Pronouns do not work that way in Japanese
I often see people say that the characters use they/them, and... that's not correct, on two counts.
First: they're characters, not real people. We use pronouns to refer to them, but they do not have agency and cannot "use" any pronouns. There is no objective truth to reach for. You can only point to how various human people talking about the characters refer to them.
Second: The entire text of the canon is in Japanese. Even if they were real people... I don't "use" lui/suo pronouns, because I don't speak Italian. You can ask me what pronouns you should refer to me by, if you're talking about me in Italian, but this is something you can do because I am a real living human person. And as a result of all canon text being in Japanese, it's important to know that gendered third-person pronouns do not exist in nearly the same capacity in Japanese that they do in English. It's easy to refer to someone without giving their gender away in Japanese; it's much harder in English, and I think this is what the neutral pronouns on the site do for Aoi. (Remember that they can, in fact, be used to ambiguate someone's gender, because it's uncertain or because you don't know, rather than hard-confirm it.)
Any pronoun, from 'they' for Anne to 'he' for Hajun, is an imposition and an assumption that we overlay on the text to make it more comprehensible in English (or whatever target language). It's a decision that I, and any other translators, have to make based on context, content, and how I happen to interpret the text.
So why 'he'?
Because I think Aoi is a trans man, and specifically a person whose being trans is not public knowledge.
That's the tl;dr. I just think he's a trans man. I think the story and everything we know about Aoi points (to my eye) to him being a binary trans man who is not out.
For more details on why I think this:
- He's a "little prince with a secret".
- Everything we know about Aoi points to him being a private person who is hiding "something" from the people around him (and, arguably, even from the other members of VISTY). This secret is pretty universally (among anyone in the fandom who's paying attention) understood to be that he's not a cis man. If Aoi is publically referred to as they/them, then his being trans is not a secret. If he's meant to be nonbinary, then people aren't supposed to know, and so people aren't going to call him neutral pronouns.
- He's part of an all-male idol group.
- Pretty self-explanatory. There are mixed gender music groups, yes, but they're the exception rather than the rule and it's fair to assume that VISTY are probably meant to be read as all-male. This tracks with his remarks that VISTY is the only place he can be who he really is. If he's joining a male group and playing a very masculine role in the prince character, to the point that he feels that the person he is on stage is who he really is and that he desperately doesn't want to lose, he probably wants to be seen (or at the very least, is comfortable being seen) as a man. AND SPEAKING OF THE PRINCE THING:
- Princes are Anne's symbol of masculinity.
- Princes have already set up as being the paragon of masculinity that Anne wants to escape from; Aoi wants to achieve it. To argue that "you don't have to be male to be a prince", while true in reality, kind of undermines the fact that princeliness is synecdoce for performed masculinity, as established through Anne. This puts Aoi in a great counterpoint/counterbalance with Anne, and that doesn't mean as much if you divorce "prince" from "ideal of manhood".
In other words: Anne doesn't want to be a prince because they specifically don't want to be a boy; ergo, Aoi wants to be a prince because he does.
- There is official material on the matter.
- The site uses they/them pronouns, but other official English-language materials (ex: the English language facebook page) consider he/him appropriate for Aoi, but always use they/them for Anne.
- I just think it'd be neat.
- I just like to interpret him this way.
But the site...
I'm going to be honest: I don't really care what the official English site says. I only use the official facebook cap above to help strengthen my point, for those who care about the official word.
But if you want me to engage with it on its own terms, I'll do that. Compare the way that Anne and Aoi's profiles are written, using the official translations:
With the handsome face and courteous fan service, Aoi has established the position as the "prince" of VISTY. Aoi is usually cool and level-headed. Although Aoi has major troubles, their awkward side prevents them from revealing their troubles to those around them. Aoi secretly admires Anne of BAE, who lives a life unconstrained by convention.
Anne might appear to be a fashionable modern girl, but inside they're actually the most straightforward one in BAE. As a child, they were oppressed by their strict, old-fashioned mother. At the moment, Anne is determined to be honest about their own sensitivity. Anne now works part-time as a club hostess, making good use of their beauty.
Aoi's profile is written in a way that (to my ear) uses his name awkwardly often and only uses pronouns when completely necessary, as opposed to the much more naturally flowing use of Anne's name and pronoun reference. (Again: Aoi being trans is, to me, obviously meant to be a secret that the general public don't know about him. It is easy to write this sounding natural in Japanese; it is less so in English.)
The reason I use they/them for Anne isn't because they're the pronouns the site uses; I use they/them for Anne because I have read and consumed the canon and have of my own voliton decided that they/them feel the most appropriate for Anne, because they're clearly written as transfeminine and their words and actions lead me to think they make the most sense as nonbinary. (If you want to argue that they're not transfemme and just GNC: read MEMORY. Read paragraphs of them not recognizing themself as a boy and being afraid to use public restrooms and look me in the eye.)
If the official site used he/him for Anne, I'd still use 'they' for Anne. If the official site used she/her for Aoi, I'd still use 'he' for Aoi.
Put another way: characters with ambiguous (or even not-so-ambiguous) gender issues get fought over all over the place, even when there are far more overt official English versions and official English decisions, because part of the point of how they're written is to avoid making hard statements.
If you prefer to think of it as "he/they but Jakkal just uses 'he' when he writes about Aoi", go ahead. If later information comes out to change my mind about this, then I'll go back and edit all of my translations.
But at present: I think he's a trans man, and that's why I use he/him for Aoi.
