No Sex Please, I’m a Dead Japanese Secretary

A cautious exploration of the orientation and (non-)sex life of Tatsumi Seiichirou


In her article about the sexuality of the five main Yami no Matsuei characters, Starza concludes that Tatsumi is probably bi. However, Katsue and I are pretty much convinced he’s gay and in chronic denial about it, on the basis of both instinct and various snippets of evidence from the manga.


Tatsumi and women

There really aren’t many women around in YnM, which is probably just as well for yaoi fans, but Tatsumi is faced with them occasionally. Much as he does with men, he seldom fails to be polite and distant, occasionally shading into appalled and terrified when, for example, a pack of maids jumps him and forcibly changes his outfit in volume 11.

Tatsumi really doesn’t know how to behave with women, something which is usually seen either in gay men who are totally oriented around male company or men who have been brought up to be “manly” – i.e. look down on women and have the emotional skills of a tea bag. As Tatsumi was the “protector” of his impractical mother in childhood there could possibly be a touch of the latter in him, but I tend to think not as his distress at memories of her in volume 5 is so raw and real. It doesn’t make sense that a man who grew up with women – I’m assuming his younger sister was in the picture – would be as out of tune with them as Tatsumi can give the appearance of being. That leaves the explanation of “gay” – he just doesn’t have cause to think much about the opposite sex, and that’s why, an unknown number of decades after his mother’s death, it’s an effort to empathise with them.

There is one Tatsumi/female interaction that I find particularly fascinating, though it’s only drawn in a few brief hints. I did worry that Tatsumi might be a misogynist until he encountered Peace Preservation Bureau Assistant Section Chief Kazuma in manga volume 9. Unlike most of YnM’s women, Kazuma is thoroughly tomboyish. And how does Tatsumi react to this? The man smiles at her and treats her as an equal. Unprecedented! Tatsumi condescends to everybody! But it’s there in black and white at the bottom of page 35, Tatsumi smiling in a way that can only be described as benign. “Tonight let’s drink the cellars dry, boss!” enthuses Kazuma. “Good idea!” agrees Tatsumi, before elaborating, for no apparent reason that “My strength is speaking frankly.” “That’s what I like,” says Kazuma. A glow of mutual respect hangs over proceedings.

There’s not the remotest intimation of sexual attraction, and between two guys a moment like this would be male bonding. But it’s a Tatsumi/woman moment, and the ONLY one in the series where he seems completely comfortable. Kazuma is the kind of woman he likes – as efficient and effective in her own line of work as he is in his own, and not remotely feminine. I suspect that feminine women are a big threat to Tatsumi; not because he is misogynist but because they bring him face-to-face with the fact that he isn’t attracted to them, and as a gay man in denial, that’s not something he wants to be reminded of.


Tatsumi’s Ideal

In chapter 68 of the ongoing series, (printed in Hana to Yume issue 2, 2002, which we don’t have so I’m going by the theria.net translation), Tatsumi talks to Watari about his hopes for fatherhood. He stuns the scientist by bringing the subject up out of the blue, then announces “A girl or a boy, as long as it is a child with the woman I truly love, I’d be happy with either.”

This has been taken as evidence that he must be at least bi, but I don’t think it is. To me “the woman I truly love” sounds less like a feasible prospect and more like an abstract concept which Tatsumi uses to distract himself from the fact that he doesn’t fancy any real-life women. This true love surely can’t exist already, unless Matsushita-sensei is planning to spring a credibility-stretching what-Tatsumi-was-really-doing-when-you-thought-he-was-working backstory on us. No, I think she’s a comforting red herring for Tatsumi, so when his id points out “but... but I don’t fancy any women, ever”, Tatsumi’s superego can reply “I just haven’t met Ms Right yet, that’s all.”


Denial and Defensiveness

Tatsumi has certainly swallowed gender stereotypes. During the Kyoto arc he tells Tsuzuki not to cry because “you’re a man, aren’t you?” and he virtually throws a fit when he catches himself being attracted to Tsuzuki in the baths.

Yet he still admits that Tsuzuki is his soft spot. To deny that would be beyond even his self-repressive capabilities. But when he’s facing off against Muraki in volume seven and Muraki needles him about his desire to protect EnMaCho employees, asking “Are there personal sentiments tingeing that?”, Tatsumi goes absolutely bananas.

Why would be react so badly if his feelings for Tsuzuki are not much stronger than he’s let on? And considering how much he does let on, for them to be any stronger they would have to be romantic and/or sexual in nature.


Tatsumi and Tsuzuki

This is the most well-trodden area of analysis of Tatsumi’s sexuality, but it bears covering again in the light of the proposition that Tatsumi is not only gay but heavily in denial about it.

Having, so he claims, killed the mother whom he loved, Tatsumi would naturally be petrified of feeling any emotion other than distanced protectiveness towards another person. So it’s to be expected that he would desperately try to recast any romantic attraction in this mold, but when he keeps leaning in to near-kiss position with the object of his attentions, his protestations of disinterestedness begin to look decidedly suspect.

Tatsumi is famously addicted to wiping food from Tsuzuki’s face, and indeed to touching it generally. Page 122 of manga volume 7 has them in flagrant about-to-kiss mode, when Tatsumi is feeling deeply moved by Tsuzuki’s having actually asked him for help (“you always waited with frightened eyes for my comforting and now this is the first time you've asked something of me”).

For Tatsumi, , helping Tsuzuki is a substitute for the sexual interaction he is not psychologically able to initiate. Of course, he does genuinely want to help his beloved, but he also finds his selfless, sexless guardian image greatly reassuring because it distracts him from the fact that he wants to fuck Tsuzuki silly.

I've read in various places that Tatsumi's claim Tsuzuki somehow reminds him of his mother could perhaps be taken at face value: he just likes to protect Tsuzuki because of this chance similarity, and there is no need to introduce a sexual element to the mix. Actually, I think a vague but pervasive resemblance between Tatsumi's mother and Tsuzuki increases the probability of a sexual dimension, because not for no reason is it axiomatic that men marry their mothers. Plus noting to himself that Tsuzuki has a feminine face is another nice psychological dodge for an in-denial Tatsumi. That way, any sexual attraction can be dismissed as arising from Tsuzuki's unfortunate resemblance to a girl.


Conclusions?

Tatsumi could not be more gay if he danced around singing “I Will Survive” while wearing a pink towel on his head. Unfortunately for his prospects of finding fulfilment, he likewise could not be more repressed if he wore metal underpants instead of... whatever it is under there. However, because fandom loves him, we shall continue writing fanfics that unrepress him and make him happy, and eventually he might get the message.


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Perverts’ Corner

Tatsumi’s a dom by inclination. It’s not emphasised in the manga, but it is there. Most blatantly in the JuOhCho basics lecture, which opens with a nearly full-page pic of him fingering a whippy little cane and regarding the audience from under his lashes in a most provocative fashion.

If you have a little knowledge of bdsm, Tatsumi’s personality profile fits the classic dom mold: controlling and stern but extremely loving and with an underlying insecurity. Bdsm is generally about giving pleasure to the sub, which the dom then taps into and rides like a wave, and this is exactly how Tatsumi relates to Tsuzuki. He scolds him and enjoys his contriteness while they both tacitly know this ritual is a manifestation of affection. And he despises Muraki – the irresponsible, non-consensual dom – with a virulence that only quite makes sense if Tatsumi is stifling a secret, panicked fellow feeling. He’d feel a lot better if he looked up some bdsm resources and accepted that there’s a big difference between himself and the doctor, even if their attitudes to Tsuzuki have superficial similarities.

Tatsumi has an intense desire to please, an impulse to impose order, the intellectual detachment to appreciate a form of sex that involves mind games as well as physical contact: all the ingredients for a bdsm kink are there, topped off by a potential love interest who’s obsessed by the idea of being punished and in need of someone who can acknowledge these scary emotions and diffuse them in a safe and loving environment.

Sadly for both of them, however, if Tatsumi doesn’t even want to get his head around being gay he’s unlikely to look into this even more socially unorthodox aspect of himself for another millennium or two. Once again, fanfic writers are just going to have to do it for him!


Penny Paperbrain




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