#mita touma

[choujinx]

AO NO FLAG (2017-2020) chapter 17 by kaito

[eggoshalo]

[l0afpan]

It’s time for my annual Think About Them

[daisyachain]

ichinose

[mewodie]

if i had a dollar for every time i drew them i’d have 1 billion dollars

[leafcat26]

best friend power

[twinkjosten]

Ao No Flag analysis: Taichi, jealousy, normativity and queerness

I'm slowly rereading Ao No Flag as I purchase the physical volumes and one thing that I've noticed in the story, especially in vol 3, is the topic of jealousy.

I feel like many people got super confused by the manga's ending because the main feeling that they got from Taichi towards Touma throughout the story was of jealousy.

The reason why I think it's so interesting is because it's a very common feeling and overall issue for queer people when we are discovering our identities: do I want to be them? or do I want them?

What I think is funny about Taichi is that he feels he can't compete against Touma because he has everything he lacks. He knows he is jealous of him. However, at the same time, we still see him get jealous of Akiko. He has a particular feeling towards the "type" he thinks Touma has. Therefore, two conflicting feelings are happening here: He is jealous of Touma (because he is good at everything and girls have crushes on him) and he is jealous of the people Touma seems to like (and those who like him).

More often than not, for queer men, the answer to "do I want to be him or do I want him?" ends up being, well, both.

The reason why I think we don't see Taichi realizing this explicitely is because (and this is the other thing that I discovered rereading) he is very normative. He is an example:

Taichi was confronting Futaba because, why was she there with him if she was supposed to like Touma? and Futaba, my beloved, answers with a key point of the manga: isn't it okay to have several people that are precious to you?

But Taichi doesn't understand that. Itachi posed the same question to him before, but he didn't understand it. He doesn't understand it until the very end of the manga. In his head, men and men are supposed to be friends. Women and men are supposed to be more.

If you blush because of a man, it means something negative, you're jealous. However, if you blush because of a woman, then you must be attracted to her. Right?

What kills me is that one of the people who cemented these normative feelings in Taichi was Touma himself when he refused to hold hands anymore because "holding hands is for girls."

It's such a small scene, but it's pivotal to understand Taichi as a character. We know that Taichi thinks in black and white. He thinks that if he doesn't save the cat, then he is the worst person in the universe. He associates situations with single emotions. With rights or wrongs.

To conclude, the reason why I believe that it makes sense that he ended up with Touma is because I can see and understand the complexity of dealing with normativity when you grow up queer and you have stone set ideas of what is right and what is wrong. Since "it isn't right" for men to hold hands, then the strong feeling that you have towards them has to be jealousy, right?

Anyway, I still don't think the manga is perfect and I would have loved to have more development at the end, but I think that Taichi's internal struggles are very relatable.

[ladsofsorrow24]

when everything's turning who do you love?