My office has a Game of Thrones death pool going on and I went against the grain with it and came up with a pool with more living characters than dead. I’m ridiculed daily for this even as the final episode of the series draws near, but I approached this with a mindset heavily focused on today’s topic: Subverting expectations. Today we will take a look at what subverting expectations is and how Gokushufudou uses that subversion as a comedic tool.
Expectations refer to what the audience thinks is going to happen, regardless of whether they want that to happen or not. As the audience makes their way through the story, they begin to make predictions about all sorts of future events from plot points to character actions. These are usually subconscious predictions such as how a character will act based on their appearance, but this can also include more conscious predictions such as thinking about how a storyline will resolve based on past events.
Subverting those expectations means establishing an unexpected outcome that is not just different but contradictory in order to catch the audience off guard. For characters this means having them behave in what would be considered the polar opposite way from their appearance. This also holds true for storylines, but storylines may also have an important event happen suddenly with no buildup or not deliver on an event despite all of the context clues pointing towards that event happening. Examples of these different types of subversion in storylines would be like Nichijou for events playing out in a radically different way from what was expected, and a series like Game of Thrones for events that happen suddenly with little to no buildup. An example of this idea applied to characters would be Gokushufudou.
Gokushufudou is a slice of life series about a former yakuza member named Tatsu who has abandoned his life of crime and settled down into the domestic lifestyle of a stay-at-home husband. Each chapter introduces a mundane task typically associated with a stay-at-home spouse and puts Tatsu in that situation to see how a dangerous-looking former thug would address that scenario. These situations range from attempting to kill a bug to trying to catch a sale at the store, and Tatsu tackles them all in ways that only somebody with his unique past could do.
Tatsu was previously known as Immortal Tatsu in his yakuza days and was an infamous higher-up in the gang world. His name alone is still enough to bring members of the underground crime world to a halt despite having not been active in a long time. The main subversion of the series comes from the contradiction between Tatsu’s scarred, intimidating demeanor and his well-meaning intentions. Tatsu still has the presence and mannerisms of a yakuza member but solely engages in boring everyday activities that anybody could take part in. People around Tatsu are thrown off by his appearance at first but he is a friendly person who makes his good intentions known, although he seems to be oblivious to how others perceive him.
There are three main subversions within Gokushufudou: Tatsu’s contrary appearance and personality, how Tatsu handles situations versus how the audience thinks he will handle them, and how Tatsu conducts himself in public versus how people around him think he will act. The comedic focal point of the series is a mix of the first two points which compliment each other and help to highlight the absurdity of an ex-gang member living a domestic life, while the third point is an in-series reflection of societal norms.
The issue with subverting expectations is that if you do it too much, the audience will come to expect it. Those expectations are no longer subverted because the contrarian take on the situation has become the new norm. The audience may get used to Tatsu’s character as they continue reading but the public’s reaction serves as a constant reminder that Tatsu is not the typical type of person one sees on a daily basis. Having a constant reminder that Tatsu is unique through his actions and how outsiders view him is a necessary ongoing theme in order to keep the story and the character of Tatsu from feeling stale.
Gokushufudou’s primary source of conflict is one of man versus society with both sides locked into a subconscious war of attrition. Tatsu sees and has no reason to change who he is at his core while his onlookers would prefer him to be an average person or just not be around at all. The dynamic between Tatsu versus society firmly plants Tatsu as an unwavering being in the world who has no reason to change himself because there is nothing that needs to be changed. Society’s view of Tatsu is one based on prejudice due to his appearance, and Tatsu unconsciously fights against that just by letting his true intent be known. This conflict progresses very, very slowly and is of such a large scale that the idea of a resolution in Tatsu’s favor seems almost impossible, but Tatsu is winning and continues to win a little more with each person’s perception changed as he interacts with them.
Basing a series around subverted expectations is very difficult due to losing that feeling of subversion after a while, but Gokushufudou makes this succeed by reminding the reader that even though they may be getting used to this, the world as a whole is not and may never. While this is all played up for laughs, there is a very real undertone to it that is easily applied to our world. Gokushufudou does not have an official western release, but we stan most fan translators.
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