In the Clear Moonlit Dusk

Episode 4

Welcome back, class. This week, we will focus on the roles of the gaze and physical touch in the fourth episode of In the Clear Moonlit Dusk, “Temperature of Love.” First, I would like to thank everyone who participated in the discussion and made an effort with the homework. Your enthusiasm is seen and appreciated. Now, let's talk about the gays. I mean gaze.

“Temperature of Love” invites this discussion from the first minutes of the episode, with Ichimura discussing his relationship with Yoi with his Blowjob Brothers. I mean friends. He describes his desire to look at her all the time, to incite and view her different reactions. His friend describes this as “love at first sight.” However, I have my doubts that this is accurate. The desire to look upon someone is not “love,” but desire. He certainly desires her, but in what way? And how does that manifest?

The best-known theory of the cinematic gaze is Laura Mulvey's theory of the "Male Gaze" as described in her essay, “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema.” In it, she describes three types of gaze: the director's and the camera's gaze, the gaze of active male characters toward passive female characters, and the gaze of the audience enjoying the patriarchal dynamics. In the fifty years since Mulvey's publication, many discussions have complicated and built on the theory to create a more intersectional analysis, such as bell hooks' "Oppositional Gaze." Lacan has a fairly complex theory of the gaze, but as that reading is not a prerequisite for the class, I will not go into it. I definitely understand it, though. Nobody is saying I don't understand it myself.

Discussion questions: Are you familiar with any theory of cinematic gaze? How can you use them to read the text? If you are familiar with Lacan's theory, summarize it in your own words.

Anyway, let's get out of the weeds here! Mulvey's theory of the Male Gaze isn't fully applicable here, as In the Clear Moonlit Dusk is a shoujo manga, created by a female artist for a female audience. There is no presumed male gaze in that way. Instead, we can examine the role of Ichimura's gaze in the story. Ichimura's desire to gaze upon Yoi is the story's main driving force; her gender is mediated by how he and others see her, and by whether that conflicts with her internal identity.

Discussion questions: How does the male love interests' gaze figure into stories aimed at heterosexual female audiences? Does it differ in anime and manga from Western stories, such as Twilight?

Ichimura's gaze contrasts with the others'. When Ichimura and Yoi go out for gyoza together, they sit across the table from one another, where their gazes reflect back and forth. Their date is interrupted by the Blowjob Brothers, who themselves are out for a meal at a restaurant. When he refuses to let them join him and Yoi at the table, they take a seat at the counter to watch and heckle the couple. Ichimura responds by sitting next to Yoi to block their view.

Ichimura is not just protecting Yoi, but preserving the ability to gaze at her for himself. What his friends are doing is rude, true; however, Yoi remains quiet until he takes steps to stop them, without checking whether it's bothering her. Ichimura's gaze is active and possessive, while Yoi is passive in the face of others' looks at her; he takes it upon himself to preserve that ownership. She is his to look upon, and nobody else's. With his domination established, he takes the next step: placing his hand over hers on her leg, despite her explicit request that he not do so earlier in the series.

He continues to look at her the entire time they're seated next to each other, until they are once again interrupted by the gaze of others: this time, a pair of young women who see them and assume they're two boys flirting. Yoi snatches her hand away, embarrassed. The episode resumes on the walk home, as Yoi and Ichimura continue the conversation about their feelings. At the start of the episode, she became upset with him because he hadn't said he liked her yet. Now, Ichimura says that he still isn't sure about his feelings, but he wants to test them by touching her in several ways, such as holding hands. He even leans in for a kiss, but then stops, claiming to be worried about garlic breath.

Discussion questions: How has the framing around Ichimura's touch shifted since the beginning of the series? Do you think his “tests” are effective? How does touching play into the power dynamics of the relationship?

Back home, Yoi reflects on her feelings and how she's gone from uncomfortable around him to wanting him to fall in love with her. She clarifies that she doesn't want him to find her beautiful or to express physical desire; she hopes that he will develop genuine feelings of affection and companionship with her. At the end, she thinks to herself, “What a self-serving way of thinking.” The episode then cuts to Ichimura lying in bed, thinking about why he stopped kissing her, believing he wouldn't be able to stop himself from going further.

Interestingly, Yoi does not filter her thoughts through her own desires, but rather through what she wants from Ichimura. This brings us to what I believe the role of the gaze speaks to throughout the episode: that to gaze upon another and desire another is masculine, and to be gazed upon and desired is feminine. Because Yoi wants to be seen as feminine, she feels ashamed of her own desires and can only think of their relationship in terms of how she wants him to act on her, rather than how she wants to act on him. Even then, she feels ashamed for wanting that much. Ichimura, as the man and the active party, only reflects on his own desires and actions.

The final scene of the episode brings us back to the gaze once again: Yoi avoids Ichimura, so he corners and kabedons her. She says she feels she can't look him in the eye, and they discuss renegotiating boundaries. Finally, she thinks, “I feel like some kind of emotion the eye cannot see is gradually changing me.”

We're out of time, so here's your homework: Discuss those final lines through the lens of gaze theory!

Rating:

In the Clear Moonlit Dusk is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.