Shin'yuu no Otto wo Ubatta no wa, Watashi deshita - Ch. 2

[UdenEmpati]

I would have just watched him cut it up and shrugged, "suit yourself, dumbass, i didn't pay for it lol what a drama queen."

and then presumably be broken down over several months of psychological torture if i'm reading itsuki correctly.

It's been a month since she got married and we've already seen her be treated as a servant and a piece of eye candy to be shown off to his coworkers.

She's already feeling the effects of what he's putting her through, hence her reaction to him cutting up the dress - he does something cruel or demeaning or destructive to punish her impropriety, and then turns around and "mutes" that with words of love and affection. A pretty classic tactic of keeping the victim constantly off-balance in their emotional state.

And she does like nice things; her renouncing divorce in favor of financial & material comfort is indicative of that fact. So cutting up a nice dress would play off her materialism and her already weakening mental state against Itsuki's constant abuse.

 

[KoriCongo]

I'm sorry, this is a bad recontextualization.
Yeah, we know that Itsuki always been pretty unhinged and Japanese culture can be pretty patriarchal, so I get why the easy solution of "please just talk things out" may not be probable. I can believe Itsuki "pushed her" to cheat.

But we know for a fact that Rio is also insane.
She was literally going to sell a sex tape of her fucking her best friend's husband. Without even HIS knowledge.
She took absolute glee in messing with her supposed friend's life, and yet we are supposed to treat Kyouko with almost utter contempt for trying and failing to break up a dysfunctional marriage. Giving her these normal, Mahoro-esque thought processes and views just doesn't work, this should really be more back-and-forth in the insanity.

I think the author is honestly really bad at making complex characters. I think she gets too caught up on Protagonist-Centric Morality and doesn't quite know how the reader would view everyone being catty bitches. Even for Josei standards.

 

[BigMac_77]

What a minute Author-san, are you telling us that you...

 

[Nosebleed]

I think a lot of people are failing at separating being sympathetic to Rio and condoning her actions.
You feel sympathetic for Rio because you're human and Rio's human. That's an okay thing to do.
But you can also condemn all the crap she did and her horrible attitude on top of that. They are not mutually exclusive things.

At no point has the author excused her actions. We were shown across 50 chapters that Rio is extremely vile and made Mahoro feel miserable. None of this spin-off refutes that, it is literally just showing her process of getting there. Just because Rio ends up a massive villain doesn't mean at one point earlier in her life she wasn't like that (reminder this story is still happening BEFORE the main story, so we still haven't gotten to the part where the affair starts and Rio turns on Mahoro). It's not that crazy of a setup.

We already know this all explodes with Rio burning bridges with her friends and being a despicable person, and then being publicly humiliated and stuck with Itsuki. I can't understand why people think this is about redeeming her. You already know the conclusion (unless you didn't read the main series or had amnesia in the meantime). You're just being shown the details of how it got there, which you didn't have before

It's also a very clear parallelism with Mahoro's story. Both Mahoro and Rio had awful marriages. But Mahoro sought help in her friends and sought to emancipate herself through her efforts, while Rio went the opposite way and was consumed by her resentment toward Mahoro, taking the destructive route instead (and wound up worse for it).

Anyone who thinks this is a redemption arc is wilding.

 

[darekpawlo]

The existence of straight women is proof that sexuality is not a choice.

You think lesbians have it better?

 

[yurigasaki]

I think a lot of people are failing at separating being sympathetic to Rio and condoning her actions. [...] Anyone who thinks this is a redemption arc is wilding.

Honestly, I'm not surprised. In almost every fandom I've been in, anytime an author takes any step towards humanizing a character who has behaved in antagonistic or even just mildly antisocial ways or otherwise tries to show why they behave the way they do, there will always be screaming outcry about the author trying to "redeem" them or "excuse" their actions. It's classic black and white thinking.

 

[doomrider7]

It's been a month since she got married and we've already seen her be treated as a servant and a piece of eye candy to be shown off to his coworkers.

She's already feeling the effects of what he's putting her through, hence her reaction to him cutting up the dress - he does something cruel or demeaning or destructive to punish her impropriety, and then turns around and "mutes" that with words of love and affection. A pretty classic tactic of keeping the victim constantly off-balance in their emotional state.

And she does like nice things; her renouncing divorce in favor of financial & material comfort is indicative of that fact. So cutting up a nice dress would play off her materialism and her already weakening mental state against Itsuki's constant abuse.

Part of the issue is that Japan doesn't have no fault divorce so she'd have no real avenue to file not to mention the social and societal stigma.

 

[Cynn]

I’m not sure why I’m reading this. I’m expecting it to answer what Rio’s marriage was like for her and how Rei and her first connected and how she saw him maybe as the opposite of Itsuki, an escape from a marriage and love that wasn’t what she expected.

But thanks to the history of the main story, it’s like watching your friend’s bully get bullied. And I’m not Mahoro, ready to step in and stop her bully. Wait, am I in Momoka’s shoes?

I’ll still read but after two chapters, I’m still figuring out what I’m seeking from this spin off. I enjoyed the soap opera feel of the original. If I approach this as a sort of villain’s origin story spinoff, maybe it will be easier to see how it enhances the original work.

I think Rei came off as a harmless flirt to Rio in their encounter, but I’m sure he drops calculated compliments like that to test the waters and get on women’s good sides so he can get something good out of it, like affairs and concert tickets.

The dress cutting was supposed to be the big shocker, but I was more shocked by “divorce? Nah!”. She didn’t even spend a whole bath to consider it! She had her priorities and firmly made her decision.

 

[jajajajajajajaja]

I wonder if, after they move away, Rio opens another shop. There was some discussion in the last chapter about whether she runs the shop on her own merit, or if it's only possible because Itsuki is rich and lets her do it as a hobby.

I can't imagine a control freak like him would let her outside the house often, really anywhere near enough to run a shop, after the events of the main story. Maybe it will end with Itsuki keeping her barefoot and pregnant for the remainder of her natural life.

 

[doomrider7]

I think a lot of people are failing at separating being sympathetic to Rio and condoning her actions.
You feel sympathetic for Rio because you're human and Rio's human. That's an okay thing to do.
But you can also condemn all the crap she did and her horrible attitude on top of that. They are not mutually exclusive things.

At no point has the author excused her actions. We were shown across 50 chapters that Rio is extremely vile and made Mahoro feel miserable. None of this spin-off refutes that, it is literally just showing her process of getting there. Just because Rio ends up a massive villain doesn't mean at one point earlier in her life she wasn't like that (reminder this story is still happening BEFORE the main story, so we still haven't gotten to the part where the affair starts and Rio turns on Mahoro). It's not that crazy of a setup.

We already know this all explodes with Rio burning bridges with her friends and being a despicable person, and then being publicly humiliated and stuck with Itsuki. I can't understand why people think this is about redeeming her. You already know the conclusion (unless you didn't read the main series or had amnesia in the meantime). You're just being shown the details of how it got there, which you didn't have before

It's also a very clear parallelism with Mahoro's story. Both Mahoro and Rio had awful marriages. But Mahoro sought help in her friends and sought to emancipate herself through her efforts, while Rio went the opposite way and was consumed by her resentment toward Mahoro, taking the destructive route instead (and wound up worse for it).

Anyone who thinks this is a redemption arc is wilding.

I'm just gonna say that years of being in the gaming and animanga fandom have shown me that no, GARGANTUAN SWATHS of those fandoms do NOT have the range for things like being empathic and view things like physical and sexual violence as perfectly valid responses for female characters stepping out of line and making their character of choice feel bad. With regards to what happened with Mahoro as well as tape, him being as controlling as he is makes me wonder if there was so shit going on back there too because yes, that shit happens and is used by abusers to further isolate their victims.

 

[DeOneChester]

I sometimes wish I could understand what's going through the head of psycho guys like this. Where did we branch in the nurture skill tree that made me not a controlling lunatic???

 

[RakshaJaeger]

I think she means Itsuki got progressively more unhinged from what she had intended at the start of Mahoro's story.


Especially since, as Rio says, Itsuki appears to be the perfect husband. Nosebleed mentioned this in the first chapter, but Itsuki is very intentional in his abuse/manipulation such that to the outside world a divorce would 100% read as her fault and therefore basically impossible to get w/o Itsuki's consent.

Well, in this chapter he left clear proof of his abuse, the dress he cut with scissors. I guess that he could just lie about it, and Rio would have to take photos to show to someone else with the risk of Itsuki discovering it and all. This could set some doubt in their entourage at least.

 

[Crisisninjax]

I don't expect maturity here but, regardless of what she did Rio doesn't deserve this. She can still be a piece of shit friend and a victim. Doesn't excuse what she did but her husband is clearly controlling and manipulative.

 

[wiz_gmc]

Anyone who thinks this is a redemption arc is wilding.

I think some people are trapped in an us/them, black/white, or left/right world where every story, even real wars going on right now, has to have two, and only two, polarised sides and you're supposed to pick one and die for that cause, no matter how unrelated you personally are. And some people are further trapped in a world where every piece of media is the author pushing their agenda on them.

For someone like that, they "know" Mahoro is "us", they "know" Rio is "them", and they "know" that the author knows that too. So it is beyond confusing that author would then turn around and show Rio as human, with thoughts and feelings, instead of treating her as a nice easy caricature that you can condone violence towards without feeling any moral conflict. The only way to reconcile that, when you think this way, is to have the author be changing sides and trying to redeem Rio.

 

[Mute2732]

Literally no one in the original story was a good person. The closest was Mahoro but she had some serious flaws. So you take two people floating around 3 worst characters and write a story deep diving into their story and it just creates the biggest who cares kind of a story

 

[Mute2732]

You think lesbians have it better?

Lmao wildly high abuse and cheating % for their small population, why wouldn't all women want to be lesbians?

 

[Midoriha]

At this point I'm more concerned about how apparently literally everyone in the author's life was a terrible person and the only one good person in the story was someone she had to fanfic herself totally not my ideal husbando honest so that the story was not just 98% bad stuff.
Can't help but start thinking this woman is really fucking awful at reading people. And that's putting it mildly and kindly.

 

[UdenEmpati]

I’m not sure why I’m reading this. I’m expecting it to answer what Rio’s marriage was like for her and how Rei and her first connected and how she saw him maybe as the opposite of Itsuki, an escape from a marriage and love that wasn’t what she expected.

But thanks to the history of the main story, it’s like watching your friend’s bully get bullied. And I’m not Mahoro, ready to step in and stop her bully. Wait, am I in Momoka’s shoes?

I’ll still read but after two chapters, I’m still figuring out what I’m seeking from this spin off. I enjoyed the soap opera feel of the original. If I approach this as a sort of villain’s origin story spinoff, maybe it will be easier to see how it enhances the original work.

I think Rei came off as a harmless flirt to Rio in their encounter, but I’m sure he drops calculated compliments like that to test the waters and get on women’s good sides so he can get something good out of it, like affairs and concert tickets.

The dress cutting was supposed to be the big shocker, but I was more shocked by “divorce? Nah!”. She didn’t even spend a whole bath to consider it! She had her priorities and firmly made her decision.

Just read it as providing context for how Rio got to where she was in Mahoro's story.

It's not redemption or a defense, simply illuminating.

 

[UdenEmpati]

I think a lot of people are failing at separating being sympathetic to Rio and condoning her actions.
You feel sympathetic for Rio because you're human and Rio's human. That's an okay thing to do.
But you can also condemn all the crap she did and her horrible attitude on top of that. They are not mutually exclusive things.

At no point has the author excused her actions. We were shown across 50 chapters that Rio is extremely vile and made Mahoro feel miserable. None of this spin-off refutes that, it is literally just showing her process of getting there. Just because Rio ends up a massive villain doesn't mean at one point earlier in her life she wasn't like that (reminder this story is still happening BEFORE the main story, so we still haven't gotten to the part where the affair starts and Rio turns on Mahoro). It's not that crazy of a setup.

We already know this all explodes with Rio burning bridges with her friends and being a despicable person, and then being publicly humiliated and stuck with Itsuki. I can't understand why people think this is about redeeming her. You already know the conclusion (unless you didn't read the main series or had amnesia in the meantime). You're just being shown the details of how it got there, which you didn't have before

It's also a very clear parallelism with Mahoro's story. Both Mahoro and Rio had awful marriages. But Mahoro sought help in her friends and sought to emancipate herself through her efforts, while Rio went the opposite way and was consumed by her resentment toward Mahoro, taking the destructive route instead (and wound up worse for it).

Anyone who thinks this is a redemption arc is wilding.

This isn't meant to be a swipe at people, but

I've come to find that a decent barometer for emotional intelligence and analytical ability can be found in whether a reader of stories like this one, can understand that sympathy for an antagonistic character, and condemnation for that character's actions, are not mutually exclusive perspectives.

 

[Friendly-Sentence710]

hmmm all of those friends and people she knows might have just been her. Just like your classic rom-com heroine. "so, about my friend"

"Man its been a real rapid turn about on our Cuck King I wonder why..."
Author: He's an insert for an Ex
"Oh. That explains it."