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This Week in Anime - MHA's Heroes Put it All on the Line in Overhaul Arc




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Lactobacillus yogurti



Joined: 17 Aug 2011
Posts: 839
Location: Latin America
PostPosted: Fri Jan 17, 2020 6:08 am Reply with quote
The one little thing I didn't like about this review was the fact that they had to yaoi-ize the relationship between Tamaki and Mirio. Can't a guy just admire someone without having to believe he's got a boner for him?
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Gina Szanboti



Joined: 03 Aug 2008
Posts: 11306
PostPosted: Fri Jan 17, 2020 9:09 pm Reply with quote
Sure they can! Mirio admires Tamaki but there's no indication it's more than platonic admiration and friendship. Likewise Deku, Bakugo and that photographer all admire All Might. Lots of Deku's male classmates admire him. Kirishima admired Crimson Riot and I think he looks up to Bakugo even. There's nary a hint that Iida looks on his brother incestuously.

The framing of Tamaki's adoration of Mirio is different though. You can choose not to see it, but it seems pretty obvious to me he's crushing on him big time. Or maybe I'm the one choosing to see it. Either way, I don't see that it's a big deal (or even a little one). ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
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NeverConvex
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Joined: 08 Jun 2013
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PostPosted: Sat Jan 18, 2020 8:40 am Reply with quote
Tamaki's admiration of/adoration for Mirio doesn't feel romantic to me so much as it feels like the kind of hero worship that can result when you're intensely depressed, anti-social, and are feeling very isolated, and a singular person ignores all that and bombastically reaches out to drag you into their (and others') life (lives). That kind of experience makes Mirio feel uniquely larger-than-life for and important to Tamaki, and makes Tamaki put Mirio on a shining pedestal.

It is certainly easier to read romantic interest into it than the other male-male relationships in the show, though. Worship of the Tamaki-on-Mirio sort is an ingredient in a lot of not-so-healthy romances, and Tamaki's admiration for Mirio has a different tone of warmth/affection about it than Deku's for All Might, Kirishima's for Bakugo, or any of those in Gina's list.

Dropping away from the yaoi thing for a minute:

- Seems like I was unusual in not really finding the Dekeri v Overhaul fight all that engaging or well told (despite that I was very much looking forward to it!). I wonder if I'd have a different experience watching it once more..

- This arc has won me pretty thoroughly over to team flatface: Lemillion is the true hero! Deku's had a fine few seasons. Time to pass the torch.
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Lactobacillus yogurti



Joined: 17 Aug 2011
Posts: 839
Location: Latin America
PostPosted: Sat Jan 18, 2020 1:15 pm Reply with quote
I just despise fujoshi and fudanshi who will go and fantasize about two perfectly single male characters that have some kind of bond. Makes being part of a fandom annoying. And I used to belong to a fandom where it was either that or fangirls creating Mary Sue-esque OCs to marry the characters to them. So my tolerance for "finding BL where it ain't" is lower than zero. Let friends be just friends, godfreakingdammit.
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kotomikun



Joined: 06 May 2013
Posts: 1205
PostPosted: Sun Jan 19, 2020 7:59 pm Reply with quote
Lactobacillus yogurti wrote:
I just despise fujoshi and fudanshi who will go and fantasize about two perfectly single male characters that have some kind of bond. Makes being part of a fandom annoying.

Well... when there's a minimal number of action shows in the medium actually intended for a female audience, and even fewer anime of any genre with canonical gay relationships, and even fewer than that with canonical gay male relationships, and none of the above have any hope of achieving the level of fandom critical-mass of something like MHA... this sort of thing is going to happen. Representation isn't only good for the represented; it also takes some of the pressure off of the mainstream shows to fill that niche through fanfiction. In theory, anyway.

Personally, I don't really mind anyone's shipping of fictional characters; not like you're going to see that much yaoi fanfic unless you go looking for it. Fantasizing about real people, or cosplayers, is where it can become a problem, but that's pretty uncommon. In all honesty, I have to question who it is that's truly obsessed with this topic; given that we're all focused on this because of a brief and somewhat tongue-in-cheek bit of a long article that's mainly about an epic fight scene, maybe it's, uh, us.
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