While the animation film “Zootopia” has beaten "Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice" in China’s box office for the first weekend of April, it does not stop the fans of the superheroes from idolizing the two.
But unlike western fans of Batman and Superman who see them only as macho heroes out to save the world from bad elements, Chinese fans of the two men in tights and cape see them in a different light. Based on character pairing fan art of the duo, fans see them engaged in bromance.
The movie actually depicts them as adversaries, but in the eyes of many Chinese fans, they are complete each other. Global Times explained that such as different outlook stems from an Asian subculture that sees romantic relationships between male characters.
The romantic pairing goes beyond fan art. There are different Batman-Superman fan groups on the internet like in Baidu Tieba which has over 12,000 followers who have made 100,000 posts about the couple superheroes. Another forum, named “World’s Finest,” counts about 7,600 members.
There are also similar sites found in Tumblr, Sina Weibo and Archive of Our Own.
One South Korean fan girl, Gihoo, who uses the pen name “Lapuger,” shared that she draws the two muscled men hugging, kissing and consoling each other chibi-style. She has posted her art on Tumblr, Twitter and Privic and recently joined Sina Weibo where her page has now more than 4,500 followers.
Another illustrator, Hai Ning from Taiwan, said she was attracted to the two superheroes for their contrasting personalities. She described Superman as a mild-mannered do-gooder person, while Batman is the rich, destructive loner. Hai believes their traumatic backgrounds caused the two to form a deeper bond since Batman’s parents were killed in front of him when he was a child, while Superman was orphaned because his planet was annihilated.
Unfortunately for Warner Bros, the film’s producer, fan art notwithstanding, the movie suffered a 78 percent dip in China on its second week of run. In North America, the decline was by 69 percent, while in South Korea, box office was down 70 percent, reported Forbes. In the UK, the movie receipt went down 69 percent, while it was 68 percent reduction in Singapore and Hong Kong.