Not to mention all the victim blaming...poor dude got raped all throughout highschool and then gets blamed for everything....very not cool or funny...
Agreed. Not funny. Not cool. Very hard to read. But then again, that’s Harada.
But that’s what was so weird about it...Harada usually is brutal but doesn’t necessarily make it a punchline....this one was just really weird. I really couldn’t tell what the point of all that was...I guess just a reason for him to like butt stuff...idk....
......I’ve always thought of Harada as exploitive. Like with Nii-chan, she could’ve alluded to the dangers of pedophillia but no, it was painstakingly and graphically drawn. And then instead of revenge, which would’ve been appropriate, the victim seeks out the abuser and rapes him back because he loves him. Like, it wasn’t a comedy but if Harada is trying to make you laugh, you’re definitely going to cringe too. So I felt this was spot on for her (his?) work.
This is, of course, not mentioning her Gintama djs (which damn near all of them are nightmare inducing, disturbing playgrounds for pedophillia) where an actual toddler was molested.....and it was played off for laughs. You molested a toddler! No pay for you and a fist to the head. Like Harada has no chill.
Wow I didn’t know that....Yeah Japan has some very lax cp laws...there’s a big mentality there about how fiction should cater to fantasies whether it’s healthy or not and dangerous or not....which is why even a huge show for KIDS like card captor sakura literally has pedophilia....an elementary schooler dating her adult teacher who has to be at least 30. I didn’t watch that as a kid and wanted to as an adult but that shit was mind blowing to me...it’s definitely not good to validate kids crushes on adults in media because it makes them vulnerable to adults that would take advantage of that....but I guess for adults and r-18 material it shouldn’t be the same issue...that is if a bunch of kids weren’t accessing this stuff on sites like this lmao. There was a lot of messed up anime stuff I started to think was normal as a kid that just wanted to watch anime online and didn’t know that ecchi shows weren’t normal tv shows/anime and definitely shouldn’t have been stuff I was watching in elementary school...but the nice thing I see on this site is lots of people discussing morals and ethics and sexual assault in the comments of this site, so at least maybe that makes it easier for young people to distinguish fact and fiction?
I agree with you too. Sometimes harada's writing seems like blatant fetishism of fucked up scenarios like this.
Agreed! I think if you’re able to rationally discuss the morality of the content, you’re probably ok. I can enjoy, to an extent, the cringe of Harada while fully understanding that NONE of this shit is funny or ok in the real world. As a child I got into a lot of messed up manga/anime too and it definitely left a few scars. Maybe if a kid does (it’s inevitable) finds this site and this story, maybe they’ll read this exchange and be like “oh good, none of this is normal and I should be outraged/upset” or “maybe I can enjoy this, as long as it doesn’t carry into my real world interactions with people”. Never watched Card Captor Sakura but I find it baffling anyone would be ok with an elementary school kid dating an adult.
Don’t get me wrong, some of the stories are riveting. And part of the appeal is that fear of turning the page and seeing something really, really fucked up. It just goes too far sometimes. There is definitely a line in all works of fiction, just like reality, that you just shouldn’t cross. You lose too much of your humanity when you do.
Yes totally
That is the problem. Sometimes in the process of making the story more gripping and more brutal, Harada loses sight of the fact that showing abuse without its impact emotionally tortures the reader too. We get engrossed in a characters well being and then see their life go down the gutter with no hopes of getting up. This cycle of abuse and despair continue for both the reader and the protagonist. That is torture. In this story, I badly want yoshiyuki to find peace in his life seeing how much he is emotionally and even physically (I dare say) traumatized. That's why I'm still following it. His dream of having a job and a cute lover (that loves and cares about his well being), who will b**g is a** should come true.
Ugh I agree! So well said. Reminds me of the one I’m about the hairdressers..(SPOILERS)at a certain point I stopped reading the chapters but checked the updates to see how things turned out because like you say it becomes too painful for the reader but you still want to hold out hope for this character you’re invested in. I really wanted it to flip around on the abuser and have him be the one emotionally crippled by the consequences of his own actions or something...but instead he’s able to trick and be forgiven by his victim and goes on to keep abusing him...it was so upsetting. The only truly good series by harada is the one whose name I forget but it always starts out like it’s rape, or ntr, or teacherxstudent for the punchline to be it’s actually just this kinky couple role playing with each other...I love the stories about those characters because you can see all the “wtf” stuff but then by the end you know it’s a couple just having fun with each other
Harada has done this same thing in yatamomo, niichan and color recipe. I hope she doesn't make this same mistake in this manga too. One thing I noticed is that Harada is not good with long stories. But has a proper idea of pacing for one shots. That's why harada's one shots are generally more intriguing and delivers more impact.
I think you're talking about the Henai series. I like them too. I like the oneshot ( We are all side characters) the best.
I never thought about that before but you’re so right! Haradas longer stories really kind of lose themselves. I think you make a good point. The only exception I can think of is one room angel which I think was a pretty interesting work showing off what harada is capable of outside of the yaoi genre. I notice a lot of...smut writers tend to be quite good at writing outside of smut and tend to kind of go a little crazy when writing with trying to fit sex scenes in, in mind.
True. Smut starts to take up the story more than the plot itself.
I've never heard of one room angel. Is it available in mangago?
Oh I've found it. Longer version of the story "Torch". I like it too. Sorry I forgot the name.
I don’t know why I still read Harada all the stories have such fucked up undertones. Granted this one was HILARIOUS, but this dude was raped by Reo so often that’s probably where he developed his love of bottoming. And it’s a running joke. It was funny when you realized he banged the whole family, but Reo’s actions were pretty unforgivable and he didn’t receive a single redeeming quality the entire story. But then again, that’s Harada