Kyrie

At least it helps me get my own answer to this question....

What a glorious day it is - ihr HertZ has graced us with the first チラ見せ for Saezuru ch 59!

Under the cut so they don't come after me. lol

so often people do not believe that we could possibly live in a rape culture, they do not believe it could possibly be true that people do not care about children who were sexually abused-- they say but everyone hates rapists and pedophiles! but that's not really true. they hate the conceptual idea of The Rapist and The Pedophile, but do not actually oppose--in real world contexts, with real actual complicated people--the use of sexual violence to control, degrade, and otherwise abuse other people. they do not hate their friend who joked that their date "took some convincing" or their neighbor who publicly humiliated their adolescent child by telling their church group he was "caught" masturbating, or the cop who performs cavity searches or the guy who posted tips for "stealthing" online, or their uncle who says he "made some mistakes with women" when he was younger, or the person on social media publicly speculating about a stranger's sexual desires and sharing their nudes to degrade and humiliate them, or their granddad who was "falsely accused" of sexually abusing his daughter when "all he did" was leer and not touch, or their professor who has relationships with their students, or their acquaintance who recommends dating girls with "issues", girls who are "crazy", girls who are trans or fat or queer or have low self-esteem, because "they'll do anything", or the person they organize with who is so valuable to the movement but everyone kind of knows not to be alone in a room with them, or...

specific people who rape are usually not the deviant that most people already want a reason to expel from the community, they are the center of power and influence. they provide vital support or resources to people, they are likable and intimately connected with many people, they have an embedded role in the social fabric and many people benefit from it (whether economically, politically, spiritually, etc). Specific people who rape are incredibly buoyant. They are usually buoyed to places of power no matter how far they're attempted to be pulled down from that power, and most people see this and will cling to a person like this, defending them, because people who rape are the social equivalent to a life preserver, whereas people who have been raped are the social equivalent of an anchor-- no one wants to be dragged down by allying themselves with the person who was raped by the beloved person everyone loves and relies on.

On the other hand, The Rapist" and "The Pedophile" as cultural tropes are treated very differently from specific people who have raped others. "The Rapist"/"The Pedophile" is often a racialized, gendered, and classed archetype that exists to be the ideological load bearing pillar of rape culture, to reinforce the belief (against the weight of evidence) that rape is something committed by Deviant Others who can be identified and expelled from social life. When sexual violence is not understood as one of many possible tactics of control and is instead as the result of the uncontrollable desire of innate deviants, then accusations do not even require there to be a specific person who was harmed by a specific act. All you need is evidence of "deviance" and all the justified anger at sexual violence can be offloaded onto whatever scapegoat you want.

In fact, within rape culture, harassment campaigns are much more successful than any actual instance of a survivor asking for support. That is no coincidence either! Rape culture hates survivors! But because in harassment campaigns there is no actual survivor speaking up, rape culture's default of disbelieving specific, actual survivors is never triggered, and so the accusation becomes perceived as more credible because there is no victim to discount.

If there is no actual specific instance of someone engaging in sexual abuse of another specific person, there are no details to question and pick apart ("but why was she naked if she didn't want to have sex?" "was he really raped if he had an orgasm?" "how do you know it was sexual? adults have to bathe their kids" "why did she post that photo if she didn't want it shared?" "I've never seen that side of him!" "maybe you misunderstood" "maybe she didn't hear the safeword" "why wait until now to bring it up?") and no demands of the public that implicate them and demand change from them (are you sending survivors funds to help them move out? to help them afford therapy? are you examining why you didn't notice it was happening or didn't believe it could be true? are you able to understand that as part of this person's community, you failed to protect them, and that actual restorative justice involves you changing your beliefs and behavior too? that it's not just about rehabilitating the person who raped someone?)

If there's no survivor, then the imagined victim can be perfect, innocent, and worthy to rally around. The imagined victims are only good and only hurt and have no problematic opinions about anything (no opinions at all! so they can be imagined to believe whatever you believe), no burdensome expectations of you, no resentment towards you.

Focusing on identifying "The Rapist" as a deviant instead is so easy; it only requires condemning someone who you probably either already dislike or a complete stranger who has no direct connection to your life. It's so much easier to pin responsibility for the entire (abstracted) concept of Rape onto someone you already hate and is already a social outcast and show how much you're "against rape" by venting all your anger and fantasized violence against them. It feels good too! the way righteous anger always does. It can be energizing when a whole community comes together to hate the same person.

Supporting actual survivors does not feel energizing, it feels exhausting. It requires so much work and effort, and you don't feel righteous while you do it, you may even feel ashamed, frustrated, deeply sad, resentful, angry, hopeless, or emotionally numb. It enters the deepest parts of your consciousness and you find it hard to breathe during certain scenes in movies, seeing certain arguments play out in the news cycle. It changes you, too, and that is the point.

We want to be against rape culture, because we want to be good people. but we don't want it to be hard.

I think this reality is the reason why a lot of young organizers think they can throw themselves into restorative justice and then find themselves completely burnt out a few months or a year later. People start thinking it'll be energizing, and then have to contend with the reality of what is, essentially, providing material support for disabled people whose health and capabilities have been permanently decreased from trauma. Some folks think they're gonna be "fixing things" so everyone can continue their reliance on the person who raped someone and the survivor can "move on" and everything can be "restored."

And then (if they're serious and not just performing at activism) they are inevitably faced with the terrifying reality of trying to make ends meet, with cobbling together strategies to meet community needs outside of the person who everyone relies on. they are faced with this person who raped someone losing interest after a few meetings and deciding "the accountability process" is dragging on too long and interrupting "more serious things than one person's emotions." they are faced with trying to get more people involved supporting the acute needs of the survivor even when the survivor is "difficult" or "ungrateful", and realizing that no one wants to do it. it is overwhelming to realize how deep the roots of rape culture run through everything, how much stability is upturned when you uproot any structures and beliefs that rely on rape culture. it is deeply demoralizing when you realize nothing can change without collective effort and very few care enough to do it.

It's so much easier to do nothing and pretend you don't know what happened. It's so much easier to decide it doesn't have anything to do with you and maybe this is something the survivor should "work out" with the person who raped them. It's so much easier to not try.

It’s hard to answer in a straightforward way for me, because I think that Yoneda often gives enough hints to make things interesting, but at the same time there is a level of ambiguity due to the fact that these people aren’t going to admit easily or even recognize their feelings or act on them when it comes down to actually pursuing same sex relationships in any meaningful way. There are various parallels between Nanahara and Ryuuzaki in this regard, but also substantial differences, and damn if, in going back to check the translation when I was taking few screenshots to put here, I didn’t almost tear up again when Ryuuzaki tells Nana about nineteen years old Yashiro and how he believes that no matter his ability to be cunning and make the most money, Yashiro shouldn’t even be in the yakuza. The Italian translation of this dialogue in chapter 17 conveys more of Ryuuzaki’s emotions and his exasperation than nobody else seems to have predicted this outcome: so instead of the scans version “What does someone like you knows?”, in the version I have Ryuuzaki says: “Why the fuck you guys can’t see it?”. And I suggest that it is generally better to check the official translations especially when it comes to volume 3!

If Ryuuzaki’s anger is also directed at himself for falling in Hirata’s trap, and he shows genuine worry for Yashiro as a person, the discovery that their kumicho has ordered Yashiro’s death is shattering and hits very hard poor Nanahara, because he genuinely believed in the principles that the yakuza seems to be based on as a familiar system of mutual protection. And I think it is important to look at his reactions here in chapter 17, his backstory in chapter 18 and later when he is reunited with Yashiro and he takes a bullet to protect him in chapter 20, to have a better chance of understanding Nanahara’s feelings and his relationship with Yashiro. You ask if it’s love, or attraction mixed with affection, so you already guess that there is more to it than simply sexual curiosity and that puzzling physical attraction. And I also believe that there is deep affection born from years of proximity and loyalty - and Nanahara’s loyalty is one of his most genuine qualities and a rare thing to see in that world. Yashiro isn’t in my opinion even aware of what he did to inspire these feelings in others. I don’t think that Yoneda is content with just teasing us with hints about generically romantic feelings or sexual attraction, because the reality of human relationships, especially when we talk queer relationships in a patriarchal context, is more complicated and complex than following your heart or your dick. I really appreciate that there are many layers to this story to look at, even for a character like Doumeki that isn’t bothered by directly admitting to his feelings. And Nanahara and Doumeki understand each other on a certain level. But while Yashiro accepted to formalize his relationship with Nanahara under the terms of the yakuza ceremonies, he refused to do so with Doumeki even after he cut off his finger and that is a big clue about what Yashiro felt and what direction he didn’t want that particular relationship to go.

I think it’s important to look back at the circumstances that brought Nanahara to be Yashiro’s subordinate. How easily he admitted in the end that he wasn’t smart, when Yashiro only remarked that he wasn’t a good judge of character - being naive doesn’t mean being stupid. In this last scene, Yashiro makes his decision and takes Nanahara under his wing, willing to look after him and give him direction in the group so he isn’t taken advantage of again. But he also says something that really strikes Nanahara: “An idiot like you could be good”. To be good, to be recognized as having potential even in the face of Nanahara’s most great insecurity - believe me when I tell you I have a whole headcanon of Nanahara being told by parents and teachers that he was stupid over and over again and that really hurt him and he ended up believing it - and to find purpose and a place for himself in the world are not secondary things to a young person. And how the yakuza is formally defined, with Yashiro exchanging sake cups and thus formally recognizing the oyabun and kobun relationship I think mattered a lot to Nanahara. Kobun means literally something like ‘child status’ while the oyabun takes a ‘parent status’ with the implication of taking responsibility of mentorship and giving directions, making good decisions for their protégés and juniors, in a way that we see Nanahara interpret quite literally as a surrogate family. That is why he took Hirata’s betrayal harder than everyone else. He couldn’t even have imagined it. So I read in multiple ways Nanahara’s loyalty and his affection for Yashiro. I don’t think he is in love tho, because he doesn’t seem to want to change things in the relationship he has with Yashiro, he is content with being a subordinate and he took initiative only when he felt personally responsible and under Hirata’s manipulation. He might have suggestions or express his opinion freely, but for Nanahara is too important to know one’s place and to me that is indication of feelings that never really took the direction of being inescapable like a burning love that goes beyond affection and respect and true passion would imply. By the way I wish I knew better ways to communicate the different types of love in English, because I believe it should be easier to differentiate between familiar affections, romantic attraction, reciprocal care and so on, and I hope to convey correctly the different nuances. And if I put so much consideration into the linguistic aspects is because I think that the way we speak determines the way we think and our system of beliefs is also quite influential in how we build relationships with others.

This scene in the car, although I have omitted parts of it and in particular the effects that Yashiro’s words have on Doumeki, is just so well done. It really shows how Yashiro’s disillusionment came so early he never quite knew any other reality that of being disillusioned: how could he innocently believe in anything or anyone even if he wanted to? Yashiro learned out of necessity to simply accept the worst reality behind fake promises and the promises of different systems of beliefs, he learned to not expect anything genuine or unconditional from others. And that type of loneliness is something that is hard to overcome and escape.

These are very interesting questions and I have so many thoughts, I will try to give as short an answer as possible. This is just my interpretation, so you might disagree in the end, but hopefully there will be some good insights into who Misumi might be, or what Yoneda-sensei chose to reveal about him. There are enough little details in Saezuru to let the reader make sense of what motivates each character, and Misumi is no exception. I think a good starting point is the conversation between him and Amou in chapter 9, after having confronted Hirata at the hospital, while Yashiro is lying injured. Amou is surprised that Misumi reacted so violently towards Hirata, going as far as punching him and this observation is what introduces us to the recount of the first meeting between Misumi and Yashiro. Amou remarks that on that occasion, Misumi displayed an exceptional level of violence, although at the time he was more likely to show his violent and yakuza-like side than he is now. Let’s see if we can see why.

"Pride" is the respect for yourself, for your own worth. Yashiro's "pride" is his humanity - kindness, the ability to empathize, to feel love, and his incredible resilience. On the other hand, the feet are one of the most sensitive parts of the human body, like the way most of these virtues are rather a fatal weakness that serves no good in the Yakuza world, so Yashiro conceals them to survive. As long as his humanity stays hidden under his soles, a kind of safe place, he'll survive on just fine. However, the way he protects his pride is rather "interesting" to Misumi. Yashiro calls for brutal, merciless trampling on himself to make sure his humanity doesn't surge to the surface, which is similar to how feet work - they trample and destroy. He preserves his pride by desperate attempts to paralyze and destroy it, a very classic Yashiro-esque style.

I wonder if this is relevant, but I'm saying it anw. Feet are also an important symbol in "A Perfect Day for Bananafish", where they stand for innocence and unmasked sincerity of a child that the main character, Seymour Glass, has lost. Yet deep down, Seymour bitterly knows the innocence he yearns for doesn't ever exist. "Innocence", or the state of a blank slate, is amoral, and in tandem with it since birth there's also destruction. The bare feet can both allow us to feel the world without putting on a facade, and also trample that same world.

The Moto Hagio Interview conducted by Matt Thorn

I light up a Turkish tobacco cigarette which is manufactured in Belgium. It's expensive enough to impress and necessary for placing a punctuation mark of respect in a possibly unruly crowd. I make a big deal of lighting it quite slowly, taking a deep breath with closed eyes, leaning back and blowing the smoke above my companions, because I'm nothing if not considerate. I take care to expose my neck and generally remind everyone of what their dicks are for. I must have done this well because everyone stops talking to watch me. (…) Let me be clear, I do not smoke. It is dangerous both to yourself and others. A leading cause of cancer, heart and respiratory disease, cot death, infertility, puts immense pressure on the health service, is a public nuisance, is economically unsound (although the government approve of it due to the healthy injection the taxes bring to the treasury, but we don't talk about that), is a littering problem, the cause for many house fires, and affects your skin, teeth, hair and clothes. But everyone smokes occasionally for that whisper of hedonism. It's always been this way. It was one of the first subtleties I learned in the secret language of politicians. It says that I am a wild card. My loyalty and morals are for sale, so approach me with an offer, if you have one. All this may or may not be true; I appear to do one thing when I'm actually doing the opposite. My heart is the purest gold and no one can touch it, but I have to be seen to give out invitations. You should always make yourself as accessible as possible to the benefits which can come from it. There are many hidden meanings in everything we do. The choices we make must be made with consideration and care. My doctor assures me that he doesn't even think of me as a smoker.

The Hinterland Doctrine: Those Who Stand For Nothing Fall For Anything by Halfpromise

Ah well. Might as well get it down. I am not sure my joke from earlier landed. Analysis is it then. Yashiro, Doumeki, cigarettes and hierarchy.

In Berserk, Guts/Gatsu loses his right eye as a permanent reminder of the last terrible image he saw through both eyes: symbolically the image is seared into his memory and will always be burnt in the blind eye as an afterimage.

In an article titled “Go For the Eyes: Masculine Bodily Harm in CLAMP”, ai-da-ice wrote: “In both xxxHolic and Tsubasa, CLAMP alludes to ‘memories of the body’, in which the body acts in response to something the mind has forgotten or rejected”. (Source: http://quickand2thepointless.blogspot.com/2013/02/go-for-eyes-masculine-bodily-harm-in.html)

In the anime adaptation of chapter 84 of Shingeki No Kyojin, Hange losing an eye is directly connected to Moblit’s death. At the same time this new condition in both Hange and Levi can be seen as symbolic of the danger of losing foresight to what is going to happen and being unable to plan accordingly. On the other hand, Eren’s self mutilation plays more into the injury to the eye motif, but it is still significant in underlining a lack of an overall view in the pursuit of an ideology or predetermined plan.

There are many more examples that could be made. Therefore, a missing eye or a blinded eye, in Japanese ‘sekigan 隻眼’, as a well known figure of speech in manga, can be read as a representation of something else. Yashiro’s right eye will always be a reminder of Doumeki sacrificing his life to protect him. That image finalized Yashiro’s decision to push Doumeki away from life in the yakuza, a choice that implies the loss of a part of himself. But Yashiro’s blind eye as a memory of the body is an indication of Doumeki as someone never to be forgotten, because catalyst of permanent changes.

Dimorphic emotions are those emotional states in which the sensation experienced does not match its bodily expression.

Dimorphic emotions are expressions that at first glance contradict each other (such as laughing when you are angry, crying with joy, vomiting when you feel pleasure), because the emotion is one but the bodily expression is another.

The function of this brain response is to restore the emotional balance that the person does not consciously achieve due to too intense an emotion (Yes, Doumeki, love). An example of the self-regulation of emotions that psychology studies is the so-called “cute-aggression”, when an aggressive response arises in the face of tenderness, it is not that the person does not register or rejects the affection, but that their brain registers it in a way so intense that by not being able to control it, it emits a response antagonistic to what it really wants to express and in this way the person can maintain its capacity to respond and adapt to a situation (control).

The wish to forget; and the wish to remember forever

The desire to let go; and the desire to engrave his image in his memory

The numbing of pain; and the need to seek insufferable pain.