I don't do weeb stuff other than make Gundam kits and some Kotobukiya kits. And read ToLove Darkness.
I always wondered why I loved ToLove-ru Darkness. It's f*cking harem sh*t. Predictable story and unlikable main character. It's weeb as it can be.
However, I decided to look deeper into this issue. For one, I never was too hot for ToLove-ru. It was blend. It was obviously made for male desires and male desires only. But ToLove-ru Darkness was different. There was something different. At first I thought it was the sheer nudity. But there had to be something more. Something... that mattered. I decided to use my degree in film studies and delve into this academically.
Theorists usually argue feminist visual works involve depiction of female body in an empowering light, mostly focusing on whether it has subjectivity and leads the narrative rather than be objectified by it. The female bodies are objectified by male spectator through their sit-in within the work's diegesis--the "universe" of said work--who is the male protagonist. This is a very complicated process involving numerous psychonalytic theories and Laura Mulvey's timeless feminist film theory based on those theories, but I will simplify it here as the "male gaze," the term which Mulvey coins. The gaze, where the male subject looks at the female object, creates a division of labour in which female characters are degraded into mere followers or assets which the male subject then may use or ignore as he leads the narrative. The gaze symbolises the power within the structure of a visual media narrative, and in harem genre, this is the basic startline for such male-centric romance to commence.
ToLove-ru Darkness, however, seems to complicate this model--maybe even upset its balance.
Narrative-wise, the male spectator no longer sees Rito, the male identifier in the work, as an entity they can empathically identify, meaning Rito is no longer the image created by the traditional psychoanalytic mirror stage. The denial of Lacanian mirror stage renders the readers to dissociate themselves from the male gaze, and therefore the literary subjectivity comes to exist in a vacuum. This becomes clear when dissecting many of ToLove-ru Darkness' episodes in their structure: Rito is involved, sometimes the instigator of the main event, but rarely does his actions solve problems. One may argue he provides the moral supports, which then the female characters gain motivation to act upon his will, but it is questionable whether such structure can be simplified into mere "male protagonist controlling the female counterpart." The emotional connection here seems to be mutual and more importantly equal; deeming it a female "reliance" on the male protagonist's psychological support would be misrepresenting this connection.
On the other hand, the overall structure of the entire series is quite different. Rito is the focus, there is no doubt about that, for he is the central figure to where all the female characters are attracted, but this typical genre cliche is simplified as much as it can be. Rito's central position becomes almost hallow, because his presence in such position does not require much narrative explanation: it is an intertextual referrence that most readers of harem genre can know without understanding. Therefore, Rito, the supposed male subject whose gaze should align that of male readers, becomes the objectifiable male body which the narrative centres mechanically, being used as a narrative device (magnet in this case). The narrative then uses this construct to create interactions among female characters.
I believe this is where ToLove-ru Darkness' distinction lies. Its focus on female-to-female interactions is unusually stronger and more frequent compared to other works in the genre. Many female characters have their own connections to each other, and the complexity of so-called relationship chart resembles more of a shoujo work (other than the fact that there are not many male characters Rito can associate with). It is regrettable that most of the conversations among female characters still involve the male protagonist/magnet, but regardless, the work is an interesting attempt at creating a world beyond the usual harem story model. ToLove-ru Darkness rejects the traditional structure where the central male is the leader, and the focus of female attention, while any other interaction, especially among the females themselves is suppressed, in place for more male-to-female interactions. Works considered legends such as Ichigo 100% do not escape this traditional model, and one may argue that it is the standards set by older successful works that created such rigid structure from which not many succeeding works attempt to deviate.
In fact, the work self-parodies its own objectification of male protagonist as the male body/magnet by literally making him into a girl who fits all criterias of a typical harem sub-heroine. Here, the diegetic mediator of the spectator's gaze is completely lost. Therefore, the objectification of the female body remains at the most technical level, which may produce an effect where the reader may admire its aesthetic beauty, while ignoring its intention to stimulate the most basic seexual desires, which is the purpose of female objectification. I think it would be too far to claim this as a feminist attempt at a harem genre--the male-centric sexual imagery is prevalent within the work--but it definitely offers an interesting prototype that may allude to its possibility, which previously was thought, quite understandably so, impossible.
There. I just justified why I like ToLove-ru Darkness and should not feel shameful about it.
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