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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.
