Boku no Namae wa "Shounen A"
- Thread starter MangaDex
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finally this ended, the author just beat its plot over my head for so long man, anyways shoutouts to the translator fr
This could've been shortened to 3 chaps if the mc admitted that the teacher raped the girl from the start.
Actually, this is a pretty stupid manga, He wants to protect his childhood friend and is fine for him to compromise his own family just to protect her, which in the first place doesn't even make sense. I mean the rapist is already dead 🤣. I actually don't have any idea how Japan society works, but I know for sure that admitting that you got sexually harassed and defending yourself makes sense.
IDK, maybe in japan if you get raped you get bullied? If defended yourself from harm you get bullied? That's why I think this manga is stupid .
In conclusion, this was just a forced drama manga from the situation, characters, etc. But hey at least its educational, it makes the readers realize to be not stupid or your life and your family's life will be forever banged by the tragedy tag.
Actually, this is a pretty stupid manga, He wants to protect his childhood friend and is fine for him to compromise his own family just to protect her, which in the first place doesn't even make sense. I mean the rapist is already dead 🤣. I actually don't have any idea how Japan society works, but I know for sure that admitting that you got sexually harassed and defending yourself makes sense.
IDK, maybe in japan if you get raped you get bullied? If defended yourself from harm you get bullied? That's why I think this manga is stupid .
And if we are talking about evidence, the moment the mc got the USB flash drive he could've just showed the police the photos or vids but not show it to the public in order for the police to tell the public he really is innocent. I mean if you're going to confess anyway just go ahead and tell everything.
and for the police not even investigating the mobile phone? Is that really how it is? I thought police should investigate everything on the crime scene.
In conclusion, this was just a forced drama manga from the situation, characters, etc. But hey at least its educational, it makes the readers realize to be not stupid or your life and your family's life will be forever banged by the tragedy tag.
@NINJAROBOTLUKE
It was the teacher son's baby for sure, the sister didn't have any partner in the later part of the manga. And they've been living together for a while so ofc..
First of all, the teacher’s son has a weak reason to avenge his father. I get it. You want a happy family because you’re adopted but would you prefer living under the same roof with a pedophile ruining young girls’ life? Bringing up something in the past to bully the wrong criminal who only wanted to start anew is stupid.
There’s also a lot of internalization needed to fully understand MC’s thoughts as to why he keeps on making mistakes. We’ve been there. We want to burden all the sadness and take all the blame so everyone could be happy. But we’re also quick to judge other people before we can also understand their decisions. This is what’s shown multiple times in the manga that’s making me cringe. Sad but it’s true.
In the end, everything near the end felt rushed. The girl who was raped started cooperating all of a sudden without thinking what would happen if she admits it? What are the consequences? Surprisingly, there was NONE! Unbelievable. No one judged her for that while it was tenfold for the MC. And her mom just plainly accepted the truth then she’s gone. Geez.
Well despite all the things I said,
There’s also a lot of internalization needed to fully understand MC’s thoughts as to why he keeps on making mistakes. We’ve been there. We want to burden all the sadness and take all the blame so everyone could be happy. But we’re also quick to judge other people before we can also understand their decisions. This is what’s shown multiple times in the manga that’s making me cringe. Sad but it’s true.
In the end, everything near the end felt rushed. The girl who was raped started cooperating all of a sudden without thinking what would happen if she admits it? What are the consequences? Surprisingly, there was NONE! Unbelievable. No one judged her for that while it was tenfold for the MC. And her mom just plainly accepted the truth then she’s gone. Geez.
Well despite all the things I said,
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It was a ride reading this one, even if it was an unpleasant one. 6/10, art is fine, story is a bit bumpy, nice ending although
. Give it a read it can be infuriating at times but it was an ok story.
somehow everything magically resolved itself all of a sudden with little to no consequences for the female MC
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the ending is great that's all i gonna say about this manga
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@yumitech
This is most likely especially true for the teachers' son since he had no family, and had finally gotten the family he had always wanted.
Yes, the answer is yes. There are people who don't report their family member when they find out they have done things like sexual assault and/or murder because they love them and they don't want them to be in prison for the rest of their life. Maybe they want their family member to pay for the crime but they might not want them to be locked up forever or killed. For some people doesn't just stop because that family member did a horrible thing.
This is most likely especially true for the teachers' son since he had no family, and had finally gotten the family he had always wanted.
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FULL REVIEW, do not read if you have not finished reading the manga:
WORD COUNT: 3,599
WORD COUNT: 3,599
There are a lot of things I find wrong with the manga and the story, as well as how it's presented. Personally, my gripe with the story is how it tries to approach the subject matter respectfully but falls flat in being able to treat the subject matter as respectfully and tactfully as it should have when it mattered. This manga and the message that I assume it tries to bear could have been great if the end were resolved more satisfyingly and in a way that was more tactful to the lived experiences of real people, but it fell desperately flat on its face when it mattered. My main issues with this manga are the way the author treated the characters' traumas, the way they treated the female lead, and the way they wrote the characters: it all feels ham-fisted, especially in the final arc, where everything starts to unravel.
Sasaki's trauma of having been sexually assaulted as well as Yamazaki's trauma of being an accomplice to murder, but especially Sasaki's trauma, are treated as plot devices to move the story forward, which does not sit well with me. In the first place, what moves this story forward is Yamashita's son doxxing "Shounen A" after the incident has blown over and he's come back to society at the cost of dredging up both of their traumas while they were in the process of healing. Their trauma keeps getting dredged up by the events of the story without any resolution or end in sight, even to the very end, and it's treated as a tragic part of their life which is a side-effect of their shared crime, which neither of them can resolve because they need to bear their sins, instead of something that can be resolved rationally and with the help and guidance of the adults in their life. The result of this in the narrative being told is that nothing happens for them to be able to resolve the trauma that they've endured in the name of Yamazaki constantly trying to protect the lie that he created to "protect" Sasaki, even when this should have happened toward the end as the story was coming to its conclusion.
I had hope in the beginning of chapter 27 when Yamazaki came out with his confession that he would finally do the right thing by releasing the evidence to the police in order to make amends to Sasaki's family properly. That way, both himself and Sasaki would have been able to resolve their trauma: his standing in society would be restored and Sasaki would be able to receive the therapy that she so desperately needed for having been sexually assaulted sooner. If this had happened, then at the very least, their trauma wouldn't have just become a plot device, and their characters would have been fleshed out as more than just bearers of trauma to carry a narrative. It would have made their characters that much more real. How they would have navigated their relationship, whether as sharers of trauma, accomplices in crime, acquaintances, friends, or maybe even lovers if the author had chosen to write the story that way is beyond me because this wasn't the story that was written, after all. But in all honestly, that wouldn't have been such a bad outcome.
I'm not saying this because I'm upset that Yamazaki and Sasaki didn't end up together. For what it's worth, I think it's good of the author to have depicted both parties move on with their lives and find other people who are special to them and who are capable of loving them as they are, but the ending just gives me the feeling that Sasaki was on the losing end, because the degree to which both parties were able to move on from their trauma are decidedly not the same, and is decidedly better for our male lead, Yamazaki. While he was able to go on living and find an actual lover and a solid support system and even reconnect with his estranged elder sister, Sasaki is left with her senpai, whom she cannot accept as a true lover because of her unresolved trauma from being sexually assaulted, which tells me that she either hasn't received therapy for her abuse, has only started receiving therapy for her abuse, or has become dependent on her senpai as her emotional support, any of these possibilities I cannot imagine being truly healthy for her.
This turn of events leaves a bitter taste in my mouth because it feels like Sasaki has been left, once again, to pick up the pieces, because of Yamazaki who insists on "protecting" her by disassociating himself from her in order to protect her honor and the life that he "created" for her, which was flawed in the first place. See here, where our main character is able to live his life to the fullest and move on from this nightmare of a situation, our female lead must bear the full weight of her trauma to the point of not being able to love a man fully and (possibly) not receiving the therapy that she needs. It feels like such a shounen way of dealing with things and resolving things, which should be unsurprising since the demographic for this manga is, after all, listed as shounen, but perhaps how utterly unsatisfying this conclusion to me is precisely because of that demographic for which this manga is written.
I can understand the appeal of writing your main character to be selfless enough to the point of forsaking his love in order to ensure that they are all able to move on from the bleakness of the youth that he inadvertently created by being selfish enough to think that he was in a position to protect Sasaki to a younger male demographic. Perhaps to a younger version of myself, this would have been a "cool" tragedy, where I would have thought to myself, "how brave! He was able to let go of his past and bear his sins alone to protect everyone," or something to that effect, but that absolutely does not fly with me now that I've grown older and am in a better position to critique more sensitive matters after having been exposed to more and more difficult situations in my own personal life and dealing with people who have gone through similar such traumas.
My problem with this is that this way of writing a main character and the story to present a "cool" role model to a younger demographic is that it infantilizes and vastly underestimates a young man's ability to process sensitive matters and the correct way to approach such matters. If instead of being written the way that it was, the author decided to write the story such that the whole truth came out, Sasaki and Yamazaki were able to confront and deal with their trauma with the truth out and receive therapy, I am sure that my takeaway would not have been the "how brave!' spiel that I wrote above, but instead that there are wounds which only the truth and justice can heal. It would have made me more conscientious of the importance of making sure that justice is met, especially for victims of sexual assault. It would have made me more aware of the fact that so many women who have gone through this kind of traumatic experience never attain the justice that they deserve, and that would definitely have made me a more conscientious young man, and might even have spurred me to this kind of growth sooner than I might have realized these things as I aged naturally.
Another thing that irks me about this way of writing the male lead is that in the way things were wrapped up, he inextricably stripped our female lead of her conviction instead of standing behind those convictions. She had resolved to come out with the truth, and had succeeded in telling the truth to Yamazaki's mother, and even after all that, you would think that our main character would respect those wishes and let the truth come out after he had gotten the opportunity to, when the data finally came into his hands... Instead, he goes off and decides on his own to be a martyr once again and come out and confess the truth behind his crime without providing the evidence to the police with the intention of protecting her from the public eye, which would judge her for being a victim of rape. It feels insulting and takes the power to confront the truth away from our female lead, which she already resolved to do in the first place. It reeks of a patriarchal sense of values, which diminishes the agency of our female lead. Not to mention, it also runs contrary to what Ken wants, which is to let the truth come out... That's another can of worms, but I digress. I have enough to talk about with just Yamazaki, Sasaki, Yamashita, and Yamashita's son.
The ending isn't entirely bad, it's just barely acceptable, but it is distinctly lacking for the reasons I've written above. It feels watered down for not confronting the issue at hand, which is that the violent nature of Sasaki and Yamazaki's response to the situation they were in came as a direct result of Yamashita's sexual violence. What's worse is that Yamazaki's chosen course of action felt more considerate to Yamashita's son than it did to Sasaki herself. It felt to me that he was swayed by Yamashita's son, despite how incorrigibly in the wrong he was, that he felt guilt in his heart for Yamashita's son feeling the consequences of his father's actions. Him stepping in to protect his friend from her abuser was neither his nor his friend's fault, and he shouldn't have had to feel guilty for Sasaki's assailant gaslighting the very natural self-defense reaction that he took. That he should have confronted the situation more intelligently in hindsight is true: the situation could have been solved without the bloodshed, but he was under no obligation to feel guilty for the conviction that he felt, which was to step in and take action. Once again, our female lead is diminished for the sake of another male character who actively went out of his way to create suffering in the life of our male lead and, although inadvertently, our female lead.
This is what I mean when I say that the manga was not resolved as satisfyingly as it could have been and that it was not handled with as much tact to people who have these same lived experiences as it could have been. In the end, there is no catharsis for the readers, so although the ending that was presented to us was "satisfying," it's still half-baked, and all too shounen-like. Yamazaki placed himself and his notions of "protecting" Sasaki's honor so that she would not have to relive this experience over the right thing: which is to present the whole truth, and let the consequences of revealing the whole truth and attaining true justice heal both of them. For a real person whose lived experiences mirrors Sasaki's (or Yamazaki's), it would be more cathartic to see justice brought to both parties, for them to live with the truth, and not keep deceiving themselves. In fact, despite Yamazaki's best efforts to ensure that Sasaki never has to live through the nightmare again, he fails at even this (and of course he would fail, because it is downright arrogant of him to think that bearing the weight of the sin of hiding the evidence would allow Sasaki to put everything behind her), because Sasaki is still living with the trauma 5 years later, sharing her story at small support groups. Would she not have had a better platform to share her story if he had not been selfish and stood behind her conviction to come out with the truth to the public by providing the evidence to the police in the first place? She would have.
And this is where we must ask ourselves: why? Why was the story written this way? Did it come as a result of the demographic for which this story was written? Perhaps it was, but whether the story came out this way intentionally or unintentionally, there is a lot wrong with it that we have to digest. It's the easiest explanation possible, that the story would have to be watered down for our shounen demographic, but I don't think the story was intentionally watered down this way because it's insulting to our demographic. I'm of the belief that the youth are entirely capable of digesting sensitive material if the material is presented thoughtfully. I believe that the way this story was written comes as a result of the values and the culture which the author lives and moves in. Although it is unpleasant to admit, the fear of losing face for being a victim of sexual assault is a stigma that is still all too common in Asia where I live, within East Asian cultures, and most importantly to our scrutiny of this story, in Japan where our author hails from and where the story takes place.
The notion of having to protect women from the public eye after having been sexually assaulted is a patriarchal value that I am no stranger to, being Chinese-Filipino myself. In this day and age, the stigma around accepting a victim of sexual assault as a bride is still very much a problem. Not only that, but victims of sexual assault are viewed by society as objects of pity at best, and at worst, objects of disgust. This is the truth that many of us who live within these cultures must live and grapple with - and try to change. In all rationality, this is the fate that Yamazaki wanted to spare Sasaki from, but we must question why this was the action that the author decided was appropriate for Yamazaki to take and why this was what they decided to write and to publish. The reality is that this would have been a very realistic thing to happen, seeing as how in some cultures, victims of sexual assault are married off to their abusers in order to spare the family of the victim from losing face. It is therefore not outlandish to believe that Yamazaki did what he did to keep Sasaki from losing face: him coming out with those allegations, but never providing the evidence, which leaves Sasaki in a gray area in the public eye. Him bearing the weight of being called a liar to spare Sasaki from being seen as an object of pity because of the evidence that he had in his hands was the result of the patriarchal society in which he moves and the patriarchal values that he unknowingly holds.
This was probably not just a result of his being a shounen protagonist, but an unconscious manifestation of the culture and values within which our author moves.
But then, why did Sasaki come out with her story in the end, anyway? It seems so dissonant from Yamazaki's intent to keep her from losing face. My guess is as good as yours. It's probably because the author wanted us to have some catharsis. This is the story of a long tragedy created by sexual violence, and the ending is not satisfying, not cathartic, to the readers at all, although you could tell that that was the intended outcome judging by the way that the last chapter was drawn. The intended outcome was for us to have a cathartic moment in the end, but because of the issues which I discussed above, the manga falls completely flat on its face, shattering its nose, and possibly fracturing its skull on its way down. For how much this manga fails to present a story about two victims of sexual assault - one directly, and one indirectly - moving past the trauma from those events because of the way that Yamashita's son was pulling strings behind the scenes to create the tragic drama that we read, it unintentionally does a good job of making us ask why these things happened this way.
The biggest irony in the story is the way that Yamazaki's actions, because of their deep-rootedness in patriarchal values and tradition of "protecting" someone does nothing to improve the situation of the people around him, only harming himself and the person he was trying to "protect" the most. I have no problem with the way that the story was set up in the very beginning, because if it were not set up the way that it was, with Yamazaki "framing" himself, then this story wouldn't have happened. What I do have a problem with is the way that Yamazaki came to the conclusion that he was being selfish without thinking about the people around him, and still falling into the trap of being a martyr. Still trying to bear the weight of his sins by himself, still trying to "protect" Sasaki in the name of a patriarchal value that he doesn't know will only end up hurting her more in the long run.
Boku no Namae wa Shounen A unintentionally does a good job of pushing us to scrutinize the patriarchal values that underlie what is considered to be good and normal in the media we consume, and more importantly, in the spaces that we live in.
I cannot call this manga a critique of the way that Asian society, particularly Japanese society, views victims of sexual assault and the stigma surrounding these victims because if it were indeed such a critique, then it would have had something more meaningful to say of this societal stigma, instead of having our main character simply succumb to that patriarchal desire to "protect" someone who's resolved to let justice unfold. If it were truly such a critique of this stigma, then it wouldn't have left the ending as it was, and it would have questioned why Yamazaki was inclined to take the course of action that he did instead of treating it as an honorable thing for him to do. What this manga does well is how it shows us is the reprehensibility of the way Japanese society treats convicts, even children and people associated with them, without regard for their safety and the way this affects their personal lives in the name of not making a scene, even when the grounds for their conviction are shaky, and even when it's clear that there is more beneath the surface, so it could perhaps be called a critique of doxxing and the way that Japanese society treats convicts.
If you view Boku no Namae wa Shounen A in the right way, it can make you ask some really good questions about the society that you move in. It can make you ask some really good questions about the way that you personally view victims of sexual assault, how they ought to be treated, how justice ought to be served, and whether or not your actions are truly fair to the people around you. For this reason, it's just okay. I initially gave it a 4, but thinking on it, it deserves a 5 at least. It is just okay. It's a shame, because if this manga were written differently, if the story were approached differently, it could have done a lot to change its Japanese readership's views on victims of sexual assault and the justice that they need but are so often deprived of. It could have been a good intentional critique of the stigma that victims of sexual assault have to live through, and it could have done a lot to challenge the values that we so often don't question. Instead, we're left to ask ourselves these questions, and some people may not even ever come to ask these questions coming out of this manga because of the way that it was written.
For the author to have written this story must have taken a great deal of courage, but sadly, the execution is less than stellar. It could have been good, but the shock value and the tragic drama aspects of the story are played up way too much for me to believe that the subject matter was treated with tact with regard to people who have similar lived experiences to the point of the message being lost along the way and the story not asking the questions that it intends to ask. I assume that aside from the obvious message that sexual violence has long and lasting consequences and that revenge does not heal, that the other message which this story is trying to convey is not to judge on appearances and first impressions, but it fails that message by letting that continue to happen to our protagonist, Yamazaki, who chose to grin and bear through that stigma with only the few people around him knowing about the truth. It's even more ironic when you come to realize that Yamazaki went through all this trouble so that Sasaki wouldn't be judged based solely on the ground that she's a victim of sexual assault... And she still decides that she wants people to listen to her story anyway. Let the truth come out, and let people discern from the truth.
"The truth will set you free."
It's true. The truth could have set them free. But the truth never came out. 5/10.
Sasaki's trauma of having been sexually assaulted as well as Yamazaki's trauma of being an accomplice to murder, but especially Sasaki's trauma, are treated as plot devices to move the story forward, which does not sit well with me. In the first place, what moves this story forward is Yamashita's son doxxing "Shounen A" after the incident has blown over and he's come back to society at the cost of dredging up both of their traumas while they were in the process of healing. Their trauma keeps getting dredged up by the events of the story without any resolution or end in sight, even to the very end, and it's treated as a tragic part of their life which is a side-effect of their shared crime, which neither of them can resolve because they need to bear their sins, instead of something that can be resolved rationally and with the help and guidance of the adults in their life. The result of this in the narrative being told is that nothing happens for them to be able to resolve the trauma that they've endured in the name of Yamazaki constantly trying to protect the lie that he created to "protect" Sasaki, even when this should have happened toward the end as the story was coming to its conclusion.
I had hope in the beginning of chapter 27 when Yamazaki came out with his confession that he would finally do the right thing by releasing the evidence to the police in order to make amends to Sasaki's family properly. That way, both himself and Sasaki would have been able to resolve their trauma: his standing in society would be restored and Sasaki would be able to receive the therapy that she so desperately needed for having been sexually assaulted sooner. If this had happened, then at the very least, their trauma wouldn't have just become a plot device, and their characters would have been fleshed out as more than just bearers of trauma to carry a narrative. It would have made their characters that much more real. How they would have navigated their relationship, whether as sharers of trauma, accomplices in crime, acquaintances, friends, or maybe even lovers if the author had chosen to write the story that way is beyond me because this wasn't the story that was written, after all. But in all honestly, that wouldn't have been such a bad outcome.
I'm not saying this because I'm upset that Yamazaki and Sasaki didn't end up together. For what it's worth, I think it's good of the author to have depicted both parties move on with their lives and find other people who are special to them and who are capable of loving them as they are, but the ending just gives me the feeling that Sasaki was on the losing end, because the degree to which both parties were able to move on from their trauma are decidedly not the same, and is decidedly better for our male lead, Yamazaki. While he was able to go on living and find an actual lover and a solid support system and even reconnect with his estranged elder sister, Sasaki is left with her senpai, whom she cannot accept as a true lover because of her unresolved trauma from being sexually assaulted, which tells me that she either hasn't received therapy for her abuse, has only started receiving therapy for her abuse, or has become dependent on her senpai as her emotional support, any of these possibilities I cannot imagine being truly healthy for her.
This turn of events leaves a bitter taste in my mouth because it feels like Sasaki has been left, once again, to pick up the pieces, because of Yamazaki who insists on "protecting" her by disassociating himself from her in order to protect her honor and the life that he "created" for her, which was flawed in the first place. See here, where our main character is able to live his life to the fullest and move on from this nightmare of a situation, our female lead must bear the full weight of her trauma to the point of not being able to love a man fully and (possibly) not receiving the therapy that she needs. It feels like such a shounen way of dealing with things and resolving things, which should be unsurprising since the demographic for this manga is, after all, listed as shounen, but perhaps how utterly unsatisfying this conclusion to me is precisely because of that demographic for which this manga is written.
I can understand the appeal of writing your main character to be selfless enough to the point of forsaking his love in order to ensure that they are all able to move on from the bleakness of the youth that he inadvertently created by being selfish enough to think that he was in a position to protect Sasaki to a younger male demographic. Perhaps to a younger version of myself, this would have been a "cool" tragedy, where I would have thought to myself, "how brave! He was able to let go of his past and bear his sins alone to protect everyone," or something to that effect, but that absolutely does not fly with me now that I've grown older and am in a better position to critique more sensitive matters after having been exposed to more and more difficult situations in my own personal life and dealing with people who have gone through similar such traumas.
My problem with this is that this way of writing a main character and the story to present a "cool" role model to a younger demographic is that it infantilizes and vastly underestimates a young man's ability to process sensitive matters and the correct way to approach such matters. If instead of being written the way that it was, the author decided to write the story such that the whole truth came out, Sasaki and Yamazaki were able to confront and deal with their trauma with the truth out and receive therapy, I am sure that my takeaway would not have been the "how brave!' spiel that I wrote above, but instead that there are wounds which only the truth and justice can heal. It would have made me more conscientious of the importance of making sure that justice is met, especially for victims of sexual assault. It would have made me more aware of the fact that so many women who have gone through this kind of traumatic experience never attain the justice that they deserve, and that would definitely have made me a more conscientious young man, and might even have spurred me to this kind of growth sooner than I might have realized these things as I aged naturally.
Another thing that irks me about this way of writing the male lead is that in the way things were wrapped up, he inextricably stripped our female lead of her conviction instead of standing behind those convictions. She had resolved to come out with the truth, and had succeeded in telling the truth to Yamazaki's mother, and even after all that, you would think that our main character would respect those wishes and let the truth come out after he had gotten the opportunity to, when the data finally came into his hands... Instead, he goes off and decides on his own to be a martyr once again and come out and confess the truth behind his crime without providing the evidence to the police with the intention of protecting her from the public eye, which would judge her for being a victim of rape. It feels insulting and takes the power to confront the truth away from our female lead, which she already resolved to do in the first place. It reeks of a patriarchal sense of values, which diminishes the agency of our female lead. Not to mention, it also runs contrary to what Ken wants, which is to let the truth come out... That's another can of worms, but I digress. I have enough to talk about with just Yamazaki, Sasaki, Yamashita, and Yamashita's son.
The ending isn't entirely bad, it's just barely acceptable, but it is distinctly lacking for the reasons I've written above. It feels watered down for not confronting the issue at hand, which is that the violent nature of Sasaki and Yamazaki's response to the situation they were in came as a direct result of Yamashita's sexual violence. What's worse is that Yamazaki's chosen course of action felt more considerate to Yamashita's son than it did to Sasaki herself. It felt to me that he was swayed by Yamashita's son, despite how incorrigibly in the wrong he was, that he felt guilt in his heart for Yamashita's son feeling the consequences of his father's actions. Him stepping in to protect his friend from her abuser was neither his nor his friend's fault, and he shouldn't have had to feel guilty for Sasaki's assailant gaslighting the very natural self-defense reaction that he took. That he should have confronted the situation more intelligently in hindsight is true: the situation could have been solved without the bloodshed, but he was under no obligation to feel guilty for the conviction that he felt, which was to step in and take action. Once again, our female lead is diminished for the sake of another male character who actively went out of his way to create suffering in the life of our male lead and, although inadvertently, our female lead.
This is what I mean when I say that the manga was not resolved as satisfyingly as it could have been and that it was not handled with as much tact to people who have these same lived experiences as it could have been. In the end, there is no catharsis for the readers, so although the ending that was presented to us was "satisfying," it's still half-baked, and all too shounen-like. Yamazaki placed himself and his notions of "protecting" Sasaki's honor so that she would not have to relive this experience over the right thing: which is to present the whole truth, and let the consequences of revealing the whole truth and attaining true justice heal both of them. For a real person whose lived experiences mirrors Sasaki's (or Yamazaki's), it would be more cathartic to see justice brought to both parties, for them to live with the truth, and not keep deceiving themselves. In fact, despite Yamazaki's best efforts to ensure that Sasaki never has to live through the nightmare again, he fails at even this (and of course he would fail, because it is downright arrogant of him to think that bearing the weight of the sin of hiding the evidence would allow Sasaki to put everything behind her), because Sasaki is still living with the trauma 5 years later, sharing her story at small support groups. Would she not have had a better platform to share her story if he had not been selfish and stood behind her conviction to come out with the truth to the public by providing the evidence to the police in the first place? She would have.
And this is where we must ask ourselves: why? Why was the story written this way? Did it come as a result of the demographic for which this story was written? Perhaps it was, but whether the story came out this way intentionally or unintentionally, there is a lot wrong with it that we have to digest. It's the easiest explanation possible, that the story would have to be watered down for our shounen demographic, but I don't think the story was intentionally watered down this way because it's insulting to our demographic. I'm of the belief that the youth are entirely capable of digesting sensitive material if the material is presented thoughtfully. I believe that the way this story was written comes as a result of the values and the culture which the author lives and moves in. Although it is unpleasant to admit, the fear of losing face for being a victim of sexual assault is a stigma that is still all too common in Asia where I live, within East Asian cultures, and most importantly to our scrutiny of this story, in Japan where our author hails from and where the story takes place.
The notion of having to protect women from the public eye after having been sexually assaulted is a patriarchal value that I am no stranger to, being Chinese-Filipino myself. In this day and age, the stigma around accepting a victim of sexual assault as a bride is still very much a problem. Not only that, but victims of sexual assault are viewed by society as objects of pity at best, and at worst, objects of disgust. This is the truth that many of us who live within these cultures must live and grapple with - and try to change. In all rationality, this is the fate that Yamazaki wanted to spare Sasaki from, but we must question why this was the action that the author decided was appropriate for Yamazaki to take and why this was what they decided to write and to publish. The reality is that this would have been a very realistic thing to happen, seeing as how in some cultures, victims of sexual assault are married off to their abusers in order to spare the family of the victim from losing face. It is therefore not outlandish to believe that Yamazaki did what he did to keep Sasaki from losing face: him coming out with those allegations, but never providing the evidence, which leaves Sasaki in a gray area in the public eye. Him bearing the weight of being called a liar to spare Sasaki from being seen as an object of pity because of the evidence that he had in his hands was the result of the patriarchal society in which he moves and the patriarchal values that he unknowingly holds.
This was probably not just a result of his being a shounen protagonist, but an unconscious manifestation of the culture and values within which our author moves.
But then, why did Sasaki come out with her story in the end, anyway? It seems so dissonant from Yamazaki's intent to keep her from losing face. My guess is as good as yours. It's probably because the author wanted us to have some catharsis. This is the story of a long tragedy created by sexual violence, and the ending is not satisfying, not cathartic, to the readers at all, although you could tell that that was the intended outcome judging by the way that the last chapter was drawn. The intended outcome was for us to have a cathartic moment in the end, but because of the issues which I discussed above, the manga falls completely flat on its face, shattering its nose, and possibly fracturing its skull on its way down. For how much this manga fails to present a story about two victims of sexual assault - one directly, and one indirectly - moving past the trauma from those events because of the way that Yamashita's son was pulling strings behind the scenes to create the tragic drama that we read, it unintentionally does a good job of making us ask why these things happened this way.
The biggest irony in the story is the way that Yamazaki's actions, because of their deep-rootedness in patriarchal values and tradition of "protecting" someone does nothing to improve the situation of the people around him, only harming himself and the person he was trying to "protect" the most. I have no problem with the way that the story was set up in the very beginning, because if it were not set up the way that it was, with Yamazaki "framing" himself, then this story wouldn't have happened. What I do have a problem with is the way that Yamazaki came to the conclusion that he was being selfish without thinking about the people around him, and still falling into the trap of being a martyr. Still trying to bear the weight of his sins by himself, still trying to "protect" Sasaki in the name of a patriarchal value that he doesn't know will only end up hurting her more in the long run.
Boku no Namae wa Shounen A unintentionally does a good job of pushing us to scrutinize the patriarchal values that underlie what is considered to be good and normal in the media we consume, and more importantly, in the spaces that we live in.
I cannot call this manga a critique of the way that Asian society, particularly Japanese society, views victims of sexual assault and the stigma surrounding these victims because if it were indeed such a critique, then it would have had something more meaningful to say of this societal stigma, instead of having our main character simply succumb to that patriarchal desire to "protect" someone who's resolved to let justice unfold. If it were truly such a critique of this stigma, then it wouldn't have left the ending as it was, and it would have questioned why Yamazaki was inclined to take the course of action that he did instead of treating it as an honorable thing for him to do. What this manga does well is how it shows us is the reprehensibility of the way Japanese society treats convicts, even children and people associated with them, without regard for their safety and the way this affects their personal lives in the name of not making a scene, even when the grounds for their conviction are shaky, and even when it's clear that there is more beneath the surface, so it could perhaps be called a critique of doxxing and the way that Japanese society treats convicts.
If you view Boku no Namae wa Shounen A in the right way, it can make you ask some really good questions about the society that you move in. It can make you ask some really good questions about the way that you personally view victims of sexual assault, how they ought to be treated, how justice ought to be served, and whether or not your actions are truly fair to the people around you. For this reason, it's just okay. I initially gave it a 4, but thinking on it, it deserves a 5 at least. It is just okay. It's a shame, because if this manga were written differently, if the story were approached differently, it could have done a lot to change its Japanese readership's views on victims of sexual assault and the justice that they need but are so often deprived of. It could have been a good intentional critique of the stigma that victims of sexual assault have to live through, and it could have done a lot to challenge the values that we so often don't question. Instead, we're left to ask ourselves these questions, and some people may not even ever come to ask these questions coming out of this manga because of the way that it was written.
For the author to have written this story must have taken a great deal of courage, but sadly, the execution is less than stellar. It could have been good, but the shock value and the tragic drama aspects of the story are played up way too much for me to believe that the subject matter was treated with tact with regard to people who have similar lived experiences to the point of the message being lost along the way and the story not asking the questions that it intends to ask. I assume that aside from the obvious message that sexual violence has long and lasting consequences and that revenge does not heal, that the other message which this story is trying to convey is not to judge on appearances and first impressions, but it fails that message by letting that continue to happen to our protagonist, Yamazaki, who chose to grin and bear through that stigma with only the few people around him knowing about the truth. It's even more ironic when you come to realize that Yamazaki went through all this trouble so that Sasaki wouldn't be judged based solely on the ground that she's a victim of sexual assault... And she still decides that she wants people to listen to her story anyway. Let the truth come out, and let people discern from the truth.
"The truth will set you free."
It's true. The truth could have set them free. But the truth never came out. 5/10.
Dex-chan lover
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- Apr 19, 2020
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It’s so shit that you have to read it. It’s better than every manga out there jk but it a new experience
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- Sep 10, 2020
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Man, another thousands effort with zero profit. Gotta say, too wholesome. It’s good but i think the storyline is much potential.like the bounding with her lover , sasaki’s fall in love with the mc or maybe the bullies got what they deserve. 7/10
Member
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- Oct 19, 2019
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Bumpy would be the best way to describe this one I think. Lot of things that could have potentially worked better if handled differently, like I think
is good, but I felt the reveal didn’t quite have that punch it should’ve, and it also would have been nice to see more of MC’s classmates’ changing perspective of him. I also see some people saying the ending wasn’t satisfying enough but, that’s actually what I was kinda dreading and I’m glad the author didn’t tie everything with a nice little bow at the end. I also wish the victim’s son was more fleshed out cuz considering what he does to Boy A, I didn’t feel his motives really warrented that. That aside I think it’s a neat story but I’d like to see someone else tackle a story like this. 6/10
Sasaki being the killer
The story was a roller coaster ride.
Well everything at the end seemed somewhat solved but to me this end does not justify the pain and agony the family and friends suffered. It's kind of annoying to see how the MC is happy go lucky fellow for his girlfriend and can even go to the depths of hell for her. It's okay to help others especially if you have very strong feelings for that person but to go to that extent is utterly foolishness. The question still remains did he even realise till the end how he has caused harm to his family especially his mom who supported him till the end even in his lies. I sympathize with FMC for what she had gone through but I despise both of them for what they had done. I literally hate the MC for the events when his mom had to bow and beg to others for his deeds countless times and he was just standing there thinking he is a knight in shining armour for the FMC. I don't think that both of them even had apologized to his mom or even shown regret for their actions.
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- Sep 22, 2019
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I have finally finished reading this. It surprises me that it's been 2 years since the first update. There's a lot of time to consider reading it since it has a potential plot. Glad that I decided to finally read this. To be honest, I don't really know what to say about the whole thing.
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- Aug 30, 2020
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I want a sequel of the killing mentioned at the end of the last of chapter.
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