Samurai 7 - the Queer People of Color Anime

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Warning: mild spoilers below

Contents

Characters of Color
Gorobei Fandom
Double Minorities
Other Queer People in Samurai 7
Male Homoeroticism Among Historical Samurai

Characters of Color

One thing that really caught my attention about S7 is that the main character Kanbei is a brown man. Another key character Gorobei is a dark-skinned man with African features. According to the DVD literature, Kanbei was initially conceptualized as a black man, but his design evolved in a different direction. The concept was apparently rolled over into Gorobei. In an interview with Anime Insider (Vol 23 August 2005) , character designer Takuhito Kusanagi stated, "From my first character design to the final one, Gorobei didn't have this really big change - although the ongoing changes to Kambei, and the discussions as to whether he may in fact be black or Asian, sort of rolled over into Gorobei."

As for Kanbei's final design, Kusanagi said. "At one stage he was a black character, which I liked, but in the final design he looks like a bit of a mix between Asian and Hispanic." [Thanks to elfjune for typing up the interview text from Anime Insider].

I don't know if Kusanagi was just putting things in US racial terms for the benefit of the audience, or if Kanbei was really conceptualized as a cross between 'Asian' and 'Hispanic' (a term which I assume is being used with its US colloquial meaning of "Latin American mestizo" instead of its official meaning of any native Spanish speaker regardless of 'racial heritage'. When I first saw Kanbei, I thought he looked like a South Asian (Indian, Sri Lankan, Pakistani etc) or West Asian (Arab, Iranian, Turk, etc), or possibly a Southeast Asian (Indonesian, Thai, Cambodian etc). In fact, he reminded me of a middle-aged version of this Iranian kid (now not a kid anymore) I used to hang with.

As for the question of Kyuzo's 'race', it's just as hard to pin down since there are no 'Earth' races on whatever planet S7 is happening on. For example, most of the officials of the Imperial Court are blond (blond seems to be by far the most common hair color among the characters) but they have undeniably East Asian facial features. I believe this is the case for Kyuuzou too, although some fans might prefer to interpret him as 'European'. In some scenes Kyuzo has a distinctly East Asian eye shape. Zel pointed out that Kyuuzou's profile in the character design page of the fanbook closely resembles the Seven Samurai actor Seiji Miyaguchi. But this distinctive profile - lower jaw noticeably smaller than upper jaw - does not carry over into the anime. I think some front views of Kyuzo in the anime resemble the late Seiji Miyaguchi as far as the eyes and the nose are concerned. But Kyuuzou, for some odd reason, does not seem to have a consistent appearance from scene to scene, leaving fans free to interpret his 'ethnicity' whatever way they want.

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Gorobei Fandom

I personally think Katayama Gorobei is the most well-balanced, healthy character in the series, even more so than Kanbei. Even Kanbei has some self-esteem issues but Gorobei is always positive and has a great attitude towards things in general. Gorobei even manages to transcend death and return as a moral guide to young Katsushiro.

Gorobei is highly skilled, very charming, emotionally mature, and never insecure. (Kyuzo, the fan favorite for 'cool character', come across as insecure in my opinion, especially around Kanbei, but that's a subject for another essay.) So, IMHO, Gorobei is the coolest. But the writers did not make Gorobei too unrealistically perfect. Katayama-san does have a masochistic way of getting thrills - by having close brushes with pain and death.

Anyway, it is quite rare that anime has dark-skinned persons in key roles or even cool roles. So I really dig S7 partly because of Gorobei and Kanbei. There're many other cool anime out there I can enjoy, but not many I can identify with. But IMHO, Samurai 7 represents more than the usual limited spectrum of humanity presented in the typical anime.

Goro-san is actually my fav chara, but I've never written a fic with him as main chara cos' I would ruin his coolness. ;-) Likewise, I don't write for my other fandoms. Either I'm so happy with the original I've nothing to add to it, or there're already lots of stuff to my tastes out there that I'm happy enough just reading. But S7 is not a very big fandom in the English-speaking world. Most of the S7 fanwork I like happen to be in Japanese.

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Double Minorities

Well, brown and black skinned people are not a minority in the global population, but they are a minority in anime. Differently-oriented people are generally minorities. So in that sense, Samurai 7's Shimada Kanbei is a 'double minority' character. In addition to being a person of color, Kanbei definitely has an attraction to men. I'm not saying he is provably 'gay' (he might be bi). But in the anime, he never shows any interest in women. On the other hand, there is no getting around his 'itsumo futari de' ('always a couple') with Shichiroji. The 'itsumo futari de' appears on the fighter plane in the battle scene in which Shichiroji and Kanbei go into battle together.

I actually discovered the 'itsumo futari de' by accident when I replayed that action scene at half speed. Not because I was looking for yaoi hints, but because I thought the fighting was cool and wanted to watch it in slow motion. But anyway, lots of yaoi fans have discovered it long before I did.:-)

By the time the main events of S7 open, I'm not sure if Kanbei and Shichiroji are still a couple. (OK, Shichi/Kan fans don't shoot me) A traditional wakashudo (age-set homosexuality) relationship should end when the younger man comes of age. Though of course, I have no information that would indicate that the Kanbei/Shichiroji relationship was modeled after wakashudo. Shichiroji moves on to Yukino, and he seems to be beyond jealousy as far as Kanbei is concerned. He even encourages Kanbei to accept Kirara's love. But that does not exactly prove Shichiroji and Kanbei are no longer lovers either. By and large, East Asian male homoerotic traditions have never completely excluded heterosexual partnerships. However, Kanbei rejects the woman. I think it is partly because his interests lie elsewhere - with Kyuuzou. (See The Case for Kan/Kyuu ).

As for Gorobei, there are some good indications that he and the peasant woman Honoka like each other. But there is also his strange scene with Rikichi, in which he forces the man to practice saying, "I'm in love with you, honorable samurai!". A scene my straight guy friend says is totally pointless and serves only to emphasize the gay subtext. It is a humor scene, but it does nothing at all to move the story forward or provide new information. Anyway, it does not really prove anything about Gorobei except that he is very open-minded towards that sort of thing (not remarkable considering that homoeroticism was widely practiced by samurai). Rikichi and Gorobei seem to have a special friendship, but they don't have the sexual tension that exists between Kanbei and Kyuuzou. Gorobei's humor scene might also serve the purpose of reminding the audience of Kanbei being 'in love with' Kyuuzou. It is also Gorobei who soon after asks Kanbei what he plans to do about Kyuuzou. In response, Kanbei caresses the neck wound Kyuuzou gave him. This sensual gesture cuts immediately to the next scene, in which Kyuuzou appears.

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Other Queer People in Samurai 7

If Kyuuzou is not gay, why does he get so hot and bothered over Kanbei? ;-) He's never hot and bothered around anyone else. Watch the Episode 4 scene at half speed and you'll see what I mean. Widened eyes in response to Kanbei's smoldering gaze, starts shivering after Kanbei caressed his hand, etc. All this I discovered by 'accident' - I was rewatching the fight scene at half speed not to look for yaoi vibes, but because I thought the Kan/Kyuu fight had borrowings from a certain scene in a certain live action martial arts film. But that's a topic for another essay. ^_^

Both of Ayamaro's bodyguards have a certain feminine grace in their movements. Of course that does not 'prove' someone gay. (And there're certainly many very masculine gay men, think Kanbei) But just think - the nature of their work requires these two men to enter Ayamaro's private quarters. It is inevitable that they work in proximity with the womenfolk of the magistrate's household, including the beauties of Ukyo's harem. Ayamaro is the sort of person who takes no chances. Wouldn't it make sense for him to hire exclusively gay men to work within his household?

And just look at the two. They're queenish enough to trip even the cheapest gaydar on the market. Hyogo especially. How much more of a flaming queen can you get? My gay friend has even taken to calling Ayamaro's bodyguards 'the two drag queens.' Ayamaro's bodyguards are also both somewhat cattier than the other male characters. Kyuuzou, especially, demonstrates that quite well in the tit-for-tat competition with Kirara on the journey to Kanna.

As for Ayamaro himself, he could afford a harem for his son, and yet he is seemingly unattached. His sole offspring is adopted. Tawara gave me the following piece of information: in Vol 1 of the S7 novels, Ayamaro was Ukyo's client when the boy was a prostitute and a pimp. The lord later adopted him as son. Anyway, in real life, homosexual relationships were often formalized through the language of family. In the Japanese warrior class and noble class, two men could adopt each other as father-and-son or as brothers. (Thx to Tawara-san for the info!) Similar practices also existed in China, especially in Fujian province where male homoeroticism was the rage among all social classes. The Ming Dynasty author Shen Defu wrote about male homosexuality practised under the label of 'oath-father/oath-sons' and 'sworn brothers' in "Miscellaneous Musings of the Humble Broom Bookroom". [See Male-male eroticism from the emperors to the commoners (Simplified Chinese article).]

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Male Homoeroticism Among Historical Samurai

For more information on homosexuality among historical samurai and in traditional Japanese society in general, read the books:

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