Langa's relationship with reki

I will disagree with you that Langa doesn't think Adam is creepy. At his first appearance, Adam made Langa very uncomfortable with his attention to him. Reki noticed this and put a stop to Adam's harassment of Langa. Later, Langa was very wary of Adam's movements when there was talk of what would be the stakes in the race. Langa is for most of the anime extremely depressed by the death of his father, who was his role model. This explains his wild attempts to ride his skateboard like a snowboard and constantly risk himself. As we see in the anime's finale, he gave it up because of Reki. Believe me, emotionally Langa is quite preserved and normie. He was just in a deep crisis.
I would love to see Reki and Langa's relationship as platonic. But I think the real state of affairs is that Langa is initially passionately in love with Reki. And Reki tries very hard to see Langa as only a friend. This is because he has low self-esteem. And also because he had a crush on his childhood friend that ended in an abrupt breakup. So he would like to just hang out with the guy he likes and not admit to himself the true nature of his feelings. But this is not what Langa wants, and so there is an imbalance in the relationship. Although by episode 11, Reki admits that he and Langa are in a relationship. I'm talking about the translation done by blogger Kudouusagi. Her translation is more accurate than the official translation, which for some reason changed many important points and put the emphasis differently. That's why an excellent example of the representation of a pair of athletes is declared headcanon for some reason. In my opinion, this is very unfair.

@Tobimaroo You're right, Langa is very uncomfortable with Adam's behavior. But what I meant is that compared to others, it seems he gets over those uncomfortable feelings pretty early on. When Adam was roping him into dancing with him, instead of acting scared, Langa looked confident and not negatively effected by Adam's advances. This is what made Adam trip up and let Langa advance in the race.

But other than that, I can't contribute anything else to the conversation since I haven't seen all of Kudouusagi's translations, only those done for the Skate Chill Out comics. Personally, I don't see Reki having a crush on his childhood friend, but then again this is going by the official translation.

Thank you. I started watching this anime after the screenshots of Langa and Adam's first race. From the very beginning, it seemed to me that there was a lot more meaning behind it than meets the eye. The title alone, which stands for "Love is Infinite", hinted at that. As you can imagine, I wasn't happy when I found out that my favorite character quite deservedly wears the motto OVER THE RAINBOW on his skateboard, and that was something they chose to hide.
There is another obvious hint that Langa is in love with Reki. From the second episode onwards, Langa starts rolling up his sleeves, just like Reki. And his sleeves are repeatedly shown to the viewer in close-up. The idiom "cut off sleeve" in ancient China referred specifically to same-sex relationships, and Japan borrowed a lot from there.

In fact, there are many clues in the names of the musical themes of the official soundtrack. For example, in episode 1, the track "Easy Target" is played at the end when Langa starts chasing Reki. In episode 7, when Langa does a high jump and Reki is proud of it, the track "Fateful Partner" is played.

I'm afraid it wasn't about skateboarding, it was about Reki showing too much enthusiasm at the sight the prettiest of the guys. ) That was why the classmate preferred to express his sympathy for Reki from a safe distance. Although, knowing Reki, it was obvious that he would never impose his society on anyone.
And it's not that Reki shows no interest in sex. It's just that he represses urges that he finds unworthy. That's why in the anime he wears a chain and a wrench on his belt. As seen in the last official illustrations, he doesn't wear them now, or he wears them very rarely.
And I wouldn't attribute any diagnoses to a person based on their outward appearances. The first episode already shows the real Reki. He is much calmer, much sadder and more mature than his mask.


Reki is as much a normie as Langa.
Also, I don't think Langa, if he were asexual, would be so fixated on Reki's underwear right from their first meeting. Langa is overly enthusiastic at every opportunity to look at it. It's even in the official artwork.

And the funny thing is that Reki's underwear is sticking out of his pants precisely because he's actually a very shy and decent young man, it's part of his daredevil disguise.
There's a reason the creators in both the anime and manga Chill Out! keep emphasizing that Reki is Langa's "dog".

Langa and Reki's race in the anime's finale is a completely transparent metaphor for first sex, and they're 18 years old there.

In the latest audio drama read at the SK event, Reki hints quite transparently that there is sex in his life with Langa. It's coded with the same word "fun".
https://www.tumblr.com/kudouusagi/740164453663981568/sk8-infinity-week-returns-drama

Apologies for saying this again but I don't think I should contribute anything else until I see the more accurate translations since at this point all I can say is biased stuff and opinions based on my own experiences (which I don't think would be very interesting and would be quite frankly frustrating for you to see "Okay yeah, but I think..." in response to your well written reply with lots of sources).

However...



I watched the video (It was really cute!!) But I've been puzzling over what you said for a few minutes now. How is sex implied? I don't understand :,) But then again stuff like that tends to fly over my head lol

And I'm relying on an interview with the director in which she specifically emphasized that in a lot of scenes, Langa and Reki's faces are in the shadows. And the fact that in the Masquerade event, all the characters were wearing masks. By the way, Adam's real name is very rare in real life. And the kabuki theater has a mask of a villain with that name. As you can see, I have reason to believe that in normal life, Reki wears a mask to protect his vulnerable and sad self. He's much stronger than Langa and much more resilient. I admire how resilient he is in the face of all the blows. But I'm saddened that he often attracts them himself. Like when Reki was talking loudly in class at school and the teacher hit him. Or when he made Cherry angry on purpose and got slapped. Or in episode 6 when he put his newly healed head on the doorstep of the room, risking getting hit when someone opened the door. That's why I think Reki is suppressing his real desires, which is not very much approved of in Japan right now. Watching the scene at the beginning when he skates to the manager's car and the chain on the go hits him in various places is pretty sad.
And about Reki not being interested in sex... Look closely at the largest poster in his room. It shows anatomy in great, great detail.)

The moment near the end when Langa asks Reki if he's cold. Reki replies that he is not, because he is warmed by the "fun" that happened before they went shopping. And Langa gives an embarrassed nod of agreement.
And the moment at the beginning when Reki jokingly suggests Langa buy a kigurumi. Langa gets angry and promises to dress Reki up in a dog costume.