Yasashi Watashi and Re:Kinder: Kindness and its Contradictions.
Alright. I've managed to finish Yasashi Watashi, literally Kind Me, or Gentle Me. This was a two-volume manga written and drawn by Asa Higuchi, better known for Big Windup, a sports shonen manga about baseball. This manga has never left Japan technically, and fan translations only ever completed the 1st volume; the 2nd volume was unfinished. So, I had to import Volume 2 of the manga and use machine translations in order to finish the story. It went about as well as you can expect, but I finished it, and I more or less understood it. Machine translations aren't the most reliable, and trying to get the machine to see all the Japanese text and translate it was a pretty large hassle. But I didn't want to leave my journey of analyzing Parun's inspirations incomplete, so I did what I had to do, and now here I am. With that being said, let's begin. No long introduction about the author. Let's just dive right in.
Yasashi Watashi is a love story. But it doesn't have a happy ending. The first volume follows Hirotaka Seriu and Yae Karasu. They basically meet in a meet-cute fashion, and they both eventually form a relationship. For a while, things go pretty smoothly, but in the background, we learn a lot of things about Yae, namely that she has baggage and has a history of failed relationships, as well as a lot of unchecked issues that prevent her from forming deep, meaningful relationships without something getting in the way. I really wish I could go into more detail, but the beat-for-beat points are honestly very psychological and philosophical, and for a two-volume manga, they're pretty heavy. In short, the two eventually move in together, and during this time, they discuss their lives, as well as their different views on things, and it eventually all comes to a head, and by the end of Volume One, they break up. Among these topics is Seriu having been in the tennis club when he was younger, but he got an injury that he never got checked out, and he kept playing with it until it got so bad that he couldn't play anymore, even if he got surgery. Seriu puts himself out there in everything he does and tends to ignore his needs in order to achieve a goal and make others proud. He's also really kind, often going out of his way to do small tasks when he's asked, and makes as little conflict as he can. If this sounds familiar, it should. In plenty of ways, Seriu is very similar to Shunsuke in more than just personality and beliefs. While Seriu isn't as whimsical as Shunsuke, he has a few silly moments in the first Volume that show him as someone who isn't always serious. But unlike Shunsuke, he's pretty quiet. Often waiting for the other person to finish talking before giving their view of things... But both are similar in that they keep their struggles to themselves. They don't really like to burden people, and they tend to hold their pain back until it reaches a breaking point... More on this in Volume Two.
In contrast, there's Yae, a free spirit who uses photography and traveling to cope as much as she can. When she was young, she lost her Mom, and her Dad remarried her Mom's Sister, and later had her younger sister. It was pretty quick, with him remarrying a year after Yae's Mom died, and it doesn't sound like it was a happy marriage. Yae makes comments about wishing they would divorce, and her saying they're waiting for her sister to become an adult before doing so... I do believe we see her sister in Volume Two, and, given they're six years younger than her, they don't look that far apart... This was where the struggle of using machine translations came in, as while I could identify in Chapter 7 that she was talking to her sister, I didn't get the impression that she was a high schooler. It should be noted that Yae is older than Seriu by a couple of years. Yae is in her third year of college, and Seriu is in his second, but both waited a year before entering. Seriu, because of his injury, and Yae, because she failed her first attempt at the entrance exam. Anyway, a consequence of Yae's Father having remarried is that she still technically has her Mom's last name instead of the last name, Tamura, her Dad's last name, and she didn't know this until years later when she looked in the family registry. To quickly explain that, in Japan, there is something called the Koseki, or the family registry. What that is, is basically a birth certificate and family tree. Typically, when a married couple has a child, the child is put on both the Father's and Mother's registry, but they tend to have the Father's last name. This exception usually arises when the child is born out of wedlock, and the Father is either unknown or doesn't want his child to have his last name for whatever reason. Let's use Shunsuke as an example, since he's relatively simple. We know he has Mom with the last name Takano, and his Dad's last name is Fujisawa. So, since he was born out of wedlock, he'd be on his Mom's registry, and his Dad would only be on it if he said he was the Father, which would put the Dad on the Mom's registry, and put Shunsuke on the Dad's registry. Now, this would tell on the fact that Shunsuke is an illegitimate child if anyone were to look at this registry, but for all intents and purposes, that is what it would look like. All of this to say is that Yae somehow had her Mom's last name was not made aware of this until years later, and by the time she figured it out, she didn't really care. Now, other than that odd similarity to Shunsuke, Yae is much closer to Yuuichi in terms of personality and beliefs, and is almost the complete opposite of Seriu. Where Shunsuke and Seriu are kind, wanting to be hopeful, and hide their pain. Yae is very open, honest, and not afraid to speak her mind, while also clearly having a lot of baggage that she has not sorted out at all. She's been with a lot of men. And plenty of them didn't end well. Mostly because Yae is more comfortable being someone who is told what to do and what to feel rather than feeling what she feels. She's described as having a Father complex in the first volume, and I think the story is saying she has Daddy issues and that affects her ability to have meaningful relationships with men. And... yeah, we see that from learning from either herself or her past flames that no guy has ever been able to really give her what she needed. Seriu is probably the closest, and even those two don't end up working out due to both of them just being codependent on the other. Despite that, I do think the two could've worked out... But I think Yae was too afraid to confront her problems head-on on her own, and she was too afraid to try... Seriu, meanwhile, just couldn't really help her in the way she needed, because he was uncomfortable in being needed in the way she wanted. Seriu held the belief that you can't give up on something no matter how hard it is, while Yae believed that if something was impossible, it shouldn't be done at all... This is what ultimately led to their breakup.
Both Yae and Seriu have lines that mirror similar ones Shunsuke and Yuuichi had in Re: Kinder. Before we move on to Volume 2, I want to showcase the panels that really caught my eye where I truly felt the connection. Also, Seriu kinda looks like a grown-up Shunsuke to me. Well... Yasashi Watashi came first, so... Shunsuke looks a young Seriu would be more accurate.
If Volume Two were translated and digitized, I'd be showing images of those, too. Because the art improves by a landslide in Volume Two. I'm only allowed around 30 images, and I don't really want to go through them, especially since it'd just be me showing a picture of an untranslated manga page, but anyway, these panels really show the connection between Re:Kinder and Yasashi Watashi.
Now on to Volume Two for real... I'll be honest, I wish I had a better idea of what the characters were saying. I have a very rough idea, but because I was using machine translations, it was far from perfect. Some of the sentences bordered on questionable, and I struggled to really understand what the characters were saying. But what I did get from it was still really profound and sad. Basically, Volume 2 covers Seriu's and Yae's breakup and the aftermath... We see a bit of their family life away from college, like Seriu having a cousin in middle school, I think named Sumie, it's hard to tell with the translations. But she has her own story arc that I honestly can't really retell. I think she has her own issues with her family that she struggles with, which is partially related to Seriu's struggles, but again, I couldn't really tell. She is someone who helps Seriu learn a much-needed lesson, though... As for Yae, as I mentioned, we meet her sister, and we see that she sees right through her, even going so far as to call her out as a pessimist despite her outgoing personality. We also have a scene where Yae and Seriu talk to each other about maybe starting back their relationship, but Seriu declines due to him seeing that Yae isn't confident in herself, and wants someone to guide and lean on without really trying to make herself stronger or improve on her strengths. We see this with her struggling to get a part-time job, and the fact that she sees it as impossible for herself to get anywhere in life, whether in society or in romance... Needless to say, the conversation doesn't end well... But the next chapter has her call up Seriu after an undisclosed amount of time, and the two talk again. Yae talks about what she's been up to, and basically tells her that she's getting more bored with life, and Seriu talks about how he keeps trying, and trying, and trying, because in his mind, if he doesn't try at all, then he's a failure... After this conversation, Yae drives Seriu home, and that night... Yae hangs herself...
The next few chapters are the aftermath of Yae's death and how it affects Seriu. In the beginning, he doesn't seem all that sad... But he commits himself to the photography club and talks with people who knew Yae closely, and they all basically go over who she was to them, and how their death impacts them. From a friend who found her annoying and used, but still cared for and knew her. From her sister, who saw her as a good older sister and someone she admired, and even her father, who was surprised by how many people came to her funeral. It should be noted that her Father was the one who found her... After that, the story pivots to Seriu's cousin, who briefly moves in under the guise of scouting for potential high schools. Seriu lets her stay because he doesn't want to be alone... This is where the cousins' story comes in, and again, I really can't provide a lot here because of how unreliable the translator was. It looked like she was looking for her Dad, who may have worked for the hospital, and was struggling with her own inadequacy that mirrored Yae's, who was even thinking of not even going to high school and instead getting a part-time job before changing her mind after hearing Seriu's true thoughts... What did stick out to me here was the fact that we see Seriu's true feelings regarding why he is the way he is... I already talked about how Seriu is someone who gives his all in everything to the point of hurting himself, and that goes for his relationship with Yae, too. He had the mindset that it was better to try and fail than not try at all, and even was annoyed and angry at people who just... didn't try at all... Honestly, I can relate... But with Yae, he's clearly feeling guilt over how he handled their relationship and is clearly blaming himself for not doing more for her when she needed help, not realizing that he did all he could. This is where we see why he's like that... It's to hide the fact that he's just as depressed and lonely as Yae is... He mentions that after his injury permanently made it so that he can't play tennis, he started feeling sluggish, and sleep didn't help... He's been sluggish for years, and Yae's death just brought all those feelings back up... In his thoughts, he says that he'd be okay dying with her as well, and it takes his cousin telling him that he died that way, he wouldn't see her again... That it doesn't work that way... The two talk and though his cousin didn't know Yae, she was able to help him see that he's being too hard on himself and isn't letting himself grieve... The last chapter is a little road trip with all the characters in the photography club that he and Yae were a part of, with his cousin coming along as well... During this chapter, Seriu finally cries and lets out everything he's been holding back, accepting that she's gone, but also that she was here... With his message right before the end being that he's going to try and be kinder to himself...
So... yeah... I think it's obvious where Parun got the relationship dynamic for Shunsuke and Yuuichi from. Even when I had only read the 1st volume, I thought that the two were very similar to each other... I had thought that maybe things were going to work out, the two would break, talk things out, and then get back together and try again... And then Yae dies... We don't even see her death... We learn about it through a phone call. Her body is never shown, and after she dies, if the machine translation is to be believed, her name is never mentioned again. And yet she haunts the narrative for the rest of the story. This is very similar to what Shunsuke and Yuuichi could've been had they had the chance. When the two are talking in the dream world and in the final conflict, the way they talk to each other and connect is very reminscient of how Seriu and Yae speak to each other... and just like Yae, Yuuichi takes his own life because both are too afraid to confront their own weaknesses and drag someone they love down with them, not realizing that their actions basically guarantee that the person they care about will be dragged down in the swamp with them. But... something I noticed towards the end is that while Shunsuke's and Seriu's resolve are similar, there is a notable distinction here.... Shunsuke's vow is to be a kinder adult. Kinder towards others. Do what he's always been doing... While Seriu is to be kinder towards himself... Those are pretty distinct, as Shunsuke has the potential to trap himself in a situation where he can really hurt himself to the point of burnout. While Seriu's resolve is very hard... Our worst critics tend to be ourselves, but learning to be kind to yourself is learning to forgive yourself, especially in situations you can't control. I think both are powerful and important... But have similar, yet distinct risks. Seriu isn't likely to fall into the trap of being so kind to yourself that you neglect others because he is an adult. He knows better. He has life experience, and he is still the same kind man who was able to give Yae a genuinely happy relationship, even if it didn't end well... Shunsuke, however, is very young... A kid trying to be kind to others is a kid who has a high risk of being used by others due to his kind nature... A kid who already deflects his own issues, lies about how he is, and goes a lot farther than most adults would in regards to helping people, runs the real risk of burning himself out before he even finishes junior high. That said, I want to believe that Shunsuke will be okay... But I know from experience just how hard it is to be kind in a world that sees kindness as a weakness at best or a lie hiding evil intentions at worst... Kindness is underrated, and I think we as humans truly forget how much kindness can matter... Not just being nice, but being genuinely kind... You can call me naive, and hopeful, but... when the world is already on fire, and hatred is around every corner... How can we survive without hope? How can we survive without kindness? Me, personally... I choose to be kind... But that doesn't mean I'm weak; it just means I'm not going to stoop to a level so low that the only way I would feel better is just being mean-spirited and cruel. In a world that chooses to be cruel and heartless... I choose to be kind... and I want that to matter...
And with that note... Only one inspiration left... Revolutionary Girl Utena... Got me a CRT set up, so I'll likely be watching it that way over the next week or so. Once that's done, I'll give my thoughts on the series and then go over the themes of the series and how they relate to Re:Kinder. I have only seen the opening and the Rose Story at the beginning of it, and that alone was enough to hit me like a truck in terms of thematic connection. But also, I understand that the girl wanted to become a prince, which is very much similar to how Yuuichi wanted to be like the princess and be rescued... And this series is going to destroy me, isn't it? Well, I survived plenty of sad media in my 27 years alive on this planet, I can surely survive one more... Right? We'll see...
