i remembered a discussion i had with the roommate the other day on the inherent homoeroticism of shonen anime/manga

and mostly, like, are there any shonen that don't have an incredibly fraught and Gay central dynamic in the cast?

and so far I've landed on Fairy Tail as the main one unless I'm forgetting anything but honestly I did not get big "want to kiss" vibes from natsu and gray

like between men? claymore

I may have been blindered by the incredible cheesecake of that manga, admittedly

yeah but claymore makes up for it with its industrial strength sapphic energy

and that's mostly because the cast is 99% women because they all have a lot of homoeroticism yeah lol

lmao it's really just raki and... isley? that's that bitches name right

isley, raki, uhh. that other guy i just call superb lion

the two soldiers from the cathedral city

oh right there was that lion guy

also, uh, the big stupid guy with the nail gun arms

me refusing to commit any of the men to memory

yeah dauf

he was in love with riful tho

he really was

which, sir, she looks like she's 12, stop it

i think the only other ones that are really light on the gay are FMA, which does at least still have roy and hughes being big husbands

The original (manga) FullMetal Alchemist? Like there could be content you could read as gay but it wouldn't be central to the dynamic and it's definit-

this is the only instance of this happening where like i'm like not okay with it but she legitimately comes off as an ancient eldritch abomination

alphecca: spiderman pointing at spiderman

yeah I saw you put it up in the middle of me typing it out

gravesinger: yeah she is really doing that on purpose so it's not entirely his fault

YEAH... they were a trip

i also did originally say soul eater mostly because it again did that rare thing that is make me care about a canon het ship, but i completely forgot spirit and stein being the most messy of ex boyfriends

I think a lot of the authors fall into "I have to make stuff for boys so all of the boys have to be relatable and well written and girls well they can come too but they're not AS important because I need the boys to eat up the boy content"

So you end up with a lot of the deeper and more believable/explored relationships being about guys because the focus is to make guys look cool

yeaaaah a lot of m/m content is definitely driven by the inherently sexist story-focus balance of media

though also sometimes you just get a naruto, and listen, kishimoto? come out of the closet you'll be happier

Mm-hmm, but it's especially prevalent in shounen because the target audience is specifically boys - like it's right there in the title.

I do have to wonder what things would be like if instead of separation by target audience things were more separated by genre

yeah the audience target distinctions in Japanese media often feel... deeply arbitrary

like dunmeshi and skip and loafer??? are seinen

but not attack on titan. sure that makes sense