going to the miyano yoshikazu/sasaki shuumei tag fully aware there is nothing new there is my equivalent of opening the fridge door after closing it and expecting smth new there
i've already posted this on twitter 2 years ago, but i want to put it here on tumblr too, cause why not ! i've always wanted to make it more structured anyway, and tumblr is much more suited for essay type posts like this
anyway, miyano being gay is something that i, upon first ever reading sasamiya in 2021, had always thought was sensei's intention, so i was surprised when i joined the fandom back then and it was, and still is, a pretty unpopular headcanon
that being said, here's a comprehensive analysis on how i've always interpreted his thoughts/feelings/aspects of his life/general path to discovering his attraction to men as a whole
without further ado, please read under the cut for The Essay!
I. Gender-based insecurities contributing to Comphet
so i'll address the first thing i know everyone’s going to say. he’s said he’s liked girls before*, specifically makimura back in middle school.
*he only ever states makimura even though he pluralizes ‘girls’, so it’s either he’s doing that thing where you pluralize it even though there’s really only ever been one, or there have been others he just didn’t mention. if the latter is true, i can’t speak for the unspecified other girls, but if they’re anything like the ‘crush’ he had on makimura, i think a similar analysis would apply.
personally, i’ve always thought this was meant to be an example of pressure from a heteronormative society affecting a gay man. there’s multiple reasons why i think this. but FIRST, i think it’s important to really get into the headspace miyano was in back when he was in middle school.
he was this young kid (he entered high school at 15 years old, which means in middle school, he was 13-14) getting comments from his peers (mostly girls) about looking feminine.
his masculinity was obviously taking blows and he was feeling really insecure about it. he even takes advice from some friends about growing his hair out to look less feminine, which shows he was already eager to adopt ways to show his masculinity, not just to others but to himself as well, for his own confidence
i also want to note: miyano specifically wanted to go to an all boys high school (pic from 1st years novel). one of his criteria for what high school he wanted to go to was that it should be all-boys.
i can only think this is because hes tired of all the girls’ comments about his face. im mentioning this just to show even more how insecure he was about his masculinity, and how willing he was to take steps, and find anything to make himself feel less like shit about it
makimura was a nice girl in his class who, so far, didn’t make fun of him. they sat near each other, were in groups together and got along well. in contrast to the other girls who made comments on his face, he liked being around her, partially because he thought he didn’t have to deal with those kinds of comments from her. this panel is him describing briefly how/why he came to like her:
so here’s miyano, barely a teenager, in a state of mind where he’s insecure of his perceived lack of masculinity, and he’s friends with this nice girl who doesn’t make this insecurity worse. and because of all of these factors, i think subconsciously, he felt that since he liked being around her, he must have a crush on her.
i think the thought that he has a crush on her is further fueled in his mind by his insecurity. because being in love with a girl: that’s a masculine thing. that’s something he can cling onto to prove he’s masculine. it’s very much giving….”despite what those other girls think, i AM a man. im even crushing on this girl, see??” and yes, he may not be able to actually SHOW that to other people, but he ‘knows’ it in himself and i think this somehow helped comfort him with regards to his whole complex with masculinity
now AGAIN, i think it was a subconscious thing. im NOT saying he was actively thinking: "oh i am going to convince myself i have a crush on this girl, that proves im masculine!!!" it’s not anything malicious, it doesn’t mean he’s not the type of person to be honest with himself, he’s not any less genuine with his own feelings. he was just very young and very clueless about what love is supposed to feel like. he genuinely thought love was just getting along well with someone and liking being around them. (obviously, he discovers what its really like when he meets sasaki, but ill get to that later)
(to go on a bit of a tangent, this is definitely something that happens in real life. this isn’t uncommon with young gay people where they think they had crushes on people of the other gender but they actually didn’t. there are societal structures in place that tell gay people that the right and normal thing to do is to fall in love with people of the other gender, and since they’re young and unsure what love is like, they may assume platonic feelings (as long as it’s for the other gender!!) are romantic. they may think something like, “oh this girl is fun to hang out with, and everyone says she’s cute, and i think she’s cute too, i guess…..am i in love with her then?” but years down the line when they discover they’re gay and what it’s REALLY like to be in love, they look back and realize: no they weren’t. they were just pressured by a heteronormative society to think so, or in some cases they were just in denial or trying to prove something to themselves. i think this is definitely happening to miyano.)
but anyways! back to it, that ‘crush’ he had only lasted as long as she didn’t say anything about his feminine face. after she made that comment, he distanced himself from her and stopped speaking to her
now to me, this looks like he’s just dropped his crush. he doesn’t like her anymore. that easy. and to some people, it’s definitely possible to lose feelings that easily. but given everything i’ve discussed up till now, i’m inclined to believe that him dropping his feelings so easily means he never had real feelings for her to begin with.
also, judging from the fact that the main thing miyano could remember about makimura back then was merely that she always carried a canvas (as opposed to something like: 'she liked art, so we talked about art a lot' or even 'she used to draw/paint a lot'), it seems like in middle school, he didnt even ask her about her interests or made an attempt to talk about her interests all that much at all. this is something people usually do if they were actually interested in a person
in fact, miyano talks about music or sweets with sasaki all the time, because sasaki likes those, and miyano's interested in learning more about him. why does it appear like it wasnt the same with makimura?
II. The Timing of His BL Fixation
to build on the previous point: i think another thing worth noting is how soon after (maybe even during) the time he had this aforementioned 'crush', he developed a pretty intense fixation on bl. i don’t think that’s a coincidence.
developing an intense obsession with gay media while/after going through an internal struggle due to his feminine looks + his heteronormativity-induced ‘crush’ ?? these personal struggles, in my opinion, absolutely contributed to the reason why he ended up so fixated on BL
it's not simply that he happens to like certain tropes commonly in BL, or conflicts inherent in BL. there must be reasons he likes certain tropes, and especially loves romance between two guys. we all have reasons why we love specific genres/tropes. many times, our real life experiences and ability to relate are what shapes what kind of media we tend to love the most. i think it must be the same for miyano.
he doesn’t know why yet, but i think he felt like BL really spoke to him, on a personal level. even if he doesn’t realize it, he felt that he related to BL somehow
if his 'crush' happened to overlap with his discovery of BL, it may have been even more of a reason for him to hang onto the idea that he has a crush on a girl. we already know he feels insecure for liking BL. this 'crush', in his mind, is proof to himself that he isnt gay
III. Romantic Love Seems New to Him
now, i'd like to talk about miyano’s behavior after sasaki's confession. one thing i noticed is that miyano seems to not have a single clue about love…….despite also claiming he’s been in love? here, he says he’s “only ever liked girls” and then only 3 panels later….asks what it means to be in love with someone?
not once did he ever compare what he felt for makimura to what he feels for sasaki and use that to help him figure out if it’s similar. it’s like he didn't bother, because he knew that this thing with sasaki feels different.
his journey to discovering being in love was all written as if it was all new to him. it’s like this was the first time he’s ever actually liked or fallen in love with someone. he keeps asking himself, what does it mean to be in love? or: is this love? he asks himself, and even hanzawa, over and over again but….isn’t he supposed to know that already? if he really has loved girls before…..isn’t he supposed to have an idea, even?
you could argue that it’s because with makimura, it was just a little crush, and with sasaki, it’s full blown love. but even then, a crush is still romantic love. a milder form of it, but still romantic love. so why is everything so brand new to him? why is he acting like he’s starting from 0? i know its different for everyone, but personally, im bisexual, and my experiences liking men and drawing similarities between that and how i felt towards women, absolutely helped me with discovering that i like women too
so for miyano, the most BASIC crush stuff: like butterflies, wanting to touch them, or thinking about them all the time: wouldn’t he have experienced these before? shouldn't he have thought: “wait a second…this kind of feels familiar, this is how i felt in middle school” ? but no, instead of that, he had to get the news from hanzawa about how it feels to love someone:
miyano's experience falling in love with sasaki led him to feel very intense feelings. and i think he feels them so intensely because it's his first time genuinely having romantic feelings for someone. its his first time experiencing ANYTHING like it, and thats why hes so overwhelmed and has no idea how to handle it
IV. Random point i dont know how to categorize
this one is a bit silly but i wanna toss it in here anyway, why not.
so it seems like it’s obvious in miyano’s eyes/expression when he’s in love with someone. his eyes sparkle and he makes a certain face, according to makimura. when she notices this in ch20, it seems like it’s the first time she’s ever seen him make an expression like that:
if he really used to be in love with her, he would've looked at her that way as well. in that case, makimura should not have been as stunned as she was to see him make that kind of face. she would have seen it before, directed at her.
she seems to be pretty perceptive after all; she’s able to draw lots of conclusions about sasaki and miyano just by looking at their faces. so i think she would’ve noticed if miyano’s ever made that expression (or something similar) around her in middle school
END
aaaand that’s the end of it! IMPORTANT: these are all meant to build on each other. i meant for all of this to be one whole cohesive thing. my reasons for believing he’s gay are all of these things, on top of each other
if you dont agree, thats fine. being gay and being bi have many overlaps. that’s why there’s lots of people who identify as bi at some point in their lives and then gay later on, or vice versa, or even people who flip flop between identifying as either
it can be confusing, because there are lots of shared experiences between the two. any one of these arguments can be looked at from both a gay lens, or a bi lens. it’s just that personally, i’ve always interpreted his experiences as that of a gay man.
it’s valid as well to interpret them in a bi way (for example: him being clueless about what love is could be seen as just confusion that comes with navigating love for a person of the same gender for the first time), but i personally just dont interpret it that way
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