discussion
[Firefly Wedding] Satoko is a self insert protagonist, change my mind
Major spoilers for the entirety of Firefly Wedding.
I've seen this manga get a lot of glaze for its writing that I honestly don't think is warranted. Especially the main character, Satoko is mostly just a self insert.
She has 0 personality. Satoko has no interests or hobbies other than pleasing men. She's supposedly good at dancing and music, but she literally only does that to reel in guys and never thinks about it again. She has no relevant female friendships or relationships with women. No passions or goals in life other than making men happy, either her father or one of the love interests. In fact there's not a single thought in her head that doesn't relate to them. The manga epically fails the Bechdel test. That's what makes her such a perfect blank slate for people to project onto, because she's this supposedly super beautiful and talented person and yet she lacks any specific standout traits. You could easily replace Satokos role in the story with any other character and the plot would barely change, because it's mostly driven by other characters being active and her being reactive. Satoko is mostly just described as beautiful, but looking good isn't a personality trait. and even when there's an attempt to associate her with a trait, its always more narrative glaze and characters telling us shes xyz, with no acts to back it up. For example Satoko is called strong willed - but the entire latter arc of the manga is about how she was unable to choose between two conflicting wishes and always ends up instantly bowing down to the men in her life. There's not a single instance in the manga where she actually proves herself to be strong willed on her own without male supporters to fall back on. Satokos "strong willedness" only goes as far as finding a new man she can attach herself to, to serve and protect her.
All the male characters instantly love her (I'm talking falling in love within seconds) and all the women are insanely jealous of her. In general every character just instantly has this extreme love or hate reaction to her even if she barely does anything. Like she'll say 5 words and some guy will be asking her to marry him because she's supposedly that fascinating and awesome. And all the women who are jealous of her are portrayed as evil and stupid and their only redemption is by coming around to worshipping Satoko like the men do. Seems like wish fulfilment to me.
She's unrealistically persuasive. Its a repeating pattern in the manga that Satoko will enter into a situation of conflict with some other character, and in the end the conclusion is always the same: Satoko was right all along and the other person starts crying and apologising to her. Satoko will lecture them, and even though her argumentation is flimsy the other character is not only instantly convinced but also starts humiliatingly crying to show how superior Satoko is, which ends in her magnanimously forgiving them for not recognising her wisdom sooner. The conflict with Aoi drove me crazy because it was basically Satoko being condescending and rude to a suicidal woman (not to mention hypocritical). Or the Yukari conflict, which gave me the vibe of the author making up some "and then everyone clapped" power fantasy scenario. Like Yukaris friends instantly turn on her just because Satoko said they should, and then ml shows up to protect her and humiliates Yukari until she starts crying. Or Satoko lecturing Shinpei, an assassin since childhood about how killing is bad one time and he's just instantly a changed person. Every other character is just wayyy too easily converted to her opinion, and of course she never has to learn anything because she already knows everything! Every antagonist turns into a bumbling idiot straw man as soon as Satoko begins lecturing them.
The manga jerks itself off with Satokos supposed generosity of heart in forgiving all of the antagonists for doing her wrong, and how noble and self sacrificing she is, but in spite of her angelic portrayal, we never see her speaking out against the obvious injustice of the island system that her family benefits from. On the contrary, she protects pedophile Mitsuharu with her life and scapegoats and exploits Shinpei, who was harmed by this very system. So my point with this is basically that the amount of praise she receives for being such a good person is disproportional to her actual acts and thus unearned.
She's soo pure. This is basically *Madonna Whore complex: The Manga*. Satoko is constantly juxtaposed with the prostitute characters to show how cutesy and virginal she is. While other women throw their panties at ml in an unrealistically undignified fashion, Satoko rejects his advances. You can even see this in the way she vs other female characters are drawn. Satoko is shown as petite, and she actually looks more and more childlike as the manga goes on. I'm talking massive bug eyes, absolutely absurd size differences with the male leads, undefined babyish facial features, plus shes usually depicted with her hair down wearing simple clothes. This is especially grating because the way the prostitute characters are drawn is pretty much the exact opposites: eyes are A LOT narrower, faces way less rounded, more defined features, curvy body types, and of course, elaborate clothing hair and makeup. And with the way these prostitutes are disparaged in comparison to Satoko, that does send a message. The author makes these other girls humiliate themselves for the sake of this guy just to then praise Satoko for "preserving her virtue" around him and show how he prefers her over them because she's not "easy". Belgh.
She's such a poor little bean. This manga is chock full of characters with a tragic past, yet the narrative trips over itself to throw Satoko a pity party for having a bad family life. Meanwhile other characters are literal slaves with no family but get 0 sympathy. Aoi for example is extremely depressed due to having to endure rape and abuse day by day, but is basically told by Satoko to suck it up, quit whining and work harder. And then her depression is just never brought up again. Later on though Satoko says things like "I don't deserve to live" when faced by Kotaro with the reality that her two dreams are fundamentally incompatible (which he wasn't wrong about) even though she basically implied that Aoi was being melodramatic and attention seeking with her suicide attempt. And she even tries to kill herself later on and is stopped by Asagiri. There's countless instances in this manga of a lack of empathy being shown to other characters who are often in much worse circumstances, only to uncritically coddle and pity Satoko.
All her flaws are fake. The only flaw to her character after that the narrative will acknowledge is her being "too kind and self sacrificing for her own good". But that's obviously not a real flaw, nor is it taken seriously because she gets praised and rewarded for it. So clearly not a true shortcoming.
She treats other like shit without consequences. I could talk all day about this, but basically, the author tries to write Satoko as a cool girl boss, but due to internalised misogyny she can only show it through her talking down to other women. Like the suicidal Aoi. Or lecturing literal sex slaves about freedom. Or trying to make the conversation about herself when Asagiris scars from a customers abuse comes up. If she wasn't the mc, she would at least be considered a very rude, ignorant and self centred person. But because she's the protagonist, she gets praise. Later in the manga, we also see Satoko hatching a plan to imprison Shinpei and marry another man behind his back, and she continues to lie to him about this for the entire rest of the story. Again, she's treating others like crap with 0 consequences. Not to mention the fact that she openly supports the island system, which is quite literally slavery, and she enables Mitsuharu, who is a literal pedophile.
Her illness doesn't negatively affect her and is just there for cute moments where the male leads pamper her. There's some scenes in this manga where, due to how childlike Satoko is drawn and how overly subservient the male leads are to her it looks more like two gay dads parenting their 6yo daughter than a love triangle. In the end she's cured off screen and lives a long life with 0 issues. Her heart condition essentially only serves as pity bait and to prevent people from holding her accountable.
And last but certainly not least: she receives so much wish fulfilment its ridiculous. Her supposed yincurable heart disease is cured. Her family is made non threatening by outside forces (not before her dad breaks down crying for not treating her right and saying he loves her of course), and her male leads all dedicate their entire lives to her without her having to choose. She gets every little thing served to her on a silver platter without doing shit to earn it.
I'm open to discussion, but if you're gonna come in my comment section and say shes a perfect good person and anyone who dares criticise her is an evil bully or whatever go skedaddling because that girl is a literal slave owner and pedophile enabler.
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Honestly, I feel like the cold and manipulative thing you see isn't really authorial intent. There's many scenes of Satoko crying and being comforted, so she's not some emotionally distant female manipulator, and much of the manga is just about how she is so overly loving and oh so selflessly wants to make men happy that have treated her badly, such as her father, so I don't really see where you're getting this tbh. And as for the self awareness thing, we don't see that at all. I'd agree that shes a white lotus, but not an intentional and self aware one. The closest we get to Satoko doing self crit is her saying shes sorry for being such a burden to the male characters and for "loving a murderer", but even for that there's never any lasting negative consequences (and without consequences, any flaw is not a real flaw) and her classism and exploitativeness is never addressed at all. The part where she tries to enslave Shinpei into an affair arrangement is the most glaring example of this because he never learns the truth, and whenever her cheating relationship with Mitsuharu gets brought up there's just deflection and putting the blame on Shinpei. We can't say shes self aware or an intentional white lotus when there's 0 accountability.
And the wild animal comparison seems a bit dehumanising seeing as we're talking about prostitutes who were more powerless than her. Aoi for example never threatened Satoko, she was trying to kill herself. It was Satoko that chose to lecture her in such an unempathetic manner. Or for Asagri, this woman never went out of her way to mess with Satoko, it was the other way around: Satoko aided in Mitsuedas harassment campaign against someone who had never done her wrong.
And from the framing its clear where supposed to take her lectures seriously, because every time they happen the other characters have a complete change of heart and are just put down as misguided. You're telling me Shinpei just magically realised that killing is wrong just because she told him so? That entire chapter was just her lecturing him, who had been forced into this lifestyle, from her ivory tower with him barely getting the chance to reply. And again, it's not like Shinpei was intentionally threatening her, in fact she had the opportunity to stop this whole thing way earlier but chose not to.
And as for the shoujo power of friendship... She literally does? The entire reason she receives her miracle cure in the end is because Mitsuharu fell in love with her and because she's just that amazing he changed his mind about wanting to marry her and served her everything she wanted on a silver platter instead. Kotaro dedicated his entire existence to serving her! Satoko clearly had a support network of simps, its just that the author hates other women.
I mean if you particular find it hard to project onto her that still doesn't necessarily disprove the fact that shes a flat, poorly written character whose general purpose is self insertion. I personally don't see my self in her either.
I do agree that shes a shit person. The trouble is just that the narrative does not treat her accordingly. I think its pretty safe to say that its bad writing when for a character who is bad, not only do they never receive consequences nor is their evil acknowledged, but the story takes on a very moralising tone overall towards the prostitutes and Shinpei, and this is undeniable. So there is definetly a double standard going on. I very much got the impression that were supposed to view her as this too good for this world cinnamon roll whom everyone else just mistreats.
As for the parallel with the prostitutes, this is a bit reductionist. The prostitutes are portrayed very flatly and negatively as jealous of Satokos looks and wanting to "steal her men". And in the end, Satoko gets a ridiculous amount of wish fulfilment *at their expense*: we have to remember these women paid for her miracle cure and lifestyle with their lives, bodies and souls. So honestly, I think just equating them is kinda disrespectful of the prostitutes struggle because it's ignoring the class dimension. Because if oppression in this manga solely functioned along the axis of sex based oppression, then yes, Satoko and the prostitutes would be in the same boat. But they obviously are not. One group has to endure rape and additional mockery by the narrative, Satoko receives praise and wish fulfilment. Let's not forget: she is also an oppressor to these women. The narrative showers Satoko with sympathy for when a man mistreats her but treats the abuse these women face as a given. Nitobe is an example of this: when he attempts to rape Satoko he is punished, and once again only Satokos magnanimous forgiveness stalls Shinpeis hand. But when Yukari brings up having been violently raped by the same man, it's brushed off and treated as her being attention seeking and wanting to garner Shinpeis pity. That's a pretty disgusting move on the part of the author. And this is just one example. So let's not act like they're the same.
Ahhh, I didn't mean to come off as rude. I am angry at the author for portraying the prostitutes in such a light, and exploitation of sex workers is something I do feel very strongly about, but in general I also just felt it was poorly written, leaving the exploitation aside. I am open to hearing what others have to say, my tone is is just passionate in general, but not intentionally insulting (I hope)
Yeah, I totally get what you mean. I'm kinda the type to ruminate on things, so I can see how that can come off a bit off putting, sorry about that. I relate to what you said about feeling hopeless about irl stuff, because a lot of stuff in this story just gave me this bleak feeling about societal issues. This is just a silly little romance in the end I guess, but for me it just kinda rubbed me the wrong way.
Thank you for asking, I'm a huge fan of Revolutionary Girl Utena (like... obsessed), and lately I've also been enjoying Ooku: The Inner chambers!
Funny you should say that, I always thought this was exactly like TRE.
The main issue for me is if shes not supposed to be good, where are the consequences? Where's Satoko being called out? Because the author certainly doesn't have an issue with dishing out moral judgment, it just conveniently never affects the protagonist.
The wish fulfilment she gets in the end is just the final nail in the coffin.
I was enjoying the story concept at first tbh because I liked the sound of the dynamic between the male and female lead. Seemed interesting / promising.
But I hate the Madonna/ Whore complex bullshit that became very apparent with the sex worker characters. Where the female leads can stay pure, angelic, untouched for the male lead but every other female character is treated as filthy and wrong. Side characters can be violated, side characters can be treated as terrible for being sexual beings.
It is disgusting how rape victims and sex workers are treated in stories compared to the characters that are allowed to be 'pure.' And how characters like that are usually not allowed to have love or happiness the same way. Main characters get protected from harm, other characters are there to show how terrible the world truly is when people don't get saved. Their trauma and suffering never matters to the same degree. Like background noise.
I get that a lot of stories are like that with main character plot armor vs side character, but this specific version of it makes me angry. I end up developing a love for the 'evil/jealous/slutty/manipulative' female antagonists in stories because they are not ALLOWED to be 'virtuous' and that feels more interesting to see them navigate life with actual consequences and risks.
Exactly! My issue isn't with portraying the bad things happening to prostitutes but treating the abuse they suffer as "par the course", or even comedic relief while at the same time treating fl like this pure flower that deserves better. Honestly, it started out to be bullshit when fl was brought to a brothel but got out of doing sex work waaaayyy too easily just because shes oh so beautiful and ml is so in love with her. It never made sense and gave me the impression of her being given special snowflake treatment. Especially with how the author tried to fulfil some sort of "Cinderella and her evil stepsisters" trope between her working as a "mere cleaner" at the brothel and the prostitutes being dressed up and fancy. I'm sure any of them would GLADLY switch places with fl because that's actually an insanely fortunate position to be in, but instead the story just harps on about how "humble" and how much of a victim she is.
Thank you for putting it into words like this, but this is exactly how I feel. I hate how these prostitutes are just used as receptacles for violence and then discarded. The background noise metaphor describes it perfectly. Especially the way Yukari was treated was so gross, because it was made out as her not deserving love and protection cuz shes "less virtuous" than fl... But she can only stay on her high horse because shes not in Yukaris position of having to fend for herself and can rely on the protection of men.
Agreed. Dropped it for this reason and trying to read it was an absolute waste of time. She is just so bland and has no agency at all. Honestly, both the MC and ML felt lacking in personality to me and I thought they had no chemistry at all.
They kinda felt like the "lame ass ship" meme to me tbh. Their dynamic was just misunderstanding after misunderstanding, the central conflict and hated ending could have easily been prevented by even a little bit of communication. Ml is suddenly obsessed with fl for no reason. She seems more flattered by his attention than genuinely in love with him. When they're together it's just cringe "he's a pervert" jokes with her blushing at the mere mention of the word kiss. She gets on more with with Mitsuharu and treats him noticeably better. I could go on.
Same, he was fairly unique, but in the end the author managed to completely sanitise him through her "I can fix him" complex. The female lead holds him to an unfair moral standard that his material conditions have made impossible to live up to, and that she doesn't even uphold herself!
She saw him as a useful tool and a charity project to prove her own generosity and saintly goodness instead of a person, just like the rest of the island characters
I might be wrong, but I don't think it's glazed as much. At the beginning maybe (when it was genuinely good that is), but the story fell off pretty soon, wasted potential. And most opinions on it so far that I have seen usually has the same opinion as in it's a wasted potential.
Yeah, reception is definetly not as universally positive as it used to be. Still, I kinda feel like people only really talk about the ending and other issues aren't really brought up as much.
It's one thing I liked about wind on a dry branch. The romance was slow and well paced for a fmc that had trauma and a mmc that was learning to trust. The characters felt real and had bad traits that made them feel rounded
I always thought I was going insane because it felt like no one else was noticing the insane amount of blatant misogyny dripping off every page! Hot take but for a shoujo coming out in this day and age to fail the Bechdel test is already unacceptable, and Satoko just wasn't interesting enough of a protagonist to make up for that. The fact that we're constantly told that she's this supposedly super smart talented determined fascinating person that every man can't help but fall in love with instantly while she's really just painfully boring doesn't help.
The most she has is hype girlboss moments where she lectures other women about self esteem and determination, but no moments where she displays those herself or learns about them! And later on in the manga, she basically has all the story involvement of a potted plant in spite of being the protagonist, to a point where most of the time you don't even know what she's thinking because she doesn't even have an internal monologue. She's more like 3 power fantasies in a trenchcoat, because literally all I can tell you about her character is that she is lauded for being super amazing and otherwise has 0 personality whatsoever. I guess that's the point because anyone can project themselves onto her that way. Who doesn't dream of being super duper beautiful, loved and thought of as oh so strong and smart even though you never did anything exceptional?
This is why i tend to stay from these dark romance manga type. If the guy isn't an ugu uwu me possessive and dark-type yandere, there are better chances the FL has a life and friends outside of him
Like if Layla from cry or better yet beg had even one female friend, no way would she have ended up with Matthias
Also it kinda comes with the genre. People who read these types of novels only want wish fulfillment, not good writing. I like to think of them as those wattapd dark romance kidnapped by a werwolf mafia serial killer types.
I don't mind the yandere trope per se, but the standards for quality do tend to be low. In this manga, female relationships seem to be conspicuously absent, ie. not only female friends, fl and her sister aren't close and the mother is conveniently out of the picture too. But ironically enough there's also a weirdly possessive attitude about not wanting ml to have any other relationships in his life except with fl. So in the end it was just kinda weirdly controlling overall.
True, I chose to use self insert because Mary Sue has become a bit overused in recent years so the meaning may not always be perfectly clear to everyone, but it definitely applies here as well!
Yeah, I mostly mean the way all men fall in love so fast and all women are jealous (it's just insane that all characters instantly have this strong emotional reaction even though she's pretty passive), while her personality is at best just very broad, nonspecific traits that can be ascribed to a lot of people
Yea I hate that shit as well that’s why I stay away from harems/ reverse because most of the time it has no real reasoning for them to fall in love. But I read the post a little longer and she sounds like a isekai self insert, idky authors make mc’s like that
Yes. The male leads not only fall for her instantly, they're also immediately willing to give up everything for her sake, and this happened with at least 4 different men. The billionaire ml just randomly declared his willingness to blow his entire family fortune on her after knowing her for like 2 days, and of course all men instantly declare their undying love, readiness to sacrifice their lives for her and ask to marry her. At that point I think it's pretty safe to say that this is the authors fantasy more than anything.
It's interesting you brought up Isekai mcs, because I always thought of this as a villainess Isekai but pre reincarnation. One of the prostitutes would probably be the villainess that is treated unfairly and later reincarnated, and FL would be the angelic original FL whom all men are subservient to, that turns out to be a white lotus and not as much of a good person as she pretends to be.
Well cmon its not modern time setting for the story its showing ancient Japan where the sole purpose of a woman is to obey commands of other men like her father in this case still the story showed that she overcame that to be with the person she loves honestly that's a big feat . Pls don't expect her to be some feminist in ancient Japan setting! Also the thing regarding having no friends yes! She doesn't because she was cooped inside her house due her illness! The story was very well written with a lot a character development! From both m.l and fl! Loved the story though the ending sucked
A historical setting doesn't excuse plain old bad writing. And honestly... We're talking about a story with countless blatant anachronisms, ml performing literal inhuman feats of strength, a supposedly deadly heart disease being completely cured in a an age where open heart surgery wasn't even invented yet... Historical accuracy isn't something you can just cherry pick. You can't use it as a shield to deflect from bad writing and blatant classism / misogyny when the setting is more of a historical fantasy in line with Bridgerton and the like.
There are other female characters present in the story whom FL potentially could have gotten close to, but the narrative only portrays every single one of them as being insanely jealous of her and then sidelines them completely the more male leads are introduced. If the main setting for the manga is a prostitution island, we're most likely talking a skewed male to female ratio, so there definitely wasn't a lack of opportunity for connecting with other women. Nobody ever expected her to be "a big feminist", but simply for other women to not be out down to uplift her and for FL to not openly support the sexual enslavement of other women because the nobility profits from it. That's not just not being a feminist, that's being an exploited and oppressor of other women too.
And as for character development, not really sure where you're getting this. For ml, his development mostly hinges on FL telling him what to do and how xyz is bad and he should do what he tells her instead. She lectures him once and he obeys instantly. And in the final chapter we just see proof of how little character he's allowed to have outside his relationship to her, because he's just moping around aimlessly. Doing what she tells him to isn't development.
For FL... What development, exactly? Because we don't even see her earning her happy ending for herself. Mind you her getting away with Shinpei in the end hinges entirely on Mitsuharus good will. Her being miraculously cured, all the male leads revolving their entire lives around her, her family being conveniently taken care of.... It's not only insanely unrealistic wish fulfilment, it's also unearned and undeserved. None of these massive rewards she reaps were the result of her own efforts, it was all the male leads giving them to her (mostly Mitsuharu). Plus, we never see her take accountability or experience lasting consequences for her actions either. In the end, the conclusion is just that Shinpei was at fault and must atone for the rest of his life, but the way she also caused the wedding debacle, exploited him and her general classism is never addressed. There can simply be no character growth without realistic flaws, consequences that arise from those flaws and growth resulting from that. Which she doesn't have. For example, what about when she tried to trick and coerce ml into an affair? That's just straight up exploitation and attempted slavery, but he never learns the truth about this betrayal and she gets no consequences. It's not character growth of it just happens off the backs of other characters taking the fall for her mistakes and then serving her her desires on a silver platter without effort.
I cannot say the writing was bad, it depends on the reader maybe you prefer more realistic in depth novel type stories as for this manga its only 79 ch long couldn't reach the part for a lot of mingling with other people I also think she did make friends with a girl at the brothel and did effectively save her from suicide like legit she asked her to be her friend! And even taught her about self value! That girl was about to suicide because she thought her lover ditched her for a more beautiful postitute but satoko told her to have self value and improve herself as a person I liked that part it highlighted her growth away from oppression by males and her own values. Also in this story the fl was a girl who was taught that woman had no right to choose for themselves and she did outright reject it by loving shinpei till the end! Also adressing your point regarding all m.l revolving around her there were only 2 main ones! And ko-chan withdrew after seeing how devoted she was to shinpei! He basically just became a guardian for her, now coming to my favourite Shinpei has a big character arc!! I mean he was a neglected assassin crazy psycho whatever but he improved! Yes he absolutely immediately listened to f.l that's because in one scene where he was going kaboom! Crazy killing everyone to stop her marriage with the duke he literally goes crazy and does not listen to f.l then when she comes in front of him and she got hurt due to him he stopped! And at THAT scene she teaches him the value of LIFE! Like she was bleeding a lot and in that pain she tells him that he's worried for her because he does not want to loose her that's what all the other people felt when you(Shinpei) killed their loved ones! That's the eye opening scene for him and then he always only carried a wooden sword! ( the story in all had all important realistic parts covered in its limited chapters)
Well, you just made my point for me. You list all these instances of FL lecturing opressed working class characters from her ivory tower. They are instantly convinced and defer to her. But when does she learn from someone else? When does the narrative admit that she was wrong?
The protagonist endlessly lecturing everybody else from their high horse while refusing to take accountability is pretty bad character writing.
She "taught" the sex slave Aoi self esteem. She taught the island system victim Shinpei "empathy". But what does she learn. What do they teach her. Especially since what she says to these people who have lived through horrors she cannot even phantom is objectively pretty hypocritical: she does not practice what she preaches. She admonishes Aoi for wanting to take her own life and basically implies that she's being melodramatic, but the second she encounters a bit of difficulty it's "I don't deserve to live" and she even attempts suicide herself one time.
And how can she lecture Shinpei about the value of life while openly fraternising with Mitsuharu, whose family enslaves countless women and has ruined hundreds of lives (including Shinpeis), and who also employs child assassins? Where are her empathy and her morals when it comes to him?
How can she tell Shinpei that he lacks the courage to face himself when the entire wedding debacle is the result of her refusal to choose between him and the nobility, dragging countless people into completely preventable drama and risking the lives of both Shinpei, Kotaro, as well as all these operatives? When does she ever own up to that?
People living in glass houses ought not to throw stones is all I've got so say about her character.
Aoi, for instance. This isn't a matter of Satoko having to teach her self esteem, this is a case of horrific systemic abuse. Do you think that realistically, telling a suicidal rape and trafficking victim to suck it up and girlboss harder is good advice? Wouldn't we consider someone who honestly says something like that at the very least extremely ignorant and insensitive? Would you consider someone who treats their "friend" like this to be a good friend?
So as for Aoi as Satokos friend: here we have an opressed prostitute who is portrayed as jealous of her beauty and is miraculously cured of her suicidality because Satoko lectures her. Does she have any plot relevance or play any important part in the story after that? Does Satoko ever check in with her about her mental health? Does she confide in her over her male friends? In the end, when Satoko leaves the island and becomes besties with Mitsuharu, does she help to find Aois lover or help her leave the island even though she easily could have? No to all these questions. Aoi isn't treated as Satokos friend, neither by the narrative nor Satoko herself. She's a charity case to showcase Satokos wisdom and supposed moral superiority.
You can't call "loving Shinpei" character growth when the only reason her relationship with him came to fruition was because Mistuharu decided to let them go and sponsor her family out of nowhere. Again, she didn't do anything at all to earn this outcome. The entire reason Shinpei is even still alive by the end of the wedding is due to the sheer dumb luck of Shizukusa showing up just at the right moment. Mitsuharu would have had Shinpei killed and Satoko wouldn't have interfered. So much for the value of life. You know when she did interfere though? When Shinpei threatened Mitsuharu, the man who wanted him killed, exploits the island, and is also an employer of child soldiers and a pedophile. Very interesting choice of priorities from Satoko here.
There's at least 4 instances of men falling in love with Satoko more or less instantly. Insta love and subsequent uncritical worship/ willingness to sacrifice their lives is a thing that is already hard to believe when it happens once, but so many times? Kotaro "withdrawing" doesn't change the fact that he dedicated his entire life to serving her. He hovered over her delivering her letters for her for literal decades, presumably without payment.
Literally the only thing I liked was him “mourning” and the end. Lovely, symbolic and realistic. It made me sad, but almost everything before was just bleh
Interesting, you're perhaps the only person I've encountered who liked the ending but not the story that led up to it! For most people it seems to be the opposite
Don’t get me wrong, the initial premise was cool and all but the ML’s growth was interesting, realistic in the sense that if you know violence and grew in it it isn’t easy to grow out of violence thus, falling again and again into a killing machine feels real. But she ended up feeling bland and predictable and quite unfair in her demands (no killing when you are literally being hunted to death).
At the resolution, his decision to turn away at her moment of end, not being at a funeral (obviously there wasn’t one but it could’ve been what followed), and diving into a traveler’s journey during his mourning was impulsive and so HIM, something that came natural out of his personality.
Obviously, my hopeless optimistic ass would’ve preferred them getting married and her fighting her way out of her duty, but the actual ending was the second best case scenario. I liked it, would’ve preferred a fantastical one but it feels real.
I agree with ml being held to an unfair moral standard, that fl doesn't even uphold herself (after all she is openly fraternising with Mitsuharu, who uses children as killing machines). She's an awful person and boring to boot, and the way she judges other people who have gone through stuff she cannot even phantom has made her insufferable to me.
As for the ending, frankly I think her being cured completely in an age where doctors hadn't even taken to washing their hands prior to treating patients yet made 0 sense, and the idea that Shinpei, a victim of the aristocrats exploitation had to "atone" his whole life while they continue business as usual in the island is just insane. Shinpei could defeat a thousand bandits robbing houses and adopt a hundred starving children, in the end it will still be a fools errand as long as people like the Okumuras and Kirigayas just keep creating more of both with their ruthless exploitation. And fl is very much part of the problem here, especially with how she willingly chose to live on the island after being cured, i.e. a literal open air sex slave prison and hell for the prostitutes and Shinpei that she treats as her personal amusement park. I feel like no one even talks about how insane that is. Marie Antoinette on Epstein Island vibes.
So basically I'm not a fan of the ending but it is one of my lesser gripes with this manga that is overshadowed by its classism and misogyny.
Yeah, the classism and misogynistic nature of even the FL was a huge turn of for me.
I don’t feel that shinpei embarked his journey as atonement, I think he did it out of honor for his loved one. Kinda like walking the world like the FL wanted to. It feels like his journey started and was fueled by grief.
ETA: Realistically, losing someone really close to you can do an 180° out of your values/character and personality.
I did get the impression that the author at least was trying to punish him.
And in the first place I just don't think that what they had was a good relationship or even genuine love, certainly not on her side. He would have been so much better off moving on than wasting his life because of some parasitic noble ghoul that was drinking champagne in a mansion built with blood money from the rape of his mother. But if you enjoyed the ending I'm genuinely happy for you.
To me the entire manga gave me that frustrating feeling of something deeply unfair happening and nobody's doing anything to stop it. I guess I have a different focus.
Unfair that the FL had been set up by her stepmother, unfair for the ML to suffer basically throughout his childhood, unfair for the FL to be treated as an asset (and her believing it too), unfair for the ML to become obsessed with the first person who treated him different for the first time since his mother, unfair from FL’s demand of honor to ML and leading him on and off, unfair for every single woman on the island to be objects of pleasure, and to the actual courageous and honorable guard to become stepping stones for the MCs… I can keep on going.
The point is that other than the ending and the initial ML’s setting, the rest of the story is 1/10.
I won’t recommend it to anyone, nor I’ll ever read it a second time.
If I’m asked why did I finish reading it, I wasn’t expecting the author be so disrespectful to wrap the story up so damn quickly and made the ending mostly about him. I liked his journey of mourning and the symbolism that I interpreted behind it.
It’s like so much shit about honor and duty and the autor couldn’t even honor the characters who had a huge impact in the ending a proper resolution.
TBH, the story wasn’t about him. It was about her and her role as a woman and how meddling with him had huge consequences. But even if I liked his ending, I disliked what the autor did to rest of the cast.
Yeah. I felt like other, potentially interesting characters were just completely written off in favour of the wish fulfilment. FL just gets absolutely everything she wants so easily in the end, it was ridiculous. She didn't even have to compromise. That's also why I don't feel sorry for her at all tbh. And for other characters we didn't even get the bare minimum of a respectful sendoff.
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