes to a boys' school and masquerades as a boy. We have Ouran High School Host Club, where Haruhi not only masquerades as a boy, she acts as a male host. True, the boys of the club find out her gender in the frst ep, but the rest of the school has no idea. Then there is Nuriko in FY who Miaka (and everyone else) first assumes is a woman, and he is living as a woman in the palace.
Then there are characters whose genders are literally fluid. Dilandau in Escaflowne turns out to be a magicked Selena, who was a woman messed up with. And the hero of FY: Genbu Kaiden is a man who can only use his special powers in a female shape, and in fact when the heroine first meets Limdo, she gets naked in bed with him to warm up his hypothermia assuming he is a woman, and yup, there are breasts and everything.
I am far from an expert, but I doubt those are the only instances of such stuff. What I also like is that one's sexual orientation in such stories is not tied up to one's notions of gender identity. Limdo from FY is not only a gorgeous, straight guy, he is also one half of what is shaping up to be a complex angsty OTP, and is the true love of the heroine. In HK, Mizuki is clearly straight. She is in love with Sano and he dressing up as a boy has nothing to do with her orientation. There is not much to go on with Haruhi's sexual orientation, but if her appreciative reaction to Mori is any indication, she is at least bisexual. And even Nuriko is arguably bisexual by the end.
I rather like this notion of gender identity being fluid.
What interesting lives TV doctors live. All that passion and angst and melodrama. Best Friend, who is a surgery resident currently, really must be lying to me when she tells me she has no news for me as all she does is work horrendous shifts and then gets home to crash. Yeah.
In other news, I have started on the second volume of Hana Kimi. First off, so much cuteness. I adore Sano who, if I were rather younger (and he wasn't fictional), I'd drag off to bed pronto. How someone manages to be both so grumpy and so sweet is a mystery. I am also completely enamoured of the whole 'she likes him but can't tell him because he can't know she's a girl and he likes her but can't tell her because he can't let her know he knows she's a girl' thing.
But you know what HK is making me think of, in more general terms? How fluid gender identity appears in manga and anime. Granted, I've seen it used in Western lit (from Twelfth Night to Heyer's Masqueraders) and it's often used in the anime/manga context the same way it was used in those Western stories, aka to bring women into a mileau they would normally be excluded from, but the prevalence strikes me as interesting. It's also interesting because it's almost as if it's het slash. In HK eg, one of the chracters is having a minor sexual orientation crisis because he is attracted to the heroine without knowing she's a girl (a time honored trope) and everyone assumes Sano has the hots for his new male roommate. But it's not really, because of course it's a girl.
But yes, the prevalence is insteresting. First we have Hana Kimi, where the heroine goes to a boys' school and masquerades as a boy. We have Ouran High School Host Club, where Haruhi not only masquerades as a boy, she acts as a male host. True, the boys of the club find out her gender in the frst ep, but the rest of the school has no idea. Then there is Nuriko in FY who Miaka (and everyone else) first assumes is a woman, and he is living as a woman in the palace.
Then there are characters whose genders are literally fluid. Dilandau in Escaflowne turns out to be a magicked Selena, who was a woman messed up with. And the hero of FY: Genbu Kaiden is a man who can only use his special powers in a female shape, and in fact when the heroine first meets Limdo, she gets naked in bed with him to warm up his hypothermia assuming he is a woman, and yup, there are breasts and everything.
I am far from an expert, but I doubt those are the only instances of such stuff. What I also like is that one's sexual orientation in such stories is not tied up to one's notions of gender identity. Limdo from FY is not only a gorgeous, straight guy, he is also one half of what is shaping up to be a complex angsty OTP, and is the true love of the heroine. In HK, Mizuki is clearly straight. She is in love with Sano and he dressing up as a boy has nothing to do with her orientation. There is not much to go on with Haruhi's sexual orientation, but if her appreciative reaction to Mori is any indication, she is at least bisexual. And even Nuriko is arguably bisexual by the end.
I rather like this notion of gender identity being fluid.
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no subject
Date: 2006-07-27 02:20 am (UTC)*hearts Wiki*
no subject
Date: 2006-07-27 03:28 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-07-27 02:32 am (UTC)There's also W Juliet, about a girl who looks like a boy and a boy pretending to be a girl.
no subject
Date: 2006-07-27 04:26 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-07-27 03:10 am (UTC)Even to the more conservative Western mind there is a strong appeal to the gender flexibility. Limdo is appealing because he not only is hot in male form, but because he also would be a boy friend who knows what a woman really goes through. What girl hasn't wondered what goes on at an all boy's school and wanted to be the only female for miles? Same goes with the host club. Haruhi isn't a client, she really KNOWS the guys and has their special attention.
OHSHC takes the role reversal a step further even by having Haruhi be the "tough" part of the Tamaki/Haruhi pairing (which is much more a pairing in the manga). She's the practical, serious one while Tamaki is the drama queen and dreamer. In Hana Kimi, Sano is definitely the "masculine" one of the two without question as is Limdo even though he turns into a woman. With Tamaki and Haruhi the lines are more blurry. The same gender equalization happens in Magic Knights Rayearth because it's the WOMEN who are the magic knights. Yes, Ferio and Lantis are the significant others and heroes in their own rights, but their women are the ones generally doing the fighting. Anime is generally very open handed about having strong female characters (this is probably why I'm not so shocked by the Aeryn/John relationship on Farscape as the woman being the fighter in the relationship isn't all that foreign to me).
no subject
Date: 2006-07-27 04:29 am (UTC)There is the same reversal in the dynamic of what a lot of people see as a main ship of BSG (Kara/Lee) and I do like that.
I just find it interesting when the norm is reversed. Sure, I adore the whole 'I will protect you with my last breath' anime guys have often going on but it's fun to see a reversal now and then, just because it's so unexpected.
The Japanese culture is not so flexible, but mangaka know yaoi sells. Having characters that look male but aren't appeal to BOTH groups of readers and therefore you have more mass appeal
Interesting. It's very interesting to me when canon acknowledges the fan preference for slash (it's not the one I share but it's certainly popular in fandom). It's not a 'mainstream' preference but there is certainly a good-sized market out there and it's interesting when canon explores it and not just the fanon.