Yeah. That always felt off to me, in most mangas. Fuck, I’ve seen better emotional development in a 13 page hentai yaoi doujin never thought I’d say this unironically, holy shit then all of this series so far. It’s so baffling to me that writers over in Japan in these high positions just cannot get it up, like, at all. I get it, some of this is meant for kids, and gore is seen in less serious light then over here in America, but good fucking god, if you’re going to explicitly show that people have clear feelings for each other for the entire series then do jack shit with it, don’t bother writing the romance at all, because I’d rather eat no burger then a burger with roaches stuffed in the meat, for a food comparison.
Its just very noticeable, since fucking is really a heavy plot element in pretty much all Western media when its there. Oh this series is emotionless. I mean, when you think about what it was supposed to be (People vs. Large Zombie People), then it makes sense. You're in for the intrigue the risks. The emotions are going to be tension and fear with character traits and maybe you explore it during breaks.
Honestly, I think its cultural. Because I think they like amping up the desire to sell merch and figures and weird shit so they can do all sorts of combos and cater to fans. But its really an alien mindset to me. Like with massive amounts of nudity, sexual innuendo in High School DxD but nobody actually has sex? That's weird. For no actual reason. I think high School DxD is where it first hit me, because even fucking Leisure Suit Larry gets laid in the end. Nobody in that highly sexually charged anime does. Eventually, spectrum or no spectrum, hormones and penis are going to win out.
I don't think Isamaya wanted to do romance, he got caught up in Game of Thrones and it turns out, bloodlines, fucking and romance were pretty big deals in medieval Europe. If you notice, that's right around the time of the Ackergenes, which were a casualty of him binge watching Game of Thrones. The problem is there can't be children without fucking. And there can't be fucking without emotion. I'll always remember the quote from Kinsey: "Sex is like a knife. It'll cut you if you let it." And its true. Sex without any sort of emotion is rare. Very rare, alien and unnerving. Which is why sex without emotion is used in horror and sci-fi to portray a lack of humanity. So with Isayama doing it, its hard to view these characters as real.
Because their desires stem from something Isayama was clearly not comfortable writing and writing outside of what he knew or wanted. So I don't feel like there was going to be any romance. Maybe tragic friendships, but not romances. But then he goes all Game of Thrones and oops. This is what we get.
See, my problem isn't that nobody's having sex-- I think it would be baller if some guy was swimming in women and they're making the conscious decision to not have sex with any of them because he can have sex with any of them anytime he wants like a gigachad.
...the problem is that the reason he's not having sex with any of them is because he's somewhere on the spectrum, and the reason why he's written as somewhere on the spectrum is because either the mangaka or the editor wants to create a romantic intrigue machine that lasts the entire series and accommodates every conceivable ship. For some reason this can't be accomplished by what I just described-- he actually has to be socially inept, but he also has to be aware enough so that a modicum of ship fuel can be generated from time to time.
I like AoT's approach, actually-- Eren's kinda dense, but it's not as though Mikasa's blatant (except for that "resignation to slaughter" scene from chapter 50-something where Eren discovers his Coordinate power-- that was as close as we were gonna get to a confession), and at any rate, he's preoccupied with his misunderstood sexual frustration burning rage against his freedom being stripped away by the walls, then the Titans, then the rest of mankind. Also, sexual intrigue is an secondary feature of whatever their relationship can be said to be-- primarily, they're bound by living life and death situations together.
The fact that the ship persisted is entirely on the very strange fandom.
Like I said, Asta (but I edited that so you might not have seen it). I don't mind that either, I'm right with you. I mean, there are plenty of Shonen protags that aren't autistic. Its just annoying as fuck because its not believable. I mean there is a manga that blatantly makes fun of this trope by having a guy being phobic to people psychologically (Val x Love) so yeah, there are reasons why he's extremely, EXTREMLY uncomfortable with the situation. But in most cases, there's no real reason why except editorial and create shipping, which fucking people do anyway, so its not like it seriously fucking matters. I think its cultural, honestly.
AoT is functionally asexual in my opinion. The characters don't really express love all that much. Its completely sterile. I don't even see sexual intrigue. I mean, I look at everything with Historia and I know its the author's problem. Because it makes no sense to side-line a well developed, important character unless you really don't understand romance, can't write it, but needed her to be pregnant. I never viewed it as ship fuel, the fandom did that. Isayama fucked himself when he made it with blood lines and breeding and then obviously can't write human interactions on romance with any modicum of competency. And shipping developed long before the start of the bloodline thing.
I mean, there's one of the most brutal sex scenes in this Russian sniper movie I forget the name of, which I really dislike because they fuck over the German sniper's character by making him sterotypically evil, which he wasn't. Anyway, these two desperate Russian soldiers, in one of the most life or death situations have sex surrounded by fellow soldiers. Because there's that emotional need to connect, physically as well. And I think that really defines it for me. Even in the worst situations, in the most awful situations, there's a need for a physical and emotional connection. And Isayama cannot convey that. At all.
To think that Eren was interested in any relationships with the way he is written, is kind of laughable, honestly. He's written more as a metaphor, a ball of anger and rage at the suffering of his people. He's not really written with an emotional need. Or very emotional at all. He has clearly expressed goals and desires, and a romantic relationship would interfere. So its hard for me to see him with anyone. Its done hamfisted and out of character and only done because Isayama doesn't know how to integrate it properly.
And so his fumbling, Eren becomes a raging incel virigin who killed a billion people because he didn't get to fuck.