The fox knows many things, but the hedgehog knows one big thing
I went looking for Grimm slash fanfic. I'm not sure why I did it. I really like Grimm, it's... better than I initially expected, when I watched the pilot on the plane back from Japan. It's also a series I watch together with my Mom, which is good times. I boxed the second episode and sat down to watch it alone, and about halfway Mom came up and asked what it was and I told her furtively that it was a "monster-series" that I didn't expect she'd be interested in. She sat down and watched the rest of the episode with visibly great relish. "Damn," I thought, "now I remember! When we were kids, we used to watch She-Wolf of London together!". If and when asked, Mom will deny this. Still, it's a very nostalgic memory for me, and watching Grimm, which is not unlike She-Wolf of London, is very very nostalgic indeed.
This doesn't explain why I would want to look for Grimm slash. I definitely don't want to read it.
After reading Azuma Hirokis book Otaku: Japan's Database Animals, I've been fascinated with the concept of settings. How individual episodes contain a self-supporting ‘official narrative’, which is what the general viewing audience would consciously watch. However, the episode would contain multiple detailed ‘settings’ that were not directly represented within it, like time, place, and political climate, and the personal backgrounds and interpersonal relations of the characters.
Azuma (or Otsuka Eiji, whose ideas Azuma is rephrasing) doesn't say anything about settings in relation to BL, yaoi or slash (perhaps naturally), but in light of how manga and anime as media have adapted in order to appeal to new markets, I don't think it's unlikely that producers would consciously incorporate homoerotic settings into their work to spark the interest of fujoshi consumers. Of course fujoshi are capable enough to decipher settings that aren't intentionally homoerotic as such, but I think this sort of trend of conscious amplification of the homoerotic potential can be seen already in products like Ookiku furikabutte or Tiger & Bunny.
There's really no way to be sure. Perhaps the people writing Grimm have never even heard of slash.
This doesn't explain why I would want to look for Grimm slash. I definitely don't want to read it.
After reading Azuma Hirokis book Otaku: Japan's Database Animals, I've been fascinated with the concept of settings. How individual episodes contain a self-supporting ‘official narrative’, which is what the general viewing audience would consciously watch. However, the episode would contain multiple detailed ‘settings’ that were not directly represented within it, like time, place, and political climate, and the personal backgrounds and interpersonal relations of the characters.
Azuma (or Otsuka Eiji, whose ideas Azuma is rephrasing) doesn't say anything about settings in relation to BL, yaoi or slash (perhaps naturally), but in light of how manga and anime as media have adapted in order to appeal to new markets, I don't think it's unlikely that producers would consciously incorporate homoerotic settings into their work to spark the interest of fujoshi consumers. Of course fujoshi are capable enough to decipher settings that aren't intentionally homoerotic as such, but I think this sort of trend of conscious amplification of the homoerotic potential can be seen already in products like Ookiku furikabutte or Tiger & Bunny.
There's really no way to be sure. Perhaps the people writing Grimm have never even heard of slash.