TV Tropes says this is the "Canis Major" trope. (https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/CanisMajor) But Natsume Yuujinchou, Campfire Cooking In Another World With My Absurd Skill, and Kusunoki’s Garden of Gods, all have so many more specificities in common: sentient, supernatural, large, wolf deity. Not just a big dog. And as intelligent as any human; no "affectionally silly dumb dog" tropes. And I know that 2 of these series portray the wolf deity hanging around their human, as something a little odd, even by their worlds' standards.
I've seen multiple posts tonight about Jayvik size difference, and it makes me suspect there's been some discourse lately about JayVik "size difference". It reminded me that I've had some aversion to this trope. But the funny thing is, I'm fine with this trope in JayVik.
I think it has to do with how I come to know a couple. When I give a new BL title a try, I don't know them. The only thing I know about them, is their character design, what is symbolized by their character design, and that the narrative will get them together, because it's a Romance genre.
Mangaka have admitted multiple times, that they have to rely on tropes as shortcuts in their industry, to try to convey the most information, as fast as possible, to someone flipping thru their book, with a zillion other choices. A manga only as a few seconds to get a potential buyer's attention. It's why something eyecatching is usually in the panel on the page and part of the page that is most easily seen while flipping pages, quickly skimming thru a manga. It's also why a lot of BL starts with smut, to grab the reader's attention (even if often at the cost of a narrative that prioritizes consent). Mangaka have to use shortcuts.
Unfortunately, that means, that after years of exposure to the conventions of BL (and frankly, also true of Shoujo manga), I've come to recognize the most likely tropes represented by character design. "The younger, more fem-looking character is the uke." "The shorter character is the uke." (In Shoujo manga: "The short girl is infantilized, while the guy is made to look too much older...and maybe often treat her like a child/dependent.") "The shorter, more bishounen character will act passive, or fill stereotypically 'feminine" roles from heterosexual Romance genre relationship dynamics, or they will get the short end of a power imbalance, often including dub-con." Tropes like that, keep happening, connected to character design, and often accompanying the shorter and/or smaller character. Tropes are used as shortcuts to represent and symbolize certain character traits and relationship dynamics' roles. It's a shortcut. The problem is that sometimes, I get tired of these character designs, because they repeatedly hint at certain expectations and tropes, that I don't like much.
If going into a Romance genre story, I see a size difference, I can often expect (and dread) a power imbalance. Personally, I don't prefer a power imbalance. But often, when I get into these new stories that I haven't read before, the character designs are my only introduction to the characters. It may take a while for the story to portray their characterizations. But often, the character design does most of the heavy lifting, up front. Maybe because most BL are short stories. Maybe using character design, physical appearance of a character, to directly correlate to their personalities and their roles within their relationships, is just good, functional character design. But that does mean I've been conditioned to recognize a pattern of power imbalance when the couple has a size difference. And that's not my preference. (Which is why I often prefer couples of similar heights, in the BL manga, and relatedly, M/M ships, that I get into.)
It colors my expectations for how the characters and their relationship will be portrayed. When I have nothing to go by but their character design, before the story gives me enough, to learn about the characters, then I'm going to use the symbolism provided by such character design to anticipate the tropes, that I have been repeatedly conditioned to expect.
Which brings me to a theory for why I'm okay with Jayvik's size difference: I got to know them, before I was subjected to a narrative, that was racing to couple them up. Firstly, a lot of purely Romance genre stories, and especially BL/yaoi, move VERY quickly to pair up a couple, or to at least get them in bed together. Meanwhile, I am a "slow burn" preferer. I like couples with such ambiguous love, that they spend most of the story being friends, growing feelings, and postponing love confessions and officially becoming a romantic couple, until very late in the game. Because Jayvik's romance is subtext in the canon, because they are technically a non-canon ship, I felt like they had more of a "slow burn" than a rushed relationship. It gave me time to know them and understand their relationship, for a long time, before even mentioning romance. I wasn't stuck with a rushed narrative, relying on the symbolism within their character designs, to foreshadow tropes (that I disliked).
When I see JayVik, yes, I see Viktor is fairly short and slim, while Jayce is very tall and broad-shouldered. But I don't see them as the immediate representation of the "passive uke in a power imbalance with a dominant seme". I see them as Jayce and Viktor. They happen to have a noticeable size difference, but I also don't fixate on it much. I see them as individual characters, that I got to know. I see their relationship that grew slowly (in terms of romance). I don't see their character designs as foreshadowing the expected dub-con trope from a pushy seme. Instead, I see Viktor and Jayce, who have dreams as individuals, who sync up so well together, and admire and care for each other so much. To me, their size differences are incidental. Honestly, I often don't think about it.
Ranma 1/2 has been my favorite manga for years. But I never called the 1989 anime my favorite anime, because that was such a horrendous adaptation.
Immediately, after the first 1 or 2 seasons, the animation quality went so down. I can't tell you how happy i was when Sunrise finally took away the animation licensing monopoly that the previous studio seemed to have on adapting Rumiko Takahashi's series.
Before Naruto, Ranma 1/2 1989 was the poster child for filler anime. And they had such terrible filler too. Even before I knew which episodes were anime-only and which were based on the manga, I retroactively noticed that the 1 filler episode in season 1, strangely, coincidentally, was the only episode not to make me laugh aloud, throughout the episode, like all the other season 1 episodes had. I know there are some people who like the filler episodes, but to me, the writing was so terrible compared to Rumiko Takahashi's writing. She knew how to pace story arcs, have just the right amount of a break between high tension chapters, and everything from her humor to her drama, emotionally landed.
But then the 1989 anime would do weird things like adapt manga chapters, but pad them out with noticeably worse B plots. Or they'd change individual scenes to be worse. Or they'd adapt a story arc, but switch major things. Like, the manga's beach race while carrying a watermelon makes sense. Breaking watermelons with a big stick is a common beach game. But why did the 1989 anime turn it into mini snowmen on a snowy mountain while skiing???? Why did they change the food delivery race, to swap out Shamooo with some random OC??? Was it to give a sense that Genma is a jerk who keeps making promises he won't keep? Or to reinforce that Ranma keeps acquiring suitors that he doesn't want? I promise you, the original story will do all that on its own!
And Ranma 1/2 was the prototype for multiple trends, but it became that way because the 1989 anime adaptation bent some things from the manga, to overemphasize what they wanted. Did you ever wonder why Harem anime with tsundere, violent, leading lady, love interests took over in the 1990s/2000s? It's because that's what the anime industry latched onto from Ranma 1/2. Not Takahashi's perspective as a woman. Not pointing out the absurdity of romance tropes. Not Akane's kindness. No. The 1989 anime adaptation wanted to emphasize girls falling into the MC's lap, and a masochism fetish---that became more clear with series like MM!, Love Hina (whose anime adaptation was also less romance/drama than the source manga, and more Naru punching Keitaro), anime filler scenes/episodes/movies of Bleach (that also turned Rukia's no nonsense personality and narratively strategic slapstick, into grossly frequent, less justified violence and irrational temper tantrums). Lots of anime girls in 1990s/2000s anime adaptations suffered the same as Akane Tendo in anime adaptations. Because that's what happens when men in the industry figure out they can sell waifus and think that just because a female character is tough and can defend her own boundaries, then her characterization must be "angry all the time". Go read Otomen, Buso Renkin, or Bleach: these manga have leading ladies that clearly descend from manga-version Akane Tendo, who isn't just angry all the time, at everything. But then the majority of popular anime from the 1990s/2000s focus on all the irrationally violent tsundere, overemphasizing their anger and little else for the majority of the time. At least, that 1990s or 2000s weekly, Japanese, live action show of a woman angrily yelling into a first-person camera, for a collage of different scenarios, was honest about what those trends, at the time, were about, what they were accumulating towards: fetishizing women's anger. I'm so glad now that the deredere seems to have become the most popular archetype in the 2020s, overtaking the tsundere. Now, when Akane Tendo gets adapted into the new Ranma 1/2 2024 anime, they're not afraid to show her kindness and vulnerability---AS IS MANGA ACCURATE---vs overemphasizing her anger, just because "that's what's popular" to those industry heads from the 1990s/2000s who wanted to play into a masochism kink.
I don't blame Takahashi for condoning the changes that the 2024 Ranma 1/2 made, versus the manga. Sometimes people take satire making fun of them, as affirmation. And sometimes, that's not clear until much later. (All in the Family, Colbert Report, The Prince) I keep seeing comparison pics of manga Happosai groping Ranma's boobs, vs 2025 anime Happosai groping Ranma's leg. I remember going into Anime Expo video rooms, years ago, and all the men cheering when Happosai came on screen. Takahashi made that character to represent all things bad and villainous. It made him a convenient antagonist whenever one was needed. Because she assumed that everyone would see a pervert like that as clearly bad. It was a given that no one would sympathize with a character who constantly gropes/harasses women. (Happosai didn't even get more dimensions like Araru Moroboshi. Ataru was just enough of a pervert so you'd enjoy watching him get the bludgeoned by slapstick. But he often was unsuccessful in grabbing girls, so he wouldn't seem as unforgivable, unlike Happosai. But Ataru also got enough humanizing characterization so you'd root for him to be with Lum.) Happosai was also an important lesson for Ranma to learn about the female experience, being on guard against creeps---just like every other "boy turning into girl" manga (of which, i have a whole shelf of…mixed in with crossdressing heroines). And unlike most anime that turned a pervert's groping into a "funny" joke and opportunity for fanservice, Takahashi treated it as actual villainy, for which Happosai got pummeled for---on screen! The camera/panels lingered on him beaten up, closed in on him beaten up with close-ups, more than lingering on his hand groping boobs, unlike lots of other anime do. Time and again, men adapt Takahashi's manga, and miss the point. (Even 2024 Ranma 1/2 angered me by omitting dialogue about a very important feminine experience: getting gender policed/trauma, from motherly figures that were previously emotionally safe. But noooo…Can't taint Kasumi's image apparently.) So if taking Happosai out of Ranma's boobs and onto his leg, re-shifts the focus back onto the actual points of those scenes, vs men getting distracted with enjoyment of the images, then it's a good change.
You were supposed to sympathize with Ranma as the main character, being horrified, angry, violated, and humiliated, ya goofs! And not just humiliated as a girl or human, but also as a martial artist. The reason Happosai, the grand master of the Anything Goes School of Martial Arts, is the pervert, is because who else but the founding grand master of their entire martial arts style could so easily and often, get past Ranma's defenses as a martial artist, to grope him, after the whole series had been building him up as a martial arts genius? And why is it so imperative that Ranma get groped? Because he's a misogynist whose character arc revolves around him coming to respect women, the female experience, and his own "feminine" sides. Every gender switching series knows this is one of the most important themes, if the protagonist is AMAB. Cheeky Angel, Your & My Secret, Futaba-kun Change, Image comics' Mantra, etc. (I haven't read enough of Pretty Face. My 6 volumes have been sitting for years.🙃) But I saw men cheering in that video room at Anime Expo, because they were excited to see some tits groped and underwear stolen. So no, I don't mind the changes from the manga made in Ranma 1/2 2024. I think the boob groping better conveys the horror that Ranma experiences and the intensity of fear/danger that real women have to endure…But any kind of touching without permission is disgusting and disrespectful. (Especially since just today someone ran their hands down both sides of my torso without my permission! I can tell you, it doesn't have to be on the boobs to feel disgusting and horrifying.) And if leg groping helps properly re-focus on the horror that Ranma experiences with Happosai, rather than the audience getting distracted by fanservice, then those changes are true to the intent of the original source manga.
To address the lack of nipples issue: Yes, even I think it looks strange. But then I realized that Rumiko Takahashi herself never drew nipples on her boys. In fact, most anime outside of BL or older series with more realism in their art styles, usually omit male nipples. And I just got used to it, without realizing! I remember when one of my parents walked in on me watching the old Ranma 1/2 OAVs and asking why Ranma didn't have nipples. Since then, I've noticed how often anime skips male nipples, and more importantly, how odd it felt to me when they didn't. So I think it's important to invert that feeling and explore what it's like to invert the trope---at least for me. Also, it's more cohesive in terms of character design if everyone either has no nipples or everyone has nipples. And frankly, with the amount of times Ryouga and Mousse end up naked after a transformation, compared to how much less frequently Ranma and the girls are top-less in the manga (or even NEED to be top-less for the situations), it stays more true to Takahashi's manga for the boys to remain nippleless and just omit the girls' nipples. I don't see it as censorship, so much as better, cohesive design. (If you really want to see nipples, just read the manga. It's a very good manga anyway.)
The problem with trying to write tragic motivation in an omnipotent stor... by Odyxey
I'm sorry, but I love Singed. Totally worked for me. Give me an obsessed mad scientist, twisting compassionate aims, and I'm happy.
To clarify, I also need my mad scientists' obsessions to be altruistic, but twisted, while maintaining kindness in tiny ways. Like towards Isha and young Viktor. Or even in his "consideration" towards Silco's worry for Jinx.
And obsessive twisted love apparently also works for me with Magical Girls.
