Love Stage!!

when the love is stage...

i hate this fuck ass bl. i hate it. i hate how the anime touched me enough to want to write fanfiction, and i hate how the manga just kinda sucked. but i need to speak. All the coverage I've seen of this series is 1) nonexistant, 2) nostalgic for The Yaoi, or 3) decries it as problematic because of the old BL trope of. uh. sexual assault. and doesn't engage further even though the beloved yaoi jesus game Dramatical Murder has content that's arguably MORE in glorification of SA and nobody bats an eye at that.

I just need to speak my truth, okay? Throw my hat in the ring of Love Stage!! discussion because I haven't seen aaaaaaaaaaanyyyyyything, and this thing killed me.

THIS image. This Twitter screenshot is what convinced me to watch this stupid thing. like. I was questioning a lot when I saw this screenshot, and I thought it would be a better way to experiment with a more fluffy trans-coded yaoi than. fucking uh. Sweet Pool. and let me get this out of the way in retrospect. Love Stage!! is not really all that transgender. When watching it for the first time, I was captured by the fact that the lead Izumi Sena is openly emotional, artistically driven, and interested in a girly magical girl show, and his masculinity was never doubted or called into question. but of course, in the end, it was because he has a penis. laaaaaaaaaameeeeeeeeeeeeee. i bet if Izumi were a natal female, his whole arc would be learning to be 'comfortable' in his femininity because Heterosexual Ryouma would like him for that. idk maybe i'm just disillusioned.

I went in expecting to project onto Izumi, but. unfortunately... something felt really relatable about Ryouma??? I'd like to clarify that I don't think it's right to kiss people without their consent, or to make people strip without their consent. And i'd like to think i've never sexually assaulted anyone in the heat of passion. but combine a Catholic upbringing that stresses the importance of sex being reserved for heterosexual marriage, a really nasty relationship i had in highschool, and pining for my best friend for 3 years. In these conditions, even the brush of a hand against yours feels like fornication. You ping-pong between rabid horniness, fantasies you wish you didn't have, disgust at yourself, and scrambling to rationalize why you're still so sinfully attached to this person. This was how I read Ryouma. As a guy who's had a rough experience with sex and love in the past, and is only just waking up to his bisexuality. the violation of Izumi's boundaries being immediately followed by Ryouma sulking and shriveling up and profusely apologizing felt. real. like. i dunno man.

(pictured above: me begging for forgiveness from God after fantasizing about making my bestie bark for me like a dog.)

Coming to terms with your sexuality, straight or gay, is scary. Your first relationship, more often than not, is gonna be messy. I thought (and still do think) Love Stage (at least the anime) portrayed that really well... AND THEN I READ THE MANGA AND IT TURNS OUT THAT RYOUMA IS JUST A FREAKKKKKK!!! THEY CUT THE DICK-SLURPING OUT OF THE ANIME!!! THAT'S NOT 'a mosquito bite' DUDEEEEE I FUCKING HATE THIS SERIES

So yeah. The anime is silly and sex-positive. The manga is freaky. I mean. I guess I got what I wanted??? After finishing the anime, I wanted to see Izumi and Ryouma navigate their relationship more, and I will admit. I did want to see them awkwardly stumble through their first couple times banging BECAUSE I THINK TGHAT'S KINDA SWEET! But there's a little too much sex for my liking in the manga? I prefer characters to have a romantic buildup or tension that makes me squee whenever they do it. And there wasn't enough built-up tension and romance. Instead there was the Fuckass Hypnosis Plotline Where Ryouma Forgot About Izumi Entirely Because His Old Producer/Sexual Abuser Hypnotized Him. And the hypnosis producer wasn't even that much of a villain or obstacle. All his sexual abuse was framed as getting overly-excited about his actors' beauty and talent. I can excuse whatever the hell happened with the Ryouma scene, but I draw the line at sexual assault being treated so casually and as if it were an expression of love.

I will still say, though. I really liked the anime. It kind of rocked because

Ok now I feel bad that I haven't mentioned the secondary couple of Shougo (Izumi's freaky older brother) and Rei (the Sena family manager). I guess I just have more overall emotional connection to Izumi and Ryouma. However. I refuse to believe that Mr. Rei Sagara is normal in any way. Sure, he's the mom friend. the manager. but he's calculating, manipulative, kicks down Izumi's door whenever Izumi refuses to open it, will kill anyone who tries to touch Izumi in the wrong way, I'm pretty sure he even ran away from home as a teen and was found by Mr. Sena (the dad) in a garbage heap? That's like taking in a stray cat and putting it in charge of your schedule and finances. and the kicker is that the cat does it WELL.
I dunno what madam Eiki Eiki was thinking when she came up with Shougo though. She based him off of her musician brother Daigo, and Daigo actually VOICED Shougo in the anime adaptation?? imagine telling your siblings that you're writing a yaoi with characters inspired by them in it and then they're not just 100% chill about that, but VOICE ACT THAT CHARACTER IN THE ANIME ADAPTATION!!! that's insane. anyways. Shougo apparently tops Rei because Eiki thought it was weird to make a character inspired by her brother bottom. But I'd personally think it's weird to make that character visibly have sex at all? And don't even get me started on the brocon undertones of Shougo's connection to Izumi. i dunno man. i dunno.

i have these two images saved to my computer. i don't plan on getting rid of them.

TL;DR: Love Stage's anime adaptation changed my life and made me want more immediately, but the manga was not my favorite.

if anything, i'm using this as an excuse to practice CSS.