hmm... Well that too but looking at the author's other works... Nah, I think the abusive "have sex or I won't love you anymore" bull is there too.
Satoi is a teenager, I seriously don't expect him to be able to make Soutarou change when pointing out people's distorted thoughts process to help them grow out of it is an actual job ╮(￣▽￣)╭
But since both are so bad at dealing with the other, they're both giving the other the impression they have no options and end up taking really bad action.
When all this is going on, I'm really not sure if adding the whole bullying issue by the friend was necessary. Or the thing with Mifune. I feel like everything was made to happen all at the same time, all pretty complicated situations and it's not handled very well...
I would rather have only one happen but get slower development. Something like rape that is used as shock/quick plot change trope, could have been avoided.
Imo, many authors just use it as a way to advance their stories quickly. Feels like a really cheap dirty trick to avoid actually thinking up events to resolve the problems of their story's couple.
But the bullying was described as something he'd been through already, or at least that's what i understood since it was like "oh, you're being bullied again?", so the bullying might have been introduced to us recently, but had been a part of his background already. I can kind of agree with you that the rape MIGHT have been used to progress the story, or in other words because "yaoi", but i can also understand why Satoi would feel like it is the only way.
If you think that the "do what i want if you love me" bull is there then that's fine, i just don't agree at all. From my perspective it was clearly meant to mean what i said above. Honestly, i think what has a lot of people even thinking that is because of Satoi's dialogue during the rape, if you take what he said out of context, sure it sounds like that, but if you followed along with what they were discussing before the rape it should be clear that he's trying to show Soutarou that their relationship is going nowhere. I hope that doesn't sound rude, it just really was that obvious to me, i saw all those comments saying things like "he's a fucking abusive asshole! All he wants is for Soutarou to do what he wants!" and i was like "what? Lol, did we read the same manga?".
ah yes, I meant specially Soutarou's friend telling him to stay away, like him getting involved (sorry, I don't remember Satoi's other friend's name). That's what I was referring to. I didn't mean to say it was new for him to be bullied.
I agree about that being Satoi's intent actually.
But regardless of intent, since he said that and Soutarou can't read minds, I still consider it abusive. Soutarou did give in out of fear of losing Satoi's love. It was pretty obvious Soutarou would believe that. I mean, it was indeed like testing, like asking if Soutarou has so little trust in him that he'd think he'd stop loving him. But that sort mind game is not good.
So yep, Satoi was trying to make Soutarou get it but the way he went about it was all wrong.
While I agree that Satoi might have had that intention, it still was rape (or attempted rape). It was a fucked up way of proving a point.
And it was really sending mixed signals: He says Sotarou is not allowed to say no, but as soon as he does say no, Satoi gets mad. Surely, it wasn't mad that Sotarou said no, I can recognize that he got mad that Sotarou was just trying to not make him mad, but the point is: All Sotarou ever does is try not to make him mad, and all Satoi ever does is get mad. And then Sotarou tries harder, because the way I see it, Sotarou is isolated from everyone but Satoi. He's got anxieties and low self-esteem from what that girl did to him and from being bullied. Satoi is all he has, and he's someone he never thought he could have, so it makes absolute sense for him to behave this way.
And at this point, I'm angry at the author - Sotarou's got all these issues that I'm getting pissed off that he says he has, but no one ever does anything about it. Someone with Sotarou's issues don't get better by themselves, they need help. Either Satoi is the one to help him, or the author should do something about it, like having him have a friend or shit. But Satoi's behavior is only enabling Sotarou's.
And that doesn't even mean Satoi is a bad person, he's just self-absorbed. He tries to take care of Sotarou his own way, but that's not the way Sotarou needs.
TLDR: Sotarou's got issues and maybe he shouldn't be in a relationship with Satoi.
Oh definitely, i'm not arguing that it was not abusive, it clearly was. I was just saying that i think his intentions behind the rape were to say "the way you are now is going to make our future look like this" rather than "do what i want if you love me". Which i do see you said you agree with, i'm just trying to clear up any possible misunderstandings in what i was saying.
I'm actually not arguing that it wasn't rape, i've actually been calling it rape and even said that he handled the situation wrong. My topic seems to be derailing, i'm not arguing that it wasn't abusive or rape.
@everyone: The point of my topic was for me to get my opinion on Satoi's intentions behind the rape, the reason i made this topic is because it seemed like quite a few people were under the impression that Satoi was just being an asshole when he decided to rape Soutarou, but i didn't agree with that line of thought and wanted to put my own thoughts out there to see how people would respond to my perspective. I was not trying to justify the rape, just speculate on as to WHY he chose rape as his method of getting his message across to Soutarou. I've been calling it rape this entire time, so i'm definitely not trying to say it wasn't rape or that the rape wasn't fucked up, i've actually said the opposite. Just because i'm looking into Satoi's motivations behind the rape doesn't mean i'm trying to say the rape is okay. I believe this should clear up any misunderstandings.
A lot of people here seem to feel like the point of the rape was to say "if you love me you'll do whatever i want", but in context it seemed obvious to me that he was trying to show him what their relationship will look like if things stay the way they are. Satoi was saying that if Soutarou refuses to look at him as anything more than an object of worship that it wouldn't really be a relationship at all, it'd just be one sided with Soutarou doing anything he can to please Satoi. Personally i don't think he handled the situation well at all, Satoi could've just told Soutarou that rather than demonstrate it with his body. If we're looking into reasons as to why Satoi raped Soutarou aside from the obvious "yaoi" reason, i think it would just come down to Satoi just being irritated and feeling like Soutarou isn't really possible to talk to. Soutarou has all these good intentions, but he never discusses these choices he makes for Satoi with Satoi and now the choices are even starting to effect their relationship. I think he felt like talking to Soutarou is out of the question because in Soutarou's mind he is doing it for Satoi, so he decided to rape him as kind of a reality check, "look at our current relationship's ugly future in the face" or so to speak. Things aren't working for them and Satoi has been holding out for Soutarou to change, but now realizes that he won't change on his own, that's why he said "i should've done this sooner".