THE GLAMOURIZATION OF NCS
by Katsue
I think - or at least *hope* - that everyone reading this would agree that non-consensual sex is completely unacceptable
and that the rape and subsequent slow murder of an already traumatized 13 year old boy by a 30-something mentally deranged
serial killer is nothing short of horrific. Yet I’m sure that many of us find *that* scene with Muraki and Hisoka under the sakura tree
disturbingly attractive. Whether it’s Muraki fangirls feeling a tad guilty at zooming in for a close-up of Muraki’s ass, or Hisoka fans
captivated by how breathtakingly beautiful and vulnerable Hisoka looks, both in the anime and in the manga, it’s a not-entirely-
comfortable feeling. That scene wrenches at my heart, it makes me want to cry, but my hormones still acknowledge the delicate,
poignant beauty of the near-naked Hisoka. I can’t begin to describe just how much this disturbs me.
Admittedly, I’ve watched/read something that screws with with my sense of morality (and my self-esteem) in a bigger way – Fish in the Trap. This is total morality bypass territory on *many* levels – the seme, Tsukamoto, first shows an
interest in Matsui when the boy is SEVEN, rapes him when he’s about 12 or 13, and three years later, when they meet again at the
swim club, he admits that he has been watching Matsui for the past three years. And yes, they end up in a relationship, albeit a very
warped one, Tsukamoto’s idea of love being virtual *ownership*, and Matsui, despite superficial denial and reluctance, exhibiting
what I can best describe as a mixture of suicidal desire and willing submission. The rape scene itself, apart from being completely
weird, shows Tsukamoto’s pleasure at taking the boy, and to be honest, Matsui doesn’t appear to be objecting greatly. I feel like I
really, really should hate Fish in the Trap, and it bothers me greatly that I’m sucked in by how *pretty* (in a very shoujo way) the
character designs are and the f***ed up darkness of the manga.
Manga and anime are far from alone in glamourizing the unpleasant and the downright unacceptable – it’s easy enough to find many
a film, book, song or music video that invests rape/abuse with an aura of tragic romanticism and/or twisted eroticism. Hell, I’ve even
seen a pop video that manages to make a *murder* victim lying in a stream look appealingly *cute*. Art (in the very broadest sense)
has this wonderful knack of taking the unacceptable and making it oh-so-compelling.
Sure, I can distinguish between reality and fantasy, but when it comes to fictional NCS, I’m not looking at it from an entirely detached,
voyeuristic point of view, and that makes me feel even more uncomfortable. I don’t know what it’s like to be brutally raped and
permanently cursed by a murderer, but I do know that unforgettably squicky, icky feeling of my body responding when my mouth has
said no and my mind is either protesting in revulsion or frozen in despair. I was date-raped, and yes, it *did* hurt – that was the *only*
time anyone f***ed me so violently that they left bruises on the insides of my thighs. For what it’s worth, I’ve had other unpleasant
experiences, too, and when I wrote the NCS flashback in chapter 4 of “Blue”, I actually went digging through my diary as a supplement
to my memories to see what I could use that would work in the context of Hisoka and Muraki.
I’ve talked a lot to Penny about this, and we’ve both done a fair bit of soul-searching – she is attracted to sadists, I am drawn to victims
and people with a hell of a lot of buried angst (yes, real people as well as anime and manga characters). I know my tastes are far
from uncommon, but that doesn’t make me feel *right* about it – there’s always that ambivalence and confusion, the question of “why?
”. And I don’t know if I have any answers. What I do know is that I’m not someone who takes sadistic pleasure in the suffering of
others, and I definitely don’t have any wide-eyed romantic illusions about rape, indecent assault or abusive relationships of any
description. Is it that I relate to suffering, that I somehow find fictional pain cathartic, that it adds poignancy to the story or that special
moments seem infinitely sweeter and more moving when set against a backdrop of darkness?
Maybe I don’t know; maybe I don’t *want* to know.....
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THERE’S SOMETHING ABOUT SCARY...
by Penny
Does anyone out there like to be raped and murdered of an evening? Probably not. Yet as Katsue’s piece on the glamorisation of
NCS points out, one of the most beautifully executed and popular scenes in Yami no Matsuei depicts just that. Katsue is disturbed by
her attraction to the wide-eyed Hisoka during the scene under the sakura tree, and I have matching feelings about my attraction to
Muraki. OK, it’s only a story, maybe it shouldn’t be taken that seriously... but I tend to, and you probably do too, or you wouldn’t be
scouring fan sites.
Charismatic serial killers are hardly unique to YnM, or even to anime and manga: plenty of Buffy fans prefer Angelus to Angel, and the
reason Xena eventually trounced Hercules in the ratings is because the warrior princess had a magnetically depraved past while the
muscle man was all drearily virtuous. Muraki though is a particularly virulent example of sustained, graphic and unrepentant sadism.
And, ahem, in the eyes of fangirls like me he’s *gorgeous*, never more so than on page 122 of the third manga collection, where he’s
leaning over a naked Hisoka, leering in pre-rape anticipation.
Not a nice man, then, and in real life one anybody would seek to avoid. But I find that, on paper and screen, the more twisted and
violent Muraki becomes, the further he strays from sanity, the more attractive he is. I feel ambivalent about this, to say the least. It’s
rather hard to reconcile with my self-image as a placid, more or less moral person. And it’s particularly hard to reconcile with my self-
image as an emancipated modern woman. A thousand smug choruses of “these women’s libbers really just want to be raped” echo
loudly in my ear. I’d really like to think that is not the case. So in that case, why the attraction?
Of course, Muraki is as complex as any of the “good guys” in YnM, and his character can be interpreted in more than one light. Going
by the tone of a lot of Muraki fics, many fans seem to focus on his possible redemption, the idea that he can be saved from insanity
and criminality by his love for Tsuzuki (in fact, Muraki/Tsuzuki sap fics give the Tsuzuki/Hisoka ones a run for their money in cuteness
). Others, however, consider Muraki’s salvation about as likely as Watson becoming a shinigami, and they count that as one of his
plus points. I’m in the latter group.
It would appear, as Katsue has baldly but undeniably put it to me in the past, that “you like sadists”. I can’t get away from the fact that
the qualities in Muraki which interest me on a sexual fantasy level are specifically those which would be most unacceptable, not to
say dangerous, in real life.
There are some mitigating factors: sadists per se are not automatically appealing, even to me. Muraki without his intellect and
alternative personal brand of humour would be a far less interesting prospect. And we do glimpse such a Muraki at times: maybe I’ve
been reading a bad translation, but his main function in volume #1 of the manga seems to be to bear out the adage about the banality
of evil. All the “ha ha, I go around killing people to increase my power” shtick makes me want to pat him on the head and tell him to run
along to the 2D Villains Convention. It’s once he’s been tempered by a human weakness, his obsession with Tsuzuki, that he
suddenly becomes magnetic: the element of genuine romance, however twisted, between the two, is what lends Muraki’s character
its edge. And he isn’t the only one who draws his appeal from the dark side. A major part of Tatsumi’s fascination is to do with his
meticulously repressed yet ever-present frustration and anger: he’s a coiled spring to Muraki’s released one. Tsuzuki too, when
angry, can become a mean, compelling figure, distinct from his puppified or traumatised incarnations. There are even fanfics which
make a convincing case for a dark Hisoka, capable of taking out his frustrations on Tsuzuki in more than just growls of “baka”, or
even of raping him. Fandom has an appetite for darkness.
In a strange way, I think the angsty relationships common in yaoi are more true to life, and specifically to the experience of the young
women who are the usual audience, than conventional popular culture representations of heterosexual relationships. That’s not to
say hardcore NCS is the real-life norm, just that ambiguity of feeling is a lot more common than is made out. Even for those of us who
have managed to avoid sexual abuse, most people’s experience of sex is not problem-free. The gulf between real life experience
and relentless media insistence that your every bonk and grope should be paradise on a stick or there’s something wrong with you is
insidiously demoralising. The apparent paradox of sexual violence beautifully portrayed symbolises this largely unspoken cultural
dysfunction.
Or then again, maybe I just plain like sadists. Abstract intellectual theorising never seems quite enough to account for the way my
hormones bypass my brain when it comes to a nicely-drawn Muraki leer or Tatsumi evil stare.
For the time being, I remain uncomfortable with myself, and uncertain about whether that discomfort is a pointless relic of prudery, or
my better self speaking up. And I don’t know whether I’m a lone pervert, or whether my experience matches that of other fans. But I do
know that I’m amply capable of distinguishing fantasy from reality, that I’m not hurting anyone else with my little kink, and that I’m
enjoying it all far too much to stop.
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KATCOM DOES NOT CONDONE NOR WISH TO PROMOTE NON-CONSENSUAL SEX OR SEX WITH A MINOR
IN ANY WAY WHATSOEVER
Copyright etc:
Image from tankoubon 3 of Yami no Matsuei © Matsushita Yoko
Image from Fish in the Trap (Osakana wa Ami no naka) © Ranma Nekokichi – scanned by Kaname at DESPERATE LOVE
Additional effects and text – me!
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