I laughed so hard when I first saw this video mashup of Prince Adam from the He-Man: Masters Of The Universe cartoon series posted on YouTube by ProtoOfSnage.  This cleverly edited cartoon video mashes clips from the He-Man cartoon series with the music “What’s Up” by the 4 Non Blondes and makes Prince Adam into one very gay character.

I love the parts of the video where Prince Adam is seen internet chatting with one of his chief rivals, Hordak, in what appears to be a very stereotypically gay chatroom cruising conversation.   Later in the clip you also see the two of them exchanging winks.   LOL.

Now in this clip Prince Adam never seems to transition into He-Man.  He gets his sword raised in a few places as if to bellow out the requisite “by the power of Grayskull” but each time he gets close to making this transition, he breaks into a dance floor routine that left me LOL’ng for quite some time.

This video appears to have hit a chord with YouTube viewers and is approaching 2 Million views…many of these revisits over and over by people who found it as funny as I did.   (I admit, I watched it 4 times just now! )

Watch this He-Man mashup video … its a nice break from a dull daily routine.

I remember the first time I watched shoenin-ai manga video conversion “Gravitation” when it was received in our DVD store where we used to sell anime videos that had either perceived or explicit gay scenes or characters.   Watching “Gravitation” sparked my desire to find as many more anime videos with gay themes as I could, which proved much harder than I thought.  Sure there was Fake, Blaze, Level C, My Sexual harassment and of course Gravitation and a few others with a gay or gay-ish scene here and there, but I kept running into a wall when I went looking for more.  I talked to our distributor AAA Anime in California and they indicated to me that there just aren’t that many OVA’s made for the gay consumer but couldn’t really tell me why.   All they knew is that they only had a select few titles available but that they would let me know if any “new” ones were released.  I could have left my quest there and decided to just sit back and wait, but that’s not my nature.  I wanted to know WHY!  WHY aren’t there more gay OVA anime videos?   Why aren’t there OVA videos that are completely gay?

 
I went to Comic-Con in San Diego that same year and searched high and low through as many booths as my legs could stand walking to (have you ever been to Comic-Con in San Diego?  LOL, then you know how big it is and how hard it is to do it all in a single day) without finding any gay themed OVA’s either for sale at a wholesale level or for licensing.  At the time I was seeking video licensing deals for the SpunkToons.com site and needless to say, I left Comic-Con empty handed (well as far as OVA gay videos was concerned.  Other than that of course it was a great experience and hope to be in attendance later this month to try again to find OVA licensing deals).

 
Still not finding a source for gay anime videos I began to consider that there must be some in Japan, but they had just not been licensed in North America.  I tried contacting a few video companies in Japan as well as some video distributors, but never got any response from any of them. I even had my friend who is fluent in Japanese write a letter for me and sent it out to more than 10 studios or distributors, and likewise, never got a response. So I set out to find out if I could produce some gay themed anime videos and hired an adviser to research the prospect.  What I found out as a result of that research answered all my questions.  Just like every other business decision in life, it all comes down to return on investment (ROI).  The cost of a 30 minute animation video, including the writer, animators, story board artists, pencilers, inkers, color artists, editors and other associated staffing requirements would be over $200,000 USD!!!!  I even went so far (after recovering from my sticker shock) of pricing the video made in an Asian country and it still clocked in at more than $60,000 USD.   That’s between $2,000 and $6600 USD per minute!  Then it dawned on me…no wonder there weren’t any completely gay themed OVA videos! It was COST PROHIBITIVE! The perceived consumer market was too small and the production cost too high to make it attractive for anyone to produce them….including me!

 
So I had my answer.  Now I know why there aren’t more gay themed OVA videos and it just frustrates me.  I would love nothing more than to be able to provide a steady stream of anime video for the members of SpunkToons but it just doesn’t look financially feasible for the forseeable future.    Until then, if “then” ever comes, I guess I’ll just have to be content with the OVA fan subs or perhaps the OVA interpretation videos that are on YouTube and a few other video sharing channels.
 

Sometimes the manga original of a yaoi storyline is better than the anime OVA DVD . This seems to be the general consensus of those who took the time to review the Fake DVD on Amazon.com.  As I read through the comments, more than 50 of them, the general consensus seems to be that this anime OVA is one of the better ones produced, with a compelling storyline and nice action sequences, yet falls short of the original manga when it comes to conveying the emotion and interpersonal relationship between Dee Latener and his partner Randy “Ryo” McLane. 

For those of you not familiar with the story, Dee Latener and Ryo Mclane are New York City Police detectives assigned to the 27th Precinct.  Dee is a gay cop who has the hots for his Japanese-American partner, Ryo.  Having earned a nice vacation away from the crime and congestion of New York City, they head off to England for some relaxation at a very charming lakeside hotel.  Some of the story nuances and possible sub-plots leave open the possiblity that Dee sort of planned the get away so he could be closer to Ryo.  While in England on holiday, Japanese-Americans started turning up dead near their hotel. Once a cop, always a cop, vacation or not, and the two detectives got involved in trying to solve the crime.  Ryo seems to be the more focused of the two on crime fighting and solving the case, while Dee seems more intent on chasing Ryo instead of suspects.  

One of the often stated faults of this shoenen-ai dvd is that it starts with volume 2 of the manga instead of at the beginning of the story.  Another oft repeated complaint is that, depsite this OVA’s popularity among shoenen-ai fans, there was never a follow on DVD, they did not continue the story line.  There is no nudity in this anime OVA, and some complain that the video does not go far enough in the gay relationship that grows out of this police partnership, something that became more evident in Volume 7 of the manga. 

Several of the comments about the Fake OVA is that it is very similar to “Kizuna” in both style and plot.  Both “Fake” and “Kizuna” are stories about the long term growth and development of a gay relationship where one of the main characters has a crush on the other.  Through their shared experiences during the course of the stories, in both cases the straight guy ends up falling for the gay guy by the end of the story, realizing that through all their experiences together, they had fallen in love.  It’s easy to see why this is a popular subject among gay men in a world where many have fallen in love at one time or another with a straight friend or acquaintance, except in real life, it rarely works out as well for the relationship as it seems to have in both of these manga stories. 

I know, from having worked with artists over the years, that it is very hard to create nuance in an anime DVD, and due to the costs involved in producing an anime movie, it is often more cost prohibitive to explore sub-plots and nuance in an anime movie than in a manga where the cost of production is much less.  It’s not surprising to me that some feel that the story is better in the manga version of the “Fake” series, and perhaps it is, but for me, maybe for you too, there is nothing more pleasurable than seeing one of my favorite mangas come to life through an anime OVA DVD. While the “nuances” and sub-plots of the budding romances in these stories don’t seem to convey the depth of emotion that is achieved in the manga versions, they are still well worth the purchase and certainly good entertainment that for me gives more dimension and renewed interest in the original mangas.

Oh, and the closing song, “Starlight Heaven”, is not bad either

 

 
One of the most desired yaoi pairings of male anime characters is that of Sasuke Uchiha and Naruto Uzumaki from the Naruto anime series.   Among fan fiction artists these two are likely the most drawn yaoi gay coupling of all the well known male anime characters.   It’s interesting that these two have become such the wellspring of fan interest they have, but it does emphasize the old saying “opposites attract”.    That alone makes me wonder if not only do opposites attract on a personal level, but is the fact that these two characters, created by Masashi Kishimoto as complete opposites, make the perfect paring for yaoi lovers for the same reason?   Are we attracted to the chemistry between them because they were created as rivals…is this the turn-on for us or is it just that they are both cute guys?    By the amount of fan fiction, fan video animations on youtube, and fan art pinups that have been made depicting almost every possible scenario for these two to fall in love, I would conjure that there might be some truth to the premise that we are attracted to them because of their rivalry.   Are you a big fan of SasuNaru?  Do you want them to become lovers?   Do you watch every second of video footage of “Naruto” looking for proof that there is a sub-gay plot behind the relationship of these two characters?  Are you attracted to the love of rivals?

This fan edited AMV of “Ai No Kusabi”, set to the music of Apocalypitca’s “En Vie” is a reminder to me of how powerful yaoi anime videos can be. Many people often dismiss anime as simple, and even more are dismissive of yaoi as it contradicts with their perception of social norms. I suspect that much of the problem comes with a failure to actually watch the anime with an open mind, or perhaps because the story line in the yaoi caused raw feelings or emotions to be exposed that they wish to keep supressed.

The story of “Ai No Kusabi” is a fascinating one. If you haven’t read the original novel by Rieko Yoshihara, or seen the yaoi magazine version Shousetsu June, or even watched the OVA released in 1992, I strongly recommend you do so. This story breaks with many social norms and really pushes the boundries of what we might be able to accept in our present society. Broaching the subject of social engineering with Blondes being the highest social order would for many bring to the surface raw feelings of other social engineering experiments going wrong, but Rieko Yoshihara did so using it as a backdrop to tell a much more powerful story of love and redemption, and the struggle against society and social norms so that it can be realized.

Watch this fan edit. It doesn’t completely explore the entire story, nor it’s many plots and subplots, but it does explore the conflict, the lonliness, the love and in the end, the death and the redemption in the destruction of the world they knew.

Many people dismiss Level C as a plot-less sexual romp that has little plausibility and only serves to appeal to the Yaoi crowd because of the explicit sex. A good majority of reviews I have read on this OVA complain that neither the plot, nor the characters were adequately developed, rendering this manga and OVA as nothing more than a gay hentai sexual romp.

While I agree that the story was not developed completely, with only a 30 minute video canvas in which to paint the picture, its not really a surprise. However, if you examine the characters a bit more closely using the bits of information given in snippets throughout the video, it is possible to see traces of a story that repeats itself every day in real life.

Kazuomi is the typical good looking and seemingly narcissistic man who thinks too much of himself using his good looks and charm as currency, bouncing his way through life from relationship to relationship without consideration for anyone’s feelings but his own. The type of guy who is only there for the moment, as long as that moment lasts, never bothering to look beneath the surface of the person he is involved with or to even try to really love them for more than their bodies and the sexual moments they share. But is this all Kazuomi represents? I think that interpretation might be a bit shallow. When his girlfriend is breaking up with him and asks “did you ever love me?” Kazuomi replies “I loved….your body.” On the surface I took this as further evidence of his narcissicism, but after thinking about it for a while, perhaps Kazuomi knew that something was missing, some emotional spark, some inner connection. It is possible Kazuomi was simply going through life doing what society expected of him, yet feeling or possibly even knowing inside that what society expected of him he could not do.

I believe there is some merit to this interpretation of the story. When Kazuomi is having sex with Mizuki you will notice that he is always pleasuring Mizuki which would not be typical of someone overly narcissistic. The fact that Kazuomi swallows Mizuki’s cum and rims his ass, both decried as “dirty” by Mizuki, are in themselves indicators that Kazuomi is finally into someone else more than himself. If Kazuomi were truly only after what his sexual currency could buy him he would not be putting himself in the position of pleasuring others, instead he would be laying like a dead fish letting his lover worship him. In the end of the video, it becomes known to Mizuki that Kizuomi is part of a larger plot with his sister Haruno to lure Mizuki away from his modelling contract with his older brother’s company. When Kazuomi confronts his sister, protecting Mizuki, it is at this point that he realizes he has fallen in love, possibly for the first time in his life.

Perhaps this story is not so much that of one catering to his own ego as much as it is the timeless story of ones search for who they really are and having the courage to accept it.

Am I way off base here? Am I reading too much into this story? Should I just accept it on it’s surface and shut up and appreciate that there is at least one of a few anime videos dedicated to gay sex? What do you think?

As you can tell from a few of the previous posts here in this blog, I like to find interesting or notable AMV’s of various yaoi, gay hentai, gay anime mangas, or anime and post them here for all to enjoy. Today, I was looking for an AMV on “Death Note” and of course, as popular as this manga series is, there are many. Most of them appear to make the case that L and Light are gay, using edits of many scenes and stills of periods in their relationship / rivalry / friendship as supporting evidence.

As you know, the story of Death Note is about Light Yagami, a typical young man, with a farily typical life until a notebook with special powers is dropped to Earth by a death god. The Death Note gives it’s user the power to kill anyone whose name they write in the notebook while picturing their face. Light uses the notebook to try and cleanse the world of anyone he thinks is evil or gets in his way. His use of the notebook to get rid of a large number of criminals comes to the attention of a young detective known as “L”. This is the beginning of the series long chase and rivalry, and some say gay relationship, between them.

Throughout the series there are several instances that many yaoi fans consider as indications that the two are gay or at least have a gay sexual tension between them. In Episode 20, L captures Light because he suspects he is “Kira”, the person behind all the extra-judicial killings, and chains him to himself to observe him. Their being chained together for an extended period of time, means they slept together, bathed together, and of course went to the toilet together, and is used as both symbology of the conflict between them, but also a special bonding that occured when L reveals himself to Light as they both set out to find Kira. During this period is when most of the “gay” signals seem to be given by the series, and many wonder if this isn’t a Fan service to the young female viewers who seem to always go a bit crazy for a little Yaoi action in anime videos. I even read on many forums where viewers have taken Light Yagami’s surname and reversing it, pointing out that it spells IM A GAY, as proof that there is a subliminal gay plot to the character relationships between L and Light.

This AMV edit is obviously from a user who wants them to be gay and is enjoyable to watch. I found one AMV at Game Trailers that I thought was better, (watch at the 1:00 point where L and Light are sitting together watching “Broke Back Mountain” on tv … LOL ) but I couldn’t get the embed code to work in the blog or I would have posted it.

So what do you think? Is there some subliminal character gay relationship between L and Light? Are L and Light from Death Note really gay, or do we just want them to be?

This DVD movie, based on the original manga by Kazuma Kodaka, is the first of two parts from it’s 1994 original publication date, and is an updated version complete with subtitling.

Young and handsome Japanese sword fighting (Kendo) champion Samejima Ranmaru saves his future boyfriend, Kei Enyoji, from an almost certain death at the hands of assasins, seemingly out to destroy him because of his family’s ties to the Japanese Mafia (Yakuza).  Because of injuries sustained in saving his Kei, Ranmaru has to give up the beloved sport in which he was a rising star. 

Three years later, Ranmaru and Kei end up as college roommates and become lovers.  One day Ranmaru is invited to go for drinks by his professor, claiming he knows a good place to drink but doesn’t want to go alone.   Although Ranmaru doesn’t like going to bars, the professor was insistent, and he agreed to go.  Going with his professor, they end up in a Japanese host bar where special favors can be arranged with the pretty yaoi boys that hang out there.  Having been offered a drink, Ranmaru, a non drinker, orders tea instead.  As they sit in the bar drinking, Ranmaru starts feeling a little uncomfortable, and can take it no more when his professor tries to physically come on to him.   Deciding he has had enough, Ranmaru decides to leave the bar only to realize he had been drugged.  

One of the waiters, Sagano Kai, possibly aware of the professors intentions, or perhaps in cahoots, steps in and saves Ranmaru from the professor’s lustful clutches.   However, it becomes apparant that this is no accidental meeting.  Sagano Kai knew of Ranmaru when he was a Kendo champion, also training in Kendo just to be close to him.  While it’s not specified in the plot, it’s possible that Sagano may have been complicit in finding Ranmaru at his university and arranging, through the professor, for Ranmaru to be brought to the pub in which he was working.

Here the story takes a very interesting twist when we find out that Sagano Kai is actually Kei Enyoji’s half brother.  Kei’s mother is the mistress of a Yakuza and Sagano Kai, a few years younger than Kei, is the son of the Yakuza and his first wife.   Being the son of a Yakuza, Kei Enyoji and his mistress mother are kept by the Yakuza in a mistress’ house and see his father only periodically.   Sagano Kai was raised in the Yakuza’s house, being raised more by his hired assassins than by his father, and through them learned the ways of organized crime.   Because of Kei Enyojis’s mother being the mistress of his Yakuza father, Sagano Kai blames her for his own parents loveless relationship.  Because of his sadness from the lack of love at home, Sagano Kai actually hates Kei Enjoji and is using the guise of being in love with Kei to get close to him.  

This sets up a drama filled story filled with lust, love, pain, desire, and obsession culminating in a violent rivalry between two half brothers. 

Interesting adaptation of a well known Shonen-Ai/YAOI title “Bronze” in that this compliation of edits from the movie are set to a very heart rending and popular christmas theme, “Blue Christmas”.

For those of you that know the story of Koji Nanjo and Izumi Takuto from the original “Zetsuai” (OAV) release, “Bronze” continues the story of their somewhat stormy relationship that seemingly can’t go a single day without some kind of drama.  Even though Koji and Izumi fight almost daily they seem to be building a very intimate loving relationship between them that gives Izumi considerable pause when trying to decide whether to go to Italy to further his soccer career or stay with his Koji. 

The song, “Blue Christmas” as sung by Bright Eyes used as a musical overlay to the edit, is a touching tribute to the love that both Koji and Izumi share, and as you watch the video you can’t help but feeling a little hopeful that they will finally embrace and declare their love.