First Shoot #29 – Haku

Haku occupies a weird place for me, due to my complicated relationship with Naruto. I originally read the Naruto manga as part of my Shonen Jump subscription, which was a big deal to me at the time. I enjoyed early Naruto when I read it as a kid, before the anime, and for me it peaked with the Zabuza arc. In hindsight that feels really sad, since that’s basically the first real action arc of the story, but nothing that came after ever hit as hard as that for me. Within that, Haku stood out to me as he was one of the first times I realized I could find a male character attractive in media. Obviously him being so feminine made it not that shocking, but from there I started realizing I could look at other male characters that way, first in Hikaru no Go and Shaman King, and later peaking with an “aha” moment for Cell Saga Gohan that lead to me deciding I wasn’t straight (it’d be a few years before I identified as ace).

So, Haku’s kind of a weirdly important character to me, and is probably my favorite character in Naruto as a whole by a good stretch. I’d mentioned liking him here and there in the past, I think, but I never really drew him for a few different reasons. Sometimes I find it harder to draw characters I have these unique relationships with, as if l lewding them might ruin how I see them or something (it never actually has). I also just, like, don’t think about Naruto very often and don’t usually have a reason to draw it unless someone’s paying me to. At any rate I’ve thrown Haku into First Shoot polls a few times, and in this instance he happened to win. His random lottery partner being Denji is a big part of why I moved forward the end of his virginity arc, but it lead to what I think is a cute interaction between him and Haku here.