Can you elaborate on Vesperia, Zestria, and why you think Nomura is gay?
Sure thing.
Vesperia was more implication. Two of your female party members, Rita and Estelle, develop a very close friendship throughout the game. Rita in particular. Unlike Estelle, she doesn't show any romantic interest in men.
There's even a sidequest where they raise a baby together in the deluxe edition of the game.
Zestiria's different. The main character, Sorey, never shows any interest in women beyond friendship. He has plenty of options. He spends almost the whole game travelling with hot women. But he never shows any romantic or sexual interest in any of the female characters in the game.
He's far more interested in his best friend Mikleo. The game treats Mikleo fairly similarly to how the series has treated love interests in the past. They spend the most time together. They're each other's most important person. There's even a scene in the game where one of the male party members is asking Sorey if he wants to peek on women, and Sorey doesn't understand the appeal at all;
but does understand the appeal of Mikleo at the bath.
It's doubly unusual, because Sorey and Mikleo aren't going through a romance storyline. For all intents and purposes, they're already a couple. And there are hardly any games out there of any kind where the main character is already in a romantic relationship at the star of the story, and they stick through it to the end.
Zestiria's a flawed game. It's DLC was extremely disrespectful to the audience, and the AI is downright pathetic. But Sorey and Mikleo's relationship is actually worthy of respect. Their relationship is healthy, charming, and functional; free of the melodrama, abuse, and misogyny of Masashi Koshimoto's homoerotic oeuvre.
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As for Nomura, I'm not as confident with him as I am with Kishimoto. But his intrusive interest in gaudy fashion and musical theater, combined with his work's lack of interest in actual relationships between men and women, and his lack of interest in developing women characters in material where he actually works on the story, all scream "suspect" to me.
Kishimoto's a tricky case: he has a very good understanding of how to make compelling characters, but he continuously sabotages his writing by refusing to follow through on the logical consequences of his characters actions the moment he adds a sympathetic touch. It gets downright comical how easily people in Naruto are willing to forgive crimes such as treason, pederasty, Mengele-esque human experimentation, and genocide just because Kishimoto himself feels sympathy for his latest pet.
I'm certain Naruto and Sasuke have romantic feelings for each other. But I wouldn't call them well-written after how badly Kishimoto insulted his readers intelligence.
Kishimoto's also a vile, sexist pig. He hates women as much as any notable writer I can think of, including Bret Easton Ellis and Dave Sim. But Ellis and Sim at least have the decency to follow through on the logical consequences of their characters actions.
It's a shame how much feminist outrage has been wasted on unserious bullshit like female characters in sexy outfits or male characters rescuing female characters from bad guys. It could, in theory, be useful when blasted at deserving targets like Naruto.
