You’re pretty spot on with the Mine view. The way in which he’s viewed by Japanese and western audiences is an intriguing and at times painful experience. The way dudebros see him is especially painful. His speech at the end of the game just went through one ear and out the other. You can’t convince these people otherwise on the fact he’s not straight. Like you’ve said before, they’ve always got some sort of “proof” such as a convenient Japanese friend who thinks the subs are lying or some other nonsense. Interesting how Mine is set up as a character who you need to understand loves another man, or you don’t understand him at all and everything falls apart. I think the worse read of their relationship is that some guys try to press that Mine views Daigo like a father…
Oda gets this to some degree, too. I’ve seen some be in denial, and again, try to claim it was a bro type thing. It really seems like a number of these guys project their own concerns and fears of being assumed gay with telling their male friends they love them. I’ve seen that come up quite a bit with Mine especially.
There’s a pretty large group of mostly dudebros and some girls who get really angry when people make more serious claims about Majima not being straight as well. Guys are 100% okay with making jokes, but then will jump to defend him with bizarre excuses like “He’s just being a troll”, “He’s just straight and depressed”, and other strangeness. I really don’t know when or how he got pulled into their sphere of traditional masculinity, but possibly due to his mass popularity, he ends up with these types of fans. The comedic angle they take with Majima’s character is also something they try to lean into for the aforementioned commentary.
Zhao’s direction throughout 7 doesn’t really have anything for dudebros to project onto. Admittedly after the amount of nonsense I’ve had to sit through without even looking for it, I feel a little relieved that Zhao has never been someone they can shape for themselves. But at the same time I just know they’ll probably start getting a different kind of weird about him at some point.
Thank you so much for writing in! As always, putting up with all that willful ignorance would be completely unbearable if not for the solidarity. That being said, The Never-ending Search for Evidence to the Contrary has reached truly laughable levels of desperation in the past. Please take this verbatim quote from when KHHSubs found my post:
[. . .] that native Japanese players of the game don't come out of the experience thinking Mine was romantically attracted to Daigo [. . .] I spent ages the other day trying to find some Japanese sources (reviews, random forum posts, yahoo questions, anything) [. . .]
Yahoo Answers?
Like, if you're forced to scrape the bottom of the barrel to find Japanese people who have even posed the question, let alone Japanese people who agree with you, maybe reconsider your stance. Perhaps you can't find what you're looking for because it should be as obvious as the color of Kiryu's shirt.
Moving on, when it comes to Mine and Daigo, there's both the Brother Contingent and the Father Contingent, and uhhh Both Are Deranged. The weaponization of the found family trope has been nothing but disheartening to see, as someone who loves the trope. It's supposed to be about deconstructing the conventional idea of family, not recreating the nuclear family in your head with characters who are neither related nor see each other as such and then throwing accusations around. There's enough weird shit in both the games and the fandom, I promise we don't need to invent more.
With regard to Oda, I had a great talk with @skajador that I'll paraphrase here (decently, I hope). In terms of the wiki, the articles are sort of symbiotic; it's always been the case that any evidence for Oda has been equally applicable to Mine and vice versa. So while both articles have been subject to back-and-forths, and both are often mentioned in the same breath, Mine's is significantly more controversial and draws more heated responses.
There are probably a number of factors at play here, one of which is, of course, the insecurities you mentioned. Another is that, while Oda's character doesn't tap into wish fulfillment the way Mine's does, he's still a "male role model" for both Kiryu and by extension the player for most of the game. He's still masculine, and he's still meant to be taken seriously, so like with Mine, there's an extant "attachment" to not perceiving him as gay.
It's worth addressing why there's been less "backlash" to Oda, too. For Mine, the fact he's gay plays a major part in his narrative "twist." With Oda's twist being the bombshell it is, him being gay sort of takes a back seat. It's a hell of a lot easier to dismiss if you barely register it, you're more willing to accept it as "minor," or you just don't engage with it because he's crossed the Moral Event Horizon already or whatever.
Additionally, the question of whether it's mutual isn't prodded at nearly as much for Tachibana and Oda as it is for Daigo and Mine. A lot of dudebros are specifically mad because they (mis)interpret Mine's relationship tag as being mutual. The idea of a "devoted subordinate's" unrequited love for his superior is tenable, but the alternative is not.
With Majima, Nishitani, and some others, it's definitely the case that it's all fun and games until it's not. When it's Too Real, when it's no longer For The Bit, when there's no more plausible deniability in the form of Homiesexuality™, that's scary. It really speaks to the fears a lot of these people have, like you said.
I should've talked more about Zhao in the original post, but that's exactly it. And, hey, if he's Repelled Them Successfully for this many years, I think that's a good sign for him.
