Ch 56 sneak peek!

We're so close to ch 56! What does Sensei have in store for our boys? What are you gonna do with that cigarette, Doumeki!? 👀

Ch 56 sneak peek from b's garden's twitter (with quick translation) under the cut ^^

A lot of Japanese fans seem to think this might be Doumeki’s inner monologue! It’s impossible to say because the Japanese is super vague, but I’ll be so excited if it is D’s thoughts! 😮✨

thank you for translating!! 🩷 I’d love it to be doumeki’s inner monologue, precisely because we haven’t “heard” his thoughts since the timeskip - to me it would signify a huge change in the story/dynamic at long last :)

My bets are on Doumeki because Yashiro usually refers to Doumeki as koitsu or aitsu, not kono hito, whereas Doumeki has referred to Yashiro as kono/sono/ano hito quite often in the past (like that time he first met Ryuuzaki and pissed him off instantly because that was no way to refer to his boss).

The second part (kono hito ga) probably belongs to what comes next. I kind of expect an explanation why Doumeki suppressed his feelings (like "so he wouldn't push me away again" or whatever his reason might have been). Grammatically the first line could also be a relative clause to the second line [kanjou o koroshite kita kono hito] ... In that case Yashiro would be the one who suppressed his feelings in Doumeki's eyes and it would be impossible to predict how the sentence continues. But I don't know if Doumeki would make such bold statements about the state of Yashiro's emotions.

I'm just speculating like everyone else because it's fun and I need to distract myself from going crazy over excitement. So don't take my words too seriously.

So I haven’t read chapter 52 of “Saezuru” yet, but I did read the summary of it on twitter, and after having a conversation with one of my mutuals, I have a few thoughts about what it is Yashiro wants, and why he’s having so much trouble communicating it to Doumeki. 

First of all, Doumeki himself still seems very hesitant to treat Yashiro with the gentility that they both want him to give, and obviously this stems from what happened the last time he did, with Yashiro pushing him away.  You would think, okay, well, this has an easy solution.  Doumeki wants to treat Yashiro with kindness, and Yashiro genuinely wants to be treated kindly, so all he has to do is tell Doumeki that, and problem solved.

But of course it’s not that simple, and after talking about it with others, and reading about how, during their sex scene, Yashiro was thinking about the Madam at the club, and how Doumeki treats her so gently, it got me thinking more about Yashiro’s difficult relationship with the idea of being treated as a woman. 

Yashiro wants to be treated with the same care and tenderness that he perceives Doumeki to be treating the Madam with, and the belief that Doumeki is deliberately treating him differently than that, because he’s a man, and because he is who he is specifically, (someone who’s always been treated with cruelty and told, indeed, that he deserves to be treated cruelly), is clearly very painful for Yashiro. 

The thing we have to remember about Yashiro is that, during the years he was being sexually abused by his step-father, he was being told by his abuser that he was really a woman, that his being born male was a mistake, etc…  And we see how this later affects Yashiro.  Afterward, whenever he was treated like a woman, or how he perceived a woman should and would be treated, anyway, he got spooked and made an effort to get away from that treatment.  Like Hirata’s underling whom Yashiro got thrown out of the Yakuza after he started treating Yashiro like his girlfriend, or Yashiro’s dissmisiveness when Ryuuzaki asked him about whether he ever wished he’d been born as a woman, etc…  I think Yashiro associated being treated kindly and tenderly with the memories of his abuse, and therefor, that kind of treatment was very traumatic to him.  It’s why we see Yashiro, during his and Doumeki’s sex scene from chapter 26 (I think, lol), crying and seeing an image of himself being raped by his step-father.  It’s why he freaked out so badly afterward and ran away.  Yashiro realized that he LIKED being treated gently, but it reminded him of what his step-father said to him about him really being a woman.  I think, in that moment, when Yashiro realized he wanted and liked being treated kindly, it was like a confirmation for him of everything his step-father claimed about him, that he was really a woman, that him being born male was a mistake, etc…  In that way, it was like a confirmation of every negative, cruel, vicious thing his step-father ever said and did to him.  An affirmation of Yashiro’s own, negative view of himself. 

I think Yashiro’s experience in middle school with the girl he has sex with sort of reinforced Yashiro’s views about women too, and how they’re supposed to be treated, versus how he thinks men are supposed to be treated.  When he tried getting rough with that girl, she started crying, and Yashiro immediately stopped and lost interest in her.  He realized she didn’t want to be roughhoused.  Subsequently, I always point to this incident as proof that Yashiro isn’t, and never was, a sadist.  A true sadist would be turned on by another person’s pain and fear, but Yashiro had the opposite response.  He was turned off by it. 

Yashiro realizes, after his first, sexual experience with Doumeki, that he, like that girl, doesn’t actually enjoy being hurt during sex, doesn’t enjoy being roughhoused and mistreated.  That of course was a coping mechanism he clung to to deal with his trauma, convincing himself that he wanted to be mistreated and hurt to defend against the reality that he’d been horribly vicitmized.  He realized, in that moment with Doumeki, then, that he was more like a woman than a man (just like his step-father claimed), and so for Yashiro, admitting that he wants to be treated with tenderness is tantamount to his admitting that his step-father was right about him.  This is why, I think, he’s still having such a hard time admitting to Doumeki what he really wants.  I know certain people in this fandom are impatient with Yashiro and demanding that he just confess his feelings already, but they forget just how traumatized Yashiro really is, and what it is he’s dealing with. 

It’s obviously going to take a bit more, or a lot more time before either Yashiro or Doumeki can fully open up to one another, and for Yashiro specifically, it’s going to be a lifelong process, being able to accept himself and what he wants without also feeling ashamed or guilty or wrong. 

this is a fantastic analysis and it put into words what I’ve struggled to articulate about yashiro’s complicated relationship with womanhood. I could see how it stemmed from his stepfather, but I didn’t make the connection of how yashiro would have internalized it the message - that wanting gentle sex with men is what women want, and if he succumbs to that want, his stepfather “wins”. no wonder he pretends that he isn’t actually attracted to men; no wonder he’s full of massive contradictions that even he can’t separate at times. really insightful stuff, thank you

Thank you!  Yeah, I sort of only made this connection myself recently after really thinking about it.  It makes sense when you look at the overall picture, and Yashiro’s reactions to his desire for gentle sex, and his memories of his step-father’s abuse, etc…  In a way, Yashiro’s belief and insistence that he wants and enjoys rough or abusive sex was a way for him to assert his own manhood and to defend against his step-father’s insidious accusations of him being a “woman”.  That song that Yoneda spoke about, “Beauty Is Within Us”, which she said reminded her so much of Yashiro, has this line “Oh mother dear, I’m such a freak, a mutant man, a woman underneath”.   And the whole song of course is incredibly self-deprecating, talking about one’s own worthlessness and hopelessness, etc… 

So I think Yashiro’s been pushing back against his own, more feminine nature because to embrace it would, in his mind, be a confirmation of what his step-father said and did to him.  An affirmation of his own freakishness and twisted nature, etc…  It’s like Doumeki fearing he was like his own father, but then, nothing Doumeki desired sexually actually ever resembled his father, and Yashiro’s fear and trauma is rooted in something far more complex and tangled.  It’s going to be really hard for Doumeki to understand that Yashiro fears embracing what he wants because it aligns with what his step-father told him he was.  It’s something Yashiro might not even be conscious of himself.  So of course Doumeki thinks Yashiro is rejecting him, when really, Yashiro is rejecting his own nature and proclivities out of self-hatred and fear. 

absolutely!!! I feel so enlightened. :) and that makes me think of other things that have happened since they reunited.

spoiler jump for anyone who is still waiting to read chapter 52:

I don’t come onto tumblr anymore but I have for the past couple of days, and I will say: I feel badly for the active people here who are distraught by some saezuru “fan” backlash, whether it’s to the last chapters or to the series in general. it sucks, and it’s exactly why I moved away from the fandom like I did. I suspect the fervent reaction is because there are a lot of young fans that flock to the series at first (since the prospect of sex and violence and slowburn drama in a BL is tantalizing) and then realize the content is handled in a much more sensitive, thorough, and realistic way than most BL/yaoi manga are. so all hell breaks loose. they get frustrated and vent in a way that can be borderline, if not outright, despicable. the series does not follow the standard formula (which often includes rape without issue because it’s *true love*) and is therefore a waste of time.

no one is obligated to help such people grow and learn, especially strangers on the internet; we are only responsible for ourselves. I hope those of us who love saezuru for what it is can continue to enjoy the shared, harmonious company of those that adore this wonderful series.

For the better part, I just want to focus my support in Saezuru and Sensei. I might be one of those that's still naive and blind to fully understand, but I am open for new perspective, because I want to understand it better. We really cant force people from their opinions, even if there are other healthy and helpful posts to help them understand the story and characters but still remain a toxic fans... I doubt there is even a fandom that's without toxic fans. I just hope this will not bother Sensei or disrupt her story, rush her even. If people arent happy anymore, they're free to make their own stories, but for the love of god, please let Yoneda-sensei write her story peacefully. It's hers and hers alone, we're just her audience.

Every fandom has toxic, idiot fans who throw a temper tantrum when the story doesn’t do exactly what they want it to, or envisioned for it.  But I think the OP is right.  A lot of fans of this manga seem emotionally immature and unable to grapple with the ugly realities being dealt with in this series, and in particular, with the reality of trauma, and the ways in which it manifests and impacts the lives of those living with it.  They seem to want an easy, quick solution to Yashiro’s problems in particular, thinking if he just admits his feelings for Doumeki, that will somehow solve all of his issues and he’ll magically be “better” to live happily ever after with his one true love, which is absurd, given the entire story revolves specifically around the idea of the reverberating and lasting affects of trauma, and sexual trauma at that.  Yashiro hates himself.  Those issues aren’t going to just go away.  Even knowing Doumeki loves him, even knowing he loves Doumeki, that won’t do away with a literal lifetime of built up shame and humiliation and feelings of guilt and absolutely wrecked self-esteem.  That won’t do away with the fact that Yashiro never learned how to fight for himself, and even worse still, that he never realized that he even had a right to feel angry or upset over the way he was treated and what was done to him.  It won’t do away with the struggle he faces every day with believing he’s a bad person who deserves maltreatment.  These issues are so deeply ingrained in Yashiro, that the reality is, he probably won’t ever be fully free of them.  It’s not about logic.  It’s about emotion, and emotional damage.  Yashiro has been treated as subhuman for essentially his whole life, since he was nine years old, and probably before, given what a deadbeat mother he had.  Anyone who expects him to just “get over” that, and the damage it caused him, to be able to move past a negative self-image that’s been literally and figuratively beaten into him since young boyhood, is a fucking idiot.

There seems to be some sort of general complaint about Yashiro not being able to just “get over” his trauma, and get better, as if he’s continuing to be affected by it just to be difficult, or just to piss Doumeki off.  As if he’s doing it on purpose.  There’s also the implication there on their part of a belief that Yashiro is somehow weak, or pathetic, or cowardly, for struggling the way he does.  For not being able to just move on.  It would be funny if it weren’t so horrific.  This attitude I’m seeing toward a character like Yashiro, a person living with deep and lasting trauma rooted in a childhood experience which lasted SIX YEARS, is truly upsetting, both for how it exposes a shocking and disturbing lack of compassion and sympathy for traumatized people, and for the utter lack of understanding at all for how trauma works and how truly overwhelming and torturous it can be for those living with it.  You can’t run from your memories and the emotions attached to them, you can’t just get rid of them, or heal from them like a physical wound.  These sorts of wounds continue to live and fester and poison those living with them for their whole lives.  These people don’t seem to get that.  It also shows a complete lack of inclination by these people to learn, or better understand these issues.  On top of that, it’s just repulsively selfish.  They’re mad at Yashiro for still having problems because they want to have their own fantasies realized and played out, and to hell with any sort of realistic or compassionate rendering of what it’s actually like for victims of child sexual abuse, having to live with the weight of that trauma day in and day out, every moment of their lives.  What’s important to them is their own satisfaction.  It’s sickening.  

My great fear of course is that these sorts of disgusting complaints and criticisms will actually affect Kou Yoneda and pressure her to change her plans or force something she had no intention of happening.  I don’t think that will happen.  She seems to have way too much artistic integrity and love for these characters to give into the childish, selfish demands of an idiotic faction of her fanbase.  I’ve heard her say that she’s known what the last panel of this story is going to be since the beginning of creating it, and I trust that she’ll stick with that plan, whatever it may be.  The fans are just going to have to accept it, and too bad if it isn’t what you want. 

I’d like to stand an applaud everyone’s comments here.

I’m nearly fifty, and I swear, it’s not just Saezuru. Almost every manhwa I read the fandom is filled with very young girls, with little to no emotional experiences, shouting down older women and definitely firing off wrong take after wring take from the hip, and heaping abuse of one kind or another on others in the fandoms, because they’re either being performative in their goodness and virtue signaling or are being just down right nasty and insensitive.

I have had to pause more than once and stop myself from wading in snatching these children, but it’s not hard ultimately to keep scrolling.

One, dese ent my children out here on Rihanna’s Good Internet, and as was said in the original post, it’s not my responsibility to meet immature, selfish, bad ass kids I don’t know from a tree in my yard, where the are. Their observations almost never add anything meaningful to the discourse, and they rarely have the grace or smarts to participate on any other level. Generally I understand the need to grow, but some of them are just bullies. Entitled, over privileged bullies.

The fears that this immaturity and nastiness could and no doubt has in fact effected so many of the authors I can testify to as a writer of other genres.

People can feel so entitled to your output, your body and imagination, that they objectify and reduce your humanity in favour of moe. It can be crippling as an artist, because it paralyses you emotionally and creatively. Demanding fans are one thing, but the Internet has made it very easy to get up in peoples inboxes in a way a fan letter could not in previous generations.

When you see these mangaka, exhausted, struggling mentally, it’s not just the brutal pace of publishing alone... it’s their fans and ‘stans’, literally sucking everything out. Some people find it’s easy, or at least manageable, others it can lead to physical and mental decline.

So when I see this shitty ass attitude from these young girls and women, who place extraordinary demands on these artists, and who often won’t support the artist with actual money, as an artist myself, it’s infuriating.

The girl who does Yours To Claim has gotten death threats I understand, because of this Team Yahwi/Team Cain stuff (for the record: I am Team Cain). The Team Yahwi girls are furious enough to threaten the author. Like how fucking dumb can you be?

But it goes to show that the artists aren’t different from Janet Jackson, or Britney Spears, or Madonna... maybe not in terms of popularity, but as an artist, they are protected from a great many things including crazy people on the Internet.

As a writer, I feel especially strong about saying we need to protect the mangakas. I’m not sure how, because telling some of these people to shut the fuck up is unlikely to do anything but incite and inflame them further, but I do feel older fujoshi should take some kind of stance to call this out where we see it.

Where I come from we don’t let bullies just roam around unchecked.

It’s really awful the way artists get treated by “fans” sometimes.  Any kind of threat, or personal attack, is about the lowest, most disgusting thing someone can do to someone who shares their talent with the world.  They have no obligation to share their talent or their vision, and yet some fools have the gall to act entitled, as if an artists work is owed to them, or made specifically for them.  But they have no right to any artists work, only the artist does.  If you don’t like it, you don’t have to read it.  But don’t go around whining that it isn’t what you wanted, or shitting all over the work and calling it names or deeming it worthless because it failed to meet your expectations.  People can be unbelievably stupid and selfish, and it’s hard not to get pissed off about it.

Of course it’s best to just ignore these loons.  Bully’s are always looking for a reaction, they thrive off of it.  If you just ignore them, generally they’ll just fade away into oblivion where they belong.  But it’s also hard, because they say such stupid shit, and as you pointed out @saezurumurmurs, one wants especially to defend the artist and their work from this kind of unfair and disgusting treatment.  It’s hard to keep your mouth shut, and sometimes you just can’t, if the things being said are particularly, egregiously ignorant and unkind.  

a spoiler discussion for doumeki and a reveal in chapter 47

Please be aware I’m discussing something “revealed” in chapter 47. 

Full disclaimer: I don’t care if Doumeki is dating a woman. It’s been four years, he’s a full-grown man that’s no longer impotent, he was rejected (not just rejected but “forgotten”) by Yashiro, etc etc. He has every right to pursue a physical relationship with someone else (I don’t say romantic, because let’s not be absurd; he’s not in love with anyone else except Yashiro). However, I was a bit surprised by the shockwave reaction from the fanbase (both western and Japanese), because it seemed to me like this was…kind of a ruse by sensei, although it took me some time to parse out why. So. I will elucidate. Spoilers under the cut. 

さらに読む

Update: Yoneda-sensei's name is listed for the next ihr HertZ issue to be released on January, 31st 2022. So we'll get a new Saezuru chapter in two months.