Kyouji’s Judge, Jury, and Executioner

|| Wymverse side blog… because desperate times call for desperate measures. || || Yes, I’ll personally be there at Kyouji’s court case. No, not to defend him. ||

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I haven’t posted in awhile, but! I am absolutely elated by the cover of the second volume and wish the best for the final update we’ll be getting next month! I was always a bit fearful for what the ending of their story would look like, but all of the art we’ve been getting is pretty much Wayama soothing our poor hearts.

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~inspi/ref for the first pic under the cut

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Famiresu Iko diorama

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famiresu iko comic beam cover taglines through the years

translations by my friend who wants to remain anonymous~

どこでもいいよ、 きみとなら。 Anywhere is fine as long as I'm with you.

どこでもいいよ、 きみとなら。 Anywhere is fine as long as I'm with you. 変わるもの。変わらないもの。 Things that change. Things that don't change.

手探りだった距離が縮まる The tentative* distance is narrowing.

*(手探り) is like fumbling around/feeling your way (lit. search by hand), which is then describing their distance - my friend had trouble translating this part

僕はまだ、 僕を知らない I still don't know myself.

隣にずっと、いつまでも。 Always by your side, forever.

[mayo-yi]

WAYAMA-SENSEI THANK YOU VERY MUCH I LOVE YOU VERY MUCH

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🍓🍽

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Kyosato 👿🥰

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posted eng translation for june 2024 munhakdongne korea retrospective! thank you to nag2n on twt for letting me post this on my site as well ^_^ highlights include the author fangirling hard, wym reassuring that nobody is going to die, and an incident with a black cat keychain wearing lace panties?!

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Thank you for answering my question ❤️❤️❤️

Of course! There are a couple other asks that I should answer too, but i've been putting them off since I feel like I need to give them more time to think about. Sorry other anon!! I'm not ignoring you I promise.

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I have been trying to find an answer for this, but do you know how Satomi knew Kyouji was a yakuza? I know it was when he received his business card, but I can’t find an exact translation explaining what exactly gave it away

Mm, well anon you'd have to be familiar with how the yakuza structure works. Kyouji's perfectly fitted expensive suit that he goes around everywhere with, and intimidating mannerisms like his, is enough of a dead ringer for "this is a Yakuza" in a sense, but Satomi was only able to confirm through the business card. So, what was on it to give away he's a Yakuza member?

「四代目祭林組 若頭補佐」

Yondaime (四代目) = Fourth/Fourth Generation, referring to the succession of power within the group (to date, the current boss is the fourth to come in power)

Matsuribayashi-gumi (祭林組) = Yakuza group's name + kanji for "group" (translated as family for criminal organizations)

Wakagashira-hosa (若頭補佐) = Usually translated as Assistant/Advisor Lieutenant. Wakagashira (若頭) answer directly to the boss themselves and functionally are the highest-ranking members, besides direct advisers and such. They are who the average member is supposed to answer instead of the boss directly.

I don't think there's a single member of higher rank than Kyouji that's been shown nor someone who is as close to the boss as he is. You might as well remove the assistant part entirely. This has genuinely never made any sense to me when I see it in other media, how assistant lieutenants don't feel much different from being a lieutenant. I don't see the point of distinction if there's nobody they're directly listening to. Final answer is that he's a lieutenant, no more thinking about this or any other category.

And yes, the actual name of the group is Matsuribayashi, not Sairin like the weirdly bad official translation refers to it as. I'm not sure why the translation is like that, but the quality is oddly amateurish. Maybe they're trying to follow that rule of two kanji words following on'yomi reading, but no Yakuza group refers to itself by the on'yomi reading and no other source refers to it as Sairin either.

There's a lot of things about the translation that make it very poor, especially the execution for the "maybe its a good ride" joke in the car. Even to me, I felt like it was obvious that it was incorrect and that Satomi was reacting to an inappropriate joke being made, not the idea of "the girls who sit in Kyouji's front seat seem to always leave". I think that's really funny, but not what he said. I'm glad the anime subs corrected that.

I hope this answers your question well enough as to why it was obvious to Satomi that he was a Yakuza just by glancing at his card: because it's using yakuza terminology. The card is so in your face with his ranking and association with the Yakuza, its genuinely hilarious. It's his name, his group association, and then his rank.

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So, I was surprised when read in the interview that Satomi and Kyouji will not be close if they met at the same age AU. At first I thought they will be like the ones in Captivated by You (EmaHaya or MedaNika). What do you think that made them different?

Hello anon! For me, it wasn’t much of a surprise at all since their relationship basically hinges on them being two guys with a drastic age difference, but I can break it down further for you because it's not just one factor preventing them from getting close in other situations. Their gender, age, and current path in life all contributed to their tedious relationship in canon.

Think about in what manner their feelings for each other form and how their age difference made it happen. Kyouji approaches him on a whim, interested in Satomi's singing, telling that boy "I need you, and you specifically", regardless of the place he got in the competition. This left a deep impression on Satomi, who was ashamed of his efforts and blames himself for the reason their choir didn't get first place. At this point of change in his life where his voice is failing him, this story wouldn't have gone anywhere if Satomi was a little older (after he's already gone through that age-based turmoil) or younger (where he has more confidence in being leader and does not go through this change yet).

But it's also Kyouji being an older man who was unrelated to his school life, rather than a classmate or fellow peer, that made Satomi seek him out and continue to meet up with him. Wada had told him how proud he was of Satomi being their leader and how secure he felt having him there, but it doesn't lighten Satomi's feeling of burden, seeing how he acts towards Wada and practices even harder. He can't see Wada as someone who can understand because he hasn't reached his growth period yet. Kyouji is, technically, relying on Satomi to "mentor" him, but it has been Satomi emotionally relying on Kyouji, an authority figure who will indirectly validate his feelings, this entire time.

If Kyouji truly, sincerely wanted to get better at singing, he wouldn't have whisked Satomi away and continued to meet him. Like Satomi said, he would've gone to a tutor. This can only be called a whim based in emotion for Kyouji, feeling a shared loneliness between them. Their relationship had not ended because Satomi's use had stopped, but because Kyouji no longer had a proper excuse to keep meeting him. That treatment where he tries to treat Satomi like a junior or a kid is his way of trying to take responsibility for his choice as the older party, but the avoidance he takes emotionally is hurtful for Satomi because their relationship keeps being hid behind a guise of transaction. Maybe it hadn't been about his usefulness, but I don't think it felt that way for Satomi himself.

Kyouji's feelings are verbally unstated in Karafami as of now, but it's clear he adored Satomi from the beginning and loves him now. I'd have to argue, personally, that it didn't go beyond fondness until he felt Satomi's sincere love at the karaoke competition and then those feelings he wouldn't actualize as something to deal with came to the front with this undeniable confession. This is not me pretending there is nothing predatory about his approach with Satomi or that he is oblivious either of their feelings for each other, I'd be the last person to tell you this. However, a straightforward approach would undermine them as people.

According to Wayama, Kyouji has never dated younger than himself, and as much as he treats Satomi like a "woman" or how women have treated him in the past, I truly doubt he loved those women or was interested in them enough to barge into their lives again the way he does with Satomi in the airport scene. Seeing how he answers his "get to know you" sheet, he might've preferred the company of older women, but the topic of love disinterests him because he's not one to keep others in his life. He's a person who is directionless and works on whatever is given to him, so the only time he chooses things for himself is on a whim.

From what we are shown, the people who do want him, the yakuza or through compensated dating, are the people who gain something from it and the people who don't, like his family, abandon him. At this point of his life, he does have regrets and can reflect on how he's lived it, especially with how becoming a yakuza has affected his relationship with others. Nobody was like Satomi, who cared for him and would walk into a room full of yakuza members, even after telling him he wasn't comfortable being around them. Wouldn't you also be touched by a passionate rendition by someone who thought you were dead? Compared to his smiles before this scene, the expressions he showed there felt much more real and loving.

I keep saying this, but I would like to make a separate post for their relationship development in Karaoke Iko. It makes the most sense to me that Kyouji would have fallen for Satomi at this point in time because, before this, he was just a "funny kid" he liked being around. In the airport scene years later, he practically admits he loves Satomi with the tattoo on his skin and that he missed him a lot. It's fine if you think otherwise about exactly when he officially loved Satomi, it just made the most sense that this would be the "capture his heart" moment for them.

To cut my point short, the way they fell for each other in Karaoke Iko is dependent on where they were in their lives. For Kyouji, it was Satomi's absurd sincerity and care for a person who he shouldn't care for. For Satomi, it was Kyouji entering his life when he needed someone to depend on, escape to, and validate his feelings. And well, Kyouji is unfortunately charming haha.

I explained the way their age gap impacted how they attract each other, and now you're wondering what this has to do with their relationship if they had been classmates, other than Satomi's side of things about Kyouji's age. So, let's talk about them briefly as individuals. There are parallels between Kyouji and Satomi, with them both working as servers and Kyouji going into the boss's car like Satomi had with himself, but they are very different people. Personality wise, it’s a surprise they even like each other at all.

They are both passive with the direction their life takes them, but Kyouji is more self-destructive and impulsive with his life as he thinks he was bound to be a problem child. Satomi is passive within reason of the average person who's not sure about their own future. He is not interested in the things others his age would be into and would be considered rather boring, while Kyouji soaks up the environment and people around him. It's why Wayama said Kyouji would be the pursued over the pursuer, he's more of a people person than Satomi is, even though they're both liked well enough in their circles.

If Kyouji hits a wall, he pretends nothing is wrong and goes the other way. If Satomi hits a wall, he'll contemplate and address it after giving himself several migraines. They both have some recklessness in their actions, but Kyouji is much too casual about his recklessness while Satomi has a lot of emotion behind his actions. Point of fact, they're opposite in all the ways where if they met as classmates, they'd either have little to say about the other or clash badly through Kyouji's attitude of life. What brought them together in canon is not there, so...

I guess this is mainly an issue of them losing their reason to even meet each other because I don't think it would be impossible for them to becomes friends, but normally, without a writer's intervention to make it happen, it just wouldn't. A lot of romantic conventions are really dependent on those conventional, contrived moments. A lot more stories could only happen within their circumstances than you think they do, unless fate is a direct point of conversation within the story. They aren't much different than EmaHaya or MedaNika, if you're asking what would happen if they lost the reason they caught each other's eye haha.

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BD extra

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close 狂聡

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Me: I can’t believe Kyouji would be my favorite if I ranked characters from Wayama’s works, how embarrassing.

Friend: You only interact with HP purely because it had Tom Riddle, this is the least surprising thing to come from you.

Me:

Me: You didn’t have to say that part out loud.