Close the Last Door and the Problem Tropes Found Within Boys Love and Yaoi

‘I’m not gay, I just love him!’ This is a line that is spouted all too often within a boys love anime and or manga that causes some hate within the LGBTQ+ community and I can understand why. It can undermine the gay community with suggestions of being homosexual as a choice, the character has chosen to be gay because the person they love is a man and this is a very inaccurate depiction of this kind of romance in real life and this is just one of the many problem tropes with the Boys Love and Yaoi genre that is on show in the anime and manga ‘Close the Last Door’.

Released in 2001 as a manga by Yugi Yamada and then later adapted into an anime in 2007 by Phoenix Entertainment at its core it is not a bad boys love or yaoi story it just has many of the problem tropes that can be found within the genre. It tells the story of Nagai who has had a long time crush on his best friend Saito which damn near breaks him on Saito’s wedding day. The story then snowballs from there with a drunk Nagai with another wedding guest hooking up to ‘comfort’ each other and Nagai finding out that the woman he married is not as loyal as he thought she was.

This story is not alone in the yaoi trope of depicting women as either a nuisance or demonizing them as ‘the bad guy’ of the story, whether that be getting in the way of the ‘yaoi’ part of the story and because of this they are often demonized and even hated by yaoi fans. it is not just Saito’s wife who ends up being demonized, at one point in the anime Naiga comments that he does not like women because all they seem to do is act needy and gossip. This is shown especially with the character of his ex-girlfriend who even though she knows there is no chemistry between the two of them, wants to go out with him again simply for social standing. This is probably the trope found within yaoi that almost annoys me the most, the first one I will be getting into in my next review. I understand that this is a genre that focuses on the male x male relationship but this can be done without seemingly demonizing the opposite gender. I’m not saying make all the women perfect because that would make for some very boring storytelling, not the mention it leaves a feminist level bad taste in my mouth. It would be nice to maybe perhaps see a female friend or co-worker in a more supportive role to the story and not just another hurdle for the main character to get over for a little drama in the plot.

Would I recommend Close the Last door? That is honestly a really hard question to answer. For all it’s faults it is very amusing manga and anime, but as stated throughout this review it does show many of the problem tropes of the genre. This does not make it a bad anime and I recommend the anime highly to anyone new to the boys love genre, the manga I only really recommend if you enjoy the anime and want to see where the story goes after the credits roll.

 

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