because I wanted to bring this here anyways on some level...

[fencer_x]

So over on tumblr, I asked for thoughts on why anime!Shion was couched while everywhereelse!Shion is bed-with-Nezumied, and I thought I'd extend the conversation here :3

Was it just to avoid seeming 'too gay'? Can you think of a legit excuse for why Shion was on the couch and Nezumi in the bed? Conversely, was there any reason beyond warmth that they shared a bed in novel/manga canon?

Your thoughts, let me has them.

Comments

[stanza]

Can you think of a legit excuse for why Shion was on the couch and Nezumi in the bed?

Because the couch existed in the anime, I guess. Why the couch existed I imagine plays into either, yeah, 'too gay' fears, or a desire to avoid making the really strong visual statement that seeing two character in bed together makes. It's one thing for Shion to bring up their bed-sharing in a novel, where it's text and there's never a scene describing their bed-sharing explicitly; it's another to show it, you know? The anime could always have just mentioned bed-sharing and never shown the sleeping arrangements one way or another, but... IDK, I have a feeling the medium differences were a factor in the birth of the couch.

Conversely, was there any reason beyond warmth that they shared a bed in novel/manga canon?

:3 :3 Because of tender budding feels??

(Also the bed is legit the only clear spot in the mousynest until Shion starts makin' a dent in the hoard o' books. Probably sleeping on hardcovers is super shitty and neither of them wanted to be THAT gracious about it haha.)

But seriously I mean -- if Nezumi were THAT 'rargh no human closeness' and Shion THAT 'I want to be your equal' and zero sort of maybe kind of romantic attraction going on, alternate sleeping arrangements would have been arranged. Period. It says a lot that they weren't.

[fencer_x]

(Also the bed is legit the only clear spot in the mousynest until Shion starts makin' a dent in the hoard o' books. Probably sleeping on hardcovers is super shitty and neither of them wanted to be THAT gracious about it haha.)

I think I just always assumed the couch existed in the novels--did it not? That would certainly explain things in the novel, but not in the manga then! Since the couch exists there but they still sleep together (as evidenced by Shion complaining that Nezumi keeps kicking him out of the bed and how he 'gives up' the couch in the scene after Nezumi gets attacked). Consistency across canons, what are you?

But hmm, then in the anime--the night before Shion leaves after he kisses Nezumi...he wanders out of the room entirely IIRC. Where the heck was he going? For some reason I can't even remember if they showed him sleeping on the couch at that point. It makes sense in the novels where the couch doesn't exist that he gives up the bed and goes to sleep behind the bookcases (yay for an excuse to not have to sleep with Nezumi and be more easily caught trying to sneak out), but in the manga he ALSO gives up the bed and goes to sleep behind the bookcases...despite there being a perfectly comfortable couch. IDGI.

Agreed on the last note though :3

[stanza]

No, pretty sure it was just bed-burner-books in the novels. (And the first aid kit buried away somewhere. I think Shion also finds another blanket? Can't quite recall.)

I think the manga takes its design/visual cues from toi8/anime design staff, but everything else (ie words, plot) from Asano. Which leads to the occasional weirdness, yeah. XD

Where the heck was he going?

Possibly to their bathroom (which in the anime seems exterior to the room itself)? And then he wanders back in sometime later?? They didn't show any interim sleeping, no.

lol but yes in conclusion: idgi. This is why a room of books and nothin' else is maaaaybe not the hot setting it may initial appear to be. XD

Dem doofuses can't fool me~ Though I suspect they were profoundly fooling themselves on this topic. (Years later I feel like this will annoy both of them; living together, sharing a tiny bed, in the PRIME OF THEIR LIVES...wasted. just wasted.)

[amielleon]

if Nezumi were THAT 'rargh no human closeness'

Personally I think it's pretty weird he lets the guy next to him when he's so incredibly vulnerable in sleep... then freaks out when Shion's hand manages to touch his neck.

[stanza]

Also this! Nezumi, your dumb ways are so arbitrary. Sigh.

[amielleon]

Yeah, so I think that may be a somewhat legit argument in favor of the couch -- it makes Nezumi's arc of starting out closed and opening up look a bit more coherent. I think the anime made some other changes of this sort too, especially re: Inukashi, which I thought were good choices.

Man though, the fact that they never get around to sharing the bed -- *fistshake*

[fencer_x]

Completely unrelated, I always wonder how often if ever they woke up in like, crazy awkward positions (or with crazy awkward morning wood) they had to walk off or something and just be like, "oh yeah so you were rutting against my thigh in your sleep. that was weird heh heh"

Can't imagine that likely inevitability helped any ~burgeoning feelings~

[stanza]

Come on, they're teenage boys and one of them is a restless sleeper. You can knock 'if ever' outta that sentence. XD

I think they probably just acted like it Never Happened. As you do. I mean Shion'd be like "welp that's my reproductive system working as it should" whereas Nezumi is super good at Not Acknowledging things that are inconvenient for him to acknowledge. Aaaah doofuses.

Anyways crazy awkward positions and crazy awkward morning wood will probably resume in post-reunion cohabitation scenarios. And will be less awkward maybe! Unless it's a morning where horniness levels are not simpatico, in which case Nezumi will get angry. Regardless of which side of the horniness scale he finds himself. (Hey, he's either being ANNOYED while TRYING TO SLEEP IN or he's not getting good morning orgasms. Neither scenario makes for a happy Nezumi.)

[fencer_x]

"welp that's my reproductive system working as it should"

lololol oh shion never stop being shion

That'd work for his logic so long as it really was just awkward positions and nothing instigated/aroused by Thoughts (unless he went on to assume "welp that's my reproductive system working as it should" extended to finding anything with a pulse sexually attractive and not Nezumi himself).

One assumes it didn't happen super often (though over, what, 3 months?), but still.

post-reunion cohabitation will have no awkward positions. Only opportunities.

I do wonder if Karan will be all, "Oh let me get out some extra bedding for Nezumi-san~" or if she'll just suggest they bunk together or what. It will be uh comfortably crowded in that bakery either way

[stanza]

I think he'd consider it all part of Reproductive System Shenanigans ahaha. Which to be fair it isssss....but it's also Tender Burgeoning Feels.

I would imagine she'd let them sort themselves out. Steer clear of dem hormones! canis_m assumes sort manner of above-bakery attic space in which a Nezumi might live (sorry for giving away all yr secrets, K) and I can roll with that. Or you know I can also roll with communal bunking and fervent thanks for a baker's early morning schedule. They'd make it work. Horniness as mother of invention, etc.

[spiralmaiden]

Because the government of Tokyo thinks media is turning all their boys gay. NOTHING BETTER AROUSE ANY THOUGHTS OF SEXUAL DESIRE IN THE YOUNG. OH NO.

What? Me bitter? Noooo.

[stanza]

Yeah, because you know when 36% of your male population aged 16 to 19 reports having 'no interest' in sex, and 56% of the female demographic reports the same thing, gay panic is definitely the reasonable response. One would also think, in a country with a disappearing birthrate, ANYTHING that incites sexual activity of any sort would be productive.

I really don't understand the 'if you expose them to deviant lifestyles, they will become deviant where they otherwise would not have!' argument. It seems predicated on the idea that, you know, people grow and develop in some sort of strange cultural void where only 'deviant' behaviour penetrates their one-way bubble*? IDGI.

Plus you know that general relationship between BL and actual homosexuality in Japan and non-BL homoromantic texts/narratives in Japan and so on. Fraught with ridiculousness, to be totally flip about it.

* Though ahaha Shion is a terrible example of this basically coming to fruition. :| Sheltered life, pent up but not-like-to-be-acted-on desires... DEM GREY EYES = INSTANT DEVIANT. What is this show teaching our chilluns!!! (That grey eyes are sexy sexy. And screaming into storms is a good way to find your life partner. I know I've learned a thing.)

[spiralmaiden]

It just pisses me off that this ridiculousness almost literally has media-producers running fucking scared. I mean, so scared that they're like "BETTER STICK TO CHASTE KISSES AND CUDDLING ONLY WHILE CLOTHED AND NOT SHOWING ANYONE ACTUALLY SLEEPING IN THE SAME BED, BECAUSE OTHERWISE THE MAN WILL GET US."

HEY. HEY TOKYO GOVERNMENT. HEY. DO YOU KNOW WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU REPRESS THINGS!?

[stanza]

LOL now I am envisioning BL series with like. Two beds in the bedroom a la 50s American television. WHAT, SEXUAL DESIRE? NOOOOOOO THAT IS NOT. A THING. NO.

Things come out in exciting ways, where exciting means 'exactly the way fearful/phobic parties did not want to happen.'

[amielleon]

Sounds like time to loosen up about that xenophobia and start taking some immigrants! :B :B :B

[analineblue]

I have wondered this many a time myself. ;) As for Shion's motivation, I think the conclusion I came to is that in the anime, he sleeps on the couch simply because he can, because it's there, and its an alternative to encroaching on Nezumi's lifestyle/living arrangements any more than he has to. And in the novels, in addition to warmth and closeness and all of that, I think mostly he's there because there's nowhere else. (At least if I'm remembering correctly, there's no mention of the couch there, right? @_@)

But yeah, I definitely like the sleeping together idea MUCH better, and I do wonder why the couch crept into the anime in the first place. *_* If it was an attempt to blur the lines a little more as to their relationship? Or to highlight their independence from each other? Or simply a random design/visual decision? I WONDER. *_*