Saiyuki, Romance, Comitatus, and the Homosocial World
So, I promised myself I would keep this short, and just try to address this one thing. Let’s see how I manage.
To answer in the brief: why tie Saiyuki, a Japanese manga to western genres of epic and romance? Answer: Saiyuki is based off Journey to the West, which fits the guidelines/standards of both the epic genre and the romance genre. The genres may be seen as “Western,” but that does not mean that one cannot apply that theory to an Eastern story that fits the criteria. and vice versa. I use Western theory because that is what I am most versed in, and because in our NOT DONE FINISH
If you’ve read the early comic books, you may be surprised at, say, Batman and Robin’s early relationship. But we can go back even further, to Arthurian Romance, Beowulf, and The Song of Roland. Back to a time when the emotional expectations of men were much different.
We start with the epics (like that of the warrior Beowulf) and the idea of comitatus. There are many ideas of government and love, and, surprising or not, a lot of theories that entwine them both and comitatus is one such (as is paternal colonization).
In a feudal system or a warrior tribe one, comitatus is what you owe your leader and what he owes you. It is a love and trust, forged in battle and leadership, that lays down the basis for societal rules and the judicial system. Did your leader divide the wealth equally? If not, he broke his comitatus and you owe him neither loyalty nor love.
Spartans knew that through battle, you grew closer to your fellow soldiers. Men were even expected and encouraged to have intimate relations (as long as they hit their quota for children with their wives).
The whole story of Beowulf rests on the duty and love one bestows on another man by saving his life or honor. Beowulf answers Hrothgar’s call for help because of comitatus, and Beowulf’s soldiers show it to him in their turn.
Now, let’s move to The Song of Roland, a transition from epic to romance.
This story contains some of the most detailed lines I’ve ever read about decapitation and how a sword slices through a body. It also contains the most crying I have ever read in any book anywhere of any genre—and the crying is mostly done by men. Someone dies, and the whole battlefield pauses and has a moment where the men just cry over their comrade. The men who don’t openly show grief and rage in this text are the ones who are pegged as unnatural, and who end up being the liars and cheaters and all around bad guys. Real manly men cry.
And then we come to Arthurian Romance and things get even more fucked up. The language of love, religion, and military all get tied together at this point, and it’s not just between men and women. In fact, Arthurian romance is all about navigating the intersections and spaces between the romance and love of a potential mate, and the love and duty owed to one’s comrades. The comitatus love and romance/intimate/sexual had to be reconciled with each other. (Think of our tv shows where the bromance is threatened when a one of the guys gets a girlfriend.)
I would include quotes to illustrate my points more, but this is already long so let me just get to the conclusion.
Just like Batman and Robin, our modern audience usually will read Arthurian Romance as “homo” or “gay.”
Why?
Because this literature was written at a time when:
a.) men were expected to show emotion (think of sports, where we see men cry and slap each other’s butts and no one bats an eye. That’s what one expected warriors to behave like with each other)
b.) this is a homosocial culture
In Saiyuki, we see a group of men who have gone through hell and then go through more fucked up hell, and their emotional responses to it. Saiyuki is a homosocial society, a society wherein men have deep, complex emotional lives and where being close to other men is acceptable and, often, expected. There aren’t a lot of women when you’re traveling with a group of guys (or with an army out to battle) and the ones that are around. . . . Well they’re not stereotypical themselves, nor do you even have time to develop intimate and emotional relations with them much when you have to leave eventually.
And since Minekura hasn’t made anything official, everything is reasonable.
You read Sanzo and Goku as friends or father/son? Well that’s in there.
You read Sanzo and Goku as a romantic and intimately involved paring? Well that’s in there.
And so on.
Epics were written for warriors, because warriors were also the court. And warriors have complex emotional relationships with those who have taken blows for them or saved their lives. That’s a type of love, and it can develop into other kinds of love, or stay as comitatus. (Just as love of one’s friend can become a romantic love.)
Sanzo and Ukoku owe comitatus to Koumyou (for he was their tribe, the community that accepted them), Goku and Hakkai owe it to Sanzo, etc.
There is love in Saiyuki. And just like in epics and romances, the love can be read as comitatus or brotherhood or romantic. . . . there are slews of potential.
But we don’t have a lot of words for love in English anymore and our words for people who love differently than the conventions are sadly ill-used, misused, and frankly disappointing. And there are so very many different types of love, romance, and attraction. . . .
Saiyuki is an excellent depiction of the diversity out there, and the complexity that comes with that diversity.
