aishiterusaezuru

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Both of these covers made me lose my mind a little. Subtle and intense. July's is hopefully prophetic. GAMBATE!

Back then.. September, 2020 ~ Now.. July, 2022

Ihr HertZ is the most beautiful with the boys.

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Hoi fellow soups!

Apparently Yoneda-senseis name isn't listed on the announcement page for the November issue...

It's not 100% certain yet, so don't lose hope! Let's cross our fingers for a September Saezuru Month (the issue will be published on September 30th), and let's hope that Sensei is okay 💕

Also: let's again enjoy the beauty of this issues cover 🌹

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Seriously wish all the best for Sensei! As if the pressure to create art this compelling isn't enough, health issues in whatever form are fucking hard. It gets to you on a soul level.

It's clear how much Yoneda Sensei puts into her craft (and not just Saezuru).

I hope she's getting that care back too.

All the very best Sensei!!!

Hoi fellow soups!

Apparently Yoneda-senseis name isn't listed on the announcement page for the November issue...

It's not 100% certain yet, so don't lose hope! Let's cross our fingers for a September Saezuru Month (the issue will be published on September 30th), and let's hope that Sensei is okay 💕

Also: let's again enjoy the beauty of this issues cover 🌹

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Doumeki's First (Sexual) Advances :

The Difference between Care and Loyalty

A few months ago personal upheaval threw the last 10 years plus of my life in the air - hence the pause. But for now, I’ve gathered some time for an original post.  Hope you enjoy it. Thanks.

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Care

It's no surprise that Yashiro has a warped view when it comes how the people around value him. There's always a caveat, often wrapped in some sort of self-defamation that keeps him from the truth.

And there are so many instances of this throughout the series.

One of these moments that makes me both want to smack Yashiro and hug him - is shortly after he is shot and is being treated at Kageyama Sensei's after he's exacerbated his wounds.

He confuses Doumeki's actions for blind loyalty.

Yashiro starts to touch himself, but is clearly having difficulty owing to his injuries. Only he and Doumeki are in the room when Doumeki gets sick of seeing his boss struggle.

Doumeki settles down to his task first with sigh declaring, "I will do it." Yashiro is surprised by this, but he becomes confused once Doumeki switches to oral sex.

Yashiro is at a loss for an explanation and starts to wonder if this is part of Doumeki's loyalty.

Nope, but it is a manifestation of Doumeki's affection for Y.

Although this is the first time Doumeki initiates sexual contact, he's not doing it out of his own desire. We know that D is supremely attracted to Y and Doumeki is well aware of it at this point. But Doumeki starts doing it because he doesn't want Yashiro to further hurt himself and wouldn't be able to convince Y just to stop.

I also think it's fitting that this is when Doumeki's impotence is fully cured. Care came first and then D's desire was able to resurface without his "misplaced atonement" (remember Yashiro calling it that?) and guilt over Aoi's abuse.

This a turning point on so many levels and not just because Doumeki is the one initiating and performing the sex than ends up in oral. It also lays the groundwork for D and Y's entanglement, unraveling and evolution.

In a later post, I'll explore the scene between Doumeki and Yashiro after Inami is so merciless and violent with Y.

Now let's look at a few instances when Doumeki's loyalty to Yashiro was a dominant factor.

Loyalty

Doumeki submits to one sided oral from Yashiro from the very beginning of their relationship which morphs into a manifestation of D's loyalty.

The Before Cure Oral

During his interview with the Shinsekai, D might have been more numb than loyal when he accepted Yashiro's advances. I do think D didn't want to screw this up because he needed the work and D wanted to have the opportunity to be close to Y.

During all this impotent oral, Doumeki's probably not enjoying this from a physical standpoint. I think it's just neutral (to dangerous when he starts to recover) psychologically.

The (Cop)lay

Doumeki doesn't consider himself a police officer anymore. He might still be able to list off penal codes code, but that ship has sailed.

And yet he goes along with it when Yashiro wants him to cosplay in full uniform even having to head to Kage's clinic still in his dress blues.

Even Kage acknowledges "You have it rough, too."

I mean D was seriously in that outfit out and about for a while!

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Yashiro's Perspective

Yashiro also assumes an artificial divide between loyalty and love. In relationship terms we don't usually say 'loyal, ' its more common to think of consistency and commitment. The only other person who has approached that for our former Kashira is Kage and we know that Kage's capacity for those things with his high school friend was limited.

For Yashiro Doumeki's actions don't compute beyond transactional loyalty. Everything is conditional.

If you feel so inclined and enjoy my posts or find them helpful, please visit my Ko-Fi page. It helps keep things going. Thanks!

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I need this. It's been a tough 2 months. (Just when you thought these guys couldn't get any hotter. Thanks for the find @vic-saezuru7)

Soothe my soul Saezuru.

Happy Saezuru Month 🕊️💕🕊️

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Preach

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Happy Earth Day People.

Thanks to @saezurunokokoro for original Great Heron post.

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Love the sentiment and love the coloring (even though not normally a pink fan by default. )

That's right Doumeki - assert yourself.

Thanks to @dreadwolf for bringing the color into this scene.

Saezuru Chapter 43 - Requested by anonymous

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Illustrations final part!

Yoneda Kou Sensei

Saezuru Tori wa Habatakanai

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Wounds that won't stop bleeding and others that heal. The betrayal of a family.

Doumeki is one of the most complex characters we have in manga and anime. Always, when talking about Ssezuru we focus a lot on Yashiro San, he is not only the protagonist but he managed to make us all fall in love. But let's talk about Doumeki, a man who, due to his physique, already at the age of eight, stopped receiving the affection of his parents, with very beautiful and strong moral values ​​and a discipline and determination that few have. Imagine being a child wanting to be hugged and no one does? that was Doumeki. A sister arrives, who learned to love from her but grew away from her because Aoi's attitude was suspicious and for him uncomfortable. Doumeki is a man who sees everything but with his sister's situation he wanted to be blind.

The trauma

The boy who was raped and didn't realize it.

Doumeki who as a young man beginning his adolescence was raped by a school employee, his physique was perhaps that of a man but his mind was not and he develops a paralysis before someone's sexual advance (for example, in the first encounter with Yashiro San, his attitude of becoming completely still when Yashiro attacks him may be a product of his trauma, just like with the teacher, he did not push him away at the time of inappropriate contact).

The betrayal of a father.

Her sister was not sexually assaulted by a stranger or a teacher, it was his biological father who assaulted her. A father who perhaps even physically resembled the two. Perhaps Doumeki did see the signs of abuse but decided to ignore them and reacted impulsively like anyone else, he protected his sister from him. I come, but...

The betrayal of a sister and the forgetfulness of a mother in silence.

Doumeki decided to keep quiet, asked them not to say anything and assumed all the blame to protect her family from public ridicule, in Japan and the world the image is very important but, as a mother and as a sister, you are going to allow your 21-year-old son, a magnificent student , skilled, intelligent and with a bright future ahead, rot in jail for "the public image"? that's what happened... his sister who could have gone to the police, his mother who could have refused her son's decision and protected him... both were silent. Doumeki lost everything he had built and a silent fear grew in him.

The fear of being a rapist...

The phrase "you can see that they are mother and son", "like father like son", Doumeki took it very seriously and turned off all sexual desire thinking that he could become like his father, dead in life, decided to keep everything.

The arrival of his light...

upon leaving prison, I always thought that Doumeki would no longer see women in the same way and that is one of the reasons for looking at Yashiro, he could no longer see women in a sexual way, because in all those faces he would see Aoi, her sister, being raped and thus he falls in love with a complicated, twisted, dysfunctional man but who gives him a home, security and sees in him something that no one else had seen: tenderness, innocence, purity . Yashiro treats Doumeki tenderly, lovingly and with a childish attitude, unable to resist he begins to desire him and feels guilty about it, thinking that every time he touches him, he rapes him. Yashiro intervenes and tells him that no, you are not equal to your father, you are pure. A phrase that would change his life. But... Yashiro immerses himself in a crusade to return Doumeki to a home since he does not want him to enter the dark and rotten world of the yakuza, he tries to protect him without understanding or knowing all Doumeki's suffering. . Doumeki has no one, he does not want to return to his family because deep down he knows that he was abandoned by all family and friends, he does not want to return to the police who, knowing the events of the case, left him to rot in jail instead of starting an investigation, his future He sees him next to only one person, his love, Yashiro San.

Yashiro leaves Doumeki.

There are no sadder chapters than the entire sequence of events from when Yashiro leaves him behind in the apartment until he wakes up in the hospital. Doumeki's sense of loss and emptiness makes him make a decision: he will not move away, he will remain in the same world as the person he loves... distant and patient but in pain, bleeding relentlessly from a wound that he does not heal...

The reunion and a love that does not end.

Again Doumeki meets Yashiro who apparently has forgotten him, has not changed at all and continues with his bad habits but he continues with his advances. However, in the process he is being hurt, hoping that Yashiro expresses his feelings and at the end of all this nightmare that his life has been, they choose him, but not just anyone, but Yashiro, the man who gave him love and life...

He will never forget, neither the good, nor the bad, nor that they will leave him behind. So he closes his thoughts, his heart and we know nothing but his actions that seem cold and desperate. Doumeki is so young, he is only 29 years old and has been through so many terrible events, abuse and abandonment, his heart has been destroyed by all the beings he loved, respected, admired and wanted. There is only one way left for him, a path that does not stop hurting him, a path that is not yet clear, he must be strong to save what he loves most in this world but he also needs security, a place to return to, a confirmation that he is needed and needed.

I have faith that Doumeki will save Yashiro San, but also that Yashiro San will save Doumeki.

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See above. Enough said.

Thanks to @transparentduckbird for the original.

I would be a Fool not to love you 🐈‍⬛

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Thank you to @saezuru-another-tampopo for taking the time to translate this and so quickly! It's also great to have another window in Sensei's process.

🐤✨As quite a few people seem to be wanting to know what Yoneda Sensei said in the latest interview, I write down some summing-up points that interested me from the T magazine article, released yesterday, 11 March 2022, by Toho Cinemas, Tokyo:🐤✨🎾

🐤At first, Sensei was thinking that she would end Saezuru with perhaps 2 Volumes or so, but as she started deeply depicting each character, the work became much longer than she had expected.

🐤When she drew Yashiro’s high school day story, “Though They Drift They Don’t Sink But Nor Do They Sing”, she had already a kind of knew and decided that she would like to create Saezuru as Yashiro, in the present time, being a principal character. However, it took much time until she knew how, because she couldn’t think of a good partner character to match Yashiro. She said, if it was Ryuzaki, for example, he would have been fun to draw but too “easy to control” for Yashiro and too easy to deal with, and the story would have ended with just “about one chapter”. The character had to be more “difficult to cope with” for Yashiro, impossible to move just as Yashiro wished. Then, one day, she suddenly noticed that an impotent guy would be the perfect match for a lecherous Yashiro, who he wouldn’t be able to easily cope with. So, Doumeki was born and Saezuru was born then.

🐤Also, she wanted to create a match, or a couple, who had different contradictory sides while also sharing some similarities. Therefore, here came Yashiro and Doumeki.

🐤She has two elder sisters. The eldest loved BL. Thanks to her, Sensei started reading BL at around 10-12 years old when she was at a primary school.

🐤Even when she’s drawing about love relationships, what she wants to draw is, after all, how people choose to live.

🐤Sensei had offers “about twice” for dramatisation of Saezuru with real actors. Once she declined as it was too early and the other time, she said okay but it didn’t come to realise. Right now, until the work ends in the original comic, she can’t think about any possibility of dramatisation of the work with real actors. After it finishes, she thinks, it may be nice if she will receive a nice offer and that it may be perhaps realised.

(BTW, I myself personally get horrified with this idea of Saezuru with real actors. I would never be able to allow any actors not as super beautiful and super cool as Yashiro and Doumeki in the original comic. And that seems impossible for me, except if you would bring most beautiful Japanese super models. But they cannot act well enough. So, logically in my head, this idea is impossible. I hope it’ll never happen.)

🐤Sensei likes films such as:

Gonin by Ishii

Love for 460 million years by Miike

Blues Harp by Miike

🐤Asked about what is a motivating drive for Sensei’s creation, she answered that it was existence of her readers. It is tough to keep on creating Manga, but she says she would like to keep it going as long as she can think there are people waiting to read her works.

🐤✨🎾

That’s it.

These are all my summing ups.

Not exact precise translations.

Thanks. 🐤✨🎾

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Love the variety of sketch styles and subtle shifts. Hail the awesome Yoneda Sensei

Illustrations Part VI by

Yoneda Kou Sensei

Saezuru Tori wa Habatakanai

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Very helpful breakdown of some of Yakuza hierarchy. Thanks!

Do all the other Yakusa think Amou is just a simple right hand man to Misumi. (Btw, does Amou have a real official title of some kind?) Are there any people that are aware of their history?

It seems like pretty much everyone knows about Amou except for Yashiro who stopped caring about Amou the second he refused sex with him. 😂

This probably explains Amou’s job:

He would be Misumi’s advisor and handle all the scheduling stuff that Misumi doesn’t need to deal with and is trustworthy enough to sit in for Misumi when he can’t be there (when Kaichou died, or probably when Misumi was at Disneyland.) Amou would handle the details of the corporate side of the organization. The Wakagashira would handle the criminal side of the business. The only thing that would be different is Amou is concerned with matters of the Yakuza as they pertain to Misumi, not necessarily of how they affect the organization.

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The Other reason Yashiro stayed with the Yakuza

You might think Yashiro’s reasons might lie (ha! pun totally unintentional) with Misumi-san and with good reason…

But, Misumi’s possessiveness is only part of the story.

The Yakuza served more than one purpose for Yashiro. We know the former Kashira saved Kageyama’s future by joining. But as much as he didn’t want the Shinsekai life, it provided him with much needed structure.

Yashiro is definitely brilliant, startlingly so. Yet without place to focus his intelligence, he could be plagued by his deepest and oldest demons. This seems like strange place to harness his mind, find a stream of men for masochistic sex and provide outlet for his sadist side. He would unavoidably come to harm, but let's face it, that's not a never been a huge priority for Y.

Being in the Shinsekai, helped him avoid and survive, his past and his aimlessness.

It was a way outside of constructs where society failed him almost entirely up until the age of 18. If it broke, just say 'fuck it.'

Apart from Kage, he doesn’t have a support structure. Some of his subordinates in his group provided this for him to differing extents.(Nananahara is probably the closest to him of the subordinates and would often cook for him and give him platonic company. This is pretty valuable, as we know through Yoneda sensei, Yashiro just isn’t that great at taking care of his basic needs - other than the one .)

With his forced conscription into the Yakuza, and then only in a warped way, was he allowed to advance and use his intelligence and savvy to his own monetary gain and advancement through the ranks.

I also think that Yashiro used being half-civilian-half-underworld as a coping mechanism when he pushed D out of his life. He didn’t stay half in for Doumeki. Remember it was Y who hoped against all hope that D had permanently resumed civilian life.

If Yashiro completely left the yakuza and most of what he knew in his adult life, the departure would have blown up the remnants of his life.

I’m not sure if Yashiro is aware of how he used being a Yakuza as a means to an end, but I honestly think he is more convinced of the organizational trappings and Misumi-san who have admittedly also kept him there.

I do think that the time is coming when Yashiro is going to strain against his underworld constraints and break some in the upcoming chapters. It seems inevitable at this point.

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This is just BRILLIANT.

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Glad to see I'm not alone in these favorites. i LOVE these!! Thanks for putting this gold mine together @transparentduckbird

Yoneda Kou Sensei 2021 illustration,Art and sketch