"Toshiro Is Sexist," "Toshiro Owns Slaves": What's Really Going on With This Guy?
I've seen a lot of debate on whether or not Toshiro is problematic because he's a slave owner or because he's sexist in the context of his crush on Falin. While I do want to examine his relationship to Falin, I'd like to take a few steps back and unpack his upbringing first. We'll dive into the gender and class dynamics he was raised with and how it impacts his behavior in the main storyline.
Like all people, Toshiro is shaped by the environment he grew up in. Toshitsugu, Toshiro's father and the head of the Nakamoto clan, is the most impactful model of authority and manhood in his life. Toshiro does recognize some of his father's flaws and tries to avoid replicating them. But whether or not he emulates or subverts his father's behavior, Toshitsugu is often the starting point for Toshiro's treatment of others, particularly marginalized people.
The Nakamoto clan exists under a patriarchal hierarchy with Toshitsugu at the top. As noted by @fumifooms in their Nakamoto household post, his wife has more authority than Maizuru. She's able to ban Maizuru from parts of their residence, but despite disliking his infidelity, she can't divorce him or stop him from cheating on her. Their marriage is not an equal partnership.
On an interpersonal level, Toshitsugu and Maizuru also have a fraught relationship. While she does seem to care for him, she's often frustrated by his thoughtless behavior.
For example, he drunkenly buys Izutsumi for her — without considering how she'll have to raise this child — and invades her room in the middle of the night. When he cryptically says, "It's all my fault," she replies, "I can think of a lot of things that are your fault." She calls him an "idiot" and "believes that [Toshiro] will grow up to be a better clan leader than his father," implying that she takes issue with Toshitsugu's leadership.
Because Maizuru and Toshitsugu are described as being "in an intimate relationship" and "seem[ing] to be lovers," Maizuru appears to be a consensual participant. Still, this doesn't negate the large power imbalance between them as a male noble clan leader and his female retainer. This imbalance introduces an insidious undertone to Maizuru's frustration with Toshitsugu. Like Toshiro's mother, Maizuru doesn't have the agency to do as she pleases in their relationship; he has the ultimate authority. For instance, she doesn't seem to want to raise Izutsumi, but she has to anyway.
While Maizuru's role as Toshitsugu's mistress is significant, she's also the Nakamoto clan's teacher and Toshiro's primary maternal figure. She cares deeply for Toshiro: tailing him, feeding him, and taking responsibility even for his actions as an adult. While it might seem sweet that she cares for him like a son at first, Maizuru was notably fifteen years old at the time of his birth. In the extra comic below, he's six years old and has already been in her care for some time. Even if we're being generous and assuming that she didn't start raising him until he was six, she was still only twenty-one at the time she was parenting her boss/lover's child with another woman.
Maizuru's roles as mistress and maternal figure, in addition to her role as retainer, demonstrate the intersection between gendered and class oppression in the Nakamoto household. Despite her original role being a retainer trained in espionage, Toshitsugu presses her into performing gendered labor for him and eventually, Toshiro. She's expected to be Toshitsugu's lover, perform emotional labor for him as his confidant, care for his child, and carry out domestic tasks like cooking. She says, "Even during missions, I was often dragged into the kitchen." If she was a male servant, I doubt she would have been expected to perform these additional tasks. She can't avoid these tasks either, stating that her "own feelings don't factor into it."
Toshitsugu disregards his wife's and Maizuru's desires and emotions to serve his own interests. Because he has societal power over them as a nobleman and in Maizuru's case, her master, neither woman can escape their position in the household hierarchy.
As a result, Toshiro grew up within a structure where men and male nobility, in particular, wield the most societal power. The hierarchical nature of his household and society discourages everyone, including him as a clan leader's eldest son, from questioning and disrupting the existing hierarchy.
The other Nakamoto household members also internalize its sexist, classist power dynamics.
For example, Hien expects that she and Toshiro will replicate the uneven dynamics of the previous generation, regardless of her personal feelings. She sees her and Toshiro's relationship as paralleling Maizuru and Toshitsugu's relationship; she is the closest woman to Toshiro and his retainer, so she's shocked when Toshiro doesn't attempt to begin an intimate relationship with her. Notably, she doesn't have actual feelings for him. Her expectations are centered around the household's precedent of placing emotional, sexual, domestic, and child-rearing labor onto the female servants without any regard for their personal desires.
Hien also probably knows that her position in the household will improve if she is Toshiro's lover because she's seen it improve Maizuru's position. However, the fact that being the future clan leader's lover is the closest proximity she, as a female servant, has to power further reveals the gendered, class-based oppression she and the other women live under.
It's important to note that the Nakamoto clan bought Benichidori, Izutsumi, and Inutade as slaves, so they have less power and agency than Maizuru and Hien. The clan further dehumanizes Izutsumi and Inutade as demi-humans; their enslavement contains an additional layer of racialization.
Toshiro isn't oblivious to the gendered, class, and racial power dynamics of his household. He tries to distance himself from participating in its exploitative power structure. He walls himself off from Hien, who he's known since childhood, to avoid replicating his father's behavior and making his servant into his lover. He disapproves of his father's enslavement of Izutsumi and Inutade, and he lets Izutsumi go when she runs away in the Dungeon.
But does any of this absolve him of his complicity in his household's sexist, classist power dynamics and racialized slavery?
The short answer is absolutely not.
Despite his distaste for his father's exploitation of his servants and slaves, Toshiro still uses them. He refers to his party as "his retainers," and he has them fight and perform domestic tasks for him. You could argue that Toshiro doesn't like to and thus, doesn't regularly use his servants and slaves. In the context of him asking his retainers to help him rescue Falin, Maizuru says, "The only time he ever made any sort of personal request was for this task." But it shouldn't matter whether exploitation is a regular occurrence or not for it to be considered harmful. Toshiro asking Maizuru to cook him a meal still constitutes asking his female servant to perform gendered labor for him. He's also very accustomed to her grooming and dressing him.
Maizuru sees feeding, washing, and even advising Toshiro romantically as fulfilling Toshitsugu's orders to care for his son. They aren't fulfilling a "personal request." But just because her labor has been deemed expected and thereby devalued doesn't mean that it isn't labor or that she isn't performing it.
Maizuru's dynamic with Toshiro is also complicated by her role as his maternal figure. She loves him and wants to take care of him, and she doesn't have a choice in the matter. During Toshiro's childhood, the onus was on Toshitsugu to cease exploiting his lover and release her from servitude, but Toshiro is now an adult man. Seeing as how Maizuru defers to his wishes and calls him "Young Master," they still have a power imbalance that he's passively maintaining. Ideally, he would not ask anything of her until he has the authority to release her from servitude.
Throughout the story, Toshiro acts as if he has no agency and quietly disapproving of his father's actions absolves him of his participation in maintaining oppressive dynamics. While his father still ranks higher than him, he's essentially his father's heir. He has much more power than Maizuru, the highest-ranked servant. At the very least, he could leave his slave-owning household.
Unfortunately, his refusal to confront injustice is consistent with his character's major flaw: he does not express his opinions, desires, or needs. While this character trait obviously hurts his friendships, it also furthers his complicity in the injustices his household runs on.
Toshiro's relationship with eating food — the prevailing metaphor of the series — also parallels his relationship with confronting injustice. Maizuru mentions that he was a sickly child, so the act of eating may have been physically uncomfortable for him. As an adult, his refusal to eat crops up during his rescue attempt of Falin. Denying himself food might have been punishment for not accomplishing important tasks like rescuing Falin and/or a way to maintain control over something in his life when he felt like he'd lost control over the rest of it, again in the context of losing Falin. (Note: I suggest reading this post on Toshiro's disordered eating by @malaierba.)
But he cannot and does not avoid consuming food forever.
Similarly, Toshiro keeps his distance from his retainers and tries not to use them until the Falin situation occurs. His efforts to avoid exploiting his retainers amount to inaction — things he doesn't ask of them or do to them. But his inaction does nothing to dismantle the existing hierarchy that places his retainers under his authority, denies them agency, and often marginalizes them as not only servants or slaves but as women, and he ends up using them as servants and slaves anyways.
Returning to the narrative's themes of consumption, Toshiro cannot avoid eating just as he cannot avoid perpetuating the exploitative system of his household. The Nakamoto clan consumes the labor and personhood of those lower in the hierarchy. The retainers' labor as spies and domestic servants is the foundation of the clan's existence. Thus, the clan consumes their labor to sustain itself.
Within this hierarchy, the retainers' personhood is also consumed and erased. As Izutsumi describes, they are given different names and stripped of their agency to reject orders or leave. Maizuru and Hien also say their feelings are irrelevant in the context of Toshitsugu's and Toshiro's wants and needs. Both women are expected to comply with whatever is most beneficial and comfortable for the noblemen. Clearly, despite Toshiro's detachment from his household's functions, these social structures remain in place and harm the women under him.
Although we know the Nakamoto clan has male retainers, the choice to highlight the female retainers seems intentional. We're asked to interrogate how not only being a servant or a slave in a noble household impacts a person's life and agency, but how being a woman intersects with being a member of some of the lowest social classes.
Toshiro only distances himself from his father's behaviors of infidelity and exploitation so long as it doesn't take Toshiro out of his comfort zone. He doesn't free his slaves. He's far too comfortable with his female retainers performing domestic labor for him, and he barely acknowledges their efforts; they're shocked when he thanks them for helping him save Falin. He hasn't unpacked his sexist (or classist or racist) biases because he perpetuates his household's oppressive hierarchy throughout the narrative. Considering all of this, he inevitably brings this baggage to his interactions with Falin.
Falin is presumably one of the first women he's had extended contact with that isn't his relative or his family's servant. Because of his trauma surrounding his father and Maizuru sleeping together, he understandably falls for a woman as disconnected as possible from his father and his clan. He seems to genuinely like Falin, respects her boundaries, and graciously accepts her rejection. His behavior towards her is overall kind and unproblematic.
But if Falin had gone with him, she would've likely been devalued and sidelined like the other women of the Nakamoto household. No matter how much he loves Falin, simply loving her cannot replace the difficult work of unlearning his sexism. Love, of course, can and should be accompanied by that work, but by the close of the narrative, we gain little indication that Toshiro acknowledges or seeks to end his part in exploiting and devaluing women and other marginalized people.
A spark of hope does exist. Toshiro expressing his feelings to Laios and Falin suggests that his time away from home has encouraged him to speak up more. Breaking his habit of avoidance may be the first step towards acknowledging his complicity in systems of injustice and moving towards dismantling them.
Special thanks to my very smart friend @atialeague for bringing up Toshitsugu's relationship with Maizuru and the replication of dynamics of consumption and class! <3
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50 Fun things to do with OCs and/or characters you love!
Making a cohesive list so I don't forget, and so that others can use the same resource. Enjoy :)!
Make them a Pinterest board
Make Picrews of them
Answer OC templates and questionnaires
Paste and/or draw them over memes
Draw the squad
Create an Amazon/Etsy wishlist for them of things they'd like
Make a list of video games/shows they'd like
Crossover with other OCs/universes
Modern AU
Swap AU
Masc/femify them
Create them in character creations in video games
Pick out funny clothing for them
Make them a Spotify playlist
Create a fake text conversation between them and another OC
Make their zodiac sun, moon, and rising or chart their natal chart
Turn your OCs into animals
Save TikTok/Instagram/Youtube audios that reflect them
Depict their reactions to looking at themselves in the mirror
Fantasy AU
Spiderverse AU
Draw them in cosplay
Classpect them
Make them a phone/desktop background and/or theme
Create a kinlist for your OC
Draw them interacting with you or your friends
Act them out
Cosplay them
Fuse them with another OC
List out what traits them and others have in common
Make random quotes from them
Pick out Pokemon they'd like
Turn them into a magical girl
Create a tierlist based on what they like/dislike
Have your OCs play truth or dare together
Have your OCs play Dungeons and Dragons together
Have your OCs spin the bottle
Create or look through Halloween costumes for your OCs
Design what your OC would wear throughout the decades
Age your OC through a timeline
Height chart
Put your OCs in a grocery store
Let others draw them in Whiteboard Fox (when you google it you'll see a list of servers below! Just click one! (and remember to ss your progress in case someone clears the board!))
Create sprites of your OCs
Objection.lol case them
If they have a comic or animation, create blooper takes
Avatar: The Last Airbender AU
Describe their reactions to smoking and/or drinking for the first time
Expose their internet search history
Draw them into taken photos with IRL you
If you have any more suggestions add them into the comments or reblogs below, and I'll make another 50+!
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I think the reason Rick fumbled with writing Jason's abilities/personality is because he was too focused on Jason existing as Percy's rival to focus on Jason as an individual character. And the funniest thing is, in the end, Jason was not considered satisfactory rival to Percy by the fandom either, which is ironic since that was the whole point of his character.
Rick seemingly screwed up the whole rivalry thing because, though he wanted someone to challenge Percy's power, he didn't want that person (Jason) to be more powerful than Percy or more enjoyable than Percy either, in the fear that the audience might start enjoying Jason more.
When you write a rival, you have to make sure that the rival character has equally powerful personality and strength/abilities compared to the person that they're rivalled with.
But Rick? The way he wrote Jason was like a half done updo. He dumped all the cool power on Percy (like potentially implying that Percy has bloodbending,can control water inside of someone, making sure Percy wins ALMOST every fight (and i mean, almost, there is a very rare time Percy ever loses) while limiting his power with Jason in every way possible, making the stupid brick jokes to make sure Jason always passes out in a fight, the whole "I only get one lighting bolt a day from my father" (it's a dumbass logic too, Jason should've been able to summon that much power of lighting on his own, he does NOT need his dad for that shit c'mon now) like it's an obvious effort to make jason appear weaker. Rick did all of this while lazily trying to shoehorn Jason's achievements in the plot by implying it but not actually showing it, like a "yeah he did this cool shit once ig" which makes it less impressive compared to Percy's achievements, which is something we've actually witnessed firsthand. Rick intentionally never brought up or expanded upon Jason's achievements much. He only emphasized everyone's awe of him being the son of Jupiter, which made it seem like Jason had the 'big three child privilege' where people didn't give a fuck about his efforts but instead his position.
Alright Rick, don't give him power, but atleast give him a personality? Nope he isn't getting that either. Jason had the potential to make DARK jokes about his controlled millitary life in Rome, and explore his past. Like I badly wanted a passage of Jason getting his memories back in fragments, Rick could've added flashbacks of Jason's past in his pov in a way that he gets his memories back. Instead he went "yeah yeah jason got all his memories back, it's all good" like SHOW us that wtf?? sure let's make sure he's as stale as possible to the audience, we can't have anyone liking the underdog over Percy Jackson!
He also made sure that Jason had it super hard in life aswell but never emphasized it or gave him anything good compared to Percy.
Don't get me wrong, percy definitely had it rlly hard, but Atleast Rick made sure Percy had a loving mom and a stepdad, a loving girlfriend and a cute adorable sister that he could play and spend time with, he got to celebrate birthdays with Sally, he got to eat her tasty blue food, and he actually had an ambrosia taste. You mean to tell me that Jason's sister barely had time for him, that he hasn't had a single birthday and that ambrosia tastes like sawdust for him while you give the other members of the seven, delicious ambrosia taste? 😤
Jason Grace has gotten the worst life in his own story, he wasn't "powerful" enough for a child of Zeus, he was "boring" , nobody properly trusted him, he died painfully, he didn't have parents, he barely talked to his sister, he didn't have a childhood, he was abandoned to blood thirsty animals when he was TWO, he didn't have a birthday, he didn't have an ambrosia taste, his girlfriend dumped him, he never got to see his best friend before he died, and he is terribly hated by the fandom who are simply turning a blind eye to his struggles because "no Percy will always be better in every way" yeah. I could go on and on.
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OnK Chapter 150
Honestly, the naive part of me wants to believe Aka is doing this in purpose, because this chapter alone highlighted like half the reasons why I find romantic!Aqua and Kana so poorly written lmao
Compare that to this:
The writing in Aqua's and Akane's is so much better it's unreal 😂
I'm so glad to have confirmation that Goro's regrets were appeased by knowing that Sarina is living her best life as Ruby. Goro acting like an over-protective dad and Aqua reaffirming that Ruby is his precious little sister were the highlights of the chapter for me. Figures that once Aka finally gives us some Aqua insight, he immediately makes it clear where Aqua stands in regards to Ruby lmao
Goro is often personified as the guilt and regrets Aqua carried into this new life, but he is much more than that.
He is an entire framework of thoughts, complexes and experiences right there at the center of the individual we have come to know as Aqua. He is the entire base Aqua is built on, because when he reincarnated, he was just Goro - albeit a Goro thrown into a completely different situation, and a completely different life.
Of course, the longer Goro lives as Aqua, the more Aqua he becomes. He has been developing a new framework of thoughts, complexes and experiences that are more befitting of his situation and based on his current life. This all results in the Aqua we've come to known.
Up to now, Aqua has been simultaneously existing as the man he once was and the young boy he has become. But the man he once was is now feeling at peace knowing that Sarina-chan has gotten a new chance at life, which leaves the young boy he has become with one less reason to cling to a painful past.
But things aren't that easy, as evidenced by the fact that even after being "freed" by his past guilt, Aqua still has his black stars. As Aqua, he has regrets, guilt and issues of his own to overcome.
But it isn't just the revenge and the guilt, really. This, for example, is a confusion that has followed Aqua into his new life:
Which takes me to...
It's so incredibly ironic that it's "Goro" of all people who brings up Kana 😭 I've mentioned before that Kana has a lot of parallels with Ai and Sarina, and I theorized this may be one of the reasons why Aqua seemed so drawn to her from the get-go. And now we have Goro himself, the one who originally admired all of those traits, saying that Aqua likes Kana. It's like clockwork, except the clock may be broken.
The reasons Goro cites are so shallow and superficial, too. Perfectly fitting for an Oshi or a teenage crush, but hard to think of as anything deeper than that (for me, at least).
Which is even more ironic, because we end the chapter with Kana declaring herself as "seriously in love" with Aqua, when she herself does nothing but describe him superficially 😭
Kana has been basically living a shoujo manga in her head and Aqua is her chosen Male Lead 😂 It's like that time she thought Aqua was "straight and sincere", or when she thought Akane was a "goody-two-shoes".
Meanwhile, Aqua and Akane:
Poor Kana is out of her depth in this manga, but maybe that's the point. Kana is perfectly normal and that's just what Aqua needs am I right?
Seriously though, that's why I've always said that to me it doesn't really matter if Aqua and Kana end up together, because their writing is just... not it 😭 It's always just one giant trope without any depth of substance. It's no coincidence that these last three chapters are filled with tropes and forced writing. That's the way this ship has always been written in my eyes, and that's why it does nothing for me regardless of whether it's intended to be canon or not 😭
Even this, for example:
Aqua confirming (yet again) that he has been aware of Kana's romantic feelings all along could back-up what I said here and here. But at the same time, this could just be part of something as simple and unsubtle as this:
It's like there are two wolves within Aka. One is great at subtlety and organic development, and the other completely sucks at it 😂
But enough about that, I'm sure Aka will give me plenty to complain about next chapter so I'll save it until then lmao
Hmmm where have I seen this before?
Oh, right!
Funny how Akane is magically not brought up this chapter. If we assume Aka is just writing obvious stuff without deeper meaning, then Akane isn't brought up because Aka considers Chapters 97 & 98 as their romantic closure. Or maybe all the theories about Aqua being a scumbag that only dated Akane because Kana wasn't available were right. But considering that would make Aqua trash not worth discussing, I can only hope Aka won't stoop that low lmao
If we give Aka the benefit of the doubt (does he even deserve it at this point tho), then Goro not bringing up Akane can be pretty fitting. Because if Aqua likes Akane, it wouldn't be because she fits the ideals and tastes of the man he once was. It would be because of everything they have been through together as Aqua and Akane.
Case in point, when Aqua thought of Kana and Akane back when he first thought he was free, he did so as fully himself. But I digress! 🤡
Another thing that caught my eye is that Aka deliberately changed the number of chapters in the previous volume just so these Aqua-Kana focused chapters can be in the same volume as the Aqua-Ruby focused ones. Ruby, who mainly loves Aqua because he once was Goro and Kana, who just loves Aqua. Maybe he's doing it to contrast them (in favor of Kana, duh), or maybe he wants to show they're two sides of the same infatuation coin. One can dream, at least!
Speaking about not nice though, what the fuck is this 😭 I know Akane is trying to push Kana's buttons, but baby girl is switching from I-only-see-him-as-a-son!! I swear!!! to Haha actually! so swiftly that she's going to give herself whiplash. Plus, can't Aka let Akane push Kana's buttons while saying less OOC stuff? Granted, it's not like Kana knows Akane well, so of course she doesn't think it's weird for Akane to say that she wants to be with a boy on Christmas lmao
Poor Akane has gotten her eyes shut so tightly close that it's a wonder she doesn't walk into walls. She's really acting like a robot on auto-pilot 😂 When in the world will you be allowed to have a chapter of your own, Akane? When will we be able to look into your heart?
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