ガチホモ[gachihomo]
I always get confused when I come across a new term because the word has settled somehow not knowing how it did…Who started the fire? At any rate, in the song 愛しの彼が振り向かない[itoshi no kare ga furimukanai] Mikuru version, there is a line saying,
腐女子が味方のガチホモいるけど ノンケの彼には意味が無い[fusjoshi ga mikata no gachihomo irukedo nonke no kare niwa imi ga nai]
Yes, it mentions Koizumi and Kyon in the Melancholy of Suzumiya Haruhi. I could translate like “there is a deep gay who has a lot of fujoshi followers, but it doesn’t work for the straight him.” I know ホモ means homo, but what does ガチ[gachi] mean? Actually this is not my first time seeing ガチホモ, but I have encountered a couple of times when I heard of any doujin works. Mostly, it says like ○○はガチホモ [xxx wa gachihomo]…I am pretty sure this ガチmakes something stronger or harder. Don’t believe my assumption too much, but maybe I am right. I guess this ガチorigins from ガチガチ[gachigachi] which means very hard, or as hard as a stone. Oh, can I say a hard gay to put it? So ガチホモ could be abbriviation of ガチガチのホモ[gachigachi no homo]. Incidentally, ノンケ[nonke] means straight. Though ケ should be written in katakana here, it should be 気[ke] in kanji. ノン is non-, so this 気 stands for the homosexual orientation. To say directly more, you can say ホモっ気[homokke]. 彼はホモっ気がある[kare wa homokke ga aru] means he seems to be gay.
Having said that, I believe fujoshi would like to point out the character seems to be gay even in the original work when they say ガチホモ. Yes, Koizumi sometimes gets near Kyon too much when he speaks to him(and Kyon says it’s too close, man!). It really faciliates BL fangirls to make Koizumi×Kyon pairing. Speaking of a ガチホモ, I can think of Koizumi, Nagisa Kaoru[Evangelion], Gunter[Kyou kara maou], and Lord Dio Eraclea[Last Exile]←(this is what a friend of mine said, not me).
Thanks to ガチホモ characters, BL doujin girls can make a pairing so easily. If you happen to be a fujoshi and try to make a BL fan-made comic, find a ガチホモ guy, so it would make it easier for you.
Japanese words of anime fans, by anime fans, for anime fans 
Neohybrid_kai said,
March 4, 2008 at 10:38 am
lol, L and Yagami Light, then
but yea, I think even akiba-kei would accept gachihomo if its only a slight or just for humor like Koizumi Itsuki
bangin said,
March 4, 2008 at 2:42 pm
Even though L suspects Light as Kira, but somewhere deep in his heart, he sure thinks Light is his very first friend. So that’s why there’s a lot of L×Light in Death Note BL works. lol
When the character get too famous as a gachihomo like Koizumi or Kaoru, yeah, akiba-kei would accept him in the end.
Khursten said,
March 5, 2008 at 4:37 am
Hou~ That’s really interesting! Thanks for the new insight! I’m familiar with the term ガチムチ which I heard in the Toranoana banner. Gachimuchi is a term for buffed characters ne? Those big muscly men… think Kinnikuman bodies and then BL. lol. I’m quite fascinated with these types of stories lately.
I’ve seen gachihomo before and from my understanding, it can also mean it’s ultramanly love between the two chara? Like two really straight-looking characters can’t possibly fall in love, but they do and it’s gachihomo that way. The mechanics is two really straight guys and it always involves one flirty / seductive character. I don’t think the character is really gay, but he acts flirty or gay only to the person who he feels close with. Otherwise, he acts straight in front of everyone. He’ll also act gay only when the straight character is around. I think that would stress the “ノンケの彼には意味が無い” line, ne?
If we look at Koizumi and Kyon, Koizumi is flirty towards Kyon but since he’s ‘straight’, it has no meaning at all but maybe to tease Kyon. Yet for fujoshis, his flirtatious behavior is so obvious that it’s got to be gachihomo! Same goes for Kaworu. Him saying he likes Shinji was an obvious one. As for Gunther… lol. XD
I’m trying to think, but another one is Billy Katagiri of Gundam 00. Maybe Asapin of KareKano… etou… in Mousou Shoujo Otaku-Kei, this is the angle with Chiba and Abe’s relationship. :3
bangin said,
March 5, 2008 at 5:43 am
Yes, I know a fujoshi who loves gachimuchi so much. In Mandarake, there’s a section where you can buy those gachimuchi comics only. But maybe Fujiyoshi in Zetsubou-sensei hates such a too manly BL desho?
Ah, you have a point. Koizumi acts normally in front of anybody else, and only to Kyon, he shows the real him, and Asaba dates a lot of girls, but what he wants is Arima…GYAAAAAA! We can find a gachihomo so easily. Don’t you remember even Asuka saying このホモ男！to Kaworu? He got into Shinji’s shower room to borrow a soap…
When the pair seems to flirt so much, it could be labelled as gachihomo, yes. 🙂 Yeah, gachi gachi! Nothing can tear the two apart.
ルルーシュ said,
March 5, 2008 at 5:38 pm
Haha, cool! I love it when there’s update on your blog. I learn new terms every now and then and that is highly appreciated, since such terms are not usually found in dictionaries and etc. (:
bangin said,
March 6, 2008 at 3:23 am
Every moment I am looking for a term to introduce here. Ah, my poor brain!
I am quite pleased to hear my blog could help people understand Japanese. 🙂
ルルーシュ said,
March 6, 2008 at 9:42 am
Haha, you’re doing a great job, in my opinion. Yah I think coming up with new terms is quite hard. Where do you find them anyway? Think about them yourself?
bangin said,
March 6, 2008 at 1:35 pm
When I talk to my friends, when I wacth anime or manga, when I visit somebody’s blog…I can come across them.
Since I am Japanese, I have to be careful to explain, yes.
khursten said,
March 7, 2008 at 12:42 am
Oh but it’s great you’re giving interested fans like us a chance to know about these terms. 🙂 Sometimes these are terms embarassing to ask people because either they don’t know it (because they’re not otaku) and it reveals to them that you are some hentai asking about silly things like tokoroton and gachihomo. So I think I can speak for your regular readers that we really appreciate it. ❤
About Fujiyoshi… yeah, I noticed that she likes more bishounen BLs than gachi muchi. I think only Ono and I are SISTERS IN GACHIMUCHI! Ohohoho~~ :3
bangin said,
March 7, 2008 at 2:30 am
That’s true. It’s embrassing to ask such a hentai word! But in doujin circles, they use like a dairy conversation. Even to me, some are difficult to understand.
Doujin and hentai can’t be apart, so that’s why I should explain even hentai terms! 🙂
ninmcn said,
May 17, 2008 at 2:09 pm
Maybe it means hard gay? Very gay? I don’t know. (Also, L and Light are, IMHO, not really good examples of this. They ARE, however, good examples of fanon deviating from canon to the point that people can no longer tell the difference. They specifically said that L didn’t really consider Light a friend. It’s the same in Sayonara, Zetsubou-Sensei. There is no truly canon pairing besides Kiri Komori and the guidance counselor, but even then, can that truly be considered canon? Is there even such thing as canon in this series? Jun putting his hand up and saying something doesn’t quite mean he has a massive mancrush on Nozomu. (That magazine scan, by the way, isn’t really canon.) The only thing I really consider canon is Nozomu and his legion of girls following him. Everything else is either subtext, or it’s not really significant whatsoever, but is interpreted as something by the fans. (If Jun appears on screen at any moment for whatever reason, it again does NOT mean that he wants to get into Nozomu’s pants. Maybe he does, but they’d never blatantly put it out there. They’d leave it up to fan interpretation. Fanterpretation. Look, ma, I made a word!) That, and there’s a difference between teasing and “let’s do it in the butt”.
But as for the post, thank you for posting this!
bangin said,
May 19, 2008 at 1:43 pm
I have never seen any BL pairings in Sayonara Zetsubou-sensei though there is a fujoshi student in his class. There’s almost no bishounen in the series, if failing that, the only one pairing might be Mikoto[his elder brother] and Nozomu…
What do you mean, canon? You mean a remarkable pairing in the series?
I might translate fanterpretation as 乙女の妄想[otome no mousou] or 乙女フィルター[otome filter]. 🙂
DannyHibiki said,
June 2, 2008 at 9:44 pm
For American fans, canon is basically the same as “official story”. For example, the Star Wars movies are canon, but the novels based on Star Wars, even though they are approved by the official creators, and sold as official goods, don’t really impact the “official story”.
I think part of the reason there is this distinction is because American fans don’t have some of the same basic concepts (being able to sell fan made work with characters that aren’t your own) that allow doujinshi like Japanese fans get to have.
bangin said,
June 3, 2008 at 1:20 pm
I know some countries have no doujinshi. Japanese fans are willing to create fan-made stuff, but the same doesn’t even go to other countries. This quite implies an unique characteristic of Japanese otaku.
az said,
October 10, 2008 at 2:26 pm
ah! naru hodo! 😀 i like your explanations, they’re so comprehensive!
I’ll tell my fujoshi friend about “gachihomo” 😀
bangin said,
October 11, 2008 at 2:19 am
Fangirls dash to the place where there is a gachihomo!
You can simply say so-and-so is gachi! 古泉はガチだな～＾＾