Homosexuality and Human-Eating

Kamen Rider Amazons season 1 is my favourite Kamen Rider series, telling the story of a young man going out for the first time after spending his life with little company he can relate to, finding others like himself, finding people who hate or distrust him for unchangeable aspects of himself, and having to work out where he stands.

Accidentally, Kamen Rider Amazons season 1 tells the story of a young man who realises he’s gay and has to face an unwelcoming society that tells him people like him don’t deserve to live normal lives. However, instead it’s cannibalism.

Japanese media however has a tendency to associate cannibalism with queer characters however. “Quantum Devil Saga”, the novel adaption of the Shin Megami Tensei game “Digital Devil Saga”, by Yu Godai features gay and trans characters, however the premise in the first book is these characters and/or their avatars being forced to eat each other. The anime “Yuri Kuma Arashi” is about lesbians but some of them are bears that eat people; technically not cannibalism but still eating people, as is more accurate to the case of amazons. An entire other analysis can be wrote detailing similar themes across the many versions of Go Nagai’s “Devilman”, especially with Koda in “Devilman Crybaby”. The themes are heavily used together in Nitro+Chiral games. The canonically queer characters in Attack on Titan are titans, creatures that eat humans. Will in Sorano Kairi’s “Kuroa Chimera”, the main plot of “Adekan”, Ishida Sui’s “Tokyo Ghoul” and may other series.

The association is not particularly nice, but not always unkind; many stories explore themes about accepting others even if they do eat people. A lot can be said for the idea of the gay man as a predator trying to consume other men. Cannibalism in a lot of media is also used as a horror form of sex, about consuming and being one with a partner.

The amazon characters in Amazons help display the different struggles of queer men. Each is facing different issues in their life, and has to approach it differently.

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Mizusawa Haruka

Haruka goes through many phases in the story as it is about him finding himself. We start off with him being closed off from society. He knows nothing about the amazons, or the outside world. He knows his room, he knows his mother, he knows his fish, he knows his sister, he knows his cube-shaped meals. Not knowing any different, he is content, but in a way where he has no real self. Mizuki is clearly worried by how he is only focused on his fish tank and not much else. Haruka doesn’t have the information available to find himself, and at that point is being forced to take suppressants to stop him finding out. Like many young gays for years, Haruka just doesn’t know anything about being gay, not even that it’s an option.

When Haruka goes out, he finds people like himself, but he is also immediately faced with people who oppose him. Haruka gets unwillingly outed in front of the Nozama squad and Jin. Haruka doesn’t really understand what he is, but everyone else does. They’re quick to pass judgement on him as dangerous and he becomes a target to them. Jin takes him out of the situation, and explains Haruka to himself, but also tells him he’ll kill him. It’s presented to Haruka as an undeniable fact that there’s no help or acceptance for him, there’s just the inevitability of him being killed for who he is.

So, in effect, Haruka is a young gay who for the first time in his life learns about the existence of gay people, and basically does through seeing homophobia in action. Everyone there can tell he’s gay, and he is basically outed without even getting a chance to understand or come to terms with the fact he’s gay. He’s immediately a target of homophobia. Jin, being someone who’s in the queer community, explains to Haruka his situation, but due to his own issues with homophobia and knowing how people actually are, tells Haruka he’s going to be killed and that’s the only option for his life. Some of these are the kind of experiences that will resonate with an older community, though also some young people, due to the public outlook on queer people.

Now that everyone knows Haruka is gay, when he’s put on the team there is this expectation of him. Haruka is still very much a young person, he doesn’t have any real experiences, he doesn’t know anything of the world, and these people don’t really know anything about him. However, because he is gay, there’s an expectation for him to act as a full adult, because he’s an amazon he’s expected to have an understanding that he hasn’t had the opportunity to develop. The team constantly throw complex issues of morality at him, and Haruka doesn’t have answers. He doesn’t have experience to fuel decisions. But because he is who he is, and he’s expected to be this grown up, he’s expected to know things, everyone puts their expectations on him. It’s a common thing for young queer people, when faced with homophobes, to be expected to act as adults regardless of age. Many who have had to deal with homophobes on social media will have seen these adults getting at 14 year olds about “issues” and then get at them for not having all the answers, or a well researched argument, or for being too personally invested in the subject. Haruka is basically having the same; his very right to exist is being questioned but it isn’t accepted as valid for him to want to live and be treated like a person.

The difference is being an amazon can actually have an effect on others however, so he gets put under more pressure, however Nozama Pharmacy have this way to suppress an amazon from losing control, yet refuse to give it to them.

Haruka is also presented with an issue with his mother, who is funding the extinction of amazons. She wants him to live because he’s her son, and basically uses the argument that comes up when a queer kid is in a very homophobic family, but is still loved. What can happen in such a situation is they become “one of the good ones”. The family is still homophobic, but because they do love their child, they justify their child still being ok because they’re “one of the good ones”. This also typically comes with the condition in society at large that “the good ones” are the ones who aren’t openly queer, and/or don’t act upon their sexuality. Haruka is basically told that he’s the good amazon, so he can live; but the rest still have to be killed. This puts Haruka in a position that when he’s around her, he’s faced with this constant amazons are bad, amazons have no right to live, etc. Even though she says she’s made an exception for him, it still makes him extremely uncomfortable. He can’t see how he’s different from the others. He’s an amazon just like them, they’re the same, he’s not different or special. He wants to eat people just as badly as they do. So when Reika says these things, it still hits him as “that’s true for me too”. However, Reika and the team try to pit him against other amazons, and he does go along with it for a while, because he does want that approval. He wants to be validated on his right to live, and the team only offer that on terms he helps kill other amazons. Though Reika doesn’t force his hand as much, Haruka feels her love will always be on the condition that he doesn’t act like an amazon. He can’t act like himself without losing the only security he had for his entire life.

Eventually, it does reach a point however that Haruka realises he doesn’t want to be dependent on her, he doesn’t want to deny himself as an amazon, and he doesn’t think it’s okay to kill people for who they are. He reaches this point, not by being with the team that are housing him, but through entering a community of amazons and being confronted with he’s not the exception. These are people just like him. It’s harder for him to try and deny that to himself when he’s faced with the larger community he can relate to.

Mizuki puts another pressure on Haruka. Mizuki has been Haruka’s only real friend and is his sister, but as he gets more involved in his own community, he becomes less accepted in his home. Mizuki wants to support him but thinks that him being out is only ever harming him. Mizuki wants desperately for Haruka to go back in the closet, where he’s safe and doesn’t have to face the bad things in the world. Haruka does care about her, and for a bit does want to. However, when he tries, he realises he can’t live like that anymore. He finally learnt about himself, he met Mamoru who he can relate to more, he made friends, and he doesn’t have to suppress a vital part of who he is as a person. In the end, he has to make the choice and do what is actually best for himself, even if it does come with unpleasant experiences.

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Mamoru

Mamoru is in a situation that is a bit more similar to Haruka’s, only he’s had more experiences in the world and is a genuine part of the team, and treated as such. However, the team doesn’t actually show him the support he needs. They love him, and they still love him at the end of the season, but they’ve faltered in similar ways to Reika. Mamoru isn’t acknowledged as an amazon, he’s not “one of them”, he’s the teams Mamoru. Throughout the series we have scenes of Mamoru suddenly feeling awkward as the rest of the team condemn other amazons in his presence. Mamoru has gone along with it more than Haruka did because he wanted to be a part of the team and didn’t want to be abandoned by the only family he knew. When Ryuusuke was outed, they were forced to kill him, Shidou gave an entire thing about how Ryuusuke is just an amazon and they have to kill him no matter how they feel. As long as he doesn’t act on it, he can feel secure in that he’ll still be accepted by his team. If he were to act on it, as far as he knows he’ll end up like Ryuusuke. He’s stayed in this sort of environment for 2 years, having to kill other amazons, and there’s always been a possibility that when this is over he will have to be killed too.

Ryuusuke holds a vital part for Mamoru, as he was what Mamoru is at risk of becoming. If he doesn’t get his suppressants from Nozama, there’s every chance he’ll eventually lose control. The team had wanted to save Ryuusuke too, but in the end Shidou had to bring them together against Ryuusuke. Ryuusuke was no longer part of the team, and he ended up killing the only person he could recognise. Mamoru has to remember that this could be him. He’d lose the team that has been his entire life, and they’d have to kill him.

A lot doesn’t directly translate to homosexuality, but again this idea of the family that loves you as long as there’s plausible deniability for your sexuality. Even though they know about it, keeping quiet about it and not being able to express yourself at all for fear of their homophobia. Knowing that they have already abandoned someone who was as close to them as you are because that person was gay. Having to hear them saying homophobic things over and over and not really taking into account how it might hurt you having to hear it. Mamoru loves them, but is stuck feeling unsafe and uncertain of the future. Maybe one day they’ll decide they’re not ok with having a gay person in the family, or something will force their hand, and he’ll lose them.

When Haruka joins the team, Mamoru latches onto him. Haruka is someone who is like him, they’re both gay and in theory they’re out but they can’t be open about it. Mamoru can have more comfort in being with Haruka and knowing he’ll still accept him no matter what. Of course, after years of the team’s influence, he still can’t be open about it even when in good company, but there’s that safety now. The two of them are able to grow together from shared experiences and not feeling alone; they don’t have to hate themselves for who or what they are. Eventually, their relationship evolves to a point where Haruka can acknowledge that despite how much the team love him, the environment is toxic for Mamoru. Haruka managed to move away from the environment that had been toxic for himself and wants to take Mamoru from this.

Eventually, there’s a catalyst and Mamoru accidentally acts on his desires. Afterwards, he desperately wants to go back, to deny it happened, knowing that if the team find out it will destroy his relationship with them, and he doesn’t know what will happen if that relationship is destroyed. At the same time though, he liked it, and things are already different. It’s not the same now that he’s had a taste of what he could have. Things aren’t as good now that he knows what he’s denying himself. He wants to go back to how things were but a stronger part of him wants that freedom. He’s been denied something he should be entitled to, and now that he knows he could have it but the price it would cost him, he ends up having a break down. He ends up acting again because he can’t keep denying himself, but now the team knows and he feels they’ll never accept him, especially after what happened with Ryuusuke. Mamoru makes the decision not to go back and face them knowing it will end badly, and in the actual context of the show Nozama Pharmacy may kill him against the team’s will, and instead goes with Haruka.

Mamoru and Haruka are able to decide that they do deserve lives. They deserve the right to live and be themselves like everyone else. Not just themselves, but everyone like them. They’re not okay living under prejudice like this. Together, they’re able to decide they want to be able to live along with everyone like they deserve. Mamoru is faced with one last chance to go back with the team, who say they will accept him because they still love him despite it all. Mamoru can’t go back though, not only because Nozama Pharmacy with be much less kind than the team, but because going back will most likely mean he won’t get to live as himself.

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Takayama Jin

Jin is our chaotic bi of the amazons. Jin had a lot more control over his situation than Haruka did. He’s a real adult, who’s lived enough of a life to have some understanding of things and make decisions.

Jin turned himself into an amazon; he made the decision to be out as queer, and had a lot of control over his situation. Jin doesn’t really have to worry about homophobia from other sources as he’s not got anyone close to him other than his girlfriend, Nanaha. Instead, Jin has to face homophobia from himself.

Jin’s only goal throughout the series is to kill all the amazons, and he refuses to be wishy-washy on it. When he says he’s going to kill all the amazons, he means all of them. Even if they’re good people, even if they help him, and even if they’re himself. Jin hates what he is and plans to kill himself because of it. He’s open about being an amazon, but he’s also open about his hatred of amazons and his suicidal intentions.

He doesn’t want to be in the community, he doesn’t want to interact with it. All he wants is for it to all be destroyed. He can’t give himself a chance, and he can’t give any of them a chance. He refuses to change his mind due to guilt.

A lot of people in the queer community like to deny the existence of people like Jin, but they’re there. Some people are out there on that level of self hate for a variety of reasons. Jin is the reflection of them.

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Non-specific to the main three amazons of the series, is the case of Maehara Jun. After Jun dies, Nozama Pharmacy use him, a dead gay, for their own benefit. They strip him of all he was and use him to kill amazons, including the main riders. Jun is a Sigma type amazon, which specifically means that he doesn’t have to eat, and will never have the desire to do so. Nozama have denied Jun his sexuality and are using him to push their own agenda, as well as getting rid of those who get in their way.

While this may not be the intended reading of Kamen Rider Amazons, examining the series as a metaphor for real life minorities can provide insight into the intents of the creators. The series lets us see the different struggles and reactions of people when faced with such issues in society.

Then season two can happen and go completely against the message of season one.