dragomfry

[dragomfry]

Concept

Eaten alive / Swallow my words

Themes of: plants vs animals, birds (sparrows?), food/berries (specifically holly here), night, light vs dark, puppetry, natural vs unnatural

*Please note this is an edit, not a drawing. Birds and quotes from Saezuru and the bush is from The Last Unicorn.

[dragomfry]

So. Systemic abuse and critiques thereof are the foundation of saezuru. This includes gender roles and patriarchy, heteronormativity, police and the law, the family dynamic, so on and so forth.

Anytime Yashiro is forced into a system it fails. Yashiro has never not had enemies or been singled out, nor integrated "properly" into any group, nor been interested in doing so. As much as someone like Kage, for example, has "flaws" or "abnormalities" he's still able to do what he's told and become a doctor (bonus points for specifically claiming a quiet domestic life with Kuga, as much as being with a man was likely the biggest deviation of his life). Same with Doumeki in becoming a cop or even a yakuza since he utilizes the same skill set either way (which in itself could be considered a critique?).

Everything that makes these characters ordinary also allows them opportunities. They know exactly which rules they can bend before ultimately snapping back to the norm, and they either will attempt to force Yashiro into doing the same or distance themselves as much as possible depending because it is considered the "right" thing to do.

Everything Doumeki is or has done to Yashiro is The Norm. It is corrective, intentionally or otherwise. Doumeki may have some problems but Yashiro is a problem, one that must be solved according to those norms (something something cons of personhood being conflated with trauma that I don't have the energy to write right now). This is why the violence inflicted on Aoi or Ryuzaki's girlfriend (or Yashiro for that matter), or that Hirata or Inami (etc) inflict on others, is able to be planned the way that it can, and is ultimately treated as unsurprising in a way. It's also why Yashiro, as the character with the most outside perspective, listens so well to others and often is the one giving advice or a shoulder to lean on—a quality that is often subtly taken advantage of.

Yashiro is not so much a character that runs fueled by privilege, but rather a sort of jaded understanding and acceptance of it all. There's seemingly nowhere else to go and nothing worth asking for. I think that kind of relationship with the world is where the story itself stems. Because in that case what's there to do? What happens to a character without a goal?

[dragomfry]

Feb 5, 2024 I don’t remember if there was something that inspired this one tweet. But it was also uploaded on the Saezuru discord server and of course it was something that would have caught my attention regardless. Since I shared my immediate thoughts on discord I didn’t bring it up on tumblr as well, but I think it’s good that I save it here as well.

Yoneda Kou Sensei expressing individuality, awareness and understanding of her artistic voice in context is something I like to pay attention to.

Oct 8, 2024 Yoneda Kou Sensei has been uploading chapters from Saezuru vol. 1 on her twitter account. This is what she also wrote the day she uploaded chapter 2 and the image is what she is referring to specifically as her favorite scene. Notice how she knows very well that her own preferences and the things that intrigue and interest her are probably different from those of her editor on one hand and those of her readers on the other. Self awareness doesn’t mean that she does everything she can to conform to those expectations because she understands that her vision and authorial voice matter as well and are maybe what makes Saezuru the successful manga it is. She asked for the readers to share their preferences and opinions as well. That is expected. It’s a conversation and it’s encouraging. And also a bit of clever marketing.

“The second heartwarming chapter. When I said that, my editor burst out laughing. It's heartwarming, right? I like the scene where he gives her a condom. But I can't put that on page 0. I know that the parts I like aren't so much liked by the readers, so I asked them to let me know and put them here. What do you think? I'll upload the third chapter sometime soon”.

Automatic translation from twitter got some of that wrong. The part I underlined in yellow is okay though.

I’m not the most methodical person and I didn’t collect all of what Yoneda shared on SM and all her interviews. I also don’t think that they are necessary to form the opinion one can have about the manga. But for me personally these types of insights give me the reassurance that yes I prefer Saezuru’s way of telling a story about a survivor of CSA for specific reasons and one is that the author lets what goes on around her in the real world be a source that informs her writing too. And she demonstrated to be a keen observer.

Also friendly reminder that Japanese people had and still have discussions about consent in the same way as many other countries in the “Western” world. The insularity of Japan ended like two centuries ago? And A LOT happened since Saezuru started publication. And it might be subtle but Saezuru’s way of showing things demonstrates that changes since Shiori Ito’s case broke public censorship have not gone unnoticed. You can also look up the Flower Demo movement and the different hashtags used in Japan in addition or in alternative to #MeToo. And to me it’s really hard to overlook that gender had a complex significance in all this and that male sexual assault victims being recognized for the first time since the constitution of modern Japan contributed to defy other rape myths as well. And because Yoneda has a habit to observe reality, even maintaining firm boundaries between fiction/manga and reality, I believe she is still aware that the themes of Saezuru might resonate differently within that knowledge. And considering that distinction: I hope it’s clear that another manga like Haikyuu was largely successful because of its realism. Yes, the characters are fictional, but a lot of what was shown regarding volleyball followed closely the rules, strategies and experiences of real life. Realism applied to manga doesn’t mean that you see a strict copy of reality or that the author isn’t creating a story that is entirely fictional and focuses heavily in aspects that can solicit a positive response from its readers.

But can you really look at Doumeki’s father, at Inami, at every action the police take in Saezuru and think that this manga shows us policemen in such an idealized way or as a source of inspiration? Can you look at Doumeki being successfully integrated into both the police force and the yakuza and not see the implications? Yashiro’s position of wakagashira was shown as a fluke by Yoneda who took great care to describe all the ways Misumi had a role in it and all the discontent that provoked, in addition to the rumors and threats and the fact that Yashiro is alive because Ryuuzaki defied Hirata’s orders. And I can go on but the point is.

In writing and sharing my analyses, I hope to pay tribute to the particular attention, awareness and sensibility that Yoneda Kou Sensei demonstrates. Telling a story as fictional as it can be but without denying reality altogether.

[dragomfry]

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[dragomfry]

Interesting comparison! I haven’t read Birds of Shangri-La, but I have watched and read a decent amount of anime and manga. Generally there is a trend of “telling” more than “showing” information to the audience, and Shangri-La seems to follow that trend more closely than Saezuru. There is a misconception that telling is inherently bad, however (and conversely, that showing is inherently good).

Saezuru has many moments where it tells information to the audience in dialogue (conversations) or monologue, but I believe what makes Saezuru different and more engaging is that we’re constantly communicated (complex) information beyond what is literally being said. Such as, Yashiro at the beginning explicitly saying he is a masochist, sadist, etc., but that isn’t really what those sentences are there for. He says all that but Yoneda’s purpose isn’t to say that that’s what he is—rather, she’s trying to say the opposite, and those sentences are actually there to reflect the depths of his trauma. “Telling” is used most effectively as a device when there is more to the sentences than just plain exposition. They reveal things about the characters, the way the world works (world building), etc. beyond the surface level.

Also, another common writing trend you mention is that characters often interpret things based on the literal truth and not their individual perspectives. This is mundane when it’s prevalent throughout a work with little variation (unfortunately most stories I’ve experienced do that). Using the Shangri-La example of nail-biting, because what Apollo observes is exactly true, there’s no extra meaning behind the observation (making it dull). Phi bites around his fingernails when he is nervous and that is true. In contrast, this isn’t always the case with Saezuru. Saezuru does have moments where a character makes observations and they turn out to be true, but there are also many examples where that doesn’t happen, making for a much more engaging reading experience. For example, Yashiro in the arc rn keeps interpreting Doumeki’s behavior as him hating him, but we know this to not be true because of other panels and actions of Doumeki that suggest otherwise. So when Yashiro interprets Doumeki’s behavior this way, it forces the reader to think “Is that really true?” and to take into consideration that Yashiro thinks in these ways because of his traumatic background. Writing this way is like writing every character to be an unreliable narrator… which is pretty true to life, and probably explains why the characters and setting in Saezuru feel much more realistic.

I’ve always had these observations about Saezuru in the back of my mind, but haven’t had the words to articulate these ideas until now. So, thank you for that!

So let’s talk about… (h)ornithology…

Saezuru tori wa habatakanai (English title: Twittering Birds Never Fly) by Kou Yoneda is an ongoing manga, published in ihr HertZ magazine and currently available in nine volumes. Publication began in 2011.

Shangri-La no Tori (English title: Birds of Shangri-La) by Ranmaru Zariya is an ongoing manga, published in Canna magazine and currently available in three volumes. Publication began in 2017.

I recently had a interesting conversation about possible similarities and differences between these two titles and I thought that it could be interesting to write down some thoughts. I also caught up with Shangri-La, since I had read it in the past when the third volume wasn’t available - well I reread it entirely because, like many other bl manga I got recommended, this one didn’t hold my attention or capture my interest in the way Saezuru did and I didn’t remember most of it. I want to underline that this is my personal experience and a matter of preferences, that I am sharing my personal opinion and I am not trying to make a comparison in terms of good manga vs bad manga. I want to talk about my reasoning and observations, and I’ll attempt to illustrate my points so that it is hopefully clear the terms of the comparison I am making.

I won’t deny that in writing this post I will reiterate previous comments I made about Saezuru as a bl manga that seems to me quite exceptional and therefore much more interesting because of its realistic approach to the world and characters being portrayed. And because from a very superficial perspective, Shangri-La and Saezuru seem to treat very similar themes and dynamics, it is useful to pick up where and how they differ. This post doesn’t want to say anything about reading for entertainment or escapism, rather it’s more about understanding how you write a story in a manga format and how that relates to how the story works overall. So if you’re bored with this topic, you can skip this one.

I don’t have direct knowledge of the composition of the magazines these two manga are published in, but I can say that they are more on the explicit side of bl manga (erotica). Which means that they cater to a readership that expects to see explicit sexual scenes as soon as possible, mostly don’t want or expect female nudity, and will stay with the story if they are enamored with the characters and engaged in the anticipation of a sentimental outcome and emotional growth between a couple that is usually at the center of the narrative. To come up with a premise that is immediately satisfying is a hard task. In Saezuru, we have the exploitation of an already established couple from another short story: Kageyama and Kuga for sex to be teased in the very first pages, and maintaining a level of “spice” by exploiting the main character Yashiro’s hyper sexuality as a prominent part of his characterization. Shangri-La makes the whole setting works in favor of that immediate explicit action: a brothel in a non-specified island, one of the two main characters being a sex worker. Yashiro and Phi are the first to be introduced as the most pro-active and easy-going in terms of sexual freedom; Doumeki and Apollo are introduced next, in the first chapter as well, and they both don’t express sexual desire representing instead a restraining, reassuring force: one is a “straight” employee, the other has been impotent for some time.

But let’s talk about how these two scenarios differ, because they have less things in common than they are alike, once you pay attention to few details. We meet Yashiro in a pretty nondescript office, we don’t get a first name, and the family name Yashiro is not rare; as we get introduced to other characters, Doumeki is the only name that stands out a little, but they are all Japanese family names. Whereas a Phi or an Apollo are already exotic names that fit the distinctive characteristics of the rather fantastical environment they inhabit. Reading the entirety of Saezuru we find ourselves not having to travel much outside of the Tokyo metropolitan area, we get a sense of where certain events take place and of real districts and buildings in the city, so much so that people have drawn maps to visit some of them.

You can’t do quite the same thing with Shangri-La, not only because it’s undisclosed what either the island nor the mainland and country are called, but because the whole scenario is barely plausible in terms of real world economics or circumstances. Apollo’s job doesn’t even make sense, unless you buy into the proprietor of the brothel’s business model. I had to suspend my disbelief very hard very quickly. It’s fantastical, and exotic and barely credible, except that sex work and sex tourism are a very sensitive and interconnected issue in many areas in Southeast Asia, making Shangri-La’s exoticism, orientalism and hyper-sexualization feel a-critically exploited. There are talks in the manga about underage prostitution and groups pushing for changes in the legislation around sex work, but the topic is yet to be explored and because this is an imaginary place, it doesn’t really seem that the matter is considered in more realistic or detailed terms. The discussion is just a device to create an ambience and a sense of precariousness, Phi’s whole existence can’t stay as it is much longer.

Saezuru portrays yakuza and police in terms that are relatable to the real world, including references to laws and how criminal activities or social interactions are handled. Using the real world as a setting, Yoneda can add details and layers to story and characters that feel very grounded. It adds credibility, and the possibility of exploration into the social background of different characters less as a plot device (tragic backstory) and instead in more rich terms, in relatable yet different mentalities and habits associated with certain experiences. Shangri-La’s setting is much more similar to romance novels, Phi is the ingénue prostitute that doesn’t know or understand many common things. He adapted to extraordinary environmental conditions as best as he could but never grew out of them, sheltered in this artificial paradise based upon fleeting pleasures. Apollo’s role is quite clear: the straight man, so serious he was married, he desired one exclusive person to love and was instead betrayed. There is not much about him in three whole volumes compared to how much we get to know about Doumeki in the first three chapters, and that will only get explored more. About Apollo, we received most of the information from his best friend, who is also conveniently his lawyer, another character who seems to be around only for help with the exposition.

The insistence upon Apollo’s sexual orientation is interesting as well because it serves more as a fantasy than anything else: he will resist the charms of everyone except The One. And True Love surpasses any limitations, including sexual orientation or preferences in that one instance. Is Doumeki the same? I would argue that this is exactly what Yashiro seems to say when he’s talking to Kamiya. Doumeki is straight, is attracted to women, it so just happened that he was attracted to Yashiro as a one time exception. But is Yashiro’s reasoning or what he says out loud the most reliable source of information about what things actually are meant to be understood in Saezuru? And this is the same for every character, every one is telling the story according to their partial knowledge and understanding. No one seems to ask Doumeki. Would Kuga say that Doumeki is straight? There is a level of complexity and multiplication of the points of view in Saezuru, brief conversations and moments that are hints, like we are witnessing the story more than we are told about it. And everyone is left wondering. Common tropes are brought down to earth, in my opinion. Doumeki said that he had no knowledge of the possibility of being attracted to men until he met Yashiro and he felt so strongly that he regained sexual desire. Yashiro now isn’t able to respond to other men in the same way as before, but Doumeki is the exception, he is The One, right? But these circumstances if analyzed deeply have deep emotional implications and can be also explained using common sense. Here is Misumi using the aforementioned common sense:

There are other stylistic choices too in how the narrative is constructed that I noticed. Zariya is a talented and expert artist and designed stunning, sexy and appealing panels since the very first pages. The inner dialogue of Phi helps getting the reader into the story and creating expectations for the storytelling as a whole: “Lips are made for lying. People learn how to lie just by living. And the eyes… They know when others are watching. The hands though… They’re terrible liars. If you pay close attention, you’ll find shadows of the person’s character, even hints of their past. All in all… They’re rather eloquent speakers”.

Now I was engaged: I was ready to look at how characters move and use their hands like Sherlock Holmes. I expected that the manga would follow through with that, but it’s for things like the imprint of the ring or the habit of biting your nails. It’s disappointing to me, because did you have to make it so explicit? So mundane even.

Many instances of Yashiro bringing his hands to his face to hide parts of it or the entirety of it, including this heartbreaking moment at the end of ch 25, when the act of bringing them back down almost suggests that he has put a mask back on before looking up directly at you, nowhere in the text there is an explicit declarations about hands or that gesture, but nevertheless the execution of these moments makes them very poignant. It’s two different ways of doing things that cement for me, according to my own preferences, the high level of subtle expression that Yoneda manages to achieve.

When the story of Shangri-La progresses and Apollo becomes more interested in Phi, he asks to borrow a psychology book that tells him how the habit of biting around one’s fingernails is a sign of stress or anxiety. In the same way, most conversations with other people are about getting to discuss and explicitly communicate the meaning behind a certain behavior, or pieces of information about someone else’s character. This kind of 1:1 exposition, plain observational analysis rendered explicit is a sign of either a mistrust toward the ability of the readers to understand things implicitly or just plain lack of anything else to fill the pages with between a sex scene and the next.

The amount of information that we have about secondary characters in Saezuru, about their motivations and personalities, in comparison is astounding. It’s clear that Yoneda knows even more about each character who speaks in any given scene than what has been portrayed. There is so much going on, so much past and lingering feelings, from resentment to personal grudges and grievances, to power dynamics and their consequences and external pressures and events happening at any time.

It would be interesting for example making a comparison of the relationships between the proprietor of the brothel and Phi on one hand and between Misumi and Yashiro on the other. What we came to learn about Misumi is so much more in terms of quantity and in terms of believability - it makes more believable Yashiro’s position as yakuza - that it is quite difficult to decide where the proprietor of Shangri-La stands in terms of overall intentions or values in having rescued and sheltered and kept Phi quite in the same position of dependency. It appears to me that the character is there just to set the stage: he is the owner of the theater.

It’s unreality and it’s just a stage after all to play a sexual fantasy. All the drama that surely will come will follow the same fictional rules of everything else. It’s not bad, it’s just another way to tell a story. The art is visually pleasing, but the paneling didn’t capture my attention or worked for me as well, in comparison to Yoneda’s more cinematic style and composition. It’s theatrical production vs shooting on location yet using multiple different camera angles for every dialogue. To try to explain the difference in another way: I imagine that the usual disclaimer "All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental" that needs to be used for movies or tv shows set in real environments and with fictional portrayals of real world events and scenarios could apply to a live action adaptation of Saezuru and be considered unnecessary to Shangri-La. Still, realism in fiction isn’t about making stories be like documentaries or having the same purpose exactly, but about exploring how we perceive the real world and about possibilities.

What do you think? There is more to say in terms of power dynamics and positions between each individual in the two main pairs and the role of others, and in terms of expectations and desirable outcomes readers might dream about in simple ways or taking instead a different approach. But I really don’t want this to be a too long of a reading and if you made it here, thank you so much. I hope this doesn’t come across as too harsh or anything about Shangri-La. If you want to add some other observations or give another perspective, please do. This was just an attempt to draw a comparison and reveal big differences in approach between manga that still can seem very similar at first glance.

[dragomfry]

*read comment for edits

Some *non-binary people have dysphoria with body hair and want clear skin, typically regarded as a more feminine characteristic (largely in the West, though in Southeast Asia it’s basically the beauty standard for the *male and female sexes). Surprise surprise, Yashiro has no body hair.

Of course, many other characters also have none, like Doumeki (easier to draw, etc). There was an extra, though, that showed Yashiro halfheartedly wanting to get scars because men make fun of their smooth skin. This shows that they could feel a bit insecure with their femininity when surrounded by “macho” men who insult them. Fortunately Doumeki is like “No, I like you without it!” Again, calling them beautiful :)

[dragomfry]

Saezuru it's going to be published in my country by NewPOP under the title "Pássaros que cantam não podem voar" and i'm so, so, so excited!

Made this drawing to comemorate and share w you guys 😊

[dragomfry]

Takahashi Biho—

Two Crows Flying Through a Snowstorm, 1890s

[dragomfry]

I’m quite grateful for the current conversation happening around a trans reading of Yashiro and that there is a questioning in the first place. One of my more profound and “philosophical” interests is around a topic sometimes called “epistemology of ignorance”: a theory of knowledge and in particular of the active limitations of knowledge, of those practices that contribute to basically rendering invisible, obscure or obsolete (or “problematic”) those types of knowledge and information that don’t serve those in power. It’s a very active and quite persistent production of forms of marginalization that would not otherwise exist in such extreme forms, because people are rather capable of empathy unless relentlessly trained to discredit or push away certain narratives and alternative epistemic proposals. When talking about “ignorance” in this context, the goal is to familiarize ourselves with it, not to make ourselves feel worse, but to keep learning, to keep ourselves open and aware of how incredibly insular and limited our own knowledge might actually be, because we are always taught the basics in a very specific and always politically and ideologically motivated social contexts. But this is maybe not the place for this kind of framing, but more than anything: I don’t feel intellectually equipped to explain this topic. It’s something that I would invite people to look into themselves in case they want to, though.

It’s still worth considering that all trans experiences, but in particular those of trans women, are subject of the most violent pushbacks, and cultivated ignorance and prejudice contributed to epistemic injustices and practical oppression.

So in a broader context, because I am pleading guilty of thinking about things in broader terms in my pinned post so I don’t see why I shouldn’t at least try to, do we really need to absolutely confirm Yashiro’s identity as a (gay) man? What changes so dramatically if we look at Yashiro as a woman instead? Is she such a different person than suddenly the story told in Saezuru becomes less comfortable to read? But if that’s the case, shouldn’t we ask ourselves why? I specifically ask this question around the reading of Yashiro as a woman, rather than non-trasfeminine nonbinary or genderfluid in this instance. As these are all valid interpretations, Yashiro being a cis man is surprisingly to me the least likely interpretation for so many things that are shown in the text of the story. But because of a lack of habit of paying attention and because of specific forms of ignorance or bias, when I began reading the manga I didn’t really think about questioning Yashiro’s gender either, even when I was well aware of the recurring unreliability of certain statements in spoken dialogue or internal dialogue, and the depth of the story. But it didn’t take long for me to realize that there was something more to it, even if I was picking up things initially only on a subconscious level. I mean, I was associating specific songs with Yashiro that were all about other trans women’s experiences in non ambiguous terms. Yet until someone pointed to me this art and tags by Benvey I was still on the quite oblivious side of things. But you know what I kept thinking also? That the questions around Yashiro’s gender identity in text and in subtext seemed very intentional and I knew of Yoneda talking about another song as well, that she listened to often when thinking about Yashiro and about Yashiro’s deeper and oldest feelings. There are two different posts here on tumblr you can check and in particular this one with the Japanese transcript of the lyrics is particularly interesting to me, as Yoneda seems to be referring to the Japanese lyrics rather than the English ones for the song.

Let’s read the Japanese lyrics, retranslated in English (mostly via machine translation), just as an experiment, because of the different nuances that are even less ambiguous than in the final song:

Mother, look at this end of your love / Why was I born? Mother, your son is a deformed creature, neither man nor woman / Why was I born? It is your fault that I am so miserable / This pain, this ache / Even if I turn the mirror upside down / No one will look back at me / You say "Beauty lies in the heart" / "A heart as beautiful as a rose" / "Let's cultivate beauty in the heart" / But the roses have grown black and ugly / Mother, who told you to give birth? / Who asked to give birth to this pitiful body? / If only I hadn't been born

Mother, wait, that's not true. / Please forgive the anger boiling deep inside me, please, you are the only one I have now. I will suffer the torture of hell for eternity. Imprisoned in this cage, in this flesh, everything has gone to waste. It's over, Mother, I don't want this anymore. The pain won't go away, like the bruises eating away at my skin. It's all my fault, even without you telling me, I realized too late. And you entrusted it to me. When light shines at the end of lamentation, when love is born at the end of hope, you say, "Beauty lies in the heart," "The beauty of the heart is like a rose," "Let's cultivate the beauty of the heart," and the rose bloomed into an ugly black flower. You say, "Beauty lies in the heart," "The beauty of the heart is like a rose," "Let's cultivate the beauty of the heart," and the rose that bloomed was──I don't understand your words anymore. Mommy, get me out of here

There is usually a lot of music happening in my head and it changes when I read something and so I could not ignore which songs were so often playing while I read parts of Saezuru or while thinking about Yashiro, when I also looked at Benvey’s art and started paying attention and reading his posts @nanayashi-agenda Well, now I can understand why I was associating Yashiro with songs like “Candy says”, “Cripple and the Starfish” and half of Anohni’s discography, why that note about the Yoko Kanno and Scott Matthew’s song “beauty is within us” was so present in my memory, even when it’s from ten years ago, and my interest so picked with all the interactions between Yashiro and other women in the manga, sometimes in the minuscule details. Why I was thinking about a crossover with the movie “The Birds”, because Yashiro’s character had partially merged in my head with the one portrayed by Tippy Hedren, especially for the instances where the character interacts with three key women: the little sister, the mother and the ex-girlfriend of her love interest.

I began to consider the possibility that Yoneda was rather intentionally drawing out many aspects of Yashiro’s identity that is good for us to question and not just be content with on a surface level, in a similar way that she thought about putting there the references to the police and the laws around sexual violence, the different mind/body’s responses to it and how slowly shifting the attention from only the more blatant forms of violent assault to the notion of consent and other forms of more subtle coercion might still not be enough to counteract other narratives. If you start reading the story and taking it in, the layers are there and it’s not like there is no time between a chapter and the next to reread. I think there is always something more to gain from paying attention here, beyond the satisfaction of our preexisting expectations.

And would it be that surprising in manga to find a certain fluidity regarding gender representation? Even in a yakuza family setting for that matter, like there has never been a Stop!! Hibari-kun! manga and anime, just to make one example? As a teenager I was collecting all the volumes of Ranma 1/2, and we are certainly not talking of obscure titles, or very niche, but we are talking about titles published in Weekly Shōnen Jump and Weekly Shōnen Sunday, respectively. Regardless of the commercial exploitation of the genre now labeled as bl and increasingly specialized magazines, I am glad that there is space for some of the stories that come out of these to have that same creative, unapologetic queer and avant-garde spirit of the most beloved manga titles, mainly in the Shōjo demographic, that created this possibility in the first place. Yashiro might just be cis in your preferred reading of the manga, in your preferred interpretation, but that doesn’t have to be necessarily correct as the only possibility and plainly obvious to everyone, you know?

[dragomfry]

Non-Binary Reading of Yashiro

Some may be wondering, “Isn’t it obvious that Yashiro is a cis man? He’s always referred to with he/him and doesn’t mind. Can’t he just be a more feminine man?” Sure, Yashiro can be read that way. And maybe that was the intent to begin with. I’m not saying you can’t read him as cis because there’s lots of meaning we can interpret from that, too.. I actually was hesitant to accept a non-cis reading because I thought it wasn’t plausible, but then I considered this: is it not a bit odd that there are many aspects and scenes, consistent ones I add, that may suggest he isn’t cis? So I took my chances, and I found potential that I think is realistic. Considering a non-cis reading, imo, opens up even more exciting layers to Yashiro and can be interpreted as representation if we wish. So that’s what I choose to do. Without further ado, I’ll dissect evidence in support of a non-binary reading below.

But first, we must consider the opposite. What objective evidence do we have to show that Yashiro perceives himself as a man? The way he dresses can be. Even after he’s banished from the Shinsekai, he still presents himself as masculine (though his hair is longer now and can lean into other readings/hmm notice how most yakuza men have shorter hair). It can also be when he explicitly states that he’s not a woman/he is a man. “I’m not a woman, so you don’t have to treat me gently.” Ryuuzaki asks him if he wants to be a woman twice, and Yashiro mostly brushes it off, saying life could’ve been easier that way (I think a trans reading still works in both cases). He says he is a man to Tsunakawa, etc. But even in the times Yashiro refers to himself as a man, is it really himself he’s referring to, or the expectations of men generally?

Masculinity and femininity are loosely defined concepts, so we can’t really say that his “feminine” traits (wtf does that even mean honestly, traits not toxically masculine?) are indicative of a non-cis gender identity. But he does seem relatively comfortable expressing both, which could lean into a non-cis reading (I say relatively b/c, for example, he caught himself “speaking like a woman” at the hotel; could just be b/c he’s insecure, which I lean towards)

Considering a non-binary reading, then, there are many things we can focus on.

*Note: I’ll use he/him to refer to events in the canon in order to measure how likely they are to be interpreted as evidence of the reading, even though Yashiro would use they/them now. I’ll switch to they/them when I think Yashiro should be interpreted that way. Hope this makes sense.

Honestly, this interpretation was formed pretty recently, and I thought I didn’t have much to go off of with this reading even if it felt right (I always loved the implication of “beautiful person”). After taking another look at things through a gendered lens, I think this reading is what I find most comfortable. In this case, Yashiro uses he/they. They’re okay with he/him (don’t have much of a choice) but prefer gender-neutral pronouns. Yashiro does not fully feel like a man but also not fully like a woman. To me, they seem most comfortable with expressing both masculine and feminine traits and don’t like fitting either of those gender roles. They feel like a mix of both.

The scene that really made me consider this reading was the flashback in ch.10 to Yashiro’s young adult years, in which he was in a woman and a man was in him, and he says the woman felt good but the pressuring sensation of the man “felt unbearably dear” to him… Yashiro cries in this scene, and he rarely cries, so this moment really sticks out even if it was brief. Even if you don’t take a gendered look at the scene, it’s still very ambiguous in its meaning. (I will talk about the other implications of the scene in a post about Yashiro’s struggle w/ bisexuality) I interpreted their tears as distress with thinking they are supposed to choose which identity they want in this scene. They feel like they have to choose between the two sexes, the penetrating or the penetrated role, but can’t reconcile with their identity being either a man or woman. So, they cry; they cry because they do not, in fact, fit either role. They’re… in between.

There are a number of cases where Yashiro responds to or seems to prefer gender-neutral terms. Based on the translation by Kagerou Scans on Mangadex, in ch.9, Misumi calls Yashiro a wh*re (usually misogynistic) and a h*mo, but he replies to neither. But, the one he does reply to is the more neutral “pervert.” On a better note, for my favorite gender affirming example, they like it when Doumeki calls them a beautiful person or just a person in general 🤍. Yes, it’s because someone acknowledges that they are not an object, but now it’s also because that’s part of their identity they prefer.

I mentioned this before; even in the times Yashiro refers to himself as a man, is it really himself he’s referring to, or the expectations of men generally? Based on Blue Spring Scans translation of ch. 10, Yashiro refers to Misumi and Hirata as homophobes, people against homosexuals, in reference to himself. Later in ch. 10, he says to himself that he isn’t a homosexual (isn’t a gay man) but doesn’t bother correcting any of the men that think that. This supports that Yashiro could be speaking of how men perceive them as a man and not how Yashiro actually views themself.

With this reading, rather than saying he feels inadequate as a man (which makes sense for a cis interpretation), Yashiro feels inferior to cis men as a nonbinary individual. Society (yakuza) says that they are a man, and deserve to be punished for being effeminate and gay. Yashiro internalizes some of the abuse, subconsciously thinking they should be punished (it’s part of why they think they want to be treated roughly; “I’m not a woman so you don’t have to treat me gently” = “I’m supposed to be a man who is treated roughly”) because society has told them that they are an individual less than men, that they “ruin” perfectly good, straight men… but after the timeskip, they start feeling a bit more confident in their gender. They have, for the most part, left the abusively patriarchal environment of the yakuza and can now be more themselves (can we not interpret Yashiro wanting to leave the yakuza as them wanting to part with being forced into a male role? Yakuza = toxic masculinity/manhood are metaphors I want to explore more later). They grow out their hair. They start to speak up against men who want to use them and stand up for their right to determine who they should have sex with. Although they don’t think they should be punished for being less than cis men anymore, they still think they deserve to be punished by Inami (ch.47) and even Doumeki (ch.57) for being hypersexual in the past and physically unable to accept gentleness, for having developed trauma responses out of their control.

To recontextualize some other aspects with the nonbinary reading…

The prevalent straight fantasies of Doumeki and a woman would be explained by Yashiro believing Doumeki to be mainly straight, but they could still be imagining themself in the woman’s role. It’s still a mystery why they don’t imagine themselves with Doumeki. In the case of Izumi, they may feel like they aren’t good enough to be with Doumeki because they aren’t a woman. Them wanting to be treated gently is not necessarily because they think they are a woman and should be treated as such, but to be treated as just who they are without those gender roles. They don’t want to be treated roughly because Doumeki perceives them as a man, and they don’t want to be treated gently because Doumeki perceives them as a woman. They want to be treated as the person they are. It’s unfortunate because even though they want to be comfortable with their more “feminine” traits (Ig, sometimes how they speak or joke around, generally the way they act sometimes, sexual preference, wanting gentleness), society and especially their trauma prevent them from expressing those traits freely or w/out ridicule.

If you consider this reading, or the trans woman one which I also really appreciate, but still are not sure they’re quite plausible, let’s then bring up the opposite again. Has Yashiro ever expressed comfort in being a cis man or expressed fraternity among men? For both questions, I mean, it just seems like plain no. In ch.10, we find that he views men of the yakuza quite negatively, especially in his description as a young adult of why he seeks them out. He seeks them out because they’re only supposed to find sexual release with his body, nothing more. Why would he like/be comfortable being a man or being associated with them if he has just been abused by them all their life, specifically because they perceive him as a man (and to make matters worse, because he also likes men)? To add on, he seems to separate himself when speaking about men generally. Ch.3, “men, guys, males”; men do this, men do that; has it ever really been “we, us, our, my” iykwim? Yashiro feels isolated/othered in the yakuza not just because of his sexuality, but with these trans interpretations, also because “he” doesn’t fit in with men at all

Since I prefer the nonbinary reading, I believe it is more like “men, women, and me” to Yashiro.

Look at them. They’re so beautiful ;)

I said this before but I think all of the above discussion highlights how, regardless of how we interpret Yashiro’s gender, they are a distinctly queer character. And that subtext is definitely worth considering.

[dragomfry]

“I know what you are”

He says as he looks at Yashiro and Doumeki

[dragomfry]

'Nandina and Flycatchers in Snow' (Japan, 1929) by Ohara Shōson (Japan, 1877-1945).

Woodblock print.

Image and text information courtesy LACMA.

[dragomfry]

Thank you for taking the time to reply. Take care of your health, man. I think it’s important that we can discuss things within Saezuru from different perspectives, gaining a more wholistic view of the characters and potential meaningful interpretations of the text.

Regardless of how we interpret Yashiro’s gender, I think Yashiro is distinctly queer and should be interpreted as such. It’s just more interesting! I say this because he canonically has thoughts that go beyond the surface level “How can I be gay??” that are so prevalent in BL. For example, his views on how men (who like men) should be treated in bed, how women should be treated generally or in bed, and how he himself should be treated generally or in bed (ahh, I separated Yashiro from men there, not quite sure why yet), I think are all related to his complex views on gender. Now I also wonder if he has had thoughts specifically on how each sex should act (that would tie nicely into the “actors” theme) but Idk

Your trans take on Yashiro is thought-provoking, wonderful, fabulous even! Although I’m not sure I would interpret Yashiro as trans based on how I see the story, I won’t deny that there is a lot of content that can be interpreted that way. I believe there is purposeful ambiguity with how Yashiro perceives his own gender at least. There’s a lot to say about Yashiro’s complicated relationship with gender and how that makes him view sex, men, and women, too. I think it’s clear that the text shows Yashiro struggling with his gender identity (feeling inadequate as a man). He also clearly struggles with internalizaed heterosexism (feeling less than straight men as a bi man). Although I believe Yoneda-sensei’s intent was to write Yashiro as identifying as a man, to say that there isn’t evidence that shows him at least experiencing feelings of being uncomfortable in his male body would be ludicrous.

What scene(s) first made you consider reading her as trans? Btw Yashiro is a unisex name, but you probably already knew that lol

Also, are you aware that the BL genre actually has a long history in challenging gender roles and norms? The history is pretty interesting imo. I wouldn’t be surprised if Yoneda-sensei wanted to contribute as well.

thank you! i'm glad that you find the trans yashiro take interesting even if it doesn't work with your personal reading of the character. i'll stick with she/her for this discussion, considering its context it's more comfortable for me, and i'd like to comment on the few things you mentioned, besides the actual question. not to say that you're wrong or to invalidate your reading, just to give my perspective

so, since i read saezuru in two days and then spent weeks in a haze thinking about it, it's a bit hard for me to remember for sure what was it that made me seriously consider reading yashiro as trans, but i think it was izumi. not necessarily a specific scene, although the one in ch 50 where yashiro looks at her talking to doumeki does come to mind, but more so the character and what she means for yashiro. there is something very familiar in how yashiro's jealousy manifests. you see the person you love with someone (presumably, in izumi's case) cis, notice how "right" it feels in their case, and there's this subconscious desire to not just be in that person's place, but to be like them in a way that you don't quite understand at the time. what you do understand is that you can't, that there is something inherently wrong with you that makes the difference. if there is any resentment, it's towards yourself, and if there is any anger about the unfairness of it all, then all you need do is to remember that "it is fair, this is all you deserve". even if yashiro tries to call doumeki "chikara" just like izumi does, she can't be like her, she can't be "doumeki's woman", someone deserving of gentleness and kindness, and so it justifies the cruelty and being treated like a sex object. this is how things are supposed to be

can it all just as easily be read through the lens of internalized homophobia, and that alone? sure. but understanding yashiro's feelings as influenced specifically by transmisogyny, something she internalized and has been subjected to for most of her life (regardless of whether yashiro actively identifies as a trans woman or not, she is transfeminized, so yes, her abuse can and should be read as transmisogyny) makes as much, if not more, sense to me. it is at the very least something i'd like people to consider more, and maybe the role izumi plays is not necessarily the best starting point for trying to understand the trans reading. if i were to recommend what to look at first, i'd instead point to yashiro's position in the gender hierarchy, the way she herself understands it (painfully aware of it before even joining the yakuza, and so close to describing it as "a woman you are allowed to abuse") and what feelings does she actually express towards "being a man". or even better, start from the very beginning, with yashiro's stepfather raping her and telling her that she was supposed to be a girl while repeatedly calling her "boy"

izumi as she exists in yashiro's mind to me almost reads like if all of her complicated feelings and repressed desires were given a face. but to see her that was you'd need to pick up on the subtext earlier in the story, which i suppose i was already doing. so maybe izumi was just the push i needed to start doing the work, so to speak. ironically she is also the person who helps yashiro to finally come to terms with being a woman in the au i've been cooking, but that's neither here nor there

something you mentioned and i wanted to comment on is how yashiro "feels inadequate as a man". i can see where you are coming from, but personally i don't think yashiro expresses feeling inadequate specifically as a man. it is something men around her see and project, but yashiro herself doesn't seem interested in fulfilling the role of a man beyond the necessary for survival performance (better a faggot than a trans woman) that she has to put up with but nobody really buys anyway. "men, men, men" is a group she was never truly a part of, and it's not like she wants to be, either. in a similar vein, while i can agree that yashiro struggles with heterosexism, i'm not sure i'd say that she feels inferior to straight men, with the emphasis on sexuality, because, again, that idea relies on her belonging to the group. she does feel inferior to men and cis women as a trans woman, and heterosexism is one of the reasons she only seeks out sex with men (should it not be reverse if we were to try and explain everything with internalised homophobia?) but that's not quite the same. again, i'm not saying all this to discredit your interpretation or say that you're wrong, and i understand why those ideas can work in the context of reading yashiro as cis, even if they don't for me. but i think that whenever the topic of yashiro's gender comes up people tend to take offense with every misogynistic insult thrown at her and then project their feelings on the character and jump to defending her "manhood". because the worst thing about being compared to a woman is there being some truth to it, i guess. meanwhile yashiro is rather playful with ryuzaki calling her a bitch or telling him that there will be another tranny in prison he could have fun with. which could mean nothing

regarding the name, yes, yashiro is gender-neutral since it's a family name. what i find interesting is that in the little bit in ch 1 where she does the narration, she skips her own introduction and we also still haven't learned what her given name is. i joke about it every time the topic comes up, but i'm sure it's so the fandom wouldn't be able to deadname her after she transitions

unfortunately i'm not very familiar with yaoi's (or yuri's for that matter) history and cultural significance, but it makes sense that it challenges gender roles, since it's a genre exploring gay relationships. and i definitely think that even if we put aside the trans subtext that i may or may not be imagining or reading too much into, even with the most cis, conventional interpretation of the text, saezuru still has so much to say about sexuality and gender and how anyone who doesn't fit the norm realistically functions in our society. it part of what makes me love the story so much

[dragomfry]

Half civilian