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rifki16 · 6 months

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Living with Him the Manga

Picture credit: https://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2024-02-29/toworu-miyata-living-with-him-boys-love-manga-gets-live-action-tv-series/.208135

As we’re just now counting days before the airing of Living with Him live-action on April 12, I want to review the work it’s based on, the manga. This analysis will bring up several big themes I found interesting or common, just like my review of At 25:00, in Akasaka.

Synopsis: Natsukawa Ryouta and Tanaka Kazuhito were close friends in grade school, after which they were separated during their high school years. When they got into the university, they became roommates. The manga, and the live series, zeroes in on the domesticity of these parted close friends.

SPOILERS ALERT DUH

Old yet still very much alive parted love

One of the most-used tropes of BL by Japanese showrunners is the idea that A had a crush on B when they were in High School or sometimes in the past. Then, for one reason or another, A never told B that he had a crush on him. When they become older, or when they already work, A and B cross paths, and B slowly falls in love back to A whose crush never died out all this time. This trope is used in Perfect Propose, Naked Dining, My Beautiful Man, and arguably, Minato’s Laundromat.

The use of this trope in this series is actually quite unique. In Perfect Propose, A, Kai, was very aggressive, and B, Hiro, was given a shock of reality and love when they crossed path. In Naked Dining, A, Mahiro, was quite timid, and B, Ichijou, was very oblivious to the situation so much that it took the show so many episodes until B finally realized A’s crush and his affection for him. In this series, A, Tanaka Kazuhito a.k.a. Hito, has a crush on B, Natsukawa Ryouta a.k.a. Ryo, ever since grade school. But when they cross paths during their university years, Hito was not as aggressive as Kai nor was, he as timid as Mahiro.

In my opinion, he was really about to accept that he was just going to be a close friend to Ryo. Ryo seemed not to even notice Kazuhito during the Middle School and High School years.

“We have not even seen each other for years”. -Ryo Chapter 1, page nine.

That statement by Ryo was actually false, we later recount that Kazuhito actually talked with Ryo, at least once. The fact that Ryo didn’t remember it just shows the insignificance of Kazuhito’s presence was during their post-grad school era. This was later affirmed by Ryo.

“…[E]ven if you say we were childhood friends, you’re basically a different person now”. -Ryo Chapter 1, page 14.

The opposite is true for Kazuhito. He always has a crush on Ryo. The High School era conversation that I mentioned several sentences ago was, in chapter seven, when Kazuhito had a horrible accident that might change who he is, and he asked Ryo about what would happen if you didn’t feel like the old you anymore, without revealing to him that he had a life-changing accident. When they parted ways after grad school, Kazuhito tried to calm his brain about his crush on Ryo.

“After we went to different High Schools, we had even less contact with each other. ‘This is probably for the best. Before long, I’ll forget about him, and fall for someone else. But in the end, that someone else never shows up”. Kazuhito, Chapter 7 pages eight to nine.

I suppose that I can argue as well that the conversation that Kazuhito had with Ryo when they were high schoolers also strengthened Kazuhito’s crush on Ryo.

This is how I see how the trope’s flaw usually appears. It’s just weird for me to have an undying love/crush for someone for so long without any reminder of said love/crush. Maybe I’m too pessimistic. In Perfect Propose, I think it was a nice work of drama fiction to hold on to a love for so long without any contact with your crush since Kai and Hiro were never friends on Facebook or Instagram as a mean to hold on to the ember so to speak. In Naked Dining, it's basically the same, but at least Mahiro was a friend of Ichijou’s grandmother. It’s pretty easy to say that maybe, his grandmother might say one thing or two about Ichijou, without her knowing that Mahiro has a crush on Ichijou, hence, the love can be preserved. Side note: I think in Naked Dining, they tried to paint Mahiro as someone who was community-oriented and even though he has a crush on Ichijou, his feelings have taken a back seat but not that far from the front seat, ergo, it seemed like the love ember was dormant until Ichijou showed up.

However, in Living with Him, the love ember was justifiably red-hot flaming when Kazuhito got reunited with Ryo. Ryo and Kazuhito still see each other until Middle School albeit maybe not as often as when they were in grad school. And, when they became high schoolers, Kazuhito had that very fundamental and inspiring conversation which he kept in his core memory, to borrow a term from Inside Out, that he can always replay during his HS years to remind him of why he loves Ryo. I think it’s a balanced way to write love, not too fictional, and not some precise quantitative positivist precise feelings. However, time waits for no one, Kazuhito might have his love for Ryo, and infrequent interactions might make people stuck on the idea of a person rather than what the person really is, which brings me to the second topic.

The perfect seme

This is also one of the biggest tropes of Japanese BL works: the perfect seme. From Mr. Unlucky Has No Choice But to Kiss, Cherry Magic in all of its franchise works, Love Is Better the Second Time Around, I Became the Main Role of a BL Drama, to the work which I have very mixed feelings about: Hitorijime My Hero. When I say perfect, I don’t just mean, popular, if it’s just popular, we have more examples to sift through. What I mean by perfect is that the guy is smart, sociable, athletic, and of course popular. In Cherry Magic, Kurosawa was this dazzling guy who was very calm and cool in every situation, very athletic, could reach the high notes of any song, and was basically the ace in the sales department. In I Became the Main Role of a BL Drama, Yuichiro was this athletic guy who did everything he could to really embody, get it?, his roles. One thing is true of being “perfect” in any situation, nothing is really that perfect, that flawless. Japanese BL works are no exception. In all of the works that I have mentioned, we all learn part by part how the seme is not really that perfect.

Living with Him uses the same trope in presenting Kazuhito. First, we know him as this very popular High Schooler who played in the national baseball tournament.

“I think that’s great. Even at my school, Kazuhito-kun is crazy popular.” – Ryo’s sister about his brother living arrangement during his university years. Chapter one page nine.

Even Ryo already acknowledged how cool Kazuhito is in the first chapter.

“When I’m close to him, his vibe makes me feel like… …I’m inferior and about to die.” – Ryo. Chapter one page 12.

One thing led to another, Ryo asked Kazuhito to a “pretend date” in the first chapter. During their supposed date, even Ryo couldn’t find a flaw in Kazuhito.

“His clothes aren’t too dull or tacky” – Ryo. Chapter two page three.

“He’s like the sun” – Ryo. Chapter two page six.

Ryo even dared to tell Kazuhito’s friends that he found this guy that he lives with doesn’t have any flaws.

“No… Just the other day we tried to find some of his flaws, but we didn’t really find anything…” – Ryo in answering a question of Haruna, one of Kazuhito friends. Note: this is from the unofficial translation. Chapter three page six.

Of course, the perfect man gets all the girls, right? This image of the perfect man is actually still used in Japan. I think before the manga reveals that Kazuhito actually loves Ryo, Kazuhito-kun was heavily portrayed as this pussy magnet by everyone around him, including Ryo.

“If you already have one now, let me know beforehand if she’s coming over. I don’t want to get in the way, so I’ll leave”. – Ryo. Chapter one page 16.

“I don’t think that was the case but, … I guess you probably wouldn’t be able to tell” – Kazuhito when Ryo asked him on his confusion as to why he kept getting dumped. Note: this is from the unofficial translation (UT). Chapter two page seven.

I think Kazuhito’s answer was very queer-coded. He was insisting that it was not because the ex-girlfriends of his had “high” standards as Ryo asked, nor was it due to one of Kazuhito’s flaws as Ryo himself found after the pretend date between the two of them when the conversation happened. Kazuhito was hinting heavily, I like dudes, bro. Well, not so much like that. That’s another thing that I encounter in many Japanese BL works. I think in one of my analyses before, I named this trope as “one is gay another one is still finding out”. A gay person announcing to himself or even to his crush that he’s gay is quite rare. I don’t know whether it’s an author’s way of evading the sexual orientation expectation perception or it’s just their way of making their work more “romantic”. Usually, the conversation about sexual orientation goes:

A: Are you gay?

B: No, but I like you, just you.

I don’t know the motive behind authors’ pattern of just refusing a character self-confessing that he’s gay, however, I’m pretty sure that the motivation is not the most recent debates amongst queer theorists that there is really no need to label oneself in a certain sexual orientation, as we all are just in the spectrum of sexual orientation and maybe we can easily be more sexually or romantically attracted to a certain gender compared to the others. However, this hunch is not backed by any facts.

Going back to the manga in presenting Kazuhito as someone who gets all the girls. To be quite frank, even though, Kazuhito never shouts to the world that he’s gay, he’s quite confident in his love for Ryo. One day, Ryo became quite sick after taking too many shifts. In his fever dream, Ryo would not let Kazuhito go, and hence, he brought Ryo to his bed. The next day, after realizing what had just happened, Ryo said, “If I were a girl, I would be falling for you right now”. Kazuhito replied with:

“… I’ve never done this with a girl”. Chapter two page 15.

Man, if that’s not rizz, I don’t know what is.

Kazuhito continued his story by saying:

“Every time I got dumped, they’d always say this to me: ‘You already have someone you like, right?’” Note: UT. Chapter seven page 16.

I can firmly conclude that Kazuhito wants Ryo to know that Kazuhito-kun has a crush on him, very and immensely delicately. So that not to frighten him. Which is why it was no surprise that Ryo has the hunch that Kazuhito has a crush on him firstly on this chapter.

In the next chapters, the novel tries to still present Kazuhito as a guy with all the girls. After Kazuhito introduced him to his friends, Haruna and Yoshieri, he needed to go and patted Ryo in the head, yes for the first time. Yoshieri said that she was jealous of how close Ryo and Kazuhito were, as evidenced by their physical public interaction. Haruna then replied:

“You think so? Isn’t he pretty touchy-feely with others?” Chapter three, page nine.

I don’t know what Haruna’s motivation is in denying an inference that Kazuhito might be close, not even in a romantic sense, with another guy. Yoshieri even elaborated on why she was so shocked by Kazuhito’s gesture toward Ryo.

“Even when we were dating, he never patted me on the head like that.” Chapter three, page ten.

When Kazuhito went out to have drinks with his coworkers, even they were baffled that he didn’t have a girlfriend. The conversation surprisingly never focused on Kazuhito’s crush’s gender, but immensely focused on why Kazuhito’s crush doesn’t like Kazuhito back. The conversation went like this.

Kazuhito’s senpai (KS): “Hey Tanaka-Kun, you don’t have a girlfriend, do you?”

Kazuhito: “Nope, I’m not seeing anyone.”

…

KS: “If you’re single, I’ll go right after you”

Kazuhito: “I’m sorry but there’s someone that I like”

KS: “WHAT? THEY DON’T LIKE YOU BACK?”

Chapter seven pages one to two.

Linguistic side note: I think it’s weird that in many Japanese BL works, whenever a crush conversation is happening with a not-yet-out, gay, or a guy who has a crush on a guy, guy the conversation easily slips into the gender-neutral pronouns They/Them. I observed this in My Love Mix-Up and I Became the Main Role of a BL Drama, to name two. My first question is, is it that common to use the They/Them pronouns in referring to a person in Japan? No one was ever fazed by the use of the pronouns, unlike in Western media works. Or is it just that the Japanese language structure is not that gendered and hence the translation from she/her to they/them was a heavy-context dependent translation? I don’t know.

Besides being the guy of every girl, of course, a seme is not perfect if he’s not “gallant”. By “gallant”, I mean, the usual chivalric, altruistic behaviour of a seme – of a “man”. You know, sacrificing what he has for whom he lives and sacrifices himself. Again, I’m not affirming that this is what being chivalric should be, but it is what many Western media works adopt and depict.

I have already written about how in the second chapter, after the pretend date, Kazuhito took care of Ryo’s cold and how he gave up his personal space in his bed so that Ryo could be accompanied throughout his cold fever phase.

After a night shift, Kazuhito needed to go through the rain to get back home. And it was pouring hard. When he got home, Ryo was shocked to see Kazuhito soaking wet. When asked why Kazuhito did not call Ryo to get him with an umbrella, he only replied:

“I didn’t want to worry you.” Chapter six page 19.

I think the manga was right in making, this will he realize? Won’t he? Trope a short period. By the third chapter, Ryo already realized that Kazuhito likes him. And in the fourth chapter, Ryo confronted Kazuhito to kiss him, in order to clarify what Kazuhito’s interest means for him, whether it’s romantic or not. The manga tries to show how gallant Kazuhito was again by saying that he won’t kiss Ryo until Ryo-kun is sure that he likes Kazuhito back, in Chapter four pages one to ten.

“But I don’t want to force you”. – Kazuhito. Chapter four page nine.

...

“If it’s difficult being with me, just let me know. I’ll leave alright?”. – Kazuhito. Chapter four page ten.

I know it should not be something that we praise someone for just not forcing themselves on someone else. What I wanted to focus on was how even when Ryo wanted to test and offer Kazuhito a freebie, Kazuhito still insisted on Ryo’s comfort above all else.

This chivalric perception even extended to hypothetical future scenarios that Kazuhito made in his mind. This line always makes me cry, as someone who used to always be on the end of a one-sided love.

“Even if you fall for someone else, I will gladly pull out, but until then….” UT

“When Natsukawa finds someone, he likes, that’s when I’ll move on. So, until that happens…” Official translation – Kazuhito. Chapter seven page 18.

I think it’s a refreshing sight to see that, yes, the seme character is being characterized as a very gallant guy, however, to see that there is a line which he will never cross, it’s new. In many Japanese BL works, it seems that your crush/love is so eternal that you don’t really see it fading even when the recipient of the crush already has someone that they love. I mean, this happens often in Western media works, however, I have seen more and more works that try to rewrite this trope there compared to the Japanese BL works.

With Kazuhito’s feelings not being concealed anymore, things are of course not that dandy yet. Also, I need to point out very loudly that Ryo never really asked Kazuhito whether he likes Ryo-kun or not. Kazuhito just flat out told Ryo and Ryo already put all the puzzle pieces together before Kazuhito told him about his crush.

As we have established, Kazuhito has this aura of perfection in everybody’s eyes. It’s not as flawless as people’s perception. Yet, the perception exists. And of course, it has repercussions on how his now, conscious of his feelings, crush, Ryo, will react to Kazuhito’s feelings.

Of course, like any of the other works which I have mentioned in the opening paragraph of this subtopic, the uke feels inadequate in accepting his love. Even as early as the third chapter, Ryo already said:

“So why me? What does he like about me? And from when?” Chapter three page three

“I don’t know why, but it seems he has special feelings for me”. Chapter three page 12.

This confusion of what Kazuhito “sees” in Ryo even made Ryo-kun spiralled three pages later.

Ryo even questioned whether Kazuhito really liked him or not because Kazuhito never told Ryo-kun his traumas, like his life-changing incident for instance.

“Wait a second. if he really thinks of me as special in like, a romantic sense, then won’t he be hurting the whole time that we’re hanging out like this, too?!” – Ryo. UT. Chapter three page 14.

I think this is what made the manga a little bit bearable to read. Because, unlike Minato’s laundromat, the tug of war of whether I’m worthy of this gallant, perfect seme’s love is not just one-sided, the manga is not making me read all 10 chapters of it just Ryo being repulsive of love that he thought he didn’t deserve.

In the fifth chapter, we got a little glimpse that Ryo was actually accepting Kazuhito’s love, albeit for so little and so quickly.

Ryo: “Seeing your face as soon as I get up is not good for my heart”.

…

Ryo: “Well, your heart is made of steel”.

Kazuhito: “Is that a compliment?”

Ryo: “Yeah of course it is”

Chapter five pages one to two.

Kazuhito tried to pat or hold on to Ryo’s shoulder and it sort of shocked him and made Ryo retracted his shoulder a little bit. The same thing happened in Sasaki to Miyano, in a different body part lol.

We also got a little glimpse of Ryo’s acceptance of Kazuhito’s feelings in the sixth chapter. When Kazuhito came out of nowhere to the library to intercept Ryo and Haruna’s meetup, Kazuhito offered to go out with Ryo the weekend after, which made Kazuhito-kun blushed. After Kazuhito left, Ryo said to himself:

“What I said made him blush[ed]… and he’s jealous… I’m beyond happy”. Chapter six page nine.

Even Ryo said to himself that he loves Kazuhito too.

“I can return your feelings, and kiss you, Kazuhito. I want to tell him properly”. – Ryo. Chapter six page 13.

Ryo even repeated this thought in chapter seven while nursing Kazuhito after he got drenched in rain and became feverish.

“I like him. I like him so much. I like you, Natsukawa”. – Ryo. Chapter seven page 17.

Things took a turn of course. In chapter eight pages eight to 12, as Ryo was about to say that he likes/loves Kazuhito back, Kazuhito-san’s phone rang. Ryo got an off-ramp and his doubts made him spiraled again. At which Kazuhito noticed him. His chivalric disposition, which we have established, practically made Ryo stunned. Kazuhito-san cut off anytime Ryo was about to say something because Kazuhito wanted to just stop Ryo from spiraling further and sort of retracted his confession and wanted things to go back to normal.

Ryo basically became silent. Even he felt like the conversation that he just had was like a breakup. Ryo’s monologue went very beautifully painful:

“I want to be honest with you because you told me your feelings, but I also want you to be happier than anyone else on the planet. You probably don’t need me for that to happen. ‘I may be overthinking it, but we can’t get married or raise a family’. Even if that time does eventually come, you wouldn’t need to go out of your way just for me. But, despite all of that, I want to be by your side”. Chapter eight pages 13 – 14.

I know right? Who amongst us gay men has not had this monologue ourselves? Straight crush? Geez, remind me of my late teen years. That’s also a point, right? Usually, the monologue is reserved for our straight crushes. Why does Ryo have the same monologue for his mutual crush/love – who of course is aware that his crush is also a man and that they both live in Japan.

Thankfully, we don’t get to see their cohabitation with Ryo’s mindset that he needed to resign himself to the background EVEN THOUGH HIS CRUSH IS MUTUAL. Kazuhito needed to help out his family business. During that period, Ryo visited his family, and when he asked implicitly about his condition his sister, his sister in a slayed manner answered:

“I would be ecstatic if Kazuhito-kun liked me, and it would make me feel like the cutest girl ever. What good does it do to you if you doubt yourself even though someone likes you?” – Ryu’s sister. Chapter nine page six.

Ryo was given a second shot of reality from Haruna. Do you still remember when I wrote my confusion as to why Haruna was sort of insisting that Kazuhito is straight? Well, in the ninth chapter, he happened to be around Kazuhito and Ryu’s place and he went up to talk to Ryu. He was not perturbed at all that Ryu and Kazuhito love/like each other. In the Kazuhito-less apartment, he gave a monologue:

“… It’s not up to you to decide what will truly bring happiness to Tanaka… Why are you worried about his public image and future? Don’t you think a guy that cautious hasn’t thought about that already?” Chapter nine page 16.

I know. I wish I had a friend like Haruna. I’m sobbing as I’m rewriting his monologue.

So, all in all, this seme perfection trope is a huge and hefty subtopic. The manga used the trope really well in my opinion. In Cherry Magic, Adachi just became accustomed to Kurosawa’s perfection. Adachi slowly knew all of Kurosawa’s imperfections and it made him braver to face Kurosawa – well, as I have argued in my previous analysis, Adachi himself became braver as the manga progresses, and a combination of both in the end prevails. In Living with Him, we don’t really see Kazuhito being humbled, well, not yet. I think Ryo just accepted this idea that this god-like creature likes him, but not too excessive like in My Beautiful Man.

Miscommunication trope

I have been writing on this essay for far too long. And I think the second subtopic had most of how I wanted the manga to be characterized by the public, and hence inspired my expectations for the live-action series in 4-day time. However, I really need to write how this manga never really dwelled on the miscommunication trope. Of course, this manga still used the trope.

In the first chapter, I really thought that it was gonna be like Mr. Unlucky Has No Choice but to Kiss and Hel and I Became the Main Role of a BL Drama. When Ryo offered Kazuhito to a pretend date, I thought that it was going to be like one of those sitcoms in which, Ryo at first didn’t have feelings for Kazuhito, but during and after the pretend date, Ryo falls in love with Kazuhito. I know, it happens canonically in the manga. What I had thought would happen was Ryo kept asking for a pretend date, and Kazuhito being sick of being taken to all of the pretend dates. Thankfully my prediction was dead wrong.

The other two miscommunication cases were all just bad predictions of mine lol. When Ryo asked Kazuhito to kiss him, and Kazuhito refused. It made Ryo annoyed and insulted, but then Kazuhito, gallantly, clarified his answer. The last one was when Ryo found the apartment listing when Kazuhito was away, and it made him even sadder about his “breakup” with Kazuhito. Thankfully, Haruna shaman’d his way in helping Ryo confronting his emotions.

My expectations from the live-action series?

I think it has a better chance of resembling the manga more than At 25:00, in Akasaka. Ryo and Kazuhito’s attractions are such puppy love, it’s so abstract and idealistic, such a fit for a vanilla live series. I pray to the brightest stars that they actually make the Living with Him: Heating Up as a 7th/9th episode or a film ☹, as I said on Twitter, I don’t care if the gay sex scene in this proposed film/extra episode is vague, all I want to see is how they manage more and more of reality.

#japan bl #gay #bl live action #bl manga #japanese language #linguistics #living with him #Kare no Iru Seikatsu #slice of life lol

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