I don’t necessarily think so. Hsiao just seems like a sexual person, which is fine. Like, in the omakes, she discusses Saiko in very much sexual terms, discussing her physical attributes and ‘peach fuzz.’
I actually admire how Ishida isn’t afraid to show female sexuality. Akira kissing Amon first (twice), Touka bluntly saying she wants to have sex with Kaneki and initiating it, Mutsuki expressing sexual desires and fears, Kimi has sex with Nishiki, Hsiao owning her sexuality, even Saiko talking about the Power of Boobs. Eto comes across as very sexual and enjoys being nude, but she’s not just a sexy monster, and we never see her having a relationship with anyone–i.e. it doesn’t define her. Women are often portrayed as either sexual monsters or virginal angels, but with Ishida that dichotomy isn’t there. They can be good and bad and sexual and loving at the same time.
Like, if he was drawing every single woman in his manga that way, I would start to arch my eyebrows. But he isn’t. Hinami, for example, is not sexualized in any way ever, and neither is Karren, even though her arc centers around Tsukiyama and her desire for his love. Hairu has some sexy bonus illustrations but they’re also generally goofy too, but within the actual manga she’s not really sexualized.
In fact, it’s interesting to me that men who try to control women’s sexuality are condemned. See: Torso, Tsuneyoshi, and notably Furuta, who expresses fear that Rize will have sex with men other than him, saying the idea of her getting pregnant would “keep him up at night.” And so he pushes steel beams on her, imprisons her and subjects her to torture create the Oggai. Rize comes the closest to being that nefarious seductress archetype, but Ishida kind of subverts that by condemning the men in the Garden and Furuta who try to inhibit her. He also clearly doesn’t think well of her lack of care for others, but that allows for grayness–Rize’s selfishness is awful, but it’s never an excuse for what’s been done to her, and the narrative never implies that Rize had it coming.
Actually, now that I think about it, Mayu/Nutcracker is another character that could fall into that archetype, and yet the trope is subverted again: she isn’t having sex with them and then killing them, she’s just taking revenge on men, and when she dies, she expresses that she just wanted to be beautiful.
I also think Ishida gives his… share of sexy fanservice with his male characters too. Ayato, Ui, Urie, and Kaneki have all been drawn in very sexy images, especially when fighting. If it were just the women, again I would be arching my eyebrows, but he does draw the men looking similarly sweat-inducing.
So yeah. I don’t have a problem with characters, female or male, being sexual. Some characters, just like people, are just naturally more comfortable expressing their sexuality. My complaints are actually more with the fandom reducing the female characters down to just their sexual abilities.
honestly though my favorite thing about gintama is the way that sorachi illustrates that it is absolutely fine to rely on other people and accept their help and support while also emphasizing the importance of self-love and self-respect. like there’s no gross “i’d be nothing without you” or “you’re my whole world” aspect to the relationships, it’s about what makes them happiest, not what makes them “whole”
it’s shinpachi, gin, tae, etc who make life on earth so great for kagura, but when she chooses to stay instead of going home with her father, it’s not for them, it’s for her, because she’s happier there. shinpachi is a kind and helpful person by nature and tends to baby gin and kagura at times, but he never lets them use him as a doormat, no matter how much he loves them. tae originally agreed to marry kyuubei but in the end, she chose to go home because she wouldn’t be happy leaving her family behind, and even after everything she kept up her friendship with kyuubei, not because she felt that she owed them anything, but because she loved them so so much. it was gin’s forgiveness and support that gave sakamoto the strength to leave the war behind, but it was still ultimately sakamoto’s choice for his own sake. sakamoto gave mutsu an opportunity to build a better life for herself but it was still her who decided that the change needed to happen at all. shinpachi and kagura want to protect gin not because they couldn’t live without them, but because they don’t want to. they’re happier with him in their lives. i could go on, man.
i just think that there’s this kind of idea going around that without our loved ones, we aren’t whole, and that’s a dangerous idea. no matter how many people come and go in our lives, it doesn’t change our value as individuals or our ability to live fulfilling lives. is it important to have a good support system and surround ourselves with people who have a positive influence on our lives? absolutely yes. but when we go through lonelier parts of our lives when it seems like there’s just nobody around, does that mean that we’re somehow incomplete? fuck that, man.
gin doesn’t replace ken or hajime for shinpachi. toushi and kondo don’t replace mitsuba for sougo. eli doesn’t replace zura’s old joui family. shinpachi and kagura and otose don’t replace shouyou for gin. losing someone doesn’t leave a void for someone else to fill.
the thing that makes the relationships in gintama so great is that they don’t complete one another so much as they help each other put the pieces of their own lives back together. they offer guidance and support and love and encouragement but in the end, the person they’re supporting comes to love themselves for themselves and do what they feel will make them happiest for their own sake. and that’s how it should be, really.
There is a rock paper scissors gimmick that basically works out like this.
The fights in Tokyo Ghoul however are for the most part thematic rather than for shonen manga power scale reasons. There’s also the fact that lately the vast majority of them have been one sided beat downs, or cutaways to the end of the fight rather than actual fights.
On one level this does make sense for thematic reasons, because once again power is not the most important thing in the manga. We see Mutsuki fight Seidou, and while there is no specific reason that Mutsuki should have an advantage against Seidou who tied with Sasaki in half ghoul strength, the way Mutsuki wins the fight is thematic. Cheap shots, and kicks to the dick, because Seidou is a character of masculine anxiety and a kick to the dick is weirdly on the nose symbolism about that. You could make the argument that Ukakus get tired easily, and this is Seidou’s fourth major scale fight in a row, Tatara > Houji > Amon and now this, but the thematically important thing is the dick kicking.
Kaneki’s fight that I reference with Juuzou also does not make total sense for Juuzou to come out of it completely unscathed if Kaneki really is supposed to be a monstrous ghoul whose capable of taking down Arima who has shown in the past to be far superior to Juuzou, but on the other hand it makes thematic sense because Kaneki was getting the rug pulled from under him.
The contrast between this and what happens next is effective. So while this trope is not always perfectly successful in execution, it’s important to remember that fighting and power levels aren’t really what matters at the center of this manga.
Hi (for a moment there, I was so confused wondering who you were talking about with “Johnny Brownie” xDD)! Don’t worry Anon, you can always share your thoughts or ask about something even if you weren’t the first one to raise the subject.
Anyway, about Brownie there… xD
…he’s either a Shinigami, an Angel or another Demon for me (since we’re not sure yet if there are other “kinds” of supernatural beings), but for now I’m slightly more about him being a Shinigami because:
I seriously didn’t like the anime so I don’t need yet another parallel with it
I rather like the idea of Seb being the only “supernatural creature” of the story (as in Angel/Demon, since Shinigamis are originally humans). Besides, since Demons in Kuro aren’t made out to be “good” or to become it, I’d rather have the opposite with Angels (as in, they’re supposed to be pure/good and not become… like what happened with Ash in the anime).
the Shinigami Organization (or rather maybe world or dimension?) seems to get bigger and more depth with each arc, so it would be interesting (in my opinion) if one part of Kuro’s possible big bad was linked to it
there is something about “50 years ago” with Victoria too, so maybe Brown is a deserting Shinigami, like UT?
Anyway, I’m kinda done with anime parallels (one reason I didn’t like the 2CT being the awful parallel to S2, which was even worse than s1 overall), so Brown not being an angel would be more interesting to me, especially if he and Victoria are the big bad (since it also happened in the anime, lmao).
For now, all that we know about Brown is that he’s not as air-headed as he pretends to be…
and also that he can travel very fast like Demons (and probably Angels too) or Shinigamis:
That signs him as a supernatural being, very probably, but that’s all we can be sure of for now.
I hope I answered your question, have a nice day Anon! ^3^
Hi Anon! Yeah me too, I really find that interesting and I’m glad Yana wrote it that way in her story, probably because she researched a little about Victoria. 🙂
That’s why Yana seems on point about Victoria’s obsession for Albert as well as Brown’s attachment to her, even if for now there is no way to really be sure of Brown’s… loyalty to her, especially since he has a possible parallel to Ash of s1 and we only saw a true side of him once, in ch108.
Anyway, I really can’t assume anything about Victoria’s feelings for anyone besides Albert in Kuroverse to be honest, but for now I think Brown is truly fond of her because she herself proved to be a very cunning character…
but I don’t want to be too certain of anything until we know more. :))
If Brown is a Shinigami though, it’s possible that he found himself fascinated by Victoria in a similar way to the feelings UT developed towards Claudia and her family. It would make a nice parallel…
especially if Victoria is responsible of both Claudia’s and Vincent’s death.
I didn’t know about the part regarding an Indian servant following in Brown’s footsteps though. xD I guess it’s really cool that she chose to be so open about her preferences and I agree with you, she is an interesting historical figure. 🙂
Thanks for all the info about her, there was a lot I didn’t know! Have a nice day Anon :33
Hello :3 Haha, well, I’m currently in a love/hate relationship with this theory. xD
I mean, I like it a lot because it’s the first one I published on my blog, because it’s an interesting plot twist on many aspects and because it gives UT a name, but at the same time… at this point, with what we know, it makes theorizing about UT and the P family so much more complicated than it has to be. xDD
For example, if UT = Cedric, then…
was he Claudia’s husband? Or was he Claudia’s lover?
Because if he was her lover and she was married to another man, it makes this less complicated than him being openly in a relationship with her (since he died centuries ago and all).
I mean, we don’t know yet when UT got his scars, it’s possible it was only during or post Claudia’s time as the Watchdog, so he would probably stand out less without them and a wedding to Claudia could work in this aspect, especially since the Phantomhive family’s position in society is a special one.
However, Yana hinted before that Claudia was Vincent and Frances’ last parent, since Tanaka is apparently the one who stepped up as the parental figure after she died, so in that case…
did UT and Claudia have a fight at some point, about the Watchdog duty maybe, which led to UT leaving? Until he found out that she died and he was angry with himself for not being able to save her?
In the first place, I never envisioned the UT/Claudia possible romance to be something full of rainbows and singing birds. On the contrary, since it seems that she and Ciel shared some similarities…
…I’d rather say that, if their feelings were mutually shared, UT probably had as much trouble with Claudia as Lizzie has had with our!Ciel until now.
I’m not sure what Vincent and Frances remember about their dad (in the theory of UT = Cedric = husband), or if they even knew him at all (in case
UT = Cedric = lover)
I’m not sure what UT’s role was during Claudia’s time as the Watchdog, but it’s possible that at some point he became fed up with her job
which led to him leaving Claudia, only to come back too late when he found out that she died/was killed, becoming the Undertaker and Vincent’s second evil noble afterwards.
That’s why, you know, I personally find that this theory possibly fits with Yana’s concept of son => mom and daughter => dad, for UT/Frannie/Ed [x] [x]…
…as you said, but besides that, it’s a real pain to deal with sometimes. xDD
I do think that both Vincent and Ciel remind UT of Claudia, as he expressed in ch32 or even when he said that overall, Ciel was different from his ancestors. 🙂 I think that he could also be very fond of both Frances and Lizzie since it was hinted that they might share similar personality traits with Claudia…
Sorry for rambling, as you can see I like this theory, I’m just not sure of how it played out yet, because there are way too many possibilities and it’s annoying, haha. Anyway, UT’s character and personal story are probably on a similar level of sadness as Ciel’s, since I find they seem to parallel each other rather well for now, but we’ll have to wait some more.
Hi! Hmm, well, since V seems to also be a part of this arc, as we saw they attacked both humans and ghouls only to be stopped by Takeomi, I’m worried about things really going smoothly to free Kaneki once the Qs comfort each other.
Anyway, I think the next chapter will be mainly about Mutsuki and Urie, aka Mutsurie because…
it’s wayy past its due time. xD Once Urie will finally speak about his feelings and that Mutsuki will feel like living again though, they should focus once more on the mission but that’s exactly when I think V might show up…
…especially where Touka is, since she’s currently alone and close to achieving her goal (of freeing her husband), while the Qs are together and everyone else is fighting against these humanoid clones Dragoneki released.
Of course, it’s also possible that V won’t intervene, or at least not where Touka is, but there is a reason they were shown to attack both sides in ch151 in my opinion: they don’t want the current situation to end well for the ghoul/human first common front, otherwise their equilibrium will crumble even more. Also, I wouldn’t be surprised if we were supposed to fear a little more for Touka’s character, which explains why I think it’s possible she might meet some V dudes.
Similarly, initially I wasn’t really sure of any ideas mentioning Donato’s involvement and him attacking Amon, taking advantage of the general confusion, but…
…since Seidou has yet to appear in this arc and that Amon will probably need help to face Donato, I’m not completely dismissing these ideas either.
In general, I guess it depends on how long the current arc will last. Volume 14 is supposedly over (or we’re missing its very last chapter) since its release is in a week, so Kaneki being freed could not be until the end of vol15 because it would make a good cliffhanger and anyway, narratively speaking, the current common front between humans and ghouls has to last a little for its first time.
So my two takes are as follows:
Kaneki is as good as freed as soon as the Qs comfort each other and are ready to focus on the mission, joining with Touka to help her
Kaneki is not exactly freed as long as the common front doesn’t notice V raising havoc and, in the meantime, we’ll have other issues like a Donato vs Amon little conflict.
Finally, since Dragoneki parallels the Nagaraj…
…who knows if this solution won’t be tried too, especially if the situation doesn’t seem to get solved quickly enough? At least, until the Qs and Touka manage to reach where Kaneki is when it’s almost too late, or something similar. 🙂
So you see, for now I’m really sure. ^^” I think I need slightly more focus being given to characters who aren’t the Qs or Touka, that way we’ll know more surely if Kaneki will be saved “soon” or not yet.
I hope it helps a little, have a nice day Anon! 🙂
Hi Anon! Well, I’m definitely not sure, unfortunately.
As far as we could see of V and their equilibrium, it seems that any hybrid not belonging to V’s side (so, not being from the sunlit garden) is seen as a threat because…
So do you imagine V not seeing Kaneki’s baby as a threat, if they find out about it? Especially since most hybrids in the story had human moms and Touka is a ghoul? That’s why I’m just not certain that V would even try to be helpful.
No, I still think that more about Touka’s pregnancy will come from either Itori or Kimi, or even both of them at different times. 🙂 I’d even consider Nico bringing possible info on the subject. xD
V is always going to be the enemy, at least until we get more answers about them (since I doubt Ishida is going to not give them gray aspects), so nope, I don’t think they’re going to be particularly helpful with Touka’s pregnancy.
I hope it helps, thanks for reading and have a nice day Anon!
I want to applaud Xanxus for being thorough enough to kill every heir to the Vongola except that one great-great-great grandson who’s like maybe 1/25 Italian
And I want to applaud Reborn & Nono for being petty enough to track that motherfucker down
midnight-in-town 