TV tropes - Guyver

[*V Guyver]

There are a number of cool ones, but here's one that actually made me raise an eye brow and laugh. The entire Chronos organization being... oh my. Even Tetsuro?

"Bio Booster Armor Guyver has it's fair share of moments. TetsurÅ Segawa has subtle hints of being possibly gay towards his Bromance, Sho Fukamachi. His sister Mitzuki has taken various opportunities to paint them in such light when catching them in moments odd moments such as holding hands with Sho when the two were reaffirming their resolve and friendship. To top it off, he is never seen hitting on women, never flinching or startled when a naked Sho pops up unexpected. Such as when in the manga a Sho clone pops up and he comments on why he's naked due to the heat, and later when being busted out of a prison cell in the anime. During the final episode of anime, he encourages and pushes his sister to greet a long thought dead Sho, only for Natski to ask her why he wont himself, which causes him to blush in embarrassment.

The evil Chronos organization is nearly an exclusively male operated with male exclusive male membership in high ranks and troops. This has led to some ambiguity amongst their leaders and ranks. Supreme leader Archanfel has a girly elfish appearance, and later ends up having a shared mind with and mutual loyalty to fellow Zoalord Imurikum. Imurikum in turn is often shown carrying a Archanfel in his arms. The "Hyper Zoanoid Team Five" members have a big deal of loyalty to one another, but Elagen and Zx-Tole are portrayed in the OVA to a high degree of this trope with lines such as "You have to hold on, I need your strength, I need you!" and "Oh, I'll do anything for you Elegan!"."

Taken from http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/AmbiguouslyGay

[*Jess♥]

It irks me that so often in western society, people are labelled.

labelling somebody as homosexual simply because they have a close relationship with another man, this is obscene.

are a father and son gay? what about two brothers?

seriously, "the west", get a grip, there is such thing as platonic closeness. specifically among heterosexual males, it should not be difficult for men to be close to each other without drawing on some stereotype or be judged as homosexual.

I had a good friend in university who was very touchy-feely. a number of times he gave me a big hug. there was nothing sexual about it whatsoever, it was male bonding and comradery.

 

hell, this even extends to opposite sex relationships. it is possible to have close friendship between man and woman without being a sexual component.

[*V Guyver]

Of course! before homophobia became the norm in recent history, it was perfectly acceptable to hold hands with a male friend walking down the street (it still is in Africa) and what's wrong with intimacy among guys who are brotherly. Actually it would be kinda cool if Chronos indeed had some gay members of either sex. Hyper Zoanoid Team five have two gay members would actually make sense and make ZxTole revenge all the more deeper. 

[*Chernaudi]

I'm sort of inclined to say that the person who wrote that entry probably was trying to be a smart-ass.  I don't believe that there's much in the way of proof that anyone can call certain characters in Guyver gay.  Of course, some have said that Aptom and Hayami, as well as Alky and Murakami have a homo-erotic relationship, but at least they add the tag that "some fans see it this way" and put it under the "Your Mileage May Vary" section.  And at least they list Shin and Purg as being "heterosexual life partners".

 

I also don't get where they get some things, especially with some female characters, as far as being a tomboy or a girly girl.  They listed Shizu under "real women don't wear dresses" becuase they said that she shot at a Zoanoid, yet dresses more femininely than most female characters in Guyver.  The latter point is true--she does tend to dress more femininely than Mizuki or Natsuki.  However, I can't recall her picking up a gun and shooting at anyone in the manga or the OVAs, and since I can't recall her doing this in the TV series, I'm doubtful that she shot at anyone.  She does fight with and kill Zoanoids, but that's only after she becomes Griselda--before hand, she's about as helpless as any other normal human being would be.

 

And then there's Natsuki being a tomboy--and TV Tropes even puts Shizu in that category, too.  That's a bit understandable, as Shizu's the main action girl among the protagonists, but I wouldn't say that she's a tomboy just because she fights and helps the Libertus in combat.  But back to Natsuki--so what if she has shorter hair than most of the women in Guyver, it's still something I'd consider a feminine hairdo.  And her being a T-shirt and jeans girl to a degree?  What woman isn't nowadays?  And besides, Natsuki actually often dresses more femininely than a lot of the women I work with, or at least as femininely. 

 

But back to the point that Ryuki brought up.  I do think that as a society that we do close ourselves off from a lot of things--a lot of good things, too--when we just start to classify people with stereotypes.  I can't see Tetsuro as being gay--he loves Sho as a brother, and what's wrong with that?  After all, Sho is his sister's BF and they (Mizuki and Sho) are lovers, so it would be a benefit if Sho and Tetsuro have that friendship.  And also, Natsuki and Tetsuro might not have a BF/GF relationship like Mizuki and Sho have, but it's much deeper than casual friendship.  Does that count for something?

 

Not to say that I have anything against gays.  I'd think that it'd be neat if Takaya was able to portray gay friendships in a positive light in Guyver.  I'm not gay myself, but I see them as people, like every other human being on this planet, and should be judged individually on character as opposed to lame-ass stereotypes.

[*V Guyver]

Well said. Personally, I'm pretty much indifferent to this. I believe the tropes sections are user created right? No real context control, and they only pointed out loose examples in Guyver (well except maybe that one line between elegan and ZxTole...) So not to be taken seriously, but that bit about Chronos did get me thinking again. I mean, in the entire manga, just a handful of women, and no women at all in the ranks when depicted in the anime. Either Chronos doesn't trust women, or they are trying to bring views from past eras of male dominated societies. 

[*Chernaudi]

I don't know if it's a generation gap or what else it could be, but, as some have put it, Chronos is largely a "sausage fest".  Aside from the traditional roles of secretaries and office workers, it seems that only Val really got up into the upper echelons of Chronos.  But then again, that seems to be going against the more open-minded types at Chronos such as Shin, it would seen at least.  Of course, we don't know exactly how Shin believes about women, as he's never really seen interacting with them.  Yes, he seemed surprised when he discovered that Shizu was Griselda and that she was leading the Libertus.  But to be fair, it seemed that he was in general surprised that Agito would have access to the abilities to process any Zoaform from anything, male or female.  That can be open to interpretation.

 

I do believe that maybe it's a commentary by Takaya to have Shizu being the main person who leads the Libertus and that Agito let her volunteer for such a role.  Also it can be seen as a commentary also in that Shizu is a girly girl and she has/had little if any actual combat training, though it should be pointed out that she's extremely lethal and dangerous in close quarters combat, and that pissing her off as Griselda has often been a decision that many haven't been able to live long enough to regret.  Maybe he's trying to make Chronos to a large degree seem like they're old fashioned and that such old fashionedness and not moving with the times can cost them big time for not adapting. 

 

So that's another thing with how Chronos seems to have little to do with women having any major role in the organization.  And it does sort of make one wonder how they would view gays, too.  Shin seems to be a lot more compassionate and caring about basic humans, while the other Zoalords view normal humans with varying degrees of indifference.  However, if Shin has more liberal views towards women and gays, that's a question that doesn't seem to have an answer.

[daveblackeye152]

I admit I contributed to a lot of the Guyver tropes page, like some of the girly girl and tomboy stuff, but I didn't add the Tetsuro ho yay...just the Aptom and Hayami stuff :/

Anyway yes I was just reading the books past book 8 around that time I found tvtropes so I was going really crazy and excited for Guyver.

[*Jess♥]

I do believe that maybe it's a commentary by Takaya to have Shizu being the main person who leads the Libertus and that Agito let her volunteer for such a role. 

this is very interesting.

I am just realising why it is that Guyver speaks to me so much.

this sort of viewpoint paints Takaya as a strong libertarian and anti-establishment in his world view.

I also have this world view so is probably why Guyver is so meaningful to me.

 

so what you are saying here seems to be that our protagonists seem to do things that go against the establishment, not merely in their violent actions, but also in their philosophical bent.

[*Chernaudi]

I don't see it exactly that way, though I understand where you're coming from.  We do have to remember that the Zoalords in Chronos are centuries old:  Barcas is about 500 years old, Shin is almost 400 years old, and so on. 

 

Agito, of course, being only like 21-22 years old, is obviously much more modern.  But there's a certain irony to my statement, too.  Agito does seem to be far right wing socialist or right wing militant in a lot of ways, almost verging on him almost being portrayed as almost a fascist.  But for all that seemingly right wing mentality that he has, he none the less had Shizu volunteer to become the Griselda and lead the Libertus.  Of course, that's probably as much down to practicality as much as speaking to any liberal views he may have from his POV.  After all, Shizu has shown to be pretty willing most of the time to do anything that she thinks will help Agito, often without him even asking her for her assistance.  She's one of the few people who Agito can trust with his life and limb and his deepest secrets, and she's a willing participant in a lot of Agito's schemes, due to her wanting to wipe out Chronos out of his desire for revenge, and since Chronos is responsible for her grandpa's death, Shizu is probably fighting to get her own measure of revenge, too--she possibly wants Imakarum dead as much as anyone for what happened to Yohei.

 

But back to your point, I do have to agree that the protagonist have a more liberal/modern view of women than most of Chronos does.  Shizu is the action girl and a leader of men, as well as being aggressive and brave when she has/wants to be (she never seemed to be phased by Zoanoids unless Agito and to a large extent Sho and his friends were in some danger--but that only angered her much more than scare her), that's an obvious one.  Natsuki is a sci-fi nerd and the brainy chick (not to slight Mizuki, who did well in school, but Natsuki is the one who can figure out stuff about Zoanoids and doesn't seem to be afraid of them), and she helps out Sho and Tetsuro with their research.  And Mizuki, being Sho's true love, is a major motivator for him to fight against Chronos.

 

As for Chronos, they seem to have a more traditional view of women in modern society--stay at home mothers, clerks, librarians, office workers, stuff like that.  An exception might be Shin, but I can't say that for certain.  But then again, this could just be that unless people pledge their services to Chronos voluntarily, most of the Zoalords seem to be largely indifferent to humans.  Of course, for an antagonist POV for a liberal/modernist view, we had Purg and we still have Shin.  They show concern for normal humans, and all employees of Chronos, and unless he's surprised and extremely angered, Shin treats even the most lowly of Chrono's workers and normal humans with the same or similar respect that he reserves for Barcas and others roughly equal to him in rank within the organization or above him.

 

But as I mentioned, Chronos by and large just seems to hold to a lot of old fashioned views, while the younger people, especially protagonist (though with some exceptions, such as possibly Shin), have a veiw that seems to be more inline with modern western culture.  It kinda goes back to the deal with Natsuki with the crucifix necklace.  I believe that Takaya is aware of western culture and modern world views in general, and he seems to be commentating on the strengths and weaknesses of varying views to show that one isn't necessarily superior to the other.

[*Chernaudi]

Mild fan fic spoiler:  At the conclusion of the chapter that I'll try and finish for Bio-Booster Armor Twilight, the males get into a discussion/argument/whatever you wanna call it about their significant others (Camel, Agito and Sho talk about Lia, Shizu and Mizuki, respectively, and Aptom also joins in, too, as does Jacob from the Twilight Saga).  Mostly what makes a girl a girl, and a man a man.  Just a stupid argument because Camel seems to the be the least "mascuiline" of the males and why girls like him.

 

Of course, the girls (Shizu, Lia, Mizuki, Natsuki, Bella, Melinda, Jess, et al) just listen in for their entertainment...

[*V Guyver]

Agito's an odd case, he's fighting not so much the establishment of the world, but rather the society he was raised in, Chronos.

Agito's views, are actually very close to Chronos, he wants power, he wants to dominate others, he wants to build a utopia, but like Chronos, wants to be it's sole leader, he's motivated mostly out of revenge and fear of being helpless. He's oddly enough a conservative, but looks like a liberal compared to what spawned him. 

Chronos has similar goals, but they are subverted by a desire to build a war machine and enslave humanity on top of what Agito wants, the prime motive being sake of power, that being the unified goal out of all of them. The goals  and loyalties of the Zoalords vary though, but power is common. I noticed loyalty is focused on Alky, and even more so on Barcus (ironic that without Barcus, the Zoalords would of rebelled or gone into a civil war ages ago.), the ones who aren't Zoalords out of loyalty, are toady opportunists who fear Alky's power.