@handsomefatman reblogged your post “Is Senketsu Isshin?” and added:
I see Senketsu and Ryuko the same way I see like Guardian Forces and PCs in Final Fantasy VIII; they’re “in you” but not “that way.”Senketsu and Ryuko’s relationship never struck me as sexual in any way, shape, or form. Ryuko and Mako, on the other hand…
I’ve actually discussed this more at length before. To quote:
Of course, having living clothes and wearing them doesn’t mean you’re automatically gonna go for this [a sexual/romantic] sort of vibe. As any narrative element, it all depends on how it’s played, and in this case, maybe you just want a goofy and heartwarming story about it! Take Gutsy Frog. It’s a manga/anime series about a boy who crushes a frog whose spirit then lives on in his shirt. I haven’t read or watched it myself, but I’m going to hazard a guess that it doesn’t even touch on [”wearing” someone being used in a romantic/sexual fashion](thank goodness). It’s also worth it to note that Kill la Kill’s idea of talking clothing is likely at least somewhat inspired by it with how many homages the show has to older works and how Gutsy Frog seems to be one of director Hiroyuki Imaishi’s greatest influences; if nothing else, though, one of Sushio’s latest drawings posted on his Twitter shows that at least he’s a fan, as it features Senketsu and Guts on Ryuko and Mako’s respective shirts communicating to them in a manner that is pretty obviously a shout-out.
In any case, Kill la Kill could have gone the same way. But it doesn’t. Oh, goodness. It really, really doesn’t. The show (and OST) love to play up the innuendo:
Even the voice actors joke about it. Ryoka Yuzuki, Satsuki’s Japanese voice actress, commented at the AX 2014 panel that Satsuki wearing Senketsu in episodes 20/21 was like she had “won over someone else’s boyfriend.” Toshihiko Seki, Senketsu’s Japanese voice actor, noted in the Febri Volume 21 interview that Ryuko and Senketsu can be viewed rather as a married couple. David Vincent, Senketsu’s English voice actor, made a gag in the blooper reel comparing Senketsu seeing Ryuko wearing Junketsu as being like seeing a lover with someone else (“That whore! I’m taking my iron and leaving!”)
Kill la Kill, of course, is crude and raunchy as all hell. Maybe it’s only expected that they would have a field day with this sort of thing, and given the nature of the series, you’re not really supposed to take it seriously. Regardless, though, it’s still very much there.
So, in other words? Kill la Kill could have easily gone the Gutsy Frog (or Final Fantasy VIII) route and made it very clearly not “like that.” But they make jokes about it. They have dialogue rife with suggestive implications. They have a whole song that takes it all up to eleven.
Of course, as stated above, I argue it’s not really supposed to be taken “that way,” but you could have easily avoided all this and they don’t. This stuff exists, and a big point I was making with my post was that it’s really uncomfortable to me personally to completely ignore this and suggest that Senketsu is Ryuko’s father.
But to take this a little further, this whole subject brings me back to my whole struggle with how to really express how I feel about the direction of Senketsu’s character. Because when you think about it, they could have made the little jokes and innuendo so bad. Senketsu could have been so incredibly awful to Ryuko. Being worn by her nearly all the time, we could have scene after scene of him groping or otherwise harassing her. We could have had to endure long, nasty monologues where he’s just completely objectifying her.
But we don’t. On the whole, Senketsu is completely respectful and loving of Ryuko the whole way through, and when we do get these little moments in the show, they’re just... so sweet? They love being together! There’s none of the usual, awful, “haha, a boob got touched and she’s flustered about it” sort of situations, but rather, “I’m really glad to be with you and I feel comfortable trusting you.” And this is just... so, so, so great.
And once more, I can’t help but feel that if Senketsu were exactly as I just described—rude and nasty and cruel to Ryuko—no one would have these parental readings for him. It’d be romantic and cute and funny.
And that makes me so sad.
