so im writing my big watermecha essay post in a word doc and i just realised who the whole romantic tension tie-tying debacle reminded me of which is like half the reason im writing the post to begin with
What do Ouran High School Host Club, Lois Lane, Superman, and nerdy love interests have to do with 2 superheroes with romantic tension in a very unserious videogame?
In the words of Morpheus, I want to show you just how deep the rabbit hole goes.
(Keep in mind, as you read this, that this is all my own opinion and if you disagree, that’s fine. I’m just having fun analyzing!)
For the purposes of this post, I’ll be closely examining 2 key scenes of Robert and Waterboy together – the first scene being their meet-cute in Chapter 1 and the second being in Chapter 7, where Waterboy breaks the vending machine for Robert’s snacking needs in an expression of undying love.
But I’m getting ahead of myself. Let’s look at the scenes in question:
Flower Symbolism
Looking at how Waterboy is framed here, we can see cherry blossom trees in the background. Of course, this could be merely because they look pretty, and the colours look nice. But for those of us who love symbolism, it’s fun to dive a little deeper into it.
Now, cherry blossoms are an interesting choice, as they are often used to symbolize new beginnings as well as a blooming romance. If the intention was for them to symbolize Robert’s new beginning at SDN, it’s certainly a strange choice to not depict him framed under the tree. On the other hand, the depiction of Waterboy under the cherry blossom tree echoes an anime trope – that of the love interest being featured under or in the vicinity of pink blossoms. We actually see a very early example of this in Daimos (incidentally, a shonen anime about a mech pilot), depicting his love interest Erika:
We also see cherry blossoms associated, famously, with romance in shoujo like Ouran High School Host Club; in the opening sequence of the anime, Tamaki and Haruhi (the endgame couple) are depicted together with cherry blossoms in the background
The choice of depicting Waterboy under cherry blossoms from Robert’s perspective is interesting to say the least; again, it might mean nothing and just be a stylistic choice, but the symbolism is ripe for interpretation!
The Act of Tying a Tie (aka Robert is so Malewife Coded)
Any Watermecha shipper’s bread and butter is the tie-tying. There’s something about the unnecessarily close proximity that creates this sense of intimacy, like Robert is coming up with excuses to touch him already during their first meeting (!). Just look at this… Was it really necessary to be THAT close? (Yes, for the record I know the reason why he was using Herman as a meat shield against Flambae, but was it REALLY necessary to be within kiss distance and literally on top of him?)
However, I want to focus more on the actual act of tying someone else’s tie. It’s – you guessed it – another common romance trope, where a man can’t tie his own tie and his love interest has to do it for him. This has been depicted throughout media with famous fictional couples like Carl and Ellie from Up and Mr and Mrs Darling in Peter Pan.
(As the tie-r, Robert is placed into the ‘wifely’ role, which doesn’t really mean much, but it’s funny to say he’s a malewife canon confirmed; so I’m going to say that.)
Two interesting side notes to the use of this trope: the first male/male kiss scene on American daytime television was actually prompted by the intimacy after one character has to tie the other’s tie for him (in a soap opera called As the World Turns); this trope was also used in a Star Wars extended universe novel for a little Finnpoe moment. (Not sure what the venn diagram of Watermecha and Stormpilot/Finnpoe truthers looks like, but…)
In the first ‘modern’ depiction of Clark and Lois’s romance, there is a scene where Lois helps Clark with his tie;
Seeing this made me curious to dive into the surface-level similarities between the two couples.
Waterboy, Herman, Clark and Superman
In an interesting subversion, Waterboy/Herman are nearly directly inverse to Superman/Clark. Clark is mind-mannered where Superman is assertive; weak where the latter is strong, nerdy where the latter is handsome. Let’s compare Waterboy before and after his ‘real’ identity is revealed (episode 1 vs episode 7)
As we see in Ep1, he’s nerdy-looking; cute to some people, but not especially handsome or noteworthy to most. He’s not exactly a stereotypically handsome or attractive guy in Robert’s perspective as protagonist. He’s a shy and awkward kind of cute at most.
However, in Ep7, Waterboy/Herman has grown in confidence and overall capabilities as a hero. He doesn’t shrink as much in Robert’s presence and he’s suddenly become much more attractive as Herman – much more confident too. Almost a direct opposite to Superman—Waterboy is shy, weak, mild-mannered, and nervous. Herman is able to speak his mind and address his boss / crush (depending on your persuasion, lol) by his first name. Which brings me to….
Did He Really Have a Glow Up Or Did Robert Just Want Him So Bad
As previously mentioned, Herman has a huge glow-up in ch.7; Waterboy stans everywhere were blessed by his appearance.
Who is this sudden diva? His features haven’t changed all that much, but the way he’s framed absolutely has. While he’s cute in previous chapters, he’s framed as straight-up gorgeous here. Who can deny that he looks almost like a model?!
And what’s really changed in him to make this obvious physical change? He’s grown in confidence, revealed his real identity to Robert and the team, and… he’s taken his glasses off. Which leads me nicely into the next part.
The Glasses Gotta Go
A popular romance trope for nerdy love interests is losing their glasses in some kind of makeover situation, or otherwise losing their glasses, revealing to the protagonist that they were actually gorgeous all along. We’ve seen this trope probably a hundred times across the board; one of the notable examples is once again from Ouran: Haruhi is gorgeous without her glasses. Another notable superhero-specific example is Peter Parker – Mary Jane starts noticing his beautiful eyes in-film after he takes his glasses off. However, this trope is often used as shorthand for the protagonist noticing how attractive a person has always been; can we imagine that Robert finds himself suddenly much more attracted to Herman, seeing his more confident and capable side?
Herman Speaks His Love Language
This is the last point of this extremely long-winded post.
Herman absolutely speaks Robert’s love language; from the flashbacks with Chase we can see that Robert’s memory of feeling loved and cared for by Chase features Chase giving him snacks. Twinkies, to be exact:
Robert expresses gratitude and happiness when the Z-team attempt to locate the Pulse for him, as well. We can deduce that Robert’s love language is more than likely acts of service.
Isn’t it convenient, then, that in Ch.7 Herman so happens to put a chair through a vending machine, supplying him with copious snacks and echoing the love and care he felt from Chase? That kind of love that nobody’s given him for a long time…
Herman’s suddenly gorgeous appearance from Robert’s perspective also crops up around the same time he’s giving an act of service to Robert as an act of love; do we believe that this purely coincidental? Intensified by the fact that Robert literally gives puppy eyes to Herman’s retreating figure…
Tell me he’s not in love, I am daring you directly!
Conclusion
All-in-all this was not entirely serious, just a collection of my thoughts and observations as to why I think Watermecha is hinted at / potentially subtextual. I truly do believe that they would make a wonderful couple and that our dear Robert is down astronomically for his nerd boyfriend.
Anyway, if you have read this far, thanks for reading my at times insane ramblings.
Hope this has convinced you, if you’re uninitiated, that Watermecha is worthy of you checking it out! If you’re already a believer, know that ily and I hope you enjoyed this over analysis.
I’m planning on doing a character-specific analysis of Robert next – if you think that sounds interesting, let me know, and I’ll get to it asap.
