how to know if a series is slashable, part seventeen

[kaigou]

Is one of the main characters voiced by Takehito Koyasu?

Then: YES. Very much of the (probably even intended) slash.

I swear, the man has slash radar when he picks out roles.

Comments

[giethe.livejournal.com]

Or, as I once ran into a forum post found, "Do you have an ambiguously gay character? Koyasu is free this sunday!"

[kaigou]

bwah. oh, YEAH.

[ramenkuri.livejournal.com]

lol. I imagine they pick him for that purpose too.

[kaigou]

And he's got the clout now to demand the roles that he knows will trigger the fangirls, too, so I suspect it's a self-perpetuating cycle.

[annotated_em]

*sporfles* This is so very, very true.

[kaigou]

Yep, yep. It's how I pick (or don't pick) some series when it comes to unfamiliar downloads.

[branchandroot]

*snerks* Yeah, that's a pretty sure bet. Did you have a particular example in mind, or are you just noting the statistical pattern?

[kaigou]

Does it really count as a statistical pattern when the answer is, "oh, EVERYTHING" ?

[branchandroot]

*thoughtful* The interesting part is that, while he's a good slash index, it isn't always his character that's slashable. He also has a pretty strong pattern of playing utter psychos like Sakujun in SaiMono or Pandora in YuGiOh or Ukyo in Samurai 7.

[kaigou]

I think those cases -- especially Ukyo, whom I recall watching for a good several episodes before going, WAIT OMFG IS THAT... in total shock -- he's going on the notion of riding the slashability coattails, or something. In general, though, if he's playing a non-psycho character, you can pretty much guarantee that he's slashable with at least two other characters, if not three or four. That's where I think he totally miscalculated on GW, at least IMO, because he didn't realize that the eventual storyline would not put Heero against Zechs on a regular basis, but would instead put Zechs in the secondary position (under Treize) and against the core of slashable pilots -- his character may be slashable but viewer loyalties and inclinations (to root for the good guys) knocked him down a bunch of notches on the slash index, certainly way below just about any other pilot-to-pilot slash levels. That's how we get a bazillion 1x2x1 doujin and what, three 1x6x1 doujin? Heh. Because from the first four or five episodes, it sure looks like it's being set up with "eternal rivals" between Zechs and Heero, as the driving pairing under the rest of the series, and then by ep6 or so the scripts take a sudden jump to the left (or maybe Duo Maxwell's character just steals the show enough) that Zechs is almost an afterthought.

Poor voice actor. Betting on ultimate slashability to follow up the disaster (but PR masterpiece) of WK, and miscalculating so badly. I'm fairly certain that somewhere on this planet, in a very small dark room, there's a little boy playing a violin just for Takehito.