Everyone in Japan is gay.

III. Part Three: Everyone in Japan is Gay.

EVERYONE IS GAY. NO. SERIOUSLY. EVERYONE. IS. GAY.

A. EVERYONE IS GAY.

“Sometimes I think possibly the abundance of gay, gay colors in PoT is just because there are so many characters and the artist needs to come up with different colors so stupid people can differentiate between them, but then I realize, honestly, there is no excuse for putting your entire tennis team in hot pink aprons.” — Phrasebook.

This was going to be a long, somewhat intelligent section on how gay subtext in Tenipuri is supported all over canon, both for its virtual elimination of eligible junior high school females in its huge cast list, and for its free interpretation of “male bonding” to mean “bringing everything but the lube onto the court.”

But, like. I can’t do it. Talking intelligently about how Tenipuri is really, really gay is like trying to write an intelligent speech about how the ocean is really, really wet.

Just. Everyone is gay, okay? Everyone in Tenipuri, ALL OF JAPAN is gay. EVERYONE IS REALLY REALLY GAY. SO GAY. No. Gayer than you’re thinking right now, trust me.

You’re thinking:

Honestly. How gay could they be?

THIS GAY.

SO GAY. SO VERY, VERY GAY.

B. Real men play doubles.

Let us take a look at our favorite Doubles Teams, the Golden and Silver Pairs.

As you can see, it’s tough to say which of these teams has the gayer formation. Here you can see the two pairs in action in all their very, very gay glory. (Very loose scanlation provided by the lovely sarahofcroydon. )

For an example of how very, very, very gay the world of Gay Tennis can be, one need look no further than the Golden Pair. The Golden Pair Ship Manifesto is a *gorgeous* place to start looking at the ships of the fandom, because the GP is basically the most Overt of the Overt ships in canon–namely, the four or five major ships that basically smack you in the head with their blatant canonicity. Those five, in my relatively unbiased opinion, are: 1) Golden Pair (Oishi/Eiji) 2) Inui/Kaidoh 3) Momo/Kaidoh 4) Silver Pair (Ohtori/Shishido) 5) Tezuka/Ryoma. Tezuka/Fuji and Fuji/Yuuta (erm) are also way, way, way up there in the ‘oh my god could they be any more obvious’ department. As always when dealing with ships, your mileage may vary.

BUT BACK TO THE POINT, WHICH IS THAT EVERYONE IS GAY.

EVERYONE IN JAPAN IS GAY. INUI = GAY. FUJI = GAY. MIZUKI = GAYER THAN GAY. ATOBE = ALMOST GAYER THAN MIZUKI. TEZUKA? YEP. RYOMA. OH YES. MOMO AND KAIDOH?……… Yep.

….I realize this section is severely lacking in content. BUT TRUST ME. You will figure it out very quickly.

C. Final Word On This Subject.

I am adding this section at the urging of Stacy, who insists that all I need to do to hammer home my point is say the following words: Canon. Boyband. AU.

She has a very good point.

On to Part 4: Tenipuri Fandom