sacriligous as apple pie

I think it’s funny that the “Who’s more manly?” battle between Simon and Kamina has picked up again because of SaiGar, but let’s keep things in perspective. Don’t you remember what happened in Gurren Lagann before it made its epic turn in episode 8? I was openly worried that Simon and Kamina were, uh, getting too close. Hell, I even broke out an Anchorman line and wrote, “A part of me is glad that Kamina is dead, just because Kamina and Simon were quickly approaching Lulu/Suzaku and Heero/Duo territory. Bad times. Very bad times.” Do people not remember this? I say the manliest of men would never, ever have their sexuality questioned. They also wouldn’t have yaoi doujinshis for sale in Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei. I still stand by my choice for Taniguchi as manliest man of 2007. Now, excuse me while I do what traditional males do: gawk at the new Yoko artbook. (And, yes, Dan-kun would be second, for the reason why he won Most Interesting Couple with Miya-Miya.)

15 Responses to “sacriligous as apple pie”

  1. I tend to think that Simon is the more GAR of the two. Having been through the belly of the whale and then emerged as a transcendent hero, rising like the phoenix, etc., he made a great dynamic character who showed his GAR manliness not by having no fear, but by overcoming it. Many claim that that is the definition of a true hero.

    That said, Kamina is the true don. He was the sensei, the one who led the way and illuminated the path for Simon. Complete over-the-top bravado, Jack Welch caliber pep-talk action, even cool hand-to-hand combat skills – Kamina it all. His only failing was just that he was a completely one-dimensional character.

  2. Oh my gawd…? There is such an Yoko-artbook? I think I might be needing it! D: Or rather, GIEV!!

  3. Nozomu Ithoshiki as the manliest man!

  4. Oh come off it jason, they were just brothers! Right?
    Right!?

    ….right?

    (yes, yaoi has scarred me for life!)

  5. … And this is why the gay character in the novel I’m writing is going to be an unequivocal badass. Honestly, what makes people think that being gay automatically makes one not manly/badass? Gandalf, anyone (played by very gay Ian McKellen)?

    That aside, why is Yoko in a tennis outfit? Oh right, fanservice.

  6. Sexual preference and sexual identity have nothing to do with each other. The non-manliness that gay guys have is a complete stereotype, and, while it holds true a lot of the time, it doesn’t mean there aren’t gay men who fall outside of the stereotype.

    Kamina and Simon could be ragingly gay for each other, and it still wouldn’t change the fact that their actions were incredibly heroic and badass. If they had been gay, it probably would have alienated a lot of the fanbase (what? Gay characters who aren’t the but of stupid jokes? We can’t have that!), but it would have made for a great yaoi. Which is incredibly painful to think of, so I’ll stop there.

    Fiction needs more openly gay characters who aren’t the butt of dumb jokes.

  7. Dan-kun and Taniguchi FTMFW!

  8. Real men do whatever the hell we want. We’d kick butt, take names, and skip pass images of cartoon women to rape real ones… But we’d either be in jail, killed, or labeled “terrorists.”

    Being serious now; real men take responsibility and march toward their goals. No matter how hard times get.

    We don’t huddle in some room in our parents house playing h-games and dream-sex away the fact that you’re not getting any. Neither are we like 99% of the (young) (secondary) anime male leads who have their butts handed to them by the opposite sex and/or bad luck.

    Now if you excuse me, I’m going to do what REAL manly men do: Do a bit more searching for anime-based h-doujin and h-anime. And then I’ll go to sleep after working for 10 hours on a graveyard shift.

  9. No, but the gay community has embraced flamboyancy as an identity, and they sold their soul once they agreed to do Queer Eye for the Straight Guy and other derivatives. According to Wikipedia: “Out magazine listed the Fab Five in its ‘OUT 100’, the ‘greatest gay success stories’ of 2003.” As for Simon and Kamina, they were dangerously approaching some sort of Grey’s Anatomy-like drama between them and Yoko, and that’s the unmanly part.

  10. With the Simon x Kamina stuff in the post people are overlooking what’s really important: WE NEED MORE YOKO ARTBOOK!

  11. Well personally I always thought of their relationship as sibling love, but whatever floats your boat I suppose …

    And if you want gar male leads go watch Kaze no Stigma, pity it’s a Gonzo show which automatically makes it mediocre, but Kazuma’s awesomeness alone is worth watching.

  12. @Jason: Not trying to start a fight here, but embraced the image? I beg to differ, it was more like it was forced upon the community by people from the outside as what was expected by straight people. The vast majority of gay people blend in with the rest of the world (myself included), and the flamboyant ones are only a very small fraction of it. In fact, many people within the community are trying to move away from that image because of the negativity surrounding it. Oh, and “Out” is mainly a fashion magazine, so it’s not at all representative of the whole of the community or the average LGBT person.

    Granted, in TTGL the presence of Leeron didn’t help alleviate that stereotype in the least, but the point still stands. I’m going to stop now before I get really ticked off. It’s nothing personal against you, Jason, but I’ve heard way too much of this type of thing lately and it’s really beginning to tick me off. Just saying.

  13. SaiGar is highly amusing. While Kamina won this round the microbes got high marks at 500+…this while Taniguchi was able to bet out Gundam, but not his round. While is seems to be for laughs to some extent, I think SaiMoe will be just as amusing this year as the non-Japanese voting population increases. And I don’t mean those on 4chan. Voters from a dozen or more different countries speaking many languages.

  14. Yes, but that’s IF they can vote in SaiMoe. My ISP, as far as I can tell, uses transparent proxies which raise an alarm in their voting scripts, making me unable to vote. I also hear stories (true or not) that there are some blanket IP bans in place, which play havoc with some people’s attempts to vote.

    As for SaiGAR, I suspect at least part of the A.Niger’s votes came from proxy-monkeys, no way can a troll entry gather 500 votes just like that. It has the same stink on it as last year’s Archer versus Onizuka, where Onizuka’s vote was quite obviously shored up with some extra help (I think there may have been a few other proxied victories but this was by far the most obvious).

    Aaanyway, if Kamina wins this one I’ve no complaints, though I’d be equalyl satisfied with Simon taking the crown. Or some black horse, but the vote’s gone more or less as I’ve predicted so far (only 4 wrong guesses) so that seems unlikely.

  15. This looks like the best place for it,so I’ll just tell you that your almost-forgotten wish for Genshiken’s Ohno cosplaying as Yoko was granted. Sorta.:
    http://kei.iichan.net/genshiken/res/2171.html

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