What were Saphir's true feelings for Demand?

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What did Saphir feel for his brother?

  • Romantic Love

    Votes: 12 34.3%
  • Just Jealousy

    Votes: 23 65.7%

  • Total voters
    35
Sep 13, 2009
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#41
For example, referring to Fish-Eye as a woman using she/her pronouns even while leaving in that shot of their bare chest
That shot was not left in in the dub that aired on television. The Cloverway dub had two versions: An edited cut that aired on Toonami and the uncut DVD version. The former was what had to meet the broadcast standards and since Fisheye was referred to as female, the edited version cut out the bare chest shot.
 

foenyanko

Solaris Luna
Sep 21, 2010
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#42
Even with the incest it's at least better than the rape train that is Demande/Usagi that's for damn sure! :P At least Saphir would actually consent/the feelings are mutual
Ugh, that's the truth. And honestly I don't see a huge issue with it being 'incest', since unless the 30th century has some seriously advanced tech, they can't have kids together anyway. (I know some people likely have other issues with it stemming from social/religious reasonings, this is just my opinion.) There's no taking advantage of a huge age difference, either.
 
Jun 17, 2019
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#43
Ugh, that's the truth. And honestly I don't see a huge issue with it being 'incest', since unless the 30th century has some seriously advanced tech, they can't have kids together anyway. (I know some people likely have other issues with it stemming from social/religious reasonings, this is just my opinion.) There's no taking advantage of a huge age difference, either.
Plus it's not like their background was ever particularly clarified, so you can always just headcanon that they're not blood related brothers if the incest aspect makes you uncomfortable and it wouldn't be contradicted. You're right though about the fact that them being a same sex couple already takes care of the reproductive factor, which is the main reason why incest is so taboo in the first place. This is why I personally have less hang-ups with shipping same-sex incest couples compared to straight ones.

Demande & Saphir, two brothers close in age? I can tolerate.

Something like Mamoru/Chibiusa though? EW. That's a big fat NO! Keep that [BLEEP] far, far, far away from me.
 
Likes: foenyanko
Jul 5, 2009
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#44
Plus it's not like their background was ever particularly clarified, so you can always just headcanon that they're not blood related brothers if the incest aspect makes you uncomfortable and it wouldn't be contradicted.
I always see them as step brothers. :creeper:
 
Jul 29, 2012
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#45
Historically, incest was allegedly common in Japan in the 19th and, to a certain extent, in the beginning of the 20th-century: I have never read about siblings marrying one another, but there were marriages between uncles and nieces and between cousins. Of course, the purpose was to secure wealth. To assure that wealth would continue belonging to the same family. The same happened in Latin America and other parts of the world. “Arranged marriages” to secure or increase a family’s wealth and power still exist and are not that uncommon nowadays.
 
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Jun 17, 2019
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#46
I always see them as step brothers. :creeper:
Well they do look drastically different for two guys who are supposed to be brothers, completely different coloring. You could easily headcanon them as step or adoptive siblings if you want, heck even half-brothers makes more sense than full.

Historically, incest was allegedly common in Japan in the 19th and, to a certain extent, in the beginning of the 20th-century: I have never read about siblings marrying one another, but there were marriages between uncles and nieces and between cousins. Of course, the purpose was to secure wealth. To assure that wealth would continue belonging to the same family. The same happened in Latin America and other parts of the world. “Arranged marriages” to secure or increase a family’s wealth and power still exist and are not that uncommon nowadays.
Oh I know, in my own culture cousins marry each other all the time which is why the Ashkenazi Jewish community has such a high rate of genetic diseases. (My own father has Crohns, which is one of the more common ones) I have a few cousins of my own that married cousins from their other side of the family, and my own paternal grandpa's father married his sister-in-law after his first wife died so some of my grandpa's half brothers were also his half cousins. (Talk about "keeping it all in the family" huh? :P)

The thing about that is this only really applies when you're talking about heterosexual incest, and we're talking about a same-gender couple so I'm not sure those same rules would apply here. Besides that being hetereosexual incest is the type of incest that strongly squicks me out, even in fiction, because of all the inbreeding problems I just described above.

That being said, it always did baffle me that hetero incest was more accepted and even *embraced* in lots of traditional cultures compared to homosexuality when the former actually is damaging to the human race evolutionary speaking, while the latter actually helps it. (I have a theory that the gay gene is nature's answer to Overpopulation, so it's a trait selected for among some individuals as a mitigation effect.)
 
Sep 6, 2014
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#47
That shot was not left in in the dub that aired on television. The Cloverway dub had two versions: An edited cut that aired on Toonami and the uncut DVD version. The former was what had to meet the broadcast standards and since Fisheye was referred to as female, the edited version cut out the bare chest shot.
I mean...technically but...


Cloverway/Optimum edited dub: Fish Eye is a cis woman who had a mastectomy apparently

Pioneer/Optimum “uncut” dub: Fish Eye is a pre op trans woman

ETA: I still can’t believe Cloverway and Cartoon Network allowed Fish Eye to rip off her dress and be topless. I’m surprised Cartoon Network didn’t just reject the episode as not fit for air and skip it.
 
Jun 17, 2019
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#48
I mean...technically but...


Cloverway/Optimum edited dub: Fish Eye is a cis woman who had a mastectomy apparently

Pioneer/Optimum “uncut” dub: Fish Eye is a pre op trans woman
Could one even call the Cloverway/Optimum DVD release "uncut?" I mean, I guess it was uncut in the sense that no scenes were outright deleted like in the DIC version but it was still censored just by way of it's dialogue, which was vastly different from the original Japanese. (i.e. "cousins," she/her pronouns for an obviously male-bodied Fish-Eye) This of course led to some infamously awkward moments in the "uncut" version of the dub where they left in all the romantic HaruMichi animation yet the dialogue was inserting "cousin" everywhere. :lol:
 
Jul 5, 2009
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#49
Well they do look drastically different for two guys who are supposed to be brothers, completely different coloring. You could easily headcanon them as step or adoptive siblings if you want, heck even half-brothers makes more sense than full.
Either way I still see Saphir as gay and Prince Demande bisexual.

And Petz ::love:: Saphir ...................................

Spoiler: show
 
Sep 6, 2014
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#50
Could one even call the Cloverway/Optimum DVD release "uncut?" I mean, I guess it was uncut in the sense that no scenes were outright deleted like in the DIC version but it was still censored just by way of it's dialogue, which was vastly different from the original Japanese
It is visually uncut so it’s technically right.

Put it this way Funimation calls their releases of Dragon Ball uncut despite those uncut releases downplaying the sexuality as much as possible (i.e whenever the animation doesn’t force them to keep it in) or secularizing the religious aspect. The biggest different is their uncut dub contains some dialog differences between the edited version (usually just removing the characters saying kill or words like butt) where as Pioneer just slapped the edited dub audio for S and SuperS onto uncut footage.

. (i.e. "cousins," she/her pronouns for an obviously male-bodied Fish-Eye) This of course led to some infamously awkward moments in the "uncut" version of the dub where they left in all the romantic HaruMichi animation yet the dialogue was inserting "cousin" everywhere. :lol:
The use of she/her pronouns for Fish Eye just changes the character from a gay man who cross dresses to “trap” straight men (playing into incredibly harmful stereotypes) into a trans woman. Obviously not intended, but completely by accident it improved upon the source material. Fish Eye is no longer a deceptive cross dressing effeminate gay man but a trans woman whose gender identity is respected by her peers.


Michiru and Haruka's relationship was hardly removed for the edited dub. It was just as awkwardly incest sub texty as it was in the uncut version. The water color still shots with the cherry blossom petals and choral do do do do music and the iconic hand touching scene in episode 110 were all in the edited version.

Ironically, Cloverway/Optimum pretty much "fixed" the problem by having Michelle express interest in men and have a history of two boyfriends and altering one instance of Haruka hitting on Usagi to Amara teasing Serena that she's going to take Darien away from her. So they could have easily done the "No homo" there especially when bisexuals were (and still are) invisible but noooo they had to do the overkill
 
Jun 17, 2019
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#51
The use of she/her pronouns for Fish Eye just changes the character from a gay man who cross dresses to “trap” straight men (playing into incredibly harmful stereotypes) into a trans woman. Obviously not intended, but completely by accident it improved upon the source material. Fish Eye is no longer a deceptive cross dressing effeminate gay man but a trans woman whose gender identity is respected by her peers.


Michiru and Haruka's relationship was hardly removed for the edited dub. It was just as awkwardly incest sub texty as it was in the uncut version. The water color still shots with the cherry blossom petals and choral do do do do music and the iconic hand touching scene in episode 110 were all in the edited version.

Ironically, Cloverway/Optimum pretty much "fixed" the problem by having Michelle express interest in men and have a history of two boyfriends and altering one instance of Haruka hitting on Usagi to Amara teasing Serena that she's going to take Darien away from her. So they could have easily done the "No homo" there especially when bisexuals were (and still are) invisible but noooo they had to do the overkill
I agree, the unintentional change of Fish-Eye from a "trap" to a transwoman was a vast improvement the dub made over the original. (I haven't seen the Viz dub of SuperS yet, did they try to make Fish-Eye a transwoman in their dub too? Especially since I know they've tweaked some of the more problematic dialogue to be more politically correct in the past, i.e. the girls reaction to Mako's crush on Haruka) But then you had the awkward stuff like the no-homo, cousincest agenda they seemed to be pushing so for every 1 step forward the dub made over the original it was 2 steps back.
 
Sep 13, 2009
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#52
Fisheye is still male in the Viz dub.

Well they do look drastically different for two guys who are supposed to be brothers, completely different coloring.
That's common even with canon families in Sailor Moon. Usagi's family, for instance, consists of a blue-haired woman, a black-haired man, a bright blonde-haired daughter, and a dark blonde-haired son. She then marries a black-haired man and has a pink-haired daughter of her own. :P
 
Jul 29, 2012
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#53
Well they do look drastically different for two guys who are supposed to be brothers, completely different coloring. You could easily headcanon them as step or adoptive siblings if you want, heck even half-brothers makes more sense than full.


Oh I know, in my own culture cousins marry each other all the time which is why the Ashkenazi Jewish community has such a high rate of genetic diseases. (My own father has Crohns, which is one of the more common ones) I have a few cousins of my own that married cousins from their other side of the family, and my own paternal grandpa's father married his sister-in-law after his first wife died so some of my grandpa's half brothers were also his half cousins. (Talk about "keeping it all in the family" huh? :P)
The great Albert Einstein was Ashkenazi Jewish... he did have dyslexia. Dyslexia and foreign languages were his weaknesses.
 
Jun 17, 2019
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#54
That's common even with canon families in Sailor Moon. Usagi's family, for instance, consists of a blue-haired woman, a black-haired man, a bright blonde-haired daughter, and a dark blonde-haired son. She then marries a black-haired man and has a pink-haired daughter of her own. :P
To be fair, in the manga Usagi was originally supposed to be pink-haired inherited from Ikuko, this is likely where Chibi-Usa gets her pink hair from.

The great Albert Einstein was Ashkenazi Jewish... he did have dyslexia. Dyslexia and foreign languages were his weaknesses.
Dyslexia isn't an inherited genetic disorder/disease like Crohns though, it's just a different neurological wiring.
 
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Jun 17, 2019
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#55
Just to show that I'm not making things up, here's Saphir's character profile from the Official Sailor Moon R memorial book that I finally found.



I can read and understand Japanese pretty well so long as it's not Kanji, luckily this book uses Furigana for all it's Kanji (likely due to the anime itself being aimed at a younger audience) and I can definitely tell you that in the big chunk right at the very bottom there it says "Saphir loved no one else but his brother," In the little column next to the shot of Petz hugging him it also says "Saphir could only see his older brother" and the text next to the picture where he has a stern face it says "strict to himself, strict to others but sweet to his brother." You can take a photo of this and put this all through a translation app and you'll get the same results.
 

foenyanko

Solaris Luna
Sep 21, 2010
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#56
I can't make it out. What word did they use for love? Ai? Suki? Love is always a weird word to parse in JP because it has so many potential definitions.
 
Jun 17, 2019
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#57
I can't make it out. What word did they use for love? Ai? Suki? Love is always a weird word to parse in JP because it has so many potential definitions.
They used Ai, now they didn't use the actual word "aishiteru" (which I know is supposed to be the most serious form of a romantic love declaration) but they do use it in the word aisazu. 愛さず.
 
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Jul 5, 2009
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#58
.................. I can definitely tell you that in the big chunk right at the very bottom there it says "Saphir loved no one else but his brother," In the little column next to the shot of Petz hugging him it also says "Saphir could only see his older brother" and the text next to the picture where he has a stern face it says "strict to himself, strict to others but sweet to his brother." You can take a photo of this and put this all through a translation app and you'll get the same results.

Decided to change my answer after this big revelation.

Spoiler: show
rgveda99 said:
 
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Masquerade

Solaris Luna
Nov 22, 2016
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#59
Just to show that I'm not making things up, here's Saphir's character profile from the Official Sailor Moon R memorial book that I finally found.



I can read and understand Japanese pretty well so long as it's not Kanji, luckily this book uses Furigana for all it's Kanji (likely due to the anime itself being aimed at a younger audience) and I can definitely tell you that in the big chunk right at the very bottom there it says "Saphir loved no one else but his brother," In the little column next to the shot of Petz hugging him it also says "Saphir could only see his older brother" and the text next to the picture where he has a stern face it says "strict to himself, strict to others but sweet to his brother." You can take a photo of this and put this all through a translation app and you'll get the same results.
Ikuhara confirmed (once again) for creep.
 
Jun 17, 2019
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#60
Ikuhara confirmed (once again) for creep.
How is he a creep? Demande/Saphir is actually quite a good ship it's better than the actual creepfest of a ship that is Demande/Usagi at least is it cause he made them brothers? I admit I could do without that part but take that away and it's a really solid ship.

The brothers thing doesn't even make that much of an impact imo since 1. We don't even know if they're bio brothers and 2. Even if they are it's not like they can have kids together anyways, eliminating one of the main reasons why incest is so bad in the first place. Sure there's also the consent/abuse issues that come with incest but they're close in age and are peers who grew up together so there's not really any problematic power dynamics in play, it'd be just like any other two consenting adults deciding to get together. Sure Demande may be the Prince who has power over everyone but Saphir doesn't have hero worship of him and is quick to call him out on his bs and talk back whenever he doesn't agree with something so I'd say they're pretty much equals.

Maybe Ikuhara only added in the brothers relation cause he wanted to play up the forbidden aspect of it? :Pas if them being both men wasn't forbidden enough already