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This review may contain spoilers
God’s Own Country
The following review is dedicated to FreshKicks, who has always been generous in sending me his BL cuts, and who sent his copy of Kamisama to me when I needed it the most.
You might be familiar with my friend Taeko from my review of Happy of The End. She watched Kamisama at my request, and this is an edited excerpt of our conversation.
ME: So?
TAEKO: I liked it.
ME: Really?
TAEKO: Yes, I really, really liked it. So much so that I’m having the boys watch it.
ME: And?
TAEKO: They seem to be enjoying it too, which is always a good sign. I think the last time they were quite taken with something was the Heart-Li Ming storyline in Moonlight Chicken.
ME: Didn’t you just show them that cut of the show?
TAEKO: Of course, I wasn’t going to subject my kids to the rest of it.
ME (laughing): Fair enough. I was really nervous recommending this to you, you know.
TAEKO: Why?
ME: Well, it has two things you hate the most. Perhaps hate is a strong word. But you have a strong aversion for ‘gender swap’ storylines. Because they are almost never done well. But what I was more worried about was that you couldn’t countenance another story with a queer death, and…
TAEKO: I do hate them — and hate them with a passion. But only when they "bury the gays" in order to elicit cheap tears and sympathy from the viewer. “Pity the gays. Look how sad they are. What sad lives they lead. Let us tolerate them.” Fuck off. What was that Thai abombination that begins with a double suicide?
ME: Until We Meet Again.
TAEKO: Urgh. Never again. But then, remember what happened? The audience responded exactly as the cynical writers wanted them: “So raw, so realistic. This is not BL. It’s LGBT. Why? Because gays must suffer. And suffering is the only truth.”
ME: But that wasn’t the case here.
TAEKO: No. Fortunately, you had insisted I persist, and I’m so glad I did. It might now be one of my favourite JBLs. One I’d be inclined to rewatch.
ME: Praise indeed!
TAEKO (laughing): Yes. But the fact that we remained unaware of it for so long, and that so few people speak of it, or praise it, or put it on their lists, tells me a lot about….
ME: Let’s not, shall we? I already have a target painted on my forehead from all my other reviews. (Taeko laughs.) Tell me, instead, what you liked about the show. What stood out. Because we seldom tend to like the same things about a show.
TAEKO: Thar's probably true. Hmmm. Let me think. I suppose it is one of the richest BLs I have ever seen.
ME: How do you mean?
TAEKO: In the sense of being dense, intricately plotted, copious… It sort of had everything, didn’t it? BL, GL, sort-of straight love, all the clichés of a school JBL — from rooftop confessions to ill-fitting uniforms — but also overtures beyond it. It was a complete package.
ME: Yes. And how rare it is for a BL to be by turns funny, weird, sad, sexy, boring, and at one point, absolutely heartbreaking! I’m sorry, but a talking-dog fujoshi-god is an inherently funny thing, even to say it, let alone watch it; the chemistry between Rin and Kagura-as-Yashiro was beautiful and wistful; and the breakfast scene with the Tendou family was just devastating.
TAEKO: What I found more shocking was it was quite charming. Charm is a word I seldom associate with JBL — Smells Like Green Spirit and Old Fashion Cupcake are notable exceptions — and almost never with KBL. (I suppose Semantic Error is the rare exception.) But this was funny, charming, and even camp. I should very much like to think that all the gods are dressed like Yuki Furukawa in this show.
ME (laughing): You should see me during Pride Month! To me, what makes the show truly interesting is what it does with its premise. Most gender-swap storylines seem to me lazy at best — unable to follow through on the premise — or homophobic at worst. You switch genders to make ‘gayness’ palatable, and reinforce straightness as the norm. Or, it is just played for cheap laughs. (Looking at you, Hollywood.) But not here.
TAEKO: No, and it has some very complex and subtle — even poignant — things to say about gender and sexuality, and about self-acceptance, especially in Japan.
ME: I wanted to ask you about that. I seemed to miss a lot in the translation.
TAEKO: Well, this will sound to you a lot stranger than it does to me as a Japanese speaker. But, after switching bodies, Kagura and Yashiro use gender pronouns that do not correspond to their bodies. Yashiro-as-Kagura uses ‘ore’, which only men use, and Kagura-as-Yashiro uses ‘atashi’, which only women use. It also extends to use of particles like ‘wa’, and ‘no’, and other honorific prefixes and suffixes. All of which is to say, Japanese language is very heavily coded by and infused with gender and gender norms. It brings to the fore the idea that gender isn’t just the sex of your body, that it is a deeply cultural phenomenon, and, in Japan, as you know, with deeply sexist implications. You see that in Smells Like Green Spirit too, where these grammatical structures threw interesting light on the difference between being a crossdresser, say, and a trans person in Japan.
ME: That was a good show.
TAEKO: Yes. I happen to think that that show was better on gender and sexuality, in a way this wasn’t.
ME: Because, in part, they don’t use the word ‘gay’ here, I presume?
TAEKO: Yes, it’s as if Margaret Thatcher were still alive, or Ron DeSantis governed Japan. (Perish the thought!) Remember, when someone asks Rin-chan — my favourite character — if she was ‘that way’, and she gets angry? As if being called a ‘lesbian’ were the worst thing in the world? That’s so out of character for her.
ME: That rubbed me up the wrong way too. Reminded me of Janice from Mean Girls. How refreshing was Green Spirit, by contrast, when it used the word ‘gay’ within the first five minutes.
TAEKO: Wasn’t it? Anyway, what Kamisama *was* good at, I thought, at least until the last episode, was that it showed how gender and sexuality go to the very heart of selfhood. After switching bodies, they are no longer themselves. And not just because of inward conflicts, but because they didn’t realise that who you are is defined as much by your relationship with the outside world as it is within yourself. Self is a social construction.
ME: Profound, sis. I agree. At least until the last episode, the show fought hard against the idea that body and mind, head and heart, could be separated. Or *should* be separated, given that it does presume the existence of an independent soul. Otherwise, no body swap. But I liked the idea that selfhood is defined by your body too, and that it is unwise to wish it away.
TAEKO: Until they sort of ruined it in the last episode. I will say, that episode was not my favourite.
ME: Why?
TAEKO: Many reasons. The idea that Kenta suddenly loved Yashiro regardless of ‘gender’, after having taken multiple episodes to realise that Yashiro is *not* Yashiro without his physical body… it was just such a betrayal of his own personal evolution up to that point.
ME: Perhaps it was a reflection, merely, of Kenta’s bisexuality?
TAEKO: Kenta may have been bisexual — not that the show would ever use that word — but he didn’t fall in love with Yashiro when he was Kagura.
ME: I see.
TAEKO: Anyway, this wasn’t the only reason the final episode was disappointing. I also found the resolution of the plot by deus ex machina — or, in this case, deus in machina — really stupid. Though far less stupid than the last-minute backstory they gave him.
ME: I thought you’d say that. I didn’t mind it, but found it far too abbreviated to be satisfactory.
TAEKO: You just uttered the most Victorian sentence I have heard in a while. The thing is, the show constantly kept me on my feet until the last minute. Just when I thought I understood what was happening, it managed to still surprise me. The arrival of the actual Tendou Kagura, for example. As late as Ep. 5, I think. I didn’t see that coming, did you? Why did they then go down the most predictable path for Kamisama and our protagonists? Not to mention our dearest fujoshi.
ME: But the ending wasn’t predictable for Rin and Kagura though. That was very refreshing. I really liked how and where their characters ended up.
TAEKO: Oh, Rin-chan is my favourite character, and Kagura-as-Tashiro my least favourite. I suppose that’s not surprising to you.
ME: I thought the dog was your favourite.
TAEKO: It was, until they gave her a stupid backstory too.
ME: Fair enough. Did the lack of a proper kiss in the end bother you? It did me.
TAEKO: It actually didn’t, because I didn’t care for the last episode in general. Also, the leads didn’t have that much chemistry to begin with…
ME (shocked): What???
TAEKO: Sorry, love. Rin and (Yashiro-as-)Kagura had the best chemistry, and I’m prepared to die on that hill. The fact that they don’t get together is what makes the show both brilliant and subversive.
ME: I’ll never understand you, Taeko.
TAEKO (laughing): Hubby said the same thing just this morning.
ME: Poor man.
TAEKO: Oh, he’ll be fine.
ME: You know what, call me corny — but don’t look at my feet — I’m still delighted our boys got together. I needed them to. It could have been done better, I agree, and come to think of it, I don’t understand why Kamisama needed a backstory at all. In a show with a talking dog-god — excellent performance by the dog, by the way, it deserves a BAFTA or an Emmy — realism is not anyone’s concern. They could have used that time to explore the physical dynamics of the boys’ relationship, which the show really shied away from.
TAEKO: Very well put. Yes, that troubled me a lot. JBL really needs to grow a pair. But, as I said, I was a lot more bothered by the idea, reinforced at the last minute, and against everything the first 7 episodes said, that you fall in love with the "soul" after all, that the soul was the "real" person, and that the body had nothing to do with who you are. As if the body were a mere appendage. “I’ll love you no matter who (i.e., what gender) you are,” Kenta says. What codswollop!
ME: Fortunately, the first seven episodes were almost perfect.
TAEKO: I agree. And it was well cast, well acted, and for the most part, very well written. I was surprised by how well plotted it was, and how the various threads came together so well…
ME: I do wish that Japanese film makers would learn a thing or two about colour saturation. I’m sick of the faded sepia tones…
TAEKO: Yes, we need Nagisa Oshima to come back to direct a BL.
ME: There was Gohatto.
TAEKO: Recommend it here, and you’ll get murdered. I guarantee it!
ME (laughing): You know, Taeko, I think I have a good group of people here who’ll protect me. I’ll be fine.
TAEKO: Okay, if you’re going to be sincere, I might as well hang up…
ME: But then you’d have to cook for the boys.
TAEKO: Oh, the horror, the horror.
Reader’s Digest:
DO SAY: The God of Small Things
DON’T SAY: God is just Dog spelt backwards.
You might be familiar with my friend Taeko from my review of Happy of The End. She watched Kamisama at my request, and this is an edited excerpt of our conversation.
ME: So?
TAEKO: I liked it.
ME: Really?
TAEKO: Yes, I really, really liked it. So much so that I’m having the boys watch it.
ME: And?
TAEKO: They seem to be enjoying it too, which is always a good sign. I think the last time they were quite taken with something was the Heart-Li Ming storyline in Moonlight Chicken.
ME: Didn’t you just show them that cut of the show?
TAEKO: Of course, I wasn’t going to subject my kids to the rest of it.
ME (laughing): Fair enough. I was really nervous recommending this to you, you know.
TAEKO: Why?
ME: Well, it has two things you hate the most. Perhaps hate is a strong word. But you have a strong aversion for ‘gender swap’ storylines. Because they are almost never done well. But what I was more worried about was that you couldn’t countenance another story with a queer death, and…
TAEKO: I do hate them — and hate them with a passion. But only when they "bury the gays" in order to elicit cheap tears and sympathy from the viewer. “Pity the gays. Look how sad they are. What sad lives they lead. Let us tolerate them.” Fuck off. What was that Thai abombination that begins with a double suicide?
ME: Until We Meet Again.
TAEKO: Urgh. Never again. But then, remember what happened? The audience responded exactly as the cynical writers wanted them: “So raw, so realistic. This is not BL. It’s LGBT. Why? Because gays must suffer. And suffering is the only truth.”
ME: But that wasn’t the case here.
TAEKO: No. Fortunately, you had insisted I persist, and I’m so glad I did. It might now be one of my favourite JBLs. One I’d be inclined to rewatch.
ME: Praise indeed!
TAEKO (laughing): Yes. But the fact that we remained unaware of it for so long, and that so few people speak of it, or praise it, or put it on their lists, tells me a lot about….
ME: Let’s not, shall we? I already have a target painted on my forehead from all my other reviews. (Taeko laughs.) Tell me, instead, what you liked about the show. What stood out. Because we seldom tend to like the same things about a show.
TAEKO: Thar's probably true. Hmmm. Let me think. I suppose it is one of the richest BLs I have ever seen.
ME: How do you mean?
TAEKO: In the sense of being dense, intricately plotted, copious… It sort of had everything, didn’t it? BL, GL, sort-of straight love, all the clichés of a school JBL — from rooftop confessions to ill-fitting uniforms — but also overtures beyond it. It was a complete package.
ME: Yes. And how rare it is for a BL to be by turns funny, weird, sad, sexy, boring, and at one point, absolutely heartbreaking! I’m sorry, but a talking-dog fujoshi-god is an inherently funny thing, even to say it, let alone watch it; the chemistry between Rin and Kagura-as-Yashiro was beautiful and wistful; and the breakfast scene with the Tendou family was just devastating.
TAEKO: What I found more shocking was it was quite charming. Charm is a word I seldom associate with JBL — Smells Like Green Spirit and Old Fashion Cupcake are notable exceptions — and almost never with KBL. (I suppose Semantic Error is the rare exception.) But this was funny, charming, and even camp. I should very much like to think that all the gods are dressed like Yuki Furukawa in this show.
ME (laughing): You should see me during Pride Month! To me, what makes the show truly interesting is what it does with its premise. Most gender-swap storylines seem to me lazy at best — unable to follow through on the premise — or homophobic at worst. You switch genders to make ‘gayness’ palatable, and reinforce straightness as the norm. Or, it is just played for cheap laughs. (Looking at you, Hollywood.) But not here.
TAEKO: No, and it has some very complex and subtle — even poignant — things to say about gender and sexuality, and about self-acceptance, especially in Japan.
ME: I wanted to ask you about that. I seemed to miss a lot in the translation.
TAEKO: Well, this will sound to you a lot stranger than it does to me as a Japanese speaker. But, after switching bodies, Kagura and Yashiro use gender pronouns that do not correspond to their bodies. Yashiro-as-Kagura uses ‘ore’, which only men use, and Kagura-as-Yashiro uses ‘atashi’, which only women use. It also extends to use of particles like ‘wa’, and ‘no’, and other honorific prefixes and suffixes. All of which is to say, Japanese language is very heavily coded by and infused with gender and gender norms. It brings to the fore the idea that gender isn’t just the sex of your body, that it is a deeply cultural phenomenon, and, in Japan, as you know, with deeply sexist implications. You see that in Smells Like Green Spirit too, where these grammatical structures threw interesting light on the difference between being a crossdresser, say, and a trans person in Japan.
ME: That was a good show.
TAEKO: Yes. I happen to think that that show was better on gender and sexuality, in a way this wasn’t.
ME: Because, in part, they don’t use the word ‘gay’ here, I presume?
TAEKO: Yes, it’s as if Margaret Thatcher were still alive, or Ron DeSantis governed Japan. (Perish the thought!) Remember, when someone asks Rin-chan — my favourite character — if she was ‘that way’, and she gets angry? As if being called a ‘lesbian’ were the worst thing in the world? That’s so out of character for her.
ME: That rubbed me up the wrong way too. Reminded me of Janice from Mean Girls. How refreshing was Green Spirit, by contrast, when it used the word ‘gay’ within the first five minutes.
TAEKO: Wasn’t it? Anyway, what Kamisama *was* good at, I thought, at least until the last episode, was that it showed how gender and sexuality go to the very heart of selfhood. After switching bodies, they are no longer themselves. And not just because of inward conflicts, but because they didn’t realise that who you are is defined as much by your relationship with the outside world as it is within yourself. Self is a social construction.
ME: Profound, sis. I agree. At least until the last episode, the show fought hard against the idea that body and mind, head and heart, could be separated. Or *should* be separated, given that it does presume the existence of an independent soul. Otherwise, no body swap. But I liked the idea that selfhood is defined by your body too, and that it is unwise to wish it away.
TAEKO: Until they sort of ruined it in the last episode. I will say, that episode was not my favourite.
ME: Why?
TAEKO: Many reasons. The idea that Kenta suddenly loved Yashiro regardless of ‘gender’, after having taken multiple episodes to realise that Yashiro is *not* Yashiro without his physical body… it was just such a betrayal of his own personal evolution up to that point.
ME: Perhaps it was a reflection, merely, of Kenta’s bisexuality?
TAEKO: Kenta may have been bisexual — not that the show would ever use that word — but he didn’t fall in love with Yashiro when he was Kagura.
ME: I see.
TAEKO: Anyway, this wasn’t the only reason the final episode was disappointing. I also found the resolution of the plot by deus ex machina — or, in this case, deus in machina — really stupid. Though far less stupid than the last-minute backstory they gave him.
ME: I thought you’d say that. I didn’t mind it, but found it far too abbreviated to be satisfactory.
TAEKO: You just uttered the most Victorian sentence I have heard in a while. The thing is, the show constantly kept me on my feet until the last minute. Just when I thought I understood what was happening, it managed to still surprise me. The arrival of the actual Tendou Kagura, for example. As late as Ep. 5, I think. I didn’t see that coming, did you? Why did they then go down the most predictable path for Kamisama and our protagonists? Not to mention our dearest fujoshi.
ME: But the ending wasn’t predictable for Rin and Kagura though. That was very refreshing. I really liked how and where their characters ended up.
TAEKO: Oh, Rin-chan is my favourite character, and Kagura-as-Tashiro my least favourite. I suppose that’s not surprising to you.
ME: I thought the dog was your favourite.
TAEKO: It was, until they gave her a stupid backstory too.
ME: Fair enough. Did the lack of a proper kiss in the end bother you? It did me.
TAEKO: It actually didn’t, because I didn’t care for the last episode in general. Also, the leads didn’t have that much chemistry to begin with…
ME (shocked): What???
TAEKO: Sorry, love. Rin and (Yashiro-as-)Kagura had the best chemistry, and I’m prepared to die on that hill. The fact that they don’t get together is what makes the show both brilliant and subversive.
ME: I’ll never understand you, Taeko.
TAEKO (laughing): Hubby said the same thing just this morning.
ME: Poor man.
TAEKO: Oh, he’ll be fine.
ME: You know what, call me corny — but don’t look at my feet — I’m still delighted our boys got together. I needed them to. It could have been done better, I agree, and come to think of it, I don’t understand why Kamisama needed a backstory at all. In a show with a talking dog-god — excellent performance by the dog, by the way, it deserves a BAFTA or an Emmy — realism is not anyone’s concern. They could have used that time to explore the physical dynamics of the boys’ relationship, which the show really shied away from.
TAEKO: Very well put. Yes, that troubled me a lot. JBL really needs to grow a pair. But, as I said, I was a lot more bothered by the idea, reinforced at the last minute, and against everything the first 7 episodes said, that you fall in love with the "soul" after all, that the soul was the "real" person, and that the body had nothing to do with who you are. As if the body were a mere appendage. “I’ll love you no matter who (i.e., what gender) you are,” Kenta says. What codswollop!
ME: Fortunately, the first seven episodes were almost perfect.
TAEKO: I agree. And it was well cast, well acted, and for the most part, very well written. I was surprised by how well plotted it was, and how the various threads came together so well…
ME: I do wish that Japanese film makers would learn a thing or two about colour saturation. I’m sick of the faded sepia tones…
TAEKO: Yes, we need Nagisa Oshima to come back to direct a BL.
ME: There was Gohatto.
TAEKO: Recommend it here, and you’ll get murdered. I guarantee it!
ME (laughing): You know, Taeko, I think I have a good group of people here who’ll protect me. I’ll be fine.
TAEKO: Okay, if you’re going to be sincere, I might as well hang up…
ME: But then you’d have to cook for the boys.
TAEKO: Oh, the horror, the horror.
Reader’s Digest:
DO SAY: The God of Small Things
DON’T SAY: God is just Dog spelt backwards.
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