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cielelyse · 2 months

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Favourite 5 Saezuru Scenes

I recently reread Saezuru for the umpteenth time and just needed to gush about it like a crazed person who constantly hallucinates about Yashiro being happy and soOooOOooo.................

1. Why now? (Chapter 25)

These 3 panels kill me always... although it's the entire chapter 25 actually, and not just these panels. This broke me when I first read it nearly a decade ago, and it breaks me every time I reread it. I recently just listened to the drama CD for the first time and wanted to hear how this scene played out (a.k.a. wanted to hear Yashiro moan wkegh;ghwle) and I did not expect to start bawling and sobbing uncontrollably when his flashback appeared. WITH THE MUSIC AND EVERYTHING. THEY DID NOT SPARE ME. FUCK. What was supposed to be a tender and gentle and loving and intimate scene between them turned into Yashiro facing the effects of his childhood trauma -- that will never cease to hurt me. Doumeki saying "kashira, kashira, kirei" right before that broke me in a way reading that scene in English couldn't. I WILL NEVER GET OVER THIS and if I keep writing about it I'm gonna cry again so:

2. Car ride back from Kageyama's clinic (Chapter 4)

This is mostly for nostalgic reasons, really. I first read Saezuru in 2013, and I wasn't used to Yashiro at first. I didn't know what to make of him.

So what happened was that I read "Don't Stay Gold" first and was like... there's a manga about this mildly threatening and unreadable yakuza dude who's Kage's friend…? Who played cupid for him in a weird way? HMMMMM dubious, dubious. Would I even like him? It took me a while, but I finally gave Saezuru a shot anyway, and I remember feeling uncertain about Yashiro up until those panels. I remember it so starkly, because this was the instant I fell in love with him. I think it was because this was the first time I understood the depth of his loneliness (since I hadn't read his high school oneshot yet at this point).

There's just something about how Yoneda Kou-sensei draws these kinds of pages that just resonates with me so well. I CAN'T EVEN DESCRIBE IT. It just connects with me the way Yashiro connects with me, and that was pretty much it for me. Obsession sealed. Life signed away. For the next 10 years I would follow the story closely and routinely check every few months for updates. Yashiro became one of my only 3 comfort characters, and rereading Saezuru always gives me a catharsis and sense of peace that I didn't know how to find elsewhere.

3. "To go on living this strained existence... no longer holds any meaning to me." (Chapter 34)

This scene is one that I come back to every time I'm down. AM I A MASOCHIST? I really like the June translation too: "To go on living this strained existence no longer holds any meaning to me." I think the way the panels divided up those thoughts were brilliant!

This especially hurt me because for the entire manga up to this point, Yashiro has stated that he completely accepts himself and he's happy with who he is. It wasn't until his realization during the sex scene with Doumeki and how much he's said/done hurtful things to Doumeki afterwards -- who he considers pure and sweet and good -- that he thinks this.

4. "Falling in love feels like this" (Chapter 33)

The first time I read this, I had to set my PC down, go out to my apartment balcony, and just silently stare out into the night and resist the urge to smoke (that was half a joke) (I did feel a pang in my chest though) (and I did have to fight very hard not to smoke lwkehg;hge). I love the dialogue right after these panels too, when Yashiro said, "Your sister was lucky that you were there." That, along with Doumeki's reaction, hurt.

This was such an intimate scene between them. Yashiro was so vulnerable. So was Doumeki. I hadn't realized this until I reread Saezuru this year, but these two have always had such intimate scenes right from the start. It was a slow burn, yes, but they had always been instantly drawn to each other: Doumeki thinking Yashiro was beautiful and captivating, and Yashiro doing something he doesn't normally do with his subordinates the first time he met Doumeki. And it didn't clue in for me back in 2013, but their conversations with each other were much more intimate than the conversations they'd have with anyone else, right from chapter 1. I find that so precious.

5. Dream (Chapter 40)

I couldn't not include a scene from post-timeskip, BECAUSE I LOVE POST-TIMESKIP. I love Darkmeki and I love Yashiro and I love that the theme of post-timeskip centers around "change". Wish I could include that conversation Yashiro had with Tsunakawa about it, because I thought that drive-home was brilliant. I really appreciate that Yoneda Kou didn't have Yashiro and Doumeki get together right away after they have sex, and I really appreciate that the question was raised of: Do people change? Can people change on their own, or would you have to force them? Or are we always the same at our core? And I think the answer is of course a mixture of all of it, and that it's very much circumstantial and subjective, but I love how we're able to see the shifts in both Yashiro and Doumeki. How both men aren't quite the same people we knew pre-timeskip. Ten years ago I didn't think I would meet a version of Yashiro that wouldn't talk about sex 24/7, but here we are.

(Not to say that they're completely different now. They're still our Yashiro and Doumeki of course; I just wanted to gush about how well Yoneda Kou were able to flesh out her characters in such a complex, multidimensional way.)

ANYWAYS, I went on a rant without even mentioning these panels of Yashiro's dream. I love everything about it: Doumeki's face not showing, Yashiro running away and turning back to see Doumeki not there anymore, and that last panel of him standing in the middle of nowhere, lost and empty and lonely -- all of that was so incredibly told in pages of no words. UGH YONEDA KOU IS A GENIUS. It reminds me of that page of Yashiro looking at a mother and child in the rain; it's one of my favourite scenes too.

Honourary Mention (Chapter 4):

I should end with a more light-hearted one. THIS WAS CUTEEEE. I remember reading this for the first time and thinking Yashiro was just salty that his roleplay got ruined. But upon second reread (and maybe I'm delusional here), I thought he might've been happy to hear Doumeki say that.

We know Yashiro gets angry and irritated whenever he's happy to hear something sweet from Doumeki (like that extra when they ate together LOL), and that he had the same reaction of kicking the chair when Doumeki said he can't touch Yashiro's hair anymore. Which was cute to say. So I thought Yashiro might've lashed out in annoyance because he was glad that Doumeki doesn't mind. (I tried putting myself in Yashiro's shoes so many times trying to imagine how I would feel if Doumeki had said this............. and somehow came up with "happy" xD)

...........or maybe this was obvious to everyone and I've just been clueless. AAAAAAAA THIS IS WHY I LOVE ABOUT SAEZURU SO MUCH. It never spoon-feeds you information and lets its readers interpret :")

#saezuru tori wa habatakanai #yashiro #doumeki chikara #囀る鳥は羽ばたかない #twittering birds never fly

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swallowerofdharma · 20 days

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Yashiro’s Cruel God part one

Disclaimer: this post contains a detailed and straightforward analysis of chapter 25. Doumeki isn’t the villain, if you were worried about that. Actually I must apologize because I wanted to talk about him too, but as usual I started this meta with Yashiro and got carried away. This is also why I am dividing it in parts to avoid having a very very long post. So other parts will hopefully follow to fully elaborate the premise I made. Thank you for understanding. And please take care of your wellbeing, if mentioning Yashiro’s stepfather upset you, maybe skip this one.

Premise: not a matter of perfection but of balance

This person I followed reblogged the Declarations of healthy adulthood by David Richo in big big font and - having only one thought on my mind apparently - I read all that text in Yashiro’s POV. I actually don’t think that this is a perfect model or anything, and I am generally skeptical of self help books (I only assume this is something like it), but why not use this as an example, while considering something that I find interesting about Yashiro and Doumeki? During the discussion about the latest chapter, I said something along the lines of Doumeki representing young love, while Yashiro’s approach has been more mature, and I meant it thinking about Yashiro being aware and cautious about hurting others [and being intentional when he does, since he put a bullet in Doumeki’s leg] and being quite self reliant, and yes I know that he is also afraid of being hurt/loved! in previous posts here, I have mentioned that Yashiro’s acceptance of his past is only-in-part denial or downplaying of trauma, because it has been also a strategy and an impressive sign of his maturity and determination to live in the present. Isn’t it exceptional that Yashiro doesn’t seem all that resentful of his parents? That he openly says that he doesn’t blame others? We have to confront his words always mindful of the fact that he usually is an unreliable narrator, but in many instances he says the truth or half truths and his demeanor confirmed that he did some of what David Richo proposes: I accept full responsibility for the shape my life has taken; I accept that I may never feel I am receiving - or have received - all the attention I seek; One by one, I drop every expectation of people and things; I let go of blame, regret, vengeance, and the infantile desire to punish those who hurt or reject me; No one can or needs to bail me out. I am not entitled to be taken care of by anyone or anything, I let go of control without losing control.

I thought that it was very interesting to consider the Yashiro/Doumeki dynamics from different angles, like older/younger, or even realist/romantic, for example. The point of this experiment isn’t to make a comparison of merit nor to talk about a character in better light than another. Maybe those differences need to be confronted or balanced: for example the realist maybe needs some of the romantic’s idealism to soar and not be stuck on the ground. Yoneda-san might be onto something so human and amazing here. An important clarification is due before saying anything else. As characters that are written as full human beings, with their complexity and contradictions, Yashiro and Doumeki can’t be put neatly into the opposite categories I proposed. The story is much more dynamic, so I ask you to take a further step and put those opposites at the ends of a spectrum and to move our characters freely in both directions. Yashiro tends toward being effectively the older and more realistic one but he has traits that make him move down towards the other end too, even to the extreme of being childish. Consider for example these other statements, from the Declarations of healthy adulthood: I need never fear my own truth, powers, fantasies wishes, thoughts, sexuality, dreams, or ghosts; When change and growth scare me, I still choose them. I may act with fear, but never because of it; I am still safe when I cease following the rules my parents (or others) set for me; If people knew me as I really am, they would love me for being human like them. These points clearly demonstrate Yashiro’s unresolved problems, where he is stuck if you want, and why probably nobody believed me when I pointed at him as being mature (eh, he has his moments tho, you can’t deny that).

I challenge everyone to consider that those four points in particular are quite challenging for most people in general, but particularly so for someone who has fear/betrayal as the foundational principle in their childhood instead of a normal amount even a scarse amount of parental love/safety. And I want to underline childhood here, not teenage years or later.

I need never fear my own truth, powers, fantasies wishes, thoughts, sexuality, dreams, or ghosts. Yashiro here is a mix of contradictions, because he outwardly seems to own those things, even making them a point of his persona, but most of those things are based on the lies he told himself, or his stepfather told him: see this other point

I am still safe when I cease following the rules my parents (or others) set for me. Isn’t this statement extremely helpful to understand Yashiro’s situation? To feel safe he had to build his personality according to the rules of the one who had all the power over him and had already taken away any sense of security from him. This is probably one of those things that can be hard to understand when you have never been there. Most notably, not only in the manga this has been pointed out, but it has been pointed out by Yashiro himself. He is self conscious of this, he knows that he lied to himself as a child, that he had to, and he is constantly choosing to continue lying because that is still the only foundation he has. There was no familial love, no other relative safety. Letting go of the lies actually means going to pieces and breaking down.

This isn’t different from what happens to people who are tortured. Yashiro’s father completely took away any sense of security and safety. The aggravating circumstances were that Yashiro as a child didn’t have any other point of reference or knowledge to understand what was happening with his body and in that state of mind what his father told him had to be the only truth possible. Parents who abuse their children most often don’t even realize what they are doing to its full extent. That’s the immense cruelty of these types of situations. The rules are lies, but the lies are rules to follow to be safe:

You like it when it hurts, right? If it doesn’t hurt, I can’t get into it.

What happened in chapter 25: why now?

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. I won’t analyze here the scene in the shower but I’ll skip to the point. Doumeki only understood that his love was required, that he was wanted and stopped thinking. He acted passionately like any young person who had a normal foundation in love would. He didn’t understand anything that Yashiro asked or why there were mixed signals and what it all meant. He pushed and hurt and broke without being aware of what he was doing.

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. Yashiro desperately tried to control what was happening through usual patterns, making it hurt, asking Doumeki to do from behind, detaching the sex from his emotions, but he couldn’t and for the first time in his life sex was different from what he knew, because while Yashiro had loved his stepfather, his father didn’t love him and he didn’t treat him like Doumeki did. And every lies built around his father’s abuse came to the surface. Including the fact that his father never loved him. 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. I think it is probable that what Doumeki said was something that Yashiro’s father had said and that we are going to confront before the end of the manga. I personally want to know these words more than what Yashiro said while an airplane passed by and Doumeki was unconscious. Morbid maybe on my part.

I have stated that I am not going to make Doumeki a villain here. The point of this analysis is just to see where Doumeki was in terms of maturity. To be continued…

#saezuru tori wa habatakanai #saezuru analysis #yashiro #doumeki chikara #yashiro x doumeki #yoneda kou #eri reads saezuru

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