Tag Archives: slam dunk

The Emergency Heteronormative Character

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There is an archetype in anime and manga that I’ve begun calling the “Emergency Heteronormative Character.” 

In the beginning, many manga creators do not know where their comics will end up. Rose of Versailles was supposed to focus a lot more on Marie Antoinette than Oscar. Kinnikuman famously began as a superhero parody before it turned into a full-on wrestling manga—and all because its authors, Yudetamago, really got into the latter. A single storyline in Yu-Gi-Oh! about a trading card game permanently altered its entire trajectory. I think the same thing happens with series where character relationships are important.

Some love triangles know exactly who the end girl will be, whereas others might not arrive at an answer immediately (or ever). But I have also seen series where a particular character, usually a minor one, seems to exist just in case, as if above them is a message that reads “Break Glass if Heternormative Romance is Necessary.” 

I have never read Slam Dunk, but I’ve heard about Akagi Haruko: the female love interest of the protagonist, Sakuragi Hanamichi. She is a fairly important character at the start (being the one to spark Hanamichi’s entry into basketball), and she’s even the focus of the anime’s extremely beloved first ending sequence. But over time, she recedes into the distance because the dynamics between the players themselves are what really draw people in. 

The appeal of shounen sports series for shippers plays right into this pattern. Whether it’s Prince of Tennis or Yowamushi Pedal, there often seems to be a girl character who is like an anchor on the port of heteronormativity, allowing a manga creator to double back if need be. Even Saki has some of this energy in the earliest volumes. The character of Koutarou began as the sole male member of the mahjong club, acting as a potential male audience stand-in to witness the girls in their nonchalantly risque glory.

BL and yuri potential often drive a good deal of the relationship interest in series like the ones mentioned. However, the Emergency Heteronormative Character can even exist in series that are pretty heterosexual too. In Rokudo’s Bad Girls, you have Tsuyukusa Mizue, the only non-delinquent girl in the series. She’s meek and cute, and always worried about how the main character Rokudo seems to be turning to the dark side. And while the anime is on an accelerated timeline, the early part of the manga makes it pretty clear that she could have been Rokudo’s “saving grace” if the series had gone a little differently.

Emergency Heteronormative Characters aren’t automatically bland, and they can be fun and charming in their own right. That said, they often feel like the product of an author hedging their bets, and they typically shine less brightly because they are simply not meant to be in the spotlight as much. I also have to wonder if these characters exist on some level for in case a title needs a quick romantic conclusion should things need to wrap up quickly. However, as we further leave the era where nice and neat heterosexual relationships are seen as necessary, maybe the archetype will have to evolve into something else entirely.

Plain 90s Anime Beauties

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I’ve been on an “90s anime theme” kick recently, watching various live concert performances and animated intros/outros on YouTube. When you look through them, there’s a recurring tendency in shows of the time to have ending animations highlight the token female character as she existed in the 90s. What stands out to me in particular is that a lot of these girls are designed to be fairly pretty but not excessively beautiful, talented but not too talented.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t9wIFcHsfFE

Frequently, the 90s girl is the protagonist’s love interest, especially in series with heavily male-dominated casts, and in shounen works also works as either an everyman or expositional character to get the reader up to speed on the rules of the story. She’s the ideal support for him and his passionate pursuit of whatever goal or motivation he possesses, and it’s this sideline cheerleader that has more recently fallen by the wayside in favor of a new breed of heroine, who still might not be in the spotlight but possesses some sort of “other” talent. The example that immediately comes to mind is Akagi Haruko from Slam Dunk, who knows a bit about basketball and is the target of affection for the hero, in contrast to Aida Riko and Momoi Satsuki from Kuroko’s Basketball, who have support “powers” for their teams and whose roles as possible love interests are not as prominent (perhaps influenced by the greater fujoshi influence of Kuroko). None of them are stars of their stories, but I think there’s a clear difference between then and now.

If the main character’s love interest is supposed to be an ideal, I have to wonder why they’re so frequently designed to not be quite so ideal in the first place. This could be chalked up to “good characterization” in some cases, and a “boring” or “plain” female character to a potential viewer outside of Japan might be seen as a “yamato nadeshiko” type perfect woman in Japanese culture (e.g. Shinguji Sakura from Sakura Wars). However, I can’t help thinking that there’s something else, like a desire to promote the plain girl as the one young readers of shounen should be aiming for. Pining for the hottest girl around might somehow have been viewed as impractical or even wrongheaded, and that the childhood friend, the girl next door, would be the far better choice. Was anime and manga trying to teach its audience what kind of love would be the more realistic choice, or is it just that having these girls be fairly plain is simply about pushing the heroes further to the forefront?

 

Are the releases we want going to be the releases we get?

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One complaint always leveled at anime companies is that they charge too much for anime. It’s something I’ve criticized in the past myself. Well, companies are finally listening and we’re seeing a variety of attempts to lower the cost of watching anime.

Gonzo plans on continuing its free online subtitled broadcasts with a continuation of Strike Witches.

Gainax and Bandai Entertainment have made it possible to watch the smash hit Gurren-Lagann on network cable via the Sci-Fi Network. Not only that, Bandai is planning a blitzkrieg release with 9 episodes per disc with a release of 1 disc per month. That’s 3 months for ALL of Gurren-Lagann.

Maria-sama ga Miteru, officially titled now as Maria is Watching Over Us, has an upcoming release of the entire first season at once. That’s 13 episodes from the get-go. No waiting, no nothing.

Media Blasters is releasing the second half of Gaogaigar all at once for practically nothing as well. This has less to do with plans and more to do with the fact that GGG did not do so well in the US, but it’s there.

And finally, Toei Animation has given the courtesy of releasing episodes of Hokuto no Ken and Slam Dunk online at $2 per episode. Granted, there’s some Digital Rights Management crap that we have to deal with, but they at least figured out that this is a better way of giving exposure to older series such as these.

So the anime industry has finally stepped up their game, and made it easier than ever to obtain anime from legitimate sources for affordable prices. It is now up to us as fans to support them, to tell these companies that, yes, we are willing to give you money directly provided you make it possible for us without sacrificing an arm and a leg when we do not have the fortune of being Edward Elric.

I don’t expect people to buy every single example I list here, and of course people’s income situations vary greatly, but I think it’s important that the anime fandom show that we are supportive of new attempts to get anime in our hands.