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hi! do you think there is any narrative focus on doumeki's very obvious lack of self worth? do you envision a conclusion for it? seems like all his actions and desires revolve around yashiro (like a child with his fav toy) and his character struggles of the first arc have disappeared

Hello, sorry for keeping you waiting. I have been spending significantly less time on tumblr recently and I just noticed I have some asks unanswered. But I have read the last chapter and I am waiting eagerly for the end of the month for a new one. Your question makes me think about Doumeki asking Kageyama why Yashiro didn’t let go of Nanahara too in the last chapter. It’s a bit of a childish question, isn’t it? It shows quite a lack of understanding about the dynamics between Yashiro and himself. It’s definitely this side of him that makes Yashiro feel the need to protect Doumeki in the first place in my opinion. You are right about the lack of self worth, Doumeki in the beginning doesn’t have any position anymore, any positive achievement or dream to chase, but a lot of weight on his shoulders, and guilt. I don’t think that arc is solved, nor his fear of being like his father, and being unable to control his desire. Recently though we had very little insight as Doumeki has been hiding a lot behind the facade of the yakuza underling. Niki’s presence in the family might have given Doumeki a new purpose and a way to make up for not rescuing Aoi in time, but then as Niki grew up we see Tsunakawa keeping Doumeki away and busy elsewhere. Yet Doumeki stated that he doesn’t plan to climb the ladder and getting a better position in the group, this isn’t why he joined. I think he felt like he had nothing else. And I agree that everything in this choice was about Yashiro, that Doumeki doesn’t seem to be capable of giving up, which of course is the type of character that Yoneda needed to be able to keep Yashiro faithful to himself and not easily agreeable to change and overcome his fears about intimacy. The themes of Saezuru have been very consistent, so I just think that we need to wait until more is revealed about the Doumeki of now, what he did in the last four years, including what relationship he has with Izumi. The fact that he hastened to protect Yashiro instead of Tsunakawa is already revealing and has shown a side of him to the members of his group that they couldn’t possibly have known. There will be consequences for this. I wish I had more information right now. We talked a lot about Yashiro not being able to see himself fully, but Doumeki is the same.

#saezuru tori wa habatakanai #doumeki chikara #eri reads saezuru #saezuru ask

Your other post got me interested. What are your top 5 scenes from Saezuru? I feel like there are so many great scenes.

1) Volume 1, Chapter 2: “Sorry but I’m not going to fire Doumeki”. Pretty amazing declaration considering what happened after. But I still think this is such an important moment of honesty, of Yashiro taking something away from Aoi, and the opposite of being malicious in this regard. I just appreciate how well these two are written as foils and parallels to each other and I would love to see more of this.

2) Volume 5, Chapter 25: Trembling hands, covering and uncovering her face. If it wasn’t for the angst and raw pain and passion depicted in a way that doesn’t seem very melodramatic or unfounded, I don’t think I would have stayed with Saezuru for this long. I don’t feel good about what goes on between Doumeki and Yashiro in this chapter, and those last silent pages were just a confirmation of how raw that was. I think I understand what Yoneda was going for in these chapters, but I really needed that look from Yashiro, that quiet resolve to not going to pieces just there. The feeling of being wanted or even loved - although expressed in just another reiteration of physical disempowerment and taking more than what Yashiro was willing to give - doesn’t erase the legacy of pain, but just makes it sharper. It’s a beautiful contrast, where the concept of “beauty” is deeply tied to “horror” of many aspects of the human condition.

3) Volume 5, Chapter 28: “Of all people, you are the one asking me about it”. My dislike for Kageyama doesn’t blind me to considering how well this character is actually written. And the original drive to seek something new to read that brought me to Saezuru was the desire to read a story about unrequited love (that stays that way, and the acceptance that follows). This is another potentially devastating and dramatic scene that is instead delivered in such a straightforward and understated manner. Yashiro covers her eyes once again and grimaces away the old hearth break. The guy who did not think that she was capable of being in love, the guy who was her first love, kept secret, buried away, now had new insight. This is so delicately cruel, we are lucky this is a fictional story. Great moment for me, that leads to wrapping up the relationship between these two for good.

4) Volume 3, Chapter 14: “It’s not a rag”. There are many moments in this one chapter that have impressed me a lot, think about the meaning of the opening pages now with Doumeki’s affiliation with the yakuza for example. But it’s the flashback to the early acquaintance between Ryuuzaki and Yashiro that has become one of my favorite parts. A conversation where Yashiro has his eyes closed or she is looking out of a window, breathing in the fresh air, and Ryuuzaki is watching, asking questions, seeing a person, wanting to know, wanting to understand this enigma. I don’t know what moves me more, probably is Yashiro’s unawareness of being looked at by someone she thinks should just be looking down at her, using her and then never thinking about it much. But that’s not always the case between people, despite all the times that it feels that way.

5) Volume 9, Chapter 51: Yashiro discovers Doumeki’s back tattoo. Specifically the rage and fit that follows, which is something that is rarely unleashed by Yashiro. This is another silent scene, and you can really read freely into it. And this is another moment in between the most uncomfortable scenes between Doumeki and Yashiro (of using sex to cope and deceive, because let’s not fool ourselves, this is something that both these two characters are doing). But there is so much to Yashiro’s rage and violence here: and the fact that now we know how the tattoo came to be or Doumeki’s reasoning for getting himself into the yakuza proper doesn’t really change how Yashiro would feel about this, when she truly and strongly didn’t want Doumeki to be “sullied” like that. And the legacy of those tattooed bodies in Yashiro’s memories? I don’t know why this turned out to be more of a list of angsty scenes, but I felt these emotions quite strongly and thought that these moments were where the story was more interesting and realized.

Thank you for asking! What do you think? Are my choices too dark or unconventional or do these moments have made an impression with other people too? This is such a heavy story tbh if you are willing to read it as more than an erotic fantasy or wish fulfillment, which maybe is a fault of mine. I will miss it during the break though!

#ask game #saezuru ask #saezuru tori wa habatakanai #eri reads saezuru

i just recently read the last few chapters of seazuru after not touching the series in a couple years and have been reading thru your posts on the story.

i first found saezuru when i was in high school, and have revisited it many times over the years, each time finding something new. i'm a bit ashamed to admit that i hadn't given the topic of just how little consent yashiro offered in 25 much thought until now, though i like to think always knew what happened then wasn't exactly the portrait of accordant lovemaking.

i find discussions on the topic interesting, and i can only imagine that it was likely yoneda's intent to craft a story worthy of such debate. and yet, it's been solidified to me that the encounter was not only dubious but ultimately traumatic not by doumeki's actions during the actual event but by yashiro's reactions to it, which i haven't seen mentioned often.

during the act, not after, during, yashiro flashes back to his childhood rape and begins crying. i hazard to guess what ensued right after this, and i have to consider yoneda quite brilliant for not really telling us, but i have to imagine yashiro began to dissociate. the fact that either of these reactions happened during the sex at all speaks to the fundamentally harmful way doumeki treated him, despite his intentions.

but more importantly, when they have sex in chapter 57 and doumeki attempts to be more gentle but still ignores being told to stop, yashiro becomes frightened. but this time, he isn't reminded of his childhood abuse, he's reminded of doumeki, and how he treated him in chapter 25. that, to me, cements that despite doumeki's intentions, despite the supposed love and compassion in the act, and despite the interpretations of many members of the audience, the encounter in chapter 25 was indeed traumatic. even if you want to argue that it was fully consensual, you simply cannot argue that it wasn't damaging, and once you really look at all the elements, the former seems rather pointless.

Hello and thank you for reaching out after reading my posts. I agree with your observations about the consequences of ch 25 being shown throughout the story and for Yashiro’s part, and Doumeki’s as well. I think it matters to a significant extent how old we are when we read this story, and also what experiences we have and what types of fictional stories we are more familiar with: all these things can determine how we understand and interpret what happens in the chapters, whether we dismiss the topic or face it head on. The sexual encounter between Yashiro and Doumeki in ch 25 is treated narratively as a conflict in my opinion and that is quite interesting for a manga like this one. Consent is more than a slogan and legal term: it’s about responsibility. Freely given consent means that we take full responsibility together with our partners about what happens intimately, that we acknowledge our part and participation, and that we have full agency. Agency in Saezuru is the first theme I wanted to write about, because it’s so so recurring and it’s intertwined with the theme of identity and affirmation of oneself. That is why the only way the relationship between Yashiro and Doumeki can work is if both of them are equal, free and willing to choose to be with each other.

As you pointed out, in ch 57 Yashiro is very upset about remembering the circumstances of four years ago. Although at the end of the chapter he talks about how that refers to “being treated gently” as the trigger for his fear and for wanting to run away, I also think that Doumeki not being transparent about what he wants from Yashiro is playing a part here. And once again the after-effects of the encounter are quite on the painful and heavy side. Yashiro is hurting. I understand that Doumeki is hiding his feelings thinking that those feelings would cause Yashiro’s rejection. It is still a deception, a mask and a wall between them. It’s like he is copying Yashiro’s own initial strategy of covering his desires and his feelings in bravado, only using indifference instead. Maybe the point isn’t in flipping the dynamic on its head and in Doumeki “easing” Yashiro into gentler sex, after all, maybe the point is that things must be faced directly for them to grow as people and find a balance, if they truly want to be with each other in a meaningful way. These points are ones where the fandom can be quite in disagreement about though.

Can I be the one to ask you a question? Did the story change for you in a good way or not once you started thinking about it more deeply? Do you still care for it? I am asking because I care about the story without smoothing or downplaying the hardest and the darker parts, but I gather that acknowledging those parts is a deal breaker for some readers. So I am just curious if you preferred the way you felt about Saezuru before or if instead the story has a new meaning that you appreciate more now. If you want to, I would be curious to hear about it. If not, no pressure!

#saezuru tori wa habatakanai #saezuru ask #saezuru analysis #eri reads saezuru

I was wondering if doumeki was, and still is, so traumatised by what his father had done to his sister and subconsciously knows what he’s doing to yashiro is wrong why did he push himself to the point of no return: have sex with him during the pre-timeskip?

I understand him and his actions much better now than before if we’re taking into account his past with yashiro and his conversation with nanahara.

Well, Anon, because repression doesn’t work. Ignoring our inner demons – which are our inner fears and more questionable instincts and our negative emotions – is never a good solution.

I think that Doumeki was introduced as someone who didn’t feel very good about himself, someone who thought that he had something to atone personally as well in lieu of his father’s actions and that found himself a little too glad about being impotent, which is a lot. Doumeki clearly at some point started to associate a lot of negative feelings with sexual desire and arousal and we can easily understand how witnessing in first person his father’s violence on Aoi was the event that fixed his shock and pain and anger in a static recurrent wounded state and influenced many thoughts about his own sexuality and the possible expressions of it.

There is, I think, another parallel between Doumeki and Kageyama that I don’t think has been discussed yet: they both felt that they had something to be ashamed of and that Yashiro was a comfortable person to be around because Yashiro was a truly nonjudgmental and forgiving person. Only Doumeki developed much more deep feelings for Yashiro, while Kageyama didn’t. From time to time Yashiro did or said something that gave Doumeki relief over the enormous pain and guilt he carried over his father’s dealings. But at the same time, the immense relief that came from being impotent disappeared.

Here we have to think about what sexual desire means to people, because it is not the same for everyone. Your upbringing or your previous experiences can determine whether you feel good or bad about the circumstances of desire and what you do about it. I think that we were shown so many times in Saezuru how arousal or the lack of it are complex manifestations of an internal ordeal and a personal history of sexually charged experiences, often involving violence, fear, guilt, shame… and in all of that the addiction of a feeling of love can make the mix more or less appealing or bearable, depending on the person.

Doumeki successfully suppressed his sexuality after he beat up his father, but then he can’t resist giving in to the desire for being intimate with the person who is a source of such new positive and powerful feelings. That is a dangerous path: complete repression lead him to believe himself unable to stop when he felt so passionately about Yashiro. Which played into his fears of being like his father. Doumeki went from an extreme to the other: from complete repression, numbness and depression to heightened feelings of all kinds which he is then unable to control. In a previous post I wrote about his violent bursts and him beating people before the times he takes control and initiative in the sexually charged scenes with Yashiro. There is an undercurrent of aggression that accompanies the ultimate goal of being in charge of Yashiro’s wellbeing, of taking an indispensable role in Yashiro’s life so that he can’t be rejected and discarded. Which is a little terrifying.

There is a lot going on when the reality of Doumeki being aroused came to the surface in chapter 22 and during the discussion about it in chapter 23. We see the dialogue going on at the same time as Yashiro’s inner thoughts. We are in Yashiro’s point of view for most of it. About Doumeki we get only what he says out loud, which is still very meaningful, but later at the beginning of chapter 24 we switch to Doumeki’s point of view and inner thoughts. I think that the answer you want is there.

D: Boss, right now, you are trying to get rid of me… and yet at the same time, you say that you are afraid of losing me. If you are really afraid of losing me, then why are you scared of me right now? [Right now if I let go of this hand… right now if I don’t respond this man will… ]

The thought isn’t completed because Yashiro starts to talk, confirming Doumeki’s greatest fear: because he is no longer impotent, Yashiro doesn’t want to be around him anymore.

At this point to Doumeki there is little left to do: he tries to communicate his feelings further and he tries to tie Yashiro to him with sex, not very differently than what he is doing presently. Because he thinks that physical intimacy will communicate better how much he loves Yashiro, because he assumes that is what it means to be choosing to have sex with someone. But that isn’t how Yashiro thinks about it and it wasn’t what Yashiro would have chosen in that moment.

Yashiro isn’t the complete opposite of Doumeki here. He didn’t suppress his sexuality in the past, clearly, but he had a lot of negative feelings associated with it. It’s such an interesting dynamic. Yashiro has always been open about desiring Doumeki a lot sexually, but it’s important to remember again that he only expressed his desires when he thought that Doumeki could not or would not reciprocate. As long as he could be denied the nice dream of being with Doumeki, as long as he could think that what Doumeki was doing was part of a ”job”, as long as he could think that it didn’t matter anything to Doumeki, then Yashiro was willing to chase those desires, to indulge in them. But that ended then and there. It’s heartbreaking that Yashiro thinks that he had such a negative and corrupting influence over Doumeki, that he once again brought everything that happened over himself by being who he thinks he always had been: a person (or less than a person) around whom men could act on their sexual urges as they pleased. Never mind how much he tried to be in control, because suppressing everything or running away from his sexual desires wasn’t something he was trying to do, as long as he could get away from confronting other feelings.

I wish I could answer your question more easily. I think that most people like uncomplicated answers in general, becoming even suspicious of complex discussions about themes that don’t provide much comfort about human nature. But the thing I like about this story is that it doesn’t offer easy or clean cut explanations for its characters’s behaviors. Because Yoneda’s narrative is tied to the characters and their specific backgrounds more than to an ideal story she wanted to write about the general idea of falling in love and having something good associated with sexual desire at last! She feels for her characters, she imagines them as human beings and she writes them coherently to how people in those circumstances would think and feel, largely stuck in their ways and yet she challenges them because she wants them to evolve. So Doumeki falls in love and, as a person who already was a little self absorbed and a lot repressed, he can’t keep his cool and he pushes and then feels bad for all the reasons that Yoneda gave him for wanting to be in control of himself in the first place. Yashiro acts on his own desires for a person who he would have not kept or allowed so close if it wasn’t for his impotence, but then he has to face this same person when those circumstances change. The main problem that comes between them isn’t love, but trust: can they trust themselves with each other? Yashiro’s answer to that question was: no. Doumeki’s answer was: I don’t care anymore as long as Yashiro won’t run.

#saezuru tori wa habatakanai #saezuru ask #eri reads saezuru #yoneda kou

Hey. I really wanted to ask this..why was D planning to go see inami in place of Y (even before inami tells him of his disgusting insurance)? Was it to tell him to f off from Y's life? Was that all? Because he did not as such get any crucial info from that cockroach, and it seemed like he didnt even plan to. Also, what did the cockroach even think would happen? Was he trying to blackmail D? Or Was he sure that if he blackmails Y through D it will somehow work on Y? I don't understand this cockroach of a guy. Kindly enlighten. Also I just want to say it, that chin touch panel in chap 60 Was just so so cute 😢 can't wait anymore with this cliffhanger.

You don’t know how long I have been planning to write about Inami! but I decided to wait until we see what part he is going to play fully. Like Hirata, he is such an interesting character, playing a part that elicits some strong emotions, yes, he is a cockroach, that is an apt name for him. And who he is is particularly important: not a yakuza but a detective. How Yoneda’s portrayed the police is definitely interesting, considering Doumeki’s father as well, and what Inami has to say about it. It adds a lot of depth to the social context and tells about a whole culture within these figures who benefit from the authority and power given to them. But before I get carried away, my answer to your last question from Inami’s part is camaraderie. Inami is a character who is a little detached from reality, or telling a tale that conveniently absolves him of any responsibility and he doesn’t quite see Yashiro as someone worthy of respect. But he is curious about Doumeki, maybe because he knew his family, or because he felled from grace, once a policeman as well, then ex-convict involved in the yakuza. He also assumed since that little exchange outside Yashiro’s apartment building in chapter 46 that Doumeki is sleeping with Yashiro as well, and he thinks about their relationship in the same way that he considers his own “affair” with Yashiro. He thinks that Doumeki, like his father and like himself, is just exploiting someone for sex, and Yashiro is the perfect candidate (there are specific implications to the way Inami calls Yashiro more than once in the original Japanese: using the term オカマ okama, you can read a discussion about the meaning of this slur here).

So the way he talks about it with Doumeki, during their phone call and later, is with complicity: they are fucking the same オカマ, they are buddies now. They are on different sides only namely, since police and yakuza are known to collaborate, pass information, if not money, and Doumeki is the son of a corrupt man, Inami doesn’t fear his judgment here. He was probably very surprised by Doumeki’s parting words during the meeting. As for Doumeki: I believe that the first reason for taking the phone away from Yashiro and going to Inami himself is because he didn’t want Yashiro to go. That is certainly a priority for Doumeki: to end that relationship and considering what he heard from outside the door the first time they met and how Inami generally talks about sex it isn’t really surprising. The association between Inami and Doumeki’s father is also very blatant: and stopping Inami may unconsciously work as a substitute for stopping his father from arming Aoi all over again. The secondary reason for the meeting was actually the exchange of information, Doumeki needed to know how much Yashiro was telling Inami about the Sakura group, which was very little, but he did report about Inami’s involvement to Muraji. As always with Yoneda’s story, there are multiple levels to any action or conversation, and that is what makes the details so compelling. Thank you for your ask, and sometimes in the future I’ll try to write more about the overall narrative role of Inami, because it’s very important.

#saezuru tori wa habatakanai #saezuru ask #eri reads saezuru

Hello. Hope you are doing well. I had a question i wanted to ask regarding saezuru. Recently I have noticed that the two incidents where Y chooses D, (one after Y throws kimaya back and grabs D, other after chap 56, 57 sex.) Both of these times when D was leaving Y after an emotionally vulnerable state of Y, he kind of gives reassurance to Y that he would be back ("i am going..to get that package from earlier"; "i will come back"). Earlier i wasn't making anything of it, but I found myself in my imagination thinking of a scene between them, and doumeki having to take care of a corpse (guess who), leaves Y in one such state, and in this imagined scene it only felt right that D expresses that "I will be back, I just need to do something", that made me think and go back to these two incidents that actually happened in manga. Please explain what I can make of it?

Hi! I’m not sure if I can help you with this question because I’m not very imaginative myself and I’m used to limiting all my speculations to a very minimal. Just observing what the story gives me is more than just interesting to me in this case, so I don’t really have elaborate Saezuru head-canons myself. I want to be open to every outcome, without any strong investment or stress. Having said that, I do enjoy reading other people’s perspectives or new scenarios, unless they are particularly divorced from the social reality of the manga, which is the trait that I appreciate most. Regardless, I don’t want Doumeki to kill anyone, he got very close with his father and he doesn’t feel good about it. Not only that, it would complicate things for what exactly? What kind of satisfaction is it to kill somebody? Realistically speaking, as I do, killing a detective in the police as a yakuza is going to have repercussions for Doumeki that I don’t think it would be worth it, without even considering the moral aspects of it. Unless you were not imagining Inami? As for Doumeki being reassuring for Yashiro, I don’t know if I can agree with you here as well? I lamented a lot when the chapter came out about the fact that yes, Yashiro wanted Doumeki instead of Kamiya, but the intention on Yashiro’s part that night did not have sexual undertones. In ch 56 Yashiro is literally backed in a corner, so here as well I don’t really see Yashiro choosing Doumeki as a sexual partner. It’s actually the thing I am waiting for: for Yashiro to express a deliberate choice, and for Doumeki to understand that he can’t use sex to bind Yashiro to him. Or for his own reassurance that he has some control over Yashiro. Because the one most scared of the other person leaving is Doumeki imo. He is telling Yashiro that he is going to be back, while at the same time Doumeki is keeping things hidden: his feelings and the nature of his relationship with Izumi, if he wanted to give Yashiro reassurance he would say something about Izumi. But he doesn’t, because he thinks that Yashiro will run away from his true feelings again. But the point is: it’s Yashiro’s choice. Doumeki can’t force him into the kind of relationship he wants with subterfuges. It’s not going to work, it’s not working. At least this is my opinion and understanding of the manga. Hope I am still giving you something to think about, sorry for not being able to elaborate more.

#saezuru tori wa habatakanai #saezuru ask #eri reads saezuru

Have you ever felt betrayed by a narrative? Not by the fandom that conveniently forsakes complexity for a happily ever after, but by the narrative itself?

I had to sit and think about this question for a minute, because I find it very interesting. And after some introspection, I must answer with no, if we are talking about fictional stories. There are many examples of books, comics, films and series that have disappointed me or that I find irritating, but I don’t think that I have ever felt truly betrayed by the narratives in media, maybe because that would have required a level of involvement and implicit trust that usually don’t come easily to me. I probably tend to build very few expectations with what I read/watch, and to consider that for many things I am hardly the target reader/audience, for several reasons. So not betrayal, but definitely annoyance at things that tend to be repetitive and given for granted, like generally the (very political) narratives tied to precise and limited ideas about “love”, or “justice”, or the “happy ending”, those I learned to expect from certain media and certain regions and they just don’t feel authentic and are only interesting to me for the negative repercussions and the alienation that they can bring me to feel. I don’t think I would grow very attached to narrative frames like that to begin with, to the point where I don’t see what it’s coming: I already expect to see something that doesn’t agree with me at this point. When I was younger and an avid but disorganized reader of everything I could find, there were probably more cases of disappointment and irritation, although I couldn’t really tell why and I tended more and more to gravitate towards narratives that presented some kind of disillusionment or genuine investigation into characters and situations rather than idealism or tropes/stereotypes. And being a person who habitually considers a lot the various contexts in which a writer works, I never expect a story to be perfectly tailored to my personal expectations and reality, and mood. Things that I remember most clearly that could have solicited a feeling closer to betrayal were probably few XIX century classic literary novels centered around tragic heroines, where you could sense that the writer described women to be different creatures, wild animals almost, certainly more irrational beings and driven by emotions, as an outlet for the writer himself to explore a part that has been repressed, consciously or unconsciously. And I have always been very angry with the racism or the assumption of cultural superiority in describing other cultures, that has always bothered me and distanced me from certain genres for sure. But you know, you learn to recognize it and it doesn’t really come as a surprise at any point when you were so deeply invested that it truly upset you? I am a person who has trouble with trusting in just about anything, because I have known betrayal intimately from a very personal perspective and for a very long time, related to lived experiences and the closer relationships one can have: maybe that taught me to be careful about expectations and where I put my heart into. I certainly feel betrayed more often by common narratives that people internalized and that regurgitate upon me in real life. Those instances that are harder to fight or break are certainly related to fictional narratives as well, but there is a clear separation for me. That’s probably why usually for me various fandom’s interpretations are more disappointing than the stories I am invested in, because those stories have already proven to offer something for me. Or I am very good at moving on and actually completely forget about something that I didn’t like, at least when it comes from fiction, things that are meant to be primarily personal entertainment.

Speaking of Saezuru, I have built there a certain level of trust and that comes with the risk of betrayal for sure, but until now I don’t feel that Yoneda’s point is really that of completely undermining Yashiro as a character. Like you said, it’s way more complicated than what part of the fandom reflects. One of the reasons why I trusted this manga is probably that sentence from Yashiro: For me love feels like this (a fresh wound, hurt). For those intimately familiar with grief, I think it rings true, love doesn’t necessarily feel good or soothing, when you know differently. But Saezuru wants to try and challenge that stagnant state of grief, and disillusionment too, and it does so without staying away from dirt and mistakes and the messy processes that often fiction shies away from or just uses uncritically or for plain exploitation. Let’s see where we go from here.

Thank you for your excellent question!

#saezuru ask #eri reads saezuru

Hello🙂 I tried to message you but Tumblr blocked it so I hope u don't mind this ask. I read your reblog, thank u for writing it regarding Yashiro's consent.

Genuinely, I went back and re-read those chapters and can't see anywhere where Yashiro says he doesn't want to have sex with Doumeki. If anything even prior Yashiro asks to blow Doumeki and says, "let's have sex" now that Doumeki can get hard.

Am I missing something here?

Please explain it to me if I am. I am open to being corrected and would like to understand better 🙂

Hello, and thank you for being open to dialogue further. Frankly speaking, I don’t fully trust my own ability to persuade others as sometimes I struggle to explain these concepts in a language that is not my native tongue. But I have tried to.

One post (1) I made analyzed Yashiro’s emotional state, another one (2) further explained how he repeatedly tried to make Doumeki aware of his distress. And he never consented when Doumeki straightforward asked and decided to continue anyway. You can see Doumeki himself doubting his own decision during and after. I don’t know what more could I say, except taking panel after panel and analyzing the whole sequence. Please read the full posts I have linked and then I could try to answer specific doubts you may have. Here are some excerpts.

(1) Yashiro didn’t want to have sex with Doumeki and said so repeatedly. Doumeki has grown on him, behind liking his physical appearance or using him as a substitute for Kageyama: Yashiro truly liked this person and he liked that Doumeki was impotent. Thanks to that, Yashiro grew comfortable around Doumeki and with comfort and safety comes familiarity. When Yashiro discovered that the impotence was gone, he was angry and terrified. They had become too close and now the premise has changed and Yashiro couldn’t trust Doumeki or himself anymore. (…) And Yashiro was trapped in a situation he had tried to escape from his all life: with a person who felt familiar, a person he loved and relied on, in the safety of a home, who wanted sex and was going to do what he wanted regardless of what Yashiro had to say. (…) Doumeki broke him indeed because he broke through the lies/rules upon which Yashiro had intentionally built his entire personality/safety. And he wasn’t ready for it, he specifically said he didn’t want it, he had known all along, he already knew when men before Doumeki tried to make love to him and when he built a strategy to specifically avoid being confronted with those lies/rules. He didn’t love those men. He did love Doumeki though. But once again Yashiro didn’t have a choice. And he was physically hurt and recovering after being shot and knowing his life was in danger outside of that room. He had just discovered that Doumeki lied about being impotent the previous time he touched him in the car and before that. It was probably the worst timing possible for making love. At some point Yashiro grew resigned and even reciprocated a little, reaching for Doumeki, caressing his face, and he even reassured him before he fell asleep. There were words that Doumeki said that Yoneda didn’t disclose fully, choosing instead to immediately took us in the flashback with Yashiro.

(2) The difference between giving consent and reciprocating vs submitting in silence because there wasn’t really a choice is huge for me. And again, I am considering the mental state of both people and I know Doumeki isn’t being cruel on purpose, but you must see how Doumeki himself understands that Yashiro hasn’t really consented, because he turns him around, looking at his expression and he apologizes. (…) Doumeki expresses his wish out loud, and to this Yashiro explicitly answers, asking him in no ambiguous terms to stop. Doumeki keeps pushing, undressing and kissing Yashiro, who asks him to stop again. Doumeki asks for Yashiro’s consent again. It is significant that he pauses here again, this time there will be penetration with male genitalia: an act that is broadly and unequivocally recognized, and can’t be written off as foreplay. To Doumeki’s request for verbal consent, Yashiro responds by pushing down his face and raising his hips: not consent but submission. This is double painful because he gives up protesting or resisting his own desires, but his physical desires have never been something Yashiro knew to trust. This isn’t by any means what Yashiro wanted.

Take into consideration also that some of us have been educated and are living inside an insidious rape culture that aims to grant less power to selected individuals: women, lgtbqa+ people, including asexual people in the umbrella terms, people with supposed diagnoses of various mental illness, history will tell how legitimate that will be, people of color and disabled individuals.

“Rape was redefined as a violent crime rather than a sex crime, and its motive redefined from desire for sexual pleasure to male domination, intimidation and control. Rape also began to be reexamined through the eyes of the victims rather than the perpetrators”. [From the Wikipedia entry on rape culture with further notes and references available for verification].

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