A letter about Keisuke lures Akira to Arbitro’s palace of BDSM.

Yes, the BDSM palace. Remember the fifth episode?

Who knows how many young men Arbitro has locked up in his shadowy room? Could you imagine the smell?

So Arbitro goes on and on about how special Akira’s blood is because, as always, anime protagonists always have to be some sort of Ubermensch with genetic superiority or some pre-destined nonsense. Arbitro gives a generic sci-fi backstory about how the government experimented on people to create the perfect soldier and this is how Line came to be, blah blah blah, if he could get some of Akira’s blood, he might be able to develop a cure for the drug currently plaguing Toshima. In reality, he only wants to take advantage of Akira’s general cluelessness and the whole thing is really creepy as shit.

The rape implications are pretty in-your-face. If you’re particularly invested in our hero, don’t worry. He manages to escape because Arbitro’s henchmen are amazingly incompetent. But let’s get back to the rape thing… what is it with all the raping in this anime? Let’s not forget the gimp who’s constantly bound, gagged and blindfolded throughout the show:

The fact that sexually deviant behavior such as BDSM exists isn’t particularly troubling in and of itself — I don’t care how people get their rocks off — but it is surprising in its limited and (quite frankly) stereotypical representation in anime. How many hetero portrayals exist out there in anime where a man keeps multiple women locked up, bound and blindfolded in some dark room? That’s the kind of stuff you’d find in hentai, not a mainstream anime. Let’s flip it around and ask a similar question: how many women in anime keep a room full of bound men just for her pleasure? How often do you see a man keep a woman bound like Gimpy McGimp up there and vice versa?

I don’t know what the answers are to the questions above. At least, I don’t have them off the top of my head. I would bet, however, that you don’t tend to see these things very often in stories featuring heterosexual relationships. There are bound to be exceptions, sure, but you often see the forbidden line crossed in BL instead. When we’re dealing with homosexuals, suddenly, the inhibitions are out the door. The authors of these stories take a non-mainstream romance and pile on a lot of perverted shit they wouldn’t normally have the guts to do in “straight” anime. Isn’t this a little hypocritical and exploitative?

To add to all of this, adaywithoutme makes the following comment about a writer who generally does BL/yaoi:

Believe me – compared to [Lily Hoshino’s] ukes, even Susukihotaru has a shit-ton of agency. Which says a lot about her BL.

So when the author writes something like Otome Youkai Zakuro, both the men and the women are (relatively) empowered. When it’s BL/yaoi, bring in the seme-uke power structure. Again, isn’t this a little hypocritical and exploitative? Not only that, it only feeds the stereotypes. It’s like when you read a murder mystery and a cross-dressing character shows up — you just know he’s the killer.

Let’s turn this ship around. I bet there are plenty of BL stories out there without all the creepy rape shit in it. Why don’t we animate those instead?

Other asides:

I don’t think the studio producing this anime gives a shit anymore. Akira is frustrated and starts punching a wall next to a pair of doors.

After the older man (whose name I’ve already forgotten) tries to restrain Akira, Akira slumps to the floor.

It still looks as if both men are in the same place relative to the door. A few seconds later, though…

…and they’re directly in front of the double doors. Whoops!

And it turns out the blond guy is the younger half-brother of the murderous dude with the katana. Exciting developments; I’m at the edge of my seat.