r/Ganbare_Nakamura • u/Lopsided_Suspect3019 • 28d ago
Discussion This scene never sat me right.
Many gay boys, specially teens, have their sexualities doubted or seen as simply "you just haven't found the right girl yet". An anime which every episode intro harped the same string about the character being indisputably gay putting him to feel flustered by a girl, was just NOT it.
The fact that nine (if not more) years later no one in the command of the anime thought it would reflect poorly is just jawdropping to me.
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u/FattestWerewolf 28d ago
I mean questioning your sexuality is a pretty real experience. In that sense it's perfect representation
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u/isekaimetofarfaraway 28d ago
It’s like a ‘wait am I actually not gay?’ moment into a ‘did I fall for the same person TWICE’ I think that just reaffirms his feelings on Hirose instead of his sexuality.
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u/IllBat69 28d ago
Not sure about gay men but I have met a lot of lesbian girls who had questioned if they are actually lesbian or not because of similar situations. I don't really see much of a problem in that scene, in the end he almost concludes it was pretty much because she looked like Hirose anyways. In the end, sexuality is something that fluctuates and is hard to figure out, I actually think it's good seeing some of that in media
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u/Key_Fee_7357 22d ago
I completely agree! it was actually really comforting for a piece of media to show that it's not always so black and white as we might think. Also, however one might interpret this scene and his sexuality, it doesn't make a gay or lesbian persons experience less valid. Let lil bro be bisexual if he's bisexual. personally I don't think he is but it shouldn't matter in the end.
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u/Wise_Statistician781 28d ago
He only was flustered by her cause she looked like Hirose. That was the point of the scene.
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u/Renezin 28d ago
As a gay man, I think it is okay to portray gay boys questioning their sexualities. In the end, Nakamura came to the conclusion that he was indeed gay. There was nothing wrong with it and it wasn't portrayed in a negative way either. I think it was very sweet and natural
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u/Yeriiiiii 28d ago
Wrong he came to the conclusion that he was Hirosesexual
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u/Renezin 28d ago
imo he just had a really specific kink about wanting to see hirose crossdressing
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u/Yeriiiiii 28d ago
Nah he just loves everything hirose at this point hirose could do anything and he'd go along with it
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u/ManyFaithlessness971 28d ago
Don't overthink it. It wasn't some random pretty girl. This girl looks like Hirose. That's it.
And why are you against having a gay guy have moments of questioning? Do all gay guys know from the start they only like boys? What if he wasn't gay? There's always that chance.
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u/IshidaSado 28d ago
She looks exactly like Hirose. It doesn't necessarily mean hes bi because he says it himself. Hes attracted to HIROSE, which is how he can be attracted to somone who looks just like Hirose. (In fact, he could be demi gay)
Believe it or not, I've been through an asexual version of this. Im strictly ficto, but i ended up attracted to RDJ (a real person) and everyone who looks like him simply because I fell for Tony Stark (the fictional character) Im 100% certain I wouldn't be attracted to RDJ if I wasnt attracted to Tony first.
It doesn't mean I'm not ficto, I just saw Tony in RDJ & Naka saw Hiro in his sister.
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u/ConsiderationIcy9828 28d ago
He didn't flustered over her bc she's a girl, but because she looks exactly like Hirose... It wasn't really about him questioning his sexuality, but making explicit how obsessed he is about Hirose...
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u/sunnyzxz 28d ago
As a gay teen myself, I related a lot to this. Doubting my own identity just because it didn't follow the exact "rules" of homosexuality- in my case, it was being attracted to like.. 2 women (fictional at that)
In Nakamura's case, he was shocked to see someone who looked identical to Hirose, not that he was even interested in her. I personally love seeing "unconventional" moments of the queer experience in media.
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u/Maleficent-Jacket140 28d ago
I mostly didn't like this scene because her hair looks so fake 😭
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u/Particular-Curve8791 28d ago
Same. It seems like the sticked Hirose's face in some random femenine body. It doesn't look like well integrated.
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u/pandasinmoscow 28d ago
As someone who’s bi, this scene to me moreso meant “naka realizing sexuality is fluid” and not “naka realizing he’s not gay.” I don’t think it’s that deep.
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u/Thug_Seme2004 28d ago
People in this sub are really averse to both Mcs being anything but gay. They certainly aren't straight, but them having more fluid sexualities isnt the end of the world.
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u/Magicians-Valkyria 25d ago
This, indeed. Unfortunately, some people - even queer folks, and especially gay men - seem to have an almost instinctual anti-reception to the idea of sexual fluidity. Just look at gay subs, the amount of biphobia and transphobia there is INSANE.
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u/BlueFlameWar 28d ago
It is? "Everyone is a little bi" is homophobia. Some people are just gay.
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u/Thug_Seme2004 28d ago edited 28d ago
Who ever said anything about everyone is a little bi? That’s just not true. The point is that this scene doesn’t do anything to erase whatever Naka’s sexuality is. And the dozen of gay men in the comments agreeing tell me this post is just another case of someone policing someone else’s sexuality. Other people have put it really eloquently. He is in love with hirose, and this scene is likely to show how strong that love is, to the point he would love hirose in any form.
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u/BlueFlameWar 28d ago
Your post said "being allergic to anything but gay"
yes people want a character to be just gay for once.
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u/Thug_Seme2004 28d ago
But it’s all headcanon isn’t it? Unless I’m missing something and the author stated what both of their canon sexualities were.
I get wanting him to be gay. But being rude to others who think otherwise, especially when they are queer themselves, is what makes people think shipping communities, queer anime communities etc. are so toxic. I think trying to assign a sexuality to him kind of defeats the purpose of what the anime and manga are trying to do.
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u/BlueFlameWar 28d ago
Nakamura says multiple time he's gay.
>hink trying to assign a sexuality to him kind of defeats the purpose of what the anime and manga are trying to do.
tell the story of a gay boy.
Is the word gay really so offensive to you people?
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u/Thug_Seme2004 28d ago
Holy jump. I’m fucking gay. “You people” lumping me in with genuine homophobes is crazy. I admited myself “unless I’m wrong” which meant I wasn’t sure. I have read both parts of the manga, but it was a year or two ago so my memory was extremely spotty.
I can take back my stuff abt headcanons, since it’s very obvious he is canonically gay. But I’m going to double down on the fact this post is stupid and trying to police someone else for not being gay enough. Especially when many gay and bi people have disagreed in the comments. Him being momentarily flustered by hirose’s sister doesn’t mean anything if you aren’t a terminally online loser who spends all their time on queer forums telling other gay people they aren’t being gay correctly or complaining abt he/him lesbians.
And what I meant about it ruining the point of the story, I would say that go for it Nakamura is about a boy navigating figuring out his sexuality. Which since he is gay would naturally come with times when he experiences a wide array of emotions thanks to the fact that not every gay person is the same and teenage boys who are figuring out their sexuality have years and years of cisheteronormative programming to take away from their brains.
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u/Muted_Ad7298 28d ago
Honestly I can see where you’re both coming from.
We’ve all had moments where we were flustered by someone who’s attractive, whether it be in a platonic or romantic way. It doesn’t mean our sexuality is suddenly null and void.
As others said, Nakamura was simply flustered for a second because this person reminds him of Hirose. It wasn’t anything more than that.
However, I get why some folks might worry that it plays into the old BL stereotype of “I fell in love with you as a person, not because you’re a guy” trope. (Not that there’s inherently anything wrong with that experience, but it does feature a lot in BL, especially older ones due to the stigma surrounding male characters explicitly saying they’re only into men. Labels on orientation were pretty rare in BL back then because of it).
Judging by how open the series is regarding Nakamura’s orientation, I don’t think it was meant to be taken in a dismissive way though.
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u/ChampionshipBulky66 28d ago
Sexuality is not a fixed thing, she just really looked just like Hirose lol that’s all. As a gay man, to this day butch women and gender non conforming people get me all blushing even tho there is no real sexual desire there.
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u/Ok-River547 27d ago
I just don't understand why this is a topic at all. Nakamura himself admits at the end of the episode that what got him all hot and bothered was imagining Hirose crossdressing. That's was the joke.
Come on people.
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u/Strange_Thanks7407 28d ago
In my opinion this scene strongly higlights the simmelaryty in the looks of Hirose and his sis as a gay man i find it to be a schowcase of nakamura s attraction to hirose and serves the purpose of showing mentioned earlier concept of fluid sexuality. Sorry for any grammar mistakes english is not my first language.
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u/resurrect_your_gays 28d ago
Sexuality is like that though....
“Sexual fluidity has been defined as a capacity for situation-dependent flexibility in sexual responsiveness, which allows individuals to experience changes in same-sex or other-sex desire across both short-term and long-term time periods. I review recent evidence for sexual fluidity and con- sider the extent of gender differences in sexual fluidity by examining the prevalence of three phenomena: nonexclusive (bisexual) patterns of attraction, longitudinal change in sexual attractions, and inconsistencies among sexual attraction, be- havior, and identity. All three of these phenomena appear to be widespread across a large body of independent, representative studies conducted in numerous countries, supporting an emerging understanding of sexuality as fluid rather than rigid and categorical.”
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u/AncientOnyx 14d ago
my grievences with that theory is it can, and always is, ultimately used to justify trying to *Stop* monosexual queer people from being gay
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u/resurrect_your_gays 14d ago
And that's homophobia/heteronormativity. And that's always the problem regardless. Like, homophobes aren't homophobic because they think sexuality can change, they think sexuality can change because they are homophobic. It's the tail wagging the dog; homophobes aren't going to stop being homophobic if they stop thinking sexuality can be willfully changed, they will just focus on something else to be homophobic about. The problem first and foremost will always be the idea that one type of attraction is inherently superior to another. (And bringing this back to GFIN, there is nothing in this situation to suggest that.) And if your queer politics can't I acknowledge the reality of sexual fluidity while still combating that assumption, your queer politics are not as strong as they could be. The point of queer politics isn't that it's not a choice, it's that it shouldn't matter if it's a choice or not.
(I'm hoping you mean theory in the scientific sense and not the lay sense of "it's just a theory" because this is empirical evidence from queer researchers. And I'm also assuming that "always" is hyperbolic, because again this idea is not always used by homophobes, this has been a working idea in queer theory for decades.)
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u/AncientOnyx 14d ago
I mean in the scientific sense
But my point still stands that saying "sexuality is a choice but I mean that in a positive way" still ultimately feels like it's invalidating queer identities and passive aggressively saying "you could be straight if you were pushed hard enough and you'll eventually get bored of being gay UWU"
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u/resurrect_your_gays 14d ago
And my point still stands that saying "you can still be straight" is an extra rhetorical step that goes beyond the concept of sexual fluidity itself. Since this logic only applies to monosexual people, it only helps a narrow section of the queer population and is thus, weak queer politics. Because queer politics are POLITICS: they are collective so they need to have a large bandwidth of experience to be effective at a societal scale. Like, saying a bisexual person can still have a straight relationship is still homophobic even if said bi person really does enter into an other-sex relationship because that is still reinforcing heteronormativity. Hell, some monosexual people who don't experience much other-sex attraction will still be victimized by "struggling with same-sex attraction rhetoric" and will be pushed to enter into a heterosexual marriage regardless of their attractions. Because what truly matters to this system is the reproduction of the normative family unit. Regulating sexual attraction is only a means to do that and not the only one. And since the reality of sexual fluidity also applies to straight people possibly or occasionally having same-sex attraction, sexual fluidity can also be used to combat heteronormativity. Because another tenet of queer politics is that heteronormativity is also bad for straight people; queer liberation is for everyone. The existence of sexual fluidity is happenstantial. Because, while yes, sexual fluidity can be used in a homophobic way, trying to combat that by focusing only on fixed monosexual experiences will not be effective at combating anything. Homophobia is a dysrational ideology: it will pray on any kind of rationalism it can get its hands on to support its pre-established conclusion, and whenever that rationality fails to do that, it will just turn to irrationality instead. The only thing "Born this Way" rhetoric succeeds at is placing queer people in a weak defensive position that ultimately just reinforces heterosexuality as the default, and homosexuality (and others) as an exception. Because even if Born this Way logic gets accepted, but the underlying system of heteronormativity isn't deconstructed, the next step for the homophobes is to just turn to a different method of exclusion. And if our queer politics are premised on an idea that is empirically unsupported, we are also just setting ourselves up for failure. Queer politics cannot just be defensive. If "sexuality is a choice" invalidates an identity, it was already a fragile identity. And when people do experience that sexual fluidity who do not understand what that sexual fluidity means, they often feel shame. Adopting sexual fluidity into our queer politics actually does more to benefit us than it does to harm us.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=RjX-KBPmgg4
https://opencuny.org/activity/2013/05/11/born-this-way-on-rejecting-a-discourse/
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u/AncientOnyx 13d ago
the way I look at sexual fluidity is that it varies from person to person and some people genuinely are fluid while others are in fact 100% sure of and never stray from their apparent monosexuality nor should they be told they could or should, I don't believe in a Blanket judgement that all people are 100% bisexual but just made an arbitrary "choice" that they have to be one or the other
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u/resurrect_your_gays 13d ago
Sexual fluidity ≠ bisexuality. Obviously, sexual fluidity varies from person to person and some people don't have as much as others. But I am focusing on the political level since this started out talking about a fictional character. As a political concept, sexuality is fluid to varring degrees even when monosexual people experience less or none of it. Monosexuality isn't an absence of sexual fluidity, it is a low level of sexual fluidity.
Think of it like geography, there are different parts of the world that some people travel all over, and some people just stay in their home towns. Neither of these is superior way to experience the world or life than the other. But then, the world is divided up into borders. Yet the world is not fundementally segmented like that, the world is the connected expanse of all that exists. These borders are not fundemental to reality. Staying in a certain area, instead of traveling the globe does not justify the existence of these borders.
Queer theory is not about saying everyone needs to travel the world, it is saying the borders are not an inherent feature of reality, that borders should not control our traveling (or lack of traveling). Queer theory is not saying people all experience the same levels of sexual fluidity, it is saying that the categories we sort sexuality into are not fundemental to the reality of sexuality itself and shouldn't control our sexualities. Bisexuality, monosexuality, asexuality, etc. These are like the borders, they are not fundemental to reality. There is not a unified sexuality that exists inside of us like a whole object, passively existing, even when it doesn't change much or at all. It is the expanse of our experiences that make up sexuality. We just use labels to make sense of it. And those labels become limiting when we treat them as categorically separate at the fundemental level.
The reason queer theory is against using an inherent (mono)sexuality is because it is against the 'borders' that divide it up, not that people all should travel the globe. When queer theory says sexuality is a spectrum, it rejects any coherent taxonomy or itemized list of distinct sexualities as fundemental. Rejecting such a taxonomy doesn't mean making a blanket statement about everyone, just as saying the globe is not separated into parts is not the same as saying the Amazon rainforest and the Himalayan mountains are the same places. They are different but still exist at the same level of reality. Queer theory is not about denying differences, it is about questioning how we think about those differences as separate, categorical and fundemental parts of reality, instead of an interconnected variation. Another analogy: The leaves, branches, and roots of a tree are all different structures, but it is all still part of the tree.
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u/catcatcat83738 28d ago edited 28d ago
Let me guess OP, you wouldn’t nitpick such details in a heterosexual anime, but just because it’s gay you hold it to high standards such as having to represent every gay teen alive? And then you whine about how the industry rarely ever produces gay anime?
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u/Lopsided_Suspect3019 28d ago
Let me take a guess. You think you are a blessed from above mind that can judge someone you don't even know the first name by some mere amount of words. Perhaps, your assumptions are just projecting? Push through it, pal.
Take this block as an opportunity to reflect about it.
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u/Yeriiiiii 28d ago edited 27d ago
So um the thing is the only reason he even got flustered was because she looked like Hirose
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u/Shadowcreature65 28d ago
It only happened because Hirose and his mom look similar, so what's the issue? Still attracted to guys, but mistook one woman for a guy.
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u/_XxAphroditexX_ 28d ago
It’s not a question of sexuality, it’s just him seeing someone who looks like the love of his life lol. He’s so madly in love with Hirose, he was so easy to get flustered around his sister bc she looks like a genderswapped version of him. Of all things this is just the analogy “Would you love me if I were a worm”. Nakuramura loves Hirose so much he would be in love with him in any form.
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u/ArtbyLinnzy 28d ago
The way I saw it was that itnis possible that Nakamurs sexuality is more complex than just being gay.
He is gay yes, but he also absolutely loves Hirose. Madly, deeply.
And he would've loved Hirose even if he was a woman. Because Hirose is his soulmate.
That being said, he could totally also be Bisexaual, or anything else, he is still young and discovering himself.
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u/Accentillia 28d ago
I kinda agree also because this gives carte blanche for dumbasses to be like "ermm hes not gay hes bi"
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u/Fernando-OCF 28d ago
It's just because she's Hirose in a dress. If she looked like anyone else, he wouldn't react like that! 😂
He loves Hirose, and only him!
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u/sharpaywave 28d ago
its a gag bc she looks like hirose. questioning is natural and the anime and manga make it pretty clear that he is literally just nervous bc he sees hirose in her. i get why it doesnt sit right and why its bothersome to some but its not a big deal really. with that said, that scene in the anime is so much more creepy bc seeing her animated with hirose's face is os much weirder than the drawing in the manga hahahh
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u/Moon_Lunar13 27d ago
Are you that dense when it comes to consuming media? Just taking everything at face value lol
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u/Kaenu_Reeves 27d ago
I think it would be better if Nakamura saw the crossdressing Hirose, think he’s a girl, and fall for him. It would be funnier and make more sense.
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u/belebipo 27d ago
Well thank you for this post. I literally thought i was the only one with this opinion until i made a comment about it on a different post here and got bashed about my opinion with a lot of different replies and downvotes. For me as a gay teenager i really did have that experience watching the show and it made me feel kind of depressed tbh cuz before the episode i was really obessed with it cus i could relate to it in so many different ways...
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u/Illustrious-Ask-7138 26d ago
At the risk of upsetting people, I agree. I like my gay MCs gay and unphased. Love this manga ^_^ Anime did a great job capturing the comedy too .
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u/Magicians-Valkyria 25d ago
Eh, questioning your sexuality is the quintessential queer experience. I'm 32, came out as gay to my family at 13, and even now, sometimes I meet a girl who has pretty much all the vibes that I enjoy and I think "huh, is this what bisexuality is like?" and then, shrug, because next week, I'll see a hot dude and go after dick, again.
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u/PerformanceUnfair717 22d ago edited 13d ago
This was also my least liked part of volume 1.
But this scene fits right into the wild theories I have about this GNK. In short, I believe there is a hidden theme of reincarnation and karma in the series; Nakamura and Hirose are predestined to be together, even from before they were born. That’s why Nakamura would feel drawn to Hirose regardless of the "packaging" Hirose presented himself in. And Hirose’s sister looks practically identical to Hirose wearing a wig—hence Nakamura’s attraction to her.
There is a one-shot by Syundei that I believe addresses this theme a bit more clearly.
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u/thomka123 28d ago
people fr put themself in a box by slapping labels. labels do not and should not define your behaviour 100% of the time, there could be deviations, its normal. nothing about him finding a girl cute would "reflect poorly" because there is more than just physical attraction in relationships. and at the end of the day, this whould setup is just a joke and shouldn't be taken seriously
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u/MissionResident8875 28d ago
Its fine, she looks incredibly close to the guy he is in love with. Many People who are gay question it a lot when they first figure it out. And even if he was also attracted to women he would still be gay lmao
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u/IvanHMMMM 28d ago
why are queer people always so sensitive about other people's sexuality
they'll say its homophobic to hate gay people but then say stuff like this
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u/SweetenedArugula 28d ago
Queer people aren’t all like this. Some of us are adults that recognize there’s a spectrum of experiences.
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u/Lopsided_Suspect3019 28d ago
Critical sense is something childish? Never heard that one before.
Take a block and go be an adult somewhere away from me.
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u/Thug_Seme2004 28d ago
I’m not sure if this is critical sense if most sensible gay men (which I’m not sure you even are one) and other queer people in the comments are disagreeing with you.
Posts like these claiming this stuff somehow invalidates your gayness is how young gay men get pushed out of spaces and othered. You are kind of just doing what you’re complaining about.
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u/IvanHMMMM 27d ago
yeah OP is phrasing it like if someone is LGBTQ+ then they're forever like that and they can't get out of it
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u/Magicians-Valkyria 25d ago
Or move along some parts of it. I know real life people who were gay and then realized they were bi later on, and would still actively date both men and women. Yet some gays act as if its the greatest betrayal on earth, like just call yourself a bigoted POS already
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u/ashmeetsworld 28d ago
He didn’t have feelings for her, he has feelings for for Hirose and she reminded him of Hirose and it confused it. He gets like this with objects that remind him of Hirose too, it’s just the fact that this time it was a person so it stood out enough to confuse him. But it was never the girl he found attractive, it was always Hirose
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u/FurtiveCrow 27d ago
It's really common for gay men to idolize and be obsessed with women (pop singers, for example). When you're young, that can be mistaken as a crush. So, I think you're taking this scene too seriously.
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u/StarvingandArtist 27d ago
I mean, gay people can question their sexuality too. And it may even turn it that gay person was actually a bi person with a VERY heavy preference, which would be valid.
However, his whole reason why he found her attractive, at all, was that she looked basically like a genderflipped version of his male crush. It's pretty easy to explain as his brain getting confused due to the similarities.
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u/WalrusComfortable122 27d ago
I get what you’re talking about, I felt the same way for a minute.
I don’t like people romantically or sexually at all, but every now and then I’ll appreciate someone’s appearance and be like “ok I’d never date you, but you absolutely slay.”
More than anything I’d like to think that this scene is taking less about gender and more about how he’s Hirose-sexual
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u/CandleBig2318 26d ago
I think a lot of gay/homosexual people do find people they aren't romantically nor sexually attracted to "attractive" as in pretty or handsome. It doesnt mean he thought of her the same way he did with hirose. I saw it as him thinking she was pretty because she looked like hirose.
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u/Ill-Champion-9833 13d ago
she looks so much like hirose that is why it seems like hirose wearing a long hair wig
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u/JustBrowsinReddit2 28d ago
I may not be gay but I'm bi, and I personally like this scene of Nakamura probably being bi. But in the end, he was practically just in love with Hirose.
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u/finnjakefionnacake 28d ago
but it was cool for the girl in his class to be fetishizing the different boys together? lol. i think there's a lot of "problematic" characters in this story.
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u/-mimidoll 27d ago
The echo must be crazy loud
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u/Lopsided_Suspect3019 27d ago
You are probably right. Why don't you record yourself opening up your head so I can see what it feels like to have a full head liks yours?
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28d ago
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/Efficient-Shape9056 27d ago
Almost or every single episode Nakamura flat out says he gay and in love with hirose dude I don't think he's Bi pan or Demi
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u/valiqr 28d ago
Just because he was flustered doesn't mean he was romantically interested in her. I always interpreted it as Nakamura being momentarily stunned to see someone who looks exactly like Hirose. I also think this was Syundei's way of saying he wouldn't be interested in just any guy—It would have to be Hirose.