[musouka]

Originally Posted by Sol Falling

Yeah, and so what I was saying is that Akitsu's characterization for the immediate future will pretty much consist of him giving in to that pressure, moral objections or no. Not that interesting (of course, I am entirely up for seeing what happens to him when that pressure forces him to make a real decision eventually).

This is what I mean about simplifying the plot, though. Allow me to put it this way. You keep on wanting to simplify it as "Akitsu will eventually give in, so where's the tension"?

To me, I'm much more interested in why he's going to give in. The series has set it up as there being two (entirely personal) reasons for Akitsu to give in and join the group. One, he's starving and poor. Two, they provide a sense of companionship he's never had before.

The first reason alone is probably good enough to give in for most people, but it implies a certain pragmatism that Akitsu seems to lack. If, however, he goes into this group expecting the sort of camaraderie he's been seeking, there's a whole other layer to this. That's not a pragmatic reason to join anything; it's an emotional one.

The group might not be exactly what he's looking for. He'll also have to balance getting to know them and his own sense of pride and morality. So it's not just suspense in him joining the group, it's the suspense in how he will make a place for himself within it.

Originally Posted by Sol Falling

I've read and enjoyed plenty of works by female authors that don't feature any yaoi fantasies.

Are you implying that every woman has "yaoi fantasies" and just some of them are better at hiding it? Because, yes, it would be incredibly easy to read a series that lacked "yaoi fantasies" if the woman in question never had them to begin with!

Originally Posted by Sol Falling

Rather, the hints from this show which I percieved independantly allowed me to extrapolate that this author enjoyed the constructs of yaoi fantasy, which was validated when I later saw that she had indeed written for the genre.

You're being too nebulous here. What I'm getting from you is that men who show interest in one another whether through their smiles or enjoying seeing them react to people, is by its very nature an abnormal construct that only women utilize and enjoy.

What if Ono had been a man? What if she had never written male/male? What if I pointed out other series by men aimed at men with similar sentiments? Would it still be a "yaoi fantasy"? Simply by labeling it a "yaoi fantasy", you're flattening the nuance of the situation just as surely as the label "tsundere" can flatten a female character's justified emotional states.

Words don't only have meaning, they have a subtext to them. Using the word "yaoi" and "fantasy" has the same sense of labeling the series as "pandering" and "unrealistic" respectively. And, let me explain, there is nothing wrong with a certain level of pandering or unrealism--this doesn't mean a work can't strike you emotionally, as I'm sure Kannazuki no Miko did for you--but I don't think it fits for this series and the relationship Ono is trying to express.

For a helpful example, I don't really think MariMite falls under the "yuri fantasy" label either (though it is certainly a "fantasy"), and I've had somewhat similar arguments about that.