Tsugumi Obha: Male or Female?

I'm aware Death Note is a very mainstream manga. Whatever. One interesting thing about the series: no-one knows if the writer is male or female, or heck, what nationality he is. She/he might not even be Japanese. A friend of mine thinks the writer's a girl because she writes attractive male characters. I'm sure I don't need to point to how many girls love Light and L. I personally think the writer's....a giraffe? Lol XP I have no idea, honestly. I'm slightly veering towards not girl because it's a very male-oriented manga, and all the female characters are either strategically outmaneuvered, minor minor minor characters with barely any charecterization, and, well, Misa. And that's about it. What's your take?

Female.

I would say women are just as capable of misogyny and sexism. If you had spent adequate time in shipper forums and m/m fanfiction circles you would realize this. :P

Why make a new thread? we have a Death Note thread.

Considering there are four Haruhi Suzumiya-related threads on the first page of the subforum I don't see a problem.

But the fact that the male characters are atractive doesn't mean anything, especially since Tsumugi Ohba isn't the illustrator of the manga.

I never thought it was a question of keeping their gender secret; I just assumed Ohba was someone's niece/nephew, or a high schooler who wanted to be left alone, or both.

If forced to pick, I'd say female, because if I were a parent and I had a son I would not saddle him with a girly name like Tsugumi.

Ah, but that's assuming it's a real name and not an assumed one.

I personally don't really care. If Ohba were a female it would make me a bit sad at the internalized sexism she's obviously got going on, but otherwise I don't give a damn. It doesn't particularly change anything about the work.

edited 10th Jul '11 8:32:24 PM by Sporkaganza

I think of Ohba as a girl. Don't know, it just seems more interesting

Yeah, it does make it more interesting. I dunno, something...that "internalized sexism thing going on", it would be interesting if Tsugumi actually purposely did that for the sake of commercial success. Which would be messed up. Also, it could be being a girl let's you see the parts that aren't likeable, the obsession of Misa, for example. Though this is pure speculation, and it's not that hard to write single-minded obsession. My friend actually thinks that the whole unknown gender everything thing is because they might not be Japanese and they want to advoid stigma.

So?

I don't know about Ohba's identity, though. I had considered that he/she might not be Japanese. Or it could just be that he/she usually writes very different manga and wants to distance him/herself from them so Death Note would stand alone.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hiroshi_Gam%C5%8D

Hardly conclusive evidence (note the Citation Needed tag), but it's interesting to note the possibility.

Drat, Silver beat me to it.

I'd say as far as Ohba's female characters go, Kaya has the best balance of screentime and proactivity - and she's still only the fourth- to sixth-most-important character in Bakuman. (Me, I'd say Hattori is slightly more important and Eiji is slightly less, but that's just because I really like Hattori.) Still, he's learning.

Male. Gay.

It's just my gut feeling, but the characters and relationships seem to have a kind of Samuel Delany feel to them.

His drawing style...is really hard to identify whether if it's a male or female. I think it's a male, simply because I think male drawing and writing duo would be comfortable working together. *shrugs*

Ohba didn't draw Death Note. He only wrote it. Takeshi Obata was the artist. You got it backwards.

edited 26th Jul '11 7:10:38 PM by Sporkaganza

Well, fuck.