Yuli Ban wrote: ↑Mon Jan 01, 2024 5:55 pm
@Julie
You know I've always wondered, and this is the perfect thread for it. Considering you ARE a queer person, what would you be interested in seeing in a DB remake anyway? I'm genuinely curious (and might crip some ideas for the Yabanverse whenever I get around to that). All apologies if you laid it out bare at any point, I don't particularly use this forum much even at my most active so if I missed it, that's my bad. But what would your dream DB remake look like?
Oh, sure! My short answer is that I would like to
not distract from the cool ass-kickings with weird writing of women and queer people. It's weird, it's offensive, and it does nothing to actually add to the story. That's just the base-level "Please don't make this weird to read/watch/play/etc for a lot of your audience." Everything in storytelling is a tool, and it's important for a creator (writer, director, actor, musician, animator, you name it) to know
how to use your tools and understand how the people who participate in that art (creation
and consumption, for lack of a better umbrella term) are affected by it.
I'll use
Dragon Ball Super as an example, because I think it's handling of Kale and Caulifla—while not perfect—is a marketed improvement and something that I hope future people with the authority to make
Dragon Ball works (without getting sued into oblivion) should build upon. Kale and Caulifla's relationship is what's called 'subtext' (for anyone reading this that doesn't know). A lot of older media from decades passed used 'subtext' as a manner for dicussing and educating on issues of how the world currently is and how a better tomorrow can be. Personally, as both a writer myself and someone who has to actually read/view art that discusses the minority groups that I am a part of (woman, bisexual, trans, nuerodivergent, disabled, etc.), I can't stand subtext. After decades of eating the shit I'm just done with the whole "keep your head down and maybe they'll throw you a bone or two." A lot of Japanese comics/anime/light novels (sadly aimed mostly at adults) will just straight up depict canonically (textually) queer characters positively and without subtext, though. I recently finished the
I'm in Love With the Villainess cartoon series, which used poor representation of queer characters as commentary for how these characters are typically portrayed in predatory manners as a springboard to also discuss the real issues that queer people face. I've read that the light novels go even deeper into this sort of thing, and while I'm not even expecting
Dragon Ball to get too deep into the nitty-gritty of discrimination, I think doing so
would provide better fuel for the series' main attraction: sweeping, ridiculous rivalries and cool fights.
So, yeah, Kale and Caulifla: Kale's insecure, but in love with her 'boss', Caulifla. Kale's arc is learning to communicate her feelings to Caulifla and be recognized, which we eventually see during the Tournament of Power when Caulifla turns to Kale and encourages her to control her power (which could easily be read as subtext for her queer love). Kale does so and achieves a new Super Saiyan form. About ten episodes later, Kale and Caulifla's relationship has another spike where they work together against Gokuu, and it eventually culminates in them combining with the Potara. One can easily read the formation of Kefla as a metaphor for sex or even marriage. Personally, even if it still would have been a
soft admission, I wish that the two would have kissed in the last episode. It wouldn't have been surprising at all (just like the ending of
The Legend of Korra isn't a surprise at all if you follow the last two seasons and know what to look for in a Sapphic relationship).
And the thing is, Toei Animation isn't exactly a stranger to even more strongly depicted queer romance.
PreCure has numerous queer-coding, both in how Nagisa and Honoka are constantly together, have dual wedding dress figures created for them, and have their entire series built around their bonds. Then there's
Kirakira Pretty Cure a la Mode, which has Yukari (femme/princess-coded) and Akira (butch/boyish/prince-coded). They are the Kirakira team's only high schoolers, they're consistently paired together, and oh my fucking god there is no
heterosexual explanation for these bitches.
Hell, in
Hugtto PreCure there's both
Emiru and her android 'friend' Ruru, Henri and Masato. Masato is Emiru's homophobe-coded older brother who comes to accept his sister's desire to 'play the guitar' (something that she does alongside Ruru), then he learns to accept Henri and they become 'friends' (falls in love) with the trans-coded femme Henri. Henri is technically treated as a boy (and one of the franchises first two male PreCure with Masato), but is so heavily gender non-conforming that one can
interpret his character as being a soft-inclusion of a trans femme. Actually, Masato x Henri isn't even subtext!
In the final episode Henri literally blows Masato a kiss during one of his skating performances and Masato
catches it!
Allllllllllllllllllllllll this is to say, I think
Dragon Ball can get away with just...treating queerness as normal. It can get away with asking viewers to dedicate their time to a subtextually queer relationship between two girls, both trying to grow stronger in their own ways, so it can definitely do the same with a
textually queer relationship between two women—or two men! Or hell, two people that are neither man nor woman! The sky's the limit, which bigots never quite seem to understand (or they do, and they're afraid of that).
I also don't think it's hard for anyone to simply say "Wow, that writing of women and queer people is bad and weird, I hope they don't do that again!" It takes zero effort to approach art that way, and yet so many people want to defend and sactify this sort of writing in both
Dragon Ball and other works of art. I think that that's really exhausting, as someone who participates in fandom spaces and is a part of the minority groups that have that sort of poor representation in media.
Jesus Christ, I swear that I didn't mean to write such a large post. My bad lulz
I really wouldn't mind Z-Warriors at least be able to beat Demon King Piccolo henchmen or kill Nappa, and not have Anime!Chi Chi and other girls be distrusting, naggy or violent, even if it's just for "comedy" sake.
