Genshiken Nidaime and Spotted Flower

Note:  I originally wrote this post back at the end of August, 2014.  It's now early April and I've not posted anything because I've been incredibly busy with teaching at a local community college and finishing up my M.Ed. and my coursework for teaching certification.

As issue 110 was just released of Genshiken Nidaime and Kio Shimoku's latest interview with Anime News Network, I've got to say, a lot of what I've said here may not, at all, be relevant anymore.  I still feel very similarly to how I did back in August of 2014 but a lot of reveals since them have introduced and changed many of the facts.

Therefore, much of what is written here may not really be relevant or applicable.  End of note.

So, I reread all of Genshiken and Genshiken Nidaime in July and August.  It seriously made me reconsider a number of assessments I had made in my previous series (Intro, Parts 1, 2, 3, and 4) on Genshiken Nidaime's gender dynamics, although, on the whole, recent developments during the summer, including Kio Shimoku's recent publications in Afternoon (especially issues 101, 102, and the as-yet untranslated 103) have seemed to validate a number of my assessments.  Coupled with the two most recent issues of Spotted Flower (issue 12 and issue 12.5), I am going to depart from my usual style of "impartial" analysis and actually do a bit of "shipping."

I've no serious investment in whether Madarame and Saki get together.  Although I like the characters, I recognize them as fictional and I won't get upset if events don't play out as I'm predicting here.  The reason I'm writing this post, however, is to demonstrate the contextual and literary rationale for my "shipping," essentially arguing that Kio Shimoku has been spending about half of Genshiken Nidaime building toward the situations found within Spotted Flower via analysis of the plot thus far as well as analysis of the characters themselves.

I'm only going to discuss my reassessments in brief, so let's get them out of the way first.

Yoshitake
I will admit I mischaracterized Yoshitake's character as a literary Satan/Devil/Loki character.  While she is somewhat chaotic, most of this is due to her enthusiasm and happy-go-lucky personality.  She's not really experienced heartache, nor seen heartache in her friends.  She accepts that she's somewhat pathetic (re: Ogiue's question regarding everyone's romantic histories) but it doesn't seem to bother her at all.

The problem with Yoshitake is that she doesn't realize she's playing with fire by trying to set up Yajima with Hato.  Broken hearts are difficult to mend and while Yoshitake realizes that the circumstances surrounding Hato's infatuation with Madarame may lead to a breakup of the Genshiken as a whole, she doesn't seem to realize that her meddling could hurt Yajima as well.

Yoshitake's motivations are alright.  She wants Yajima to be happy and in that regard, she's a great friend.  Yajima doesn't have any confidence in herself and her feelings for Hato, albeit known to Yoshitake, are suppressed and denied by Yajima for fear of failure and rejection.  What Yoshitake doesn't seem to realize is that there's no doubt that Hato would reject any romantic advances from Yajima.  Or perhaps Yoshitake does realize this?  If Yoshitake does, is she trying to maneuver Yajima so that she, too, gets rejected like Madarame was rejected by Saki in order for Yajima to get over it?

I don't think Yajima will recover from a rejection like Madarame did.

Sue
After re-reading Genshiken, it became quite clear what sort of personality Sue has.  Sue finds Madarame attractive and is drawn to him but she constantly rejects and refuses her feelings in order to maintain a persona.  The fact is, Sue is almost always playing a character in front of everyone.  When she speaks Japanese from her heart and not by reciting quotes we get a glimpse into her personality--a caring, observant, sensitive person.  Unfortunately, she keeps this part of herself submerged unless the situation requires her to speak up and help the group to remain solid and harmonious.

Sue's defense of Ogiue at the Comiket is a fantastic example of this.  Sue's encouraging of Ogiue to not allow Hato to feel isolated after he "outed" Madarame as a fantasy uke is another example.  Sue's conscientious and despite her "funny gaijin" caricature, she's genuinely compassionate and perceptive.

Unfortunately, when it comes to Madarame, or perhaps just men in general, Sue's got some major issues and unless Kio Shimoku shifts focus in the upcoming Fall's issues, we're not likely to get a real look into her psyche to see what her deal is.  She's chosen a persona that's possessive of Ogiue and a self-proclaimed rival of Sasahara.  Granted, this rivalry isn't serious--it's all part of her act.  It's not who she really is.  Interestingly enough, everyone else seems to know this.

Like Madarame's shell of otaku-ness, Sue's persona is a big defense mechanism meant to protect her heart.  She easily bonds with the women around her and becomes protective of them.  The men, however, really don't get much interaction with her (with the exceptions of Hato and Kuchiki, who are, well, exceptional) beyond "Die, Sasahara!" and "Die, Tanaka!"  It's unclear whether she feels fearful and threatened by men or simply perceives them as rivals and antagonists.  Her feelings for Madarame are likely due to his growth toward passivity and unobtrusiveness.  He's not threatening to her because, as he expresses at the end of Issue #103, "Girls are scary!"  When it comes to Madarame, Sue can feel safe and in control.  Unfortunately, she is also scared of revealing her true feelings.  She's made her mask so important to her that she's resistant to actually expressing her actual self.

Unless something serious happens, like when the entire female contingent of the Genshiken cajoled and maneuvered Sasahara and Ogiue into coming to terms with their pasts and feelings toward one another, Sue is very much unlikely to ever confront herself enough to make any real, honest advances toward Madarame.

Hato
Hato's come to terms with himself and his hobbies.  Whereas I saw Hato as tremendously confused back in the Spring, I now recognize Hato as a character who has come to accept who he is and what he loves.  The problem with this is that he has become infatuated with Madarame.

Porn addiction is a serious problem and all of the female club members in Genshiken Nidaime struggle with it to one degree or another.  Make no mistake, porn addiction has been linked to a number of romantic and erotic psychoses developed by those experiencing it, male or female.  For most of the female members of Genshiken, their "addiction" is pretty mild-to-nonexistent.  In Hato's case, however, it has driven him to an alternate (and in Japan, deviant) lifestyle.  While the rest of the members struggle with it by characterizing it as a 2-D vs 3-D dichotomy, Hato has jumped down the rabbit hole and is deliberately trying to live out a 2-D fantasy in real life.

Keiko's blasting of Hato's character in Issue #102 has been questioned by some (such as Muda-kun at Hearts of Furious Fancies) as potentially bigoted and homophobic.  I argue that it's not.  Keiko is no saint and is a petty and narcissistic person (as evidenced by the big reveal in Issue #103, which, if people recall a few moments in the original Genshiken, isn't so surprising after all).  Keiko's criticism of Hato, however, is entirely correct.  If we are what we do, then Hato's a deceiver.

I don't dislike Hato and I don't think Hato is a Bad Person.  I do think Hato is doing something very unethical and immoral, however.  I explained it to Muda-kun thusly:

Hato deliberately put himself in situations where he would fall in love with Madarame.  His Hato x Mada fantasy is something he's desperately trying to bring into reality but the truth is, Madarame will end up in his own version of The Crying Game and everyone is going to be hurt in the end.  Indeed, Madarame could end up going full-blown hikikomori from this entire affair.  I know it's a fictional manga, but Shimoku isn't one to go after unrealistic plot resolutions and Madarame going gay for Hato is about as unrealistic as Madarame piloting a Gundam, not to mention damage if not totally destroy many of the premises from which Shimoku is working. 

If Angela [and Keiko are] bad idea[s] for Madarame, and [they're] cis-gendered heterosexual female bombsell[s], then Hato is potentially disastrous... .  Hato is quite confused but he's less confused than he was before.  What he used to be confused about was his orientation.  Now he's accepted it alongside his love of BL and his enjoyment of being a trans-gendered future-female.  These things aren't a problem--the problem is Hato can't draw the line between fantasy and reality anymore.  Although the fujoshi in the club have tried to help Hato out often it has come with side-effects that muddied the waters and made things inadvertantly worse (ex. when Ogiue, at Sue's urging, showed Hato her Sasa x Mada drawings, which simply threw gas on the fire).  What Hato is doing to Madarame is just as bad as a straight guy doing the same thing to a lesbian woman... . 

Everything she's said about Hato doing "shitty things" has been in regards to seducing Madarame, especially during a time when Madarame is weakened.  Since summer Comiket, he's been humiliated (in part thanks to Hato, in part, thanks to Angela), he's had his heart broken by Saki, been put in an awkward position because of it, had Angela show up again and humiliate him, broken his wrist, been told he's got the weight of a harem to navigate, and on top of all this, Hato is in full-on yamato nadeshiko mode with aims to seduce Mada.  Mada's not attracted to Hato, here, he's desperately attracted to the yamato nadeshiko Hato is dressing as and Mada's having a hard time keeping in mind Hato-chan's [not actually a girl].

Let's consider the last sentence of the second paragraph here.  "What Hato is doing to Madarame is just as bad as a straight guy doing the same thing to a lesbian woman."  I can't imagine any homosexual women approving or even remaining tacitly indifferent to a storyline in which a lesbian woman is "seduced" back to being heterosexual.  It's extremely offensive and the readers would be outraged not just at the writer but at the male seducing character as well.

It doesn't help that Hato is taking advantage of the fact that Madarame's years of sexual isolation and frustration have programmed a weakness to yamato nadeshiko archetypes.  Hato is deliberately accentuating and exemplifying the tropes and characteristics regarding the yamato nadeshiko just as much as he was accentuating and exemplifying BL tropes and characteristics when he was changing at Madarame's apartment.  The only difference is that Hato is no longer engaged in any internal debate.  He's completely committed to his cause.

If Spotted Flower Issues #12 and #12.5 are any indication, Hato is headed for severe disappointment.  This is a big turnaround for Kio Shimoku with regards to how things had resolved throughout Genshiken.  Nevertheless, given how badly some things turn out for the depressingly stupid and narcissistic characters in Yonensei and Gonensei I am wondering if Shimoku is going to bring forth bitter fruit for any of the Genshiken Nidaime characters' decisions.

The Case for Spotted Flower
Spotted Flower is a point of contention for many readers of Genshiken Nidaime.  Is it canon?  Are the characters actually the same as the ones in Genshiken and Genshiken Nidaime?  Is it an alternate universe?  Are the similarities between all the major (and unnamed) characters in Spotted Flower only to tease the audience or is Kio Shimoku changing certain aspects of appearance and omitting names only because of copyright laws (Spotted Flower is serialized in a jousei manga anthology magazine and not Afternoon).

There is the teaser at the end of Genshiken Nidaime #80 after Saki has let Madarame down.  Are we to consider this a plug for an unrelated comic, an unofficial and non-canon glimpse at a would-be future, or a look at the actual future for the characters?  It is my contention that, given all of the facts in Spotted Flower and Genshiken/Genshiken Nidaime that Spotted Flower actually is the future of the Genshiken but Kio Shimoku filed off all the numbers in order to avoid any legal issues that may arise from serializing Spotted Flower in a different magazine.

Kousaka
The biggest hurdle to demonstrate that Spotted Flower is in fact the future of Saki and Madarame is Saki's assertion that, if it were a different universe and Saki wasn't dating Kousaka, that there might be something between the two of them.

This, however, is just how she feels at the time.  If it weren't for Kousaka, Saki never would have even met Madarame, never would have come to care about and respect him (or any other members of the Genshiken, for that matter), and never learned to be tolerant of and even accepting of his otaku-ness.  This is blatantly alluded to in the first few issues of Spotted Flower, where the wife reveals she had dated the husband's friend from his college circle and that the relationship taught her not to feel revulsion for otaku hobbies and interests.  Thus, in Spotted Flower, it is already established that the wife once dated the husband's friend but the relationship ended, allowing the wife and husband to get together.

The following excerpt from the comic (found here originally) after Saki turns Madarame down is extremely revealing.

Kousaka asserts that he love's Saki enough to show her 100% of who he is.  That's lovely.  The problem with Onno's rejoinder is that she doesn't point out that Kousaka doesn't love Saki enough to change in order to give her what she needs.  This is a problem.  I'd say he would be a good candidate for someone with Asperger's if it weren't for some inconsistencies in his behavior that invalidate him.  Kousaka only shows affection for Saki when it is required.  He is perfectly comfortable with or without a relationship and in the earlier issues of Genshiken the audience is privy to Saki's fears and frustrations in not getting what she needs from Kousaka.  Kousaka feels no need to put Saki first.  This is a serious problem.

Saki's been a champion.  She doesn't demand Kousaka change for her and, indeed, she's grown and changed a great deal.  She's gone from being the Genshiken's primary antagonist to a hero that's rescued the club numerous times.  Saki may dearly love Kousaka but their relationship is not healthy, no matter how many Kousaka x Saki shippers try to demonstrate otherwise.  The few moments of their relationship that are illuminated for the audience in Genshiken Nidaime don't give any evidence that Kousaka has grown or changed at all.  His order of priorities puts Saki pretty low in comparison to his hobbies.  Anyone who has ever been in a relationship or studied even rudimentary psychology knows that Saki is in an unhealthy situation.

This is why I see her relationship with Kousaka as temporary.  After Saki started to change and became a true friend to the other members of Genshiken, I went from snickering at her relationship woes because she was a terrible, shallow, self-centered person to hoping she'd break up with him because she deserves better.   A break-up with Kousaka is almost inevitable.

Genshiken was about a lot of things but one of them is Saki's personal growth.  Similarly, Genshiken Nidaime is about a lot of things but it is also about Madarame's growth and maturity as well.  I think Kio Shimoku is setting up a situation in which, when Saki and Kousaka break up, Madarame will be healthy enough and able enough to participate in a relationship with Saki.

Conclusion
Kio Shimoku is doing one of two things with Spotted Flower.  Either he's giving the audience a glimpse of the Genshiken characters' futures, specifically Saki and Madarame, or he is trolling his Genshiken audience.  There really isn't much of a chance for any other interpretation or possibility.  It is entirely possible that the next few months of Genshiken Nidaime will feature events that drastically redirect the course of the plot (especially since Winter Comiket is coming and that means Angela's return, as well as the new school year and possible new club members in Spring).  Kio Shimoku progressed through four years of character growth and plot events in 55 issues (Genshiken), but the past 48 issues haven't even spanned the course of a single year!  A lot of fans are hoping that Shimoku wraps up the Madarame harem storyline soon, which has been going on for about 23 issues so far (that's nearly two years' of issues).

Genshiken Nidaime: Victims, Villains, and Gender Relations among Japanese Otaku -- PART TWO

Introduction
Part One

Sexual Dynamics:  Hato
Hato Kenjiro is confused.  Supremely.  Other bloggers have commented that homosexuality and transsexualism do not manifest as they do with Hato--not even when a person is "in the closet."  Hato, in my opinion, has no idea who he is or what he wants.  Indeed, he's extremely troubled and not at all attached with reality.

Hato and his alter ego--based on Kaminaga

I don't even know where to begin with Hato.  Perhaps with the fact that he began to cross-dress as a girl and draw BL comics out of his infatuation with his upperclasswoman/elder brother's girlfriend (now fiancee), Kaminaga.  Hato seems to need a senpai upon whom he can fascinate.  The problem is, he's not really being himself.  Indeed, I, as a reader, don't know who Hato is.  He's cloaked in so many personas within himself, constantly struggling to figure out which one he is that it is ridiculous.

It doesn't bother me that Hato cross-dresses.  It doesn't bother me that he's trying to figure himself out.  What bothers me is that he isn't taking steps to actually resolve his issues but exacerbate them, and he's dragging Mada into the mix.

As Hearts of Furious Fancies notes, Hato doesn't wish he was born a girl.  He appears to be a female trapped in a male body, but none of the typical internal dialogue about being so is presented to the viewer.  Hato is in conflict but the whole why is really obscured and obfuscated.  We get a lot of factors involved in his conflict but the nature of it is one of self-denial on some level.  Hato wants to embrace his female side but that female side evolved as a sort of redirected infatuation with Kaminaga.  This woman invaded Hato because he couldn't express his feelings for her--she was his brother's girlfriend!  So, instead of just carrying a torch along like Madarame, Hato created her clone within his own psyche.  Hato tried to become her.

This is extremely telling.

Down this path has led madness.  Hato is a hot mess.  He doesn't want to be a woman because he was "born that way," Hato made himself that way.  It is a coping mechanism gone all wrong.  Hato's been conquered by a Kaminaga clone he created.  The poor guy is an emotional train-wreck waiting to happen.  He's got far, far too much baggage he needs to sort out before he is even remotely ready for a relationship.

Hato cannot even draw unless he's dressed as a woman.  This is not a symptom of a well person.  It hints at schizophrenia, multiple personality disorder, you name it.  Perhaps I'm bringing far too sober and serious an eye to this entire thing but there is a powerful subtext of dysfunction that has surrounded Genshiken from its very beginning.  In the first generation, it felt very supportive and accepting.  Ironically, Hato gains acceptance but it is as a female.  The moment Hato attempts to accept his male self and stop cross-dressing, the entire dynamic of the club changes.  The female-dominated space feels slightly perturbed.  The female characters react to this with varying levels of acceptance to silent disagreement but no one really actually supports Hato's choice... except Madarame.

Why?  Because Madarame got what he actually needed, something he's been missing since Sasahara graduated and went off to work.  Madarame got a friend, a male companion... a bro.

'Sup, brah?  Or not...?

Mada Needs a Guy Friend
Although it crushed Hato on some level, the fact that Mada had found a guy friend with whom he could relate had been a huge boon to him.  Mada has, throughout Genshiken Nidaime, been shedding the layers of belligerent, geeky otaku-ness for a more mature definition of self.  It appears that he's been growing a degree of self-confidence, baby-step by baby-step.  Interestingly enough, despite the stripping of his dignity after Saki breaks his heart and douses his torch for her, Mada seems to still be building himself up as a mature adult.  He's still confused and trying to find his niche in the world but he's doing it somewhat calmly and in a relaxed, laid-back manner in contrast to his former self.

Mada's maturity is accompanied by his loneliness.  His old friends are scattered, living their own lives, busy with their own attempts at finding jobs, livelihoods, and enter the adult, Japanese, workaday lifestyle.  His closest friend was ostensibly Sasahara Kanji, who rarely ever pops up in the manga anymore.  Through his arrangement with Hato (who gets changed at his apartment), Mada has actually gotten to know Hato as a guy and not as a cross-dresser.  Mada has found a companion in male Hato.  The thing is, male Hato and female Hato are different people outwardly (although inwardly they're conflicting poles of the same persona).  Mada can deal with male Hato as a male friend--something he desperately needs.  Female Hato only confuses Mada more at first.  Gradually, Mada comes to accept both as two sides of a coin but he feels far more comfortable and safe with male Hato.

Female Hato has finally announced his affection for Mada, exacerbating the harem situation in which Mada finds himself.  (Use of pronouns here is getting... sketchy... so I'm going to use pronouns based on biology).  The thing is, Mada is straight and Hato is trying to validate his own confused needs and desires by latching onto Mada and making him the object of his infatuation and a replacement for his former senpai.  This is not only unfair to Mada, it robs him of what he really needed--a male non-romantic, non-erotic, entirely non-sexual friendship.  Comrades.  Pals.  Bros.

What Mada Doesn't Need
Mada doesn't need to be a replacement for Hato's former senpai.  He needs to be Mada.  He doesn't need to be Hato's uke or seme either.  He needs to be Mada.  Mada is a straight cis-gendered male.  (I swear to God, I'm going to burn my Genshiken tankobon if Shimoku is so gauche to magically turn Mada gay for Hato.  I think Shimoku is better than that--so far he's lampshaded most of these manga tropes and the whole, "I'm not gay I just love you" guy-on-guy romantic arc is a definite fujoshi-manga trope.  Nevertheless, I've been disappointed by cheesy dei ex machinae before and that one would just infuriate me because it wouldn't be true to Mada's character.)

Hato Doesn't Know Who He (or She) Is
Hato can't really get true, honest support because Hato isn't ever honest with himself.  Hato hasn't really come to grips that his female persona is entirely fabricated as a coping mechanism.  He may have admitted it but he hasn't really done anything about it.

No, strike that, he has.  He rejects it, stops cross-dressing, tries to accept that he's a straight male who likes BL and still tries to hang out with all the girls.  He tries.  He gets and A for effort.  Then Mada tells him how happy he is that he has a male friend again.

POW!  Hato is crushed.  Kuchiki tries to "go gay" with Mada for Hato but that guy is such a clown that all it does is make everyone look and feel ridiculous.  In the end, Hato throws in the towel and starts to gradually merge himself with his Kaminaga-clone self and start seriously and deliberately indulging in--and exacerbating--his crush on Madarame.  The sexual tension continues to ratchet up and Mada is caught in the middle.  In the end, Madarame has lost a friend and gained a harem member.  Mada cannot entirely be himself anymore because of this.

What has me tearing my hair out is... why?  Why has Hato fixated on Madarame?  Is it because he is desperately trying to manifest himself in one of his BL fantasies?  Is it because he actually is gay and in love with Madarame?  There is the constant reminder through the manga that reality and fantasy are not the same but that doesn't seem to be stopping Hato from trying to create some sort of romantic relationship with Madarame.  And all this seems to belie the fact that Hato is not a transsexual.  He is comfortable with his male anatomy even though he's emerging as a female persona.

Or is Hato a personification of Genshiken as a whole?  If that is so, then Shimoku is saying something really twisted about what happens when male spaces convert to female spaces.

Continued in Part Three

Genshiken Nidaime: Victims, Villains, and Gender Relations among Japanese Otaku -- PART ONE

Introduction

YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.

The Harem Problem
The Harem is a common trope in Japanese manga and anime.  From Ranma 1/2 to Genshiken Nidaime itself, the harem situation is often used in a sit-com manner.  The thing is, Shimoku is turning this trope on its ear.  Since Genshiken and Genshiken Nidaime are "slice-of-life" and strive somewhat for a realistic depiction of otaku interrelations within the larger macrocosm of Japanese relationship dynamics, Shimoku is constantly struggling against the tyranny of trope and audience expectation.  What makes things more interesting is that the characters are genre-savvy.  They become aware of the harem situation and begin to take actions in accordance with this awareness.

Japanese society is predicated upon the maintenance of harmony between all the members of a social group.  The harem situation is humorous from a Japanese standpoint because it creates a uniquely Japanese problem--how to maintain the status-quo between members of one's social circle when a number of females are crushing on a single male (note that the reverse-harem situation is not unheard of--not by a longshot).  That status-quo is harmony.  Thus, how does one maintain that harmony, especially if one is the singular object of romantic affection?

To an American, this situation is easily resolved.  Who do you love?  Pick her (or him) and the rest just have to get over it.  This has happened constantly before my eyes in high school and college.  Sure the status-quo is disrupted and harmony broken but just as often than not, people find a way to recover and preserve the social circle without the sense of weirdness and alienation.  We're far more used to the boat getting rocked, even though (given the situation) such boat-rocking may often be seen as bad form.  We're more forgiving, especially depending upon the situation when the boat is rocked.  We ask ourselves, "Was the boat-rocker justified in doing so?  Do they have a good excuse?"

In Japanese society, so much social capital is based on maintaining tatemae, face, and an avoidance of shame, that harmony becomes integral to every single social situation.  Criticism is not well-received, even between friends (indeed, less-so than in American society) unless very, very serious social and linguistic precautions are taken.  Hurting someone else's feelings is a moderate faux-pas in American culture--in Japanese society it is a grave offense.

What does this have to do with Genshiken Nidaime?  Simply put, Madarame has been placed in a situation that is far, far beyond his capabilities of handling.  And he knows it.  The poor guy is in so far over his head that it is a serious problem.  While Shimoku may be playing with the harem idea and its lampshading for laughs, the situation that the character finds himself is potentially destructive and could result in his alienation from anyone and everyone for whom he cares.  The stakes are incredibly high for Madarame and this is no laughing matter.

Mada's Dignity
Put simply, Mada has none.  Mada has no tatemae.  Mada is stripped, weak, and open.  Vulnerable.  These things are absolutely dangerous in Japanese society.  As my friend once said, a girl won't even admit she likes a guy but instead frame it as a double-negative: "I don't not like you."  There's always that shield, that barrier, that (to crib from Anno Hideaki) A.T. Field (you see what I did there?) between two people in Japanese society.  Trust is paramount in being able to reveal honne.  Unfortunately, Mada has no tatemae.  He has no defense.  He's honne to everybody.

Dousing the torch.

The most poignant moment is when Mada is shot down by Saki.  He's crushed on her since very early on in Genshiken.  She was always with Kousaka and Mada came off as this creepy otaku guy who masturbates to cartoon porn.  He'd go off on long soliloquies (much to Saki's annoyance and disgust) in order to push her away as a form of self-protection.  This is a defense-mechanism.  Girls aren't yucky and have cooties but instead are this mythical creature that exists somewhere else, somewhere where the guys are handsome and athletic, in shape, tall, cool, attractive and completely and utterly unlike the guys in Genshiken.  Many geek girls complain about how they're perceived and treated by geek guys but what they don't understand is that none of these guys have any idea how to relate to actual women.  Tanaka and Sasahara both manage to make the adjustment and get girlfriends but that step actually helps them overcome their situation and begin to view women in a much more egalitarian manner.  It is through their relationships that they achieve that maturity.  Madarame gains no such advantage.

Let's all celebrate the destruction of a man's dignity.

To overcome his social dysfunctions and his romantic disabilities, he cloaks himself in a tatemae intended to reinforce the disgust of females.  In doing so he exercises a degree of choice, of free will.  He cannot get a girl to actually like him but he can make her find him repulsive.  When given a choice between "do nothing and fail" and "do something and fail gloriously" Mada chooses the latter.  So long as failure is his conscious decision, he can exercise agency and is therefore empowered.  He is not a victim of social prejudice and misunderstanding.  While this refusal is empowering in that it allows him to keep his own sense of dignity through an act of free will, it is a hollow victory, a Maltese Falcon ending where Sam Spade surrenders love because he cannot bring himself to trust.  It's not healthy but it is what he has.

All of this comes crashing down when others gradually clue into his crush and orchestrate his "confession" of love to Saki.  I almost cheered when instead of confessing he attempts to maintain his dignity by saying "you had a hair sticking out of your nose."  Bravo, Mada!  You already know you don't have a shot with her, accept it, move on, and keep your dignity!

But I'm an American.  The Japanese don't approach things in that manner.  Mada would have continued to carry a torch for Saki and not been able to move on.  This I realized in retrospective.  Mada needed to be shot down.  I may be wrong in seeing this as a part of the Japanese character--as an American, I'd have told Mada to get over Saki and move on.  Perhaps Mada needed to be shot down because he is Mada, or perhaps because he's Japanese.  I am not sure where the one starts and stops, blends into the other, etc.  I'm not Japanese so my insight here is limited.

Anyway, Saki shoots him down and leaves him with no illusions.  Mada must douse the torch.  Now he can grow and move on.

And he's met by all of his supposed friends and... .  I found the reaction absolutely repulsive.  Again, maybe it is because I'm an American and not Japanese but Sasahara's sister does her utmost to utterly humiliate him.  She cheers that he got his heart broken.  No one stops her, no one says anything about it and his male friends don't come to his rescue in any way.  They don't extradite him from the situation as quickly as possible and get him into a new situation where he can a) get his mind off of what just happened and b) rebuild his dignity.  Mada even attempts to go on a repulsive diatribe and it falls flat, fails to restore his defenses, and just ends up making him look ridiculous.  As a result, Mada's dignity is utterly demolished, eradicated, and any real sense of agency or control, any capacity for free choice and self-empowerment, has been entirely nullified and stays nullified for quite some time.

What really bothers me is how his guy friends all mentally and emotionally just sort of check out when this happens.  They don't try to rescue him at all.  Frankly, they should all drag him off someplace away from Saki and Keiko.  They should take him to a baseball game, movie, or maybe even an izakaya where they can get him drunk and talk about anime and manga--anything to get the poor guy's mind off of the fact that he's been both humiliated and heartbroken.

This has set up a situation in which others can exercise choice and empowerment at Mada's expense.  This dynamic seems to have been utterly missed by every commentator and blogger I've read.  Mada is utterly and completely objectified by everyone around him (with, perhaps, the exception of Sue, which I'll address further below).

Love Among the Ruins of Mada's Dignity
With everything above considered, it should come as a sudden shock, both to reader and to Mada himself as a character, that there are a number of females (and one very confused and confusing male) who are crushing on Mada.  At face value, none of them are good choices for him.  Let's run through the list briefly.

It gets worse...

Angela Burton:  The blonde bombshell.  Well-endowed, exquisitely beautiful, the pinnacle of physical perfection.  Korean men speak of having a "white horse" at least once in their lives and if there is a Japanese equivalent, then Angela is the Platonic ideal of the "white horse."  She's ferociously attracted to Mada in a very predatory manner.  The phrase "virgin-breaker" comes to mind--the fantasy "first-time" for a young guy who has no sexual experience.  She's American (and so, stereotypically "slutty"--perhaps American girls have a reputation in Japan for being "easy" or something).  She doesn't speak Japanese but seems to understand it well enough.  She's also a complete bull in a china shop when it comes to Japanese social dynamics.  She has no concept of wa--harmony--and barrels her way through social situations that rocks the boat so hard as to nearly capsize it.

While on the surface, Angela seems like the ideal rebound for Mada.  She's in Japan once every six months.  That nixes any chance of a real relationship.  If she wasn't so utterly carnal and sexual (i.e. "stereotyped" and "objectified") she might be a decent match for Mada.  As it stands, she's only around for a few brief issues and therefore never developed past being a stereotype or an object.  As she is, she'd actually leave Mada far more emotionally damaged and romantically broken than he already is.  To her, Mada is a conquest.  If there was any evidence that she actually loved and cared for Mada, an encounter between the two may have massive healing potential for his character.  However, there's no evidence that she, herself presented as an object/plot device/stereotype, views Madarame as anything more than an object in return.  To be treated in such a manner by her would actually do more harm than good.

Sasahara Keiko:  Keiko sees Mada as a challenge much as Angela does.  Humorously, the two of them become heated rivals for "who gets Mada" and both are roundly defeated by Sue (who saves both the day and Mada's sanity).  Whereas Angela is sexually aggressive, gazing hungrily upon the hapless Mada like a female mantis, Keiko is flat-out abusive.  She purposely gets his name wrong, calling him "Wantanabe," conveying the very poignant insult that he isn't even worth her learning his name.  Keiko has no respect for Mada and did much to not only orchestrate his "confession" to Saki but also to spearhead his humiliation and the stripping of the remaining shreds of his dignity in the aftermath.  Any relationship with Keiko would be abusive and further damaging to Madarame.

This leaves Hato and Sue.

Hato... confused...

Continued in Part Two.

Genshiken Nidaime: Victims, Villains, and Gender Relations among Japanese Otaku -- INTRODUCTION

A quick warning:

THIS IS AN ANALYSIS OF A WORK OF FICTION.  IT IS NOT ABOUT ACTUAL, FACTUAL, REAL-LIFE GENDER DYNAMICS.  If you disagree with my observations and analysis, please keep that in mind and don't make assumptions about my actual thoughts/ideas on actual, real-life gender relations.

I've always enjoyed reading Genshiken from its inception.  Currently, I'm reading the sequel, Genshiken Niidaime and I've watched as the years have turned and the club has changed as the "old guard" graduated and moved on (or tried feebly to move on) and a new "generation" of students has taken over the club and dominated it.  This post is primarily in response to a number of posts made on Hearts of Furious Fancies regarding Genshiken Nidaime in specific but for the uninitiated reader, I will give a bit more of an introduction to my thoughts, which I'm airing out here to help me organize them a bit.  After all, that's what this blog is really for--its my own personal soapbox from which I can think aloud and help organize my own throughts and ideas as well as keep myself somewhat sharp in an environment that can easily result in myself growing duller.

Genshiken is a Japanese manga about an university otaku club--basically geeks and dorks who are on the fringes of Japanese society.  The otaku boom/Akihabara boom last decade and the success of such stories as Densha Otoko brought a degree of sympathy for otaku and their corollaries (such as the hikkikomori, cf. Welcome to the NHK, for example).  The boom did not result in the superlative mainstreaming of this fringe element the way that the success of "fringe-demographic" films, such as the Avengers and related Marvel films, the Star Trek reboots, the Game of Thrones HBO series, The Lord of the Rings/The Hobbit films, etc., mainstreamed American "geekdom."  The otaku was, is, and will always be on the fringe of Japanese society and the otaku hobbies must always be buried and hidden with shame from the steely gaze of Japanese culture, a culture which perceives strength in uniformity in ways American society does not.

The author and artist, Kio Shimoku, created Genshiken around 2002 and it ran in Afternoon until 2006--right smack dab in the middle of the otaku boom.  Through the manga, he explored the dynamics of otaku interrelations, friendship, and even romance.  His characters are all rather flawed and very much human.  The original run ended with the characters graduating from college and (hopefully) getting jobs at the end of their final year of college.  Genshiken Nidaime takes place after the old characters have graduated and the new circle is predominately female.  Whereas the first iteration of the comic had to deal with females invading a male-dominated space and disrupting the safety and security of that space with their femininity, their sexuality, and their own tastes in the erotic (which brought interesting levels of tension to the comic), the new generation is centered on a club that is now a female space, is female-safe and female-friendly, and the only male that actually fits into the group comfortably and contribute constructively only does so when dressed and acting as though he were a female.

There is a great deal of detail that I am leaving on the cutting room floor and this blogpost isn't entirely for the uninitiated.  I'm going to be throwing names out there so it may be useful to the reader to at least have read the wikipedia entries and maybe Genshiken Nidaime itself, if not the original Genshiken in order to be up to speed.

With this caveat and preamble, I'm going to dive into a sort of dialogue with Hearts of Furious Fancies spurred by this post on one of the main male characters' romantic attraction to heroic females.  Other posts have also given me a great deal of food for thought and after a few discussions with friends who understand Japanese culture far better than I, I've just gotta put my ideas down in print to see where things go.  So, let's jump right in with both feet, shall we?

Continued in the Part One.