Akebi-chan no Sailor Fuku - Vol. 8 Ch. 45 - The Back Seat

[SuperOniichan]

@RNDM1 I would draw your attention to things like akogare, but I'm generally surprised that I have to explain to someone that people can adore someone or be roommates without any sexual connotation. Especially at that age.

 

[RNDM1]

@SuperOniichan I'm well aware. Those two are pretty much joined at the hip, though, and you'd be hard pressed to argue Nawashiro isn't acting like a textbook "teenager with raging crush" in this chapter.

 

[SuperOniichan]

@RNDM1 The fact that they are "joined", again, does not make them a more than friends. And this girl acts like a pretty stereotypical girl who admires the boyish sempai in her school, which is called akogare and has been a cliché since the Class S novels of the 1920s. It's not ship goggles, yes, but without explicitly expressing romantic intent, it's nothing more than ambiguous.

 

[RNDM1]

@SuperOniichan Only it's her class- and roommate and well predates the change to more "boyish" looks which happened exactly last chapter.

Also GL with that "explicitly expressing" in the context of a culture and language as well-nigh actively hostile to cutting the crap as Japanese in general, and the typical scenario of a teenager's (presumably) first crush in particular which rather universally lends itself to enormous amounts of hemming, hawing and general unsure dithering.

 

[SuperOniichan]

@RNDM1 I love how you keep pointing out that they are roommates as something symbolic, lol. It doesn't matter, even without this hairstyle she has the most characteristic set of features for an ideal "Washio-sama", at the sight of which all schoolgirls start a waterfall in 1-2 seconds.

I didn't quite understand what you wanted to say in the second paragraph, but this is quite a typical trope for Japanese female culture and even somewhat full straight if the fangirling object is masculine enough. All the "scientific" chatter aside, while it consists of pure fangirling without obvious sexual intent, this is the typical akogare that many girls go through at this very moment in their lives. Japanese, especially women's culture generally includes a lot of platonic (mostly) gayness, which is very context-dependent.

 

[RNDM1]

@SuperOniichan Except there's nothing *symbolic* about it. The stereotypical akogare no sempai sentiment is more or less hero-worship at some distance; nothing of which is applicable here when we're talking about people of the same age who're together pretty much 24/7 (that morning roll-call scene is their only "separate" appearance IIRC, and even then very conditionally) - they see each other wake up with bad bed hair, so to speak, which sort of thing tends to be a wonderfully effective antidote against overly romanticized ideas about the other person.

I've actually seen a similar corollary being discussed in-story in a yuri manga where the MC mulls over how she can't explain away her fixation with her coworker as classic akogare no sempai or similar because, well, the woman isn't meaningfully senior to her in either age *or* position.

The second paragraph meant simply that asking for "explicit expression" is rather ridiculous in both the specific and wider cultural-linguistical context. The Japanese are *infamously* averse to saying things straight, to sometimes factually inconvenient degrees when all the roundabout decorum obscures the actual intended message even from each other; and teenagers are universally terrible at even recognising their own emotions at the best of times.

 

[SuperOniichan]

@RNDM1 You are confusing Akogare as a modern cultural trope and the stereotypes of Akogare from 1920s literature. With the same logic, I could tell you that it cannot be yuri, because they do not entwine their fingers against the backdrop of huge lily petals, lol. Even there, akogare only grew stronger when girls became surrogate sisters. And yes, given the specifics of the then all-girls schools, many Class S plots began with "Oh my God, I became Yuriko-oneesama's roommate! 11".

Nobody said that she directly expressed her intentions. Akogare and other stuff already includes ambiguous homoerotic symbolism. This is normal and one of the favorite aspects of Japanese culture. There will be enough characteristic symbols, situations or motives to understand this. Also, who told you that the situation is not the opposite, and the author does not use homoerotic metaphors for platonic things? The latter happens much more often, including in the Japanese media, as it is a general trend in world literature, from The Lord of the Rings to Anne and the Green Mizans.

Anyway, even if I have drawn some conclusions for myself at the moment, I do not want to make any hasty statements. Let's wait for the next chapters and see what development this will have. If she stays at her fangirl level, good. If Hiro makes it clear that it's sexual, that's good too. Why not?

 

[Limimelo]

Yay new characters ! Everyone is so cute I hope they all get their chapters

 

[gronkle]

I'm going to deliberately ignore the paragraphs to say: OH SHIT THEY ARE ALL SO CUTE

CUTE, I SAY!

SO CUTE!

 

[Hinji]

Seriously, I need a list of Komichi's classmates with their photo. I keep forgetting their name. Some even has same feature like Erika and this blondie

 

[sunshinelemons]

@superoniichan Butting in with my two cents, hope you don't mind: "Japanese, especially women's culture generally includes a lot of platonic (mostly) gayness, which is very context-dependent."

Only place I know from experience and from others agreeing with the sentiment, where this does not apply: when a girl/young woman knows for a fact she is interested in women romantically and otherwise. Being platonically touchy-feely and romantic with friends is a no-no when you're a lesbian/bi woman. Doing so means you're predatory, even if you do things as innocently as they do. Having that interest in the same sex, thanks to the narrative of homosexuality created by people who hate gays, means anything is predatory and you constantly remind yourself of it.

By the by, hope you have a good week, dude.

 

[SuperOniichan]

@sunshinelemons I don't quite understand where you are leading, but in the modern sense, being gay is a pervert by Japanese standards. Even if we consider that in traditional Japanese culture there has never been homophobia in the Western sense.

 

[sunshinelemons]

@superoniichan Yeah, that's on me, I was more focused on a Western view rather than the Japanese view.

 

[SuperOniichan]

@sunshinelemons Until recently, Japan had a completely different view of sexuality, so homosexuality did not exist as a subject for them.

 

[caitsith]

I like Togano already.