How is Saezuru Tori Wa Habatakanai a game changer for content aimed at mature audience – Notes on Yashiro #1
I took some time to write in the middle of a gloomy afternoon. I started from my thought that Saezuru Tori Wa Habatakanai (both manga and anime) is an unique piece that forever has changed the quality of content aimed at mature audiences, but I ended up writing about Yashiro and why he is one of the best written characters that I’ve ever seen.
It will be a long text and you already know that I am not a native English speaker, but I am trying my best, so bare with me. I have so much to say, that I could not fit everything in one post. Expect more to come, but due to my busy work schedule I can only write once a week. Thank you!
Disclaimer: There will be talks about abuse, rape, explicit sexual content, and I won’t refrain from using words like f and d. So it might be a lot of fucks and dicks. Also, a lot of personal side notes ahead.
I will analyze from a personal view the most important perceived elements of Yoneda Kou’s work, altogether with their perceived impact on content aimed at mature audience. In order to avoid any confusion that might occur due to my, at times, ambiguous manner of writing, I’ve decided to split my ideas into sections/headers which will highlight the main points. If anything gets foggy, I will gladly fragment it and explain it the best I can, later.
We’re living in an era where content is stored and shared everywhere. Content looks like a deep and wide ocean. Right before I watched Saezuru Tori Wa Habatakanai for the first time, I was looking to consume something romantic-but-controversial, dramatic, slow-paced and engaging, but with a tint of action, a need of mine that shows on Netflix, HBO or any other largely consumed broadcasting platform could not fulfill anymore.
I know for sure that too much existing content can be overwhelming. But is it really “this much content” quality content? The question is food for thought. With the illusion of endless choices in mind and at a click distance, it’s surprising to find out that there is so little content on topics like mature-romance-drama-action. This being said, I do not aim to compare Saezuru with anything else, as I know there are maybe other titles within the same tag (however, they are different!), and I don’t want any sort of bias to perpetuate and create divided opinions. Instead of comparing to other titles, I’d rather focus on why Saezuru is unique.
Even though Saezuru gives us the impression that it is niched on a certain audience, you have to hear me out how unique and amazing it is, that even while included within a huge scope of media entertainment, it still ticks the box for appeal on a larger audience. Larger than manga lovers. Larger than BL and romance lovers. I deliberately chose this term “content for mature audience” because I think that Saezuru perfectly fits it, more than it fits BL manga/ yaoi tag.
Saezuru has endless potential and I am writing this because I want to see and hear more of it in the future. I wouldn’t mind a visual novel with Yashiro and Doumeki, more movies, or a long anime series. I see it as a game changer because it creates, through a series of elements well thought and put together, a genre on its own whose complexity makes it so difficult to put a label on, which ultimately is the source of its power over conventional content.
There are certain elements that make Saezuru what it is: art. We’re going to follow in-depth and with examples 2 important elements: development of characters and immersion. These two elements are interconnected, but I will attempt to discuss them divided. Looking from a far, it does not seem like much, but they are major game changers.
1. Development of characters
There is no doubt that Yoneda Sensei’s characters feel alive. They breathe, take each step, weather and suffer more than you’d think it’s possible, in a manner that looks beyond convincing to the audience. Each of their fights will leave them with scars, and scars as physical features are an important symbol in the chosen appeal for realism. Needless to say, scars, under the emotional and mental umbrella, are present, bold, and they hurt. Sensei just knows how to depict everything with intensity and accuracy.
If you are watching the movie, or reading the manga for the first time, it’s going to literally sting how relatable Yashiro is, how real and raw Doumeki is, and how the other supporting and secondary characters are not just there by coincidence, but have a sustaining role in the atmosphere and story.
In the following section and further posts, emphasis is placed on Yashiro, but I’ve included key moments that capture the charm of all the other characters involved in the story, though I will treat Yashiro and Doumeki separately, putting each in light.
Yashiro and his past self
Following the proposed logic with Yashiro, from the start, we can easily see that he is bound to be a pellicular main character, but relatable, without taking over the role of a “prince charming”, although objectively handsome looking. He does not have a linear evolution, his upsides and downsides happening at random times.
Yashiro has a turbulent life as a teenager, after suffering trauma from rape in his childhood, then gradually encountering hope after meeting Kageyama, just to be let down by his ignorance, and to ultimately follow the masochistic path that sculpted him into the person we see when he first meets Doumeki. The psychological tools used in shaping Yashiro are not unusual, but he, as a whole character, stands out. I always wanted to deep dive into what makes Yashiro so damn charming. There are several instances that stand out about him and scenes where his evolution/transformation curve is visible.
At the very start, Yashiro himself tells us that he is “twisted beyond repair” and enjoys pain because this is everything that he’s ever known, ever since his stepfather raped him at the age of 10.
Kageyama was an important turn in his life as a young adult, as meeting him gave him the hope for a romantic relationship. Kageyama touches Yashiro’s scars in the doctor’s office and in the audiovisual room, but this stops as soon as he finds out that Yashiro was raped. Kageyama seems like the light at the end of the tunnel at first, but it turns out to be just the entrance for a pitch black pathway. He isn’t the salvation Yashiro hoped for. In fact, Yashiro does not even know what to hope for and what true salvation means, which mixed with his dark background, results in a depressing and hopeless spiral type of outcome. He also has no parents by his side. He’s never had someone to guide him and warm his freezing heart during childhood. We might as well assume that Yashiro is broken from the beginning. But how broken, is it really beyond repair? I think that is not the case.
I found interesting how Yashiro’s idea of love is contoured around the time shown with Kageyama. Yashiro, after all the trauma, creates a liaison between sex and hatred, as they coexist in his mind and actions (= the famous defense mechanism). It is best shown when in love with Kageyama, he will imagine, and get turned on by a version of Kageyama that is vulnerable and helpless. Not by a dominant version that could, for instance, fuck him.
“The Kageyama in my fantasy wasn’t on top or on bottom. He just cried.”
His true love interest is perceived as complete opposite of how he sees his dominator. But even more, Yashiro does not know how the opposite of pain feels like, so he is too afraid to find out as his defense kicks in. His love interest is never going to touch him the way that everyone who abuses him does. That’s why I don’t think he ever fantasized or had dreams about being penetrated by Kageyama, which, proves that violent sex is his main coping mechanism for his trauma. As a consequence, he is unable to romanticize sex or to make love with someone he has feelings for, as “making love” has no known meaning to him. Also, his basic emotional needs from childhood could not be fulfilled, because of the mistreatment that he received from his family, so he could not fully develop that side. This is why Yashiro can only look, sink into his thoughts, disconnect from the world and be an onlooker to his beloved Kageyama.
Here I would see fit to also point one thing: the scenes where Yashiro is lusting over Kageyama are so well made. They are absolutely flawless, and they show in a few panels the whole anguish, confusion and arousal of a troubled and lost kid, especially the moments when he runs and masturbates in the heat of the moment, thinking of Kage, away from everyone.
When Yashiro chokes on his regrets as he jerks off over and over… I could literally feel dark butterflies in my stomach and a metallic taste on my tongue. So expressive and graphic, I loved it.
Soon enough we find out that Kageyama doesn’t really care, and this realization of him not caring, gradually contributes to Yashiro’s mental state degradation. I cannot stop wondering what would have happened if Kageyama would have cared enough to protect Yashiro from further twisting the knife in his own wounds. Yashiro breaking down and crying because of Kageyama’s ignorance is one heartbreaking thing, but knowing that Yashiro is biased and blind to the fact that Kageyama is one guy that half asses things in life, is another. A receipt of how Kageyama fucks it:
He gave wrong signals to Yashiro all along. You’re telling me that for two weeks, he touches his wounds because he has a fetish for marks, then he stops and never touches him again, and calls Yashiro just “a friend”. What if Yashiro isn’t simply twisted to fall for the first thing that appears as rescue, but instead, he gets those signals and understands them right to a point, just to be let down and have Kageyama take it all back, just because Kageyama is a coward himself who wouldn’t take things further. Might sound harsh, but Kageyama has always been a closeted gay and together with Yashiro’s zero self esteem, nothing good could come out of this relationship, not in the way that Yashiro wanted it. If we look at how things turned out with Kuga, and we compare Yashiro with Kuga, we can so easily see that Kuga pushed for the old man’s feelings, while Yashiro stood silent and chose to keep these feelings in himself. What if Yashiro pushed harder in high school for Kageyama’s reactions? What if Yashiro demanded and was a bit more pushy, just like Kuga did? But then again, seems at peace with his past, while Yashiro lives everyday with the consequences of his past, gets lost in these consequences and he constantly swallows them like cigarette smoke.
Kageyama does only half the things. He isn’t even paying attention to Yashiro and never really got to “know” the real him. That’s why he seems so ignorant and a dick. Even Kuga can figure out more about Yashiro at a glance, than Kageyama could in 20 years. It’s no doubt, I can see why Yashiro fell for this type that our doc is, but he is not even a good doctor to begin with. In “Don’t Stay Gold” his trembling hand and lack of accuracy while performing medical tasks proves this point. When he pulls the bullet out of that guy, it looks like he does not even know what he is doing. And even without pointing that out, he could not care less if something happens to Yashiro. He will be there to help, of course, but he will never leave the comfort zone. On top of that, Kageyama later claimed to have shown a lot of compassion towards Yashiro. I am struggling to see it and it hurts me, both as a reader and observer.
Bitterness aside, Kageyama just wanted to be normal, not associated with someone weird like Yashiro. It’s fair in a way, but twisted and unfair in another way, because someone already damaged as Yashiro is, did not really deserve it. No human being deserves that. And… Being looked down on and feeling sorry for… Two things that happened before to Yashiro. Two things that he desp adores. Kageyama does them both. But guess what? After all Kageyama isn’t a bad guy, he is just human. And humans are not all black and white, they’re so many colors and shades, and they have good and bad in them. Kage is just human, whether we keep a grudge on him or not. One more point scored by Sensei’s realism, as it’s impossible to hate side characters.
And with all the loneliness, and all messed up, Yashiro is still showing compassion. Why? Because he shows up to the funeral of Kageyama’s dad, being there for his only friend when he literally has no idea how to show support because he never experienced having someone care for him. Yet, there he is. Broken, but not broken enough not to empathize.
Also, later on, another moving moment which shows how big of a heart Yashiro has, is when, on his path to enter Yakuza, he hears about the discussion about the old hospital that belonged to Kageyama’s family and begs Misumi not to sell the land. That scene equally shows the interest that Misumi starts to take in Yashiro, seeing Yashiro not moved an inch after he was beaten to almost death, but gets all on fire and begs when it comes to this. Here is about how selfless and ready to endure everything is Yashiro, even if betrayed and left on the sidelines every time.
Surrounded by the disappointment of rejection, Yashiro steals the contact lenses from Kageyama, but not to make him suffer. This act of theft is nothing but a symbol for his need for closure. Yashiro wanted to own something that could comfort him and be his, if Kageyama could not be his. A lot of great people on Tumblr explained so much better than me these aspects about the symbol that is the contact lenses case, so I am not going to insist on it. I really love how such a small recurring symbol was inserted into the story. It shows the idea that Yashiro is, in fact, sensitive.
“I am a wonderful actor”.
In similar instances, he is full of contradictions, one moment he laughs, another he is dead serious around his crush. Unstable and tormented by what happens to him if he emotionally gets hurt by the soon to be doctor, he finds relief in pain from sex with older men. And later on, he is plotting on making Kuga and Kageyama meet, just to give himself a lot of pain seeing Kageyama finally falling in love with a man. Yashiro isn’t only an actor, but he is a great observer himself. He knows exactly what his type and movements will be, so he knows how to act till the end, when he can finally push himself to accept that Kageyama will never be his man.
What I really wanted to say by showing all these examples, is that Yashiro is so much more than his trauma and so much more than he is perceived by Kage. His complexity goes beyond the expectation of just a broken kid with a “fucked up past”. Sadly, he is the only one blinded, not capable to see inside of himself, mostly because of what others did to him. At some point he says that it’s no one’s fault for his past, and that alone speaks volumes about the person that he is. He took all the blame on himself and continues to carry on as a side observer to his own life.
Fast forward the described scenes, some feelings remain dormant as Yashiro gets into the Yakuza, but I think daddy Misumi takes care of certain aspects of Yashiro, and thanks to him, they’re not lost forever. The dynamic between Yashiro and Misumi is another interesting topic.
Misumi is, well, both a daddy and a dad for Yashiro. It’s so intriguing to read everything that Yashiro went through when he first got into the Yakuza, and for sure, how Misumi saved Yashiro in all the ways that he could have been saved. He gave him a place to stay, and he gave him a bit of worth after partially convincing him not to sleep around with every single person, when they could simply sleep together. Misumi could give Yashiro the violence he was hungry for in bed, but he also could give him the affectionate care of a parent, because I’m pretty sure that Misumi loves Yashiro like his own son. He believed in Yashiro the way he was, even though he met him while he was at his lowest, being fucked by an entire gang and covered in cum. Here I think Yashiro’s recklessness, charm and not giving a fuck energy, played a major role in seducing Misumi, and by seducing I mean… More than just getting hard at the sight of Yashiro.
This just turned from a character analysis to I LOVE Misumi so much and everything he’s ever done for Yashiro. And honestly, I hold myself not to insert the image of Ryuzaki hearing how fucking good Yashiro looks after being taken under Misumi’s wing. Thinking of how in love Ryuzaki is with Yashiro, it makes me kind of excited to see his reaction.
Before meeting Doumeki, Yashiro has a few more details worth mentioning:
Self neglect habits, which can be linked to his depression. I am sure that Yashiro skips meals, especially in the days before Misumi took him under his wing, when he was fucked by Ryuzaki’s gang. Maybe he doesn’t get enough sleep from the way I see him at times, and he lacks overall the self care that he needs and constantly falls into the dark haul of hating himself not leaving any time for nourishment.
Yashiro is a heavy smoker, that is a detail that can equally reflect 2 things: he is trying to escape through his addiction, but smoking is also part of his interesting personality, a detail that makes him versatile. He smokes since high school, so this habit has been there for long enough to become part of him, maybe as another way to cope with trauma. Just like all the coping with trauma through sex.
Yashiro is not a monster; after all he becomes a successful man who’s got so many desirable attributes, yakuzas would kill for. I think that even while twisted beyond repair, hopeless and left behind, our Sensei left space for Yashiro to be able to empathize and feel love, even in the moment t0. He just doesn’t know it yet, because no one truly loved him. But what we do know, however, is that he always wanted to be loved.
I will conclude this post by saying that Yashiro changes a lot from high school up to entering in Doushinkai, so he was not stagnant at all before meeting Doumeki. He is not ready for love, but he refrained a bit from the gang bang and sex with just anyone. He does it smarter now. His dynamics with the other characters, his own struggles and past, and the position that he got within the group, remain all connected to his wonderful charm. It overall seems like there is no side character that is left untouched by Yashiro’s beauty, and as a result most of the people he crossed paths with, either bear feelings or admiration for him. Ok, maybe not Hirata. But the plot is so exciting, I could not even imagine that a character like Yashiro could reunite politics and affairs around such an immersive circle.
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