Boy's Abyss - Vol. 17 Ch. 164 - Shadow
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Just wait for the next chapter🤭🤭
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I don't think Yuko actually decided that she wanted Akira/Esemori to live. Shino'oka says "she really believed she loved him", and the twisted perception Esemori had of her.
I think that Yuko deeply wanted someone to "save her", to "fix things" for her, no matter how immoral and auto destructive they are.
She made Gen kill her husband as a token of love. There's no real way of knowing whether they had a good relationship or not, but she made Gen do it, because in her twisted mind, men "evil" things for her is what signifies love.
She is like, the complete epitome of Femme Fatale. She didn't want to die, but she made Uryu believe it, because if he was willing to kill himself out of love for her, then she was getting something out of it. She basically baited Esemori into saving her. Once she got what she wanted from Esemori, she didn't need Uryu, that's why she had no qualms killing him. But she clinged onto Esemori, because if she died, then what she did was for nothing. She could have told Esemori the truth, but she didn't , and let Esemori believe he did it, because she wanted him to have that idealized image of her so she could keep manipulating him. She lied because if Esemori believed he killed for her, then she could bait him into doing even worse things.
Shino'oka tried to tell Esemori, but he wasn't of right mind to accept it, and probably the trauma was too much to process it anyways. She told the press she was coerced, because 1- that way Esemori would believe even more that she was just defending herself, 2- that would reinforce the image of tortured soul she kept cultivating, 3- Uryu was a banchou, he probably had a bad rep even before.
What's worse is that I don't think Yuko did any of this intentionally. I think is normal to wish to be saved, but she craves in a absolutely twisted way.
She didn't want to be saved like Chako wanted. She didn't want someone to take her away or something. No, she wanted someone to destroy the town in her name. Like Uryu did when he started that fire.
She made Reiji believe he couldn't leave, so he would eventually do it himself. But then Nagi entered and she is the complete opposite of Yuko, and at the same time a foil.
Nagi doesn't want to die, but she also has no desire to live, and instead of someone who would do things in her name, she craves for someone who will make her do things in his name, and give her a purpose.
I think that in Yuko's mind, she would approve of whatever bad thing Reiji did, as long as it meant staying with her.
Like, she supports the teacher getting pregnant, because as bad as it would be, that would mean Reiji staying with her. Again, she wants someone to ruin their own lives in her name.
That's why she laughed at the book Esemori wrote, cause it basically proved that Esemori ruined his own life thanks to his obsession with her, one way or another.
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Not a high enough kill streak
Man... this is so incredibly regretful and heartbreaking. I thought Yuko lost all hope and was past the point of no return back when Esemori lost hope in her during that Bridge scene in their flashback, or when he ran away from her after seeing her open the window, before she could run down the stairs go see him. Even though those were soul-crushing, spirit-breaking moments during that accursed chapter of Yuko's life, it seems she was still, genuinely, and hopelessly head-over-heels in love with him. She still wanted to be with and spend her life with him above any other man, when she could've had her pick of potential suitors. For goodness' sake, she had entire rogue gangs starting a war to fight over her, such was her beauty.
It's so endearing actually, how she was with Uryu at the time, a man more masculine, strong, confident, and competent (albeit as a delinquent) than Esemori, and in the end, the special significance her bond with Esemori had in her heart was more important and dear to her than another guy more objectively attractive than Esemori, who was at the time an incompetent coward and asshole who prioritized his own feeling of superficial loss and abandoned his duty of supporting Yuko against the nightmare she was living (not that I blame him for it, he was a kid who felt that his first teenage romance was shattered in the worst way he knew). It got me thinking about women and the way they love the men they chose to cherish romantically and emotionally, that they wouldn't hesitate to pass up the chance to be with a more attractive man (even after being able to and actually dating such a man), so as long as they feel like there's a chance for them to be with the one they actually share and cherish that bond with, even if that's a lesser man who's not nearly as big of a "catch" and even if it's a woman as broken as Yuko. If you think Yuko saying those words at Lovers' Abyss, when she told him she wanted to be with him, weren't true, then I'd point to the night before, when she clearly reciprocated his embrace and actually initiated the kiss, full of desire for him... the reason why she even showed up in the rain at all, at that house where he was writing his novel, was because she felt her future uncertain and likely thought this was the last she would ever see of him, her last chance to consummate their childhood love as purely as they could in that moment. She clearly wasn't in any danger then and didn't need to manipulate him. Hell, she didn't even inform him of her and Uryu's plans to commit suicide together and knowing how much Esemori failed to pick up on her signs of abuse and home circumstances and generally proved himself unreliable when it comes to reading between the lines to figure things out, that couldn't have been a plan of hers to manipulate him into figuring out that they were going to kill themselves at Lovers' Abyss.
Even after everything that happened, all the pain and suffering she endured as a child, as random, strange older men thrusted on top of her, making her feel suffocated, unable to breathe, even after she had already started going out with Uryu, a man who could actually protect her, and even after Akira had already started dating Shino'oka, and for what all of her childhood, romantic bond with Esemori was worth, Yuko was really just hopelessly, madly in love with him. She really just wanted him to be with him. She still and always will love him absolutely. Idk, maybe a weird thought to have, making this about the way women love and such when I don't think there's much of a difference in the way men and women love one another, but being a straight man and quite the bit of a hopeless romantic, I couldn't help but see it that way. I just wish I could manually change the events of the past so that Yuko and Esemori got to live out their cherished dream of getting married to each other and having the children they desired.
It's so endearing actually, how she was with Uryu at the time, a man more masculine, strong, confident, and competent (albeit as a delinquent) than Esemori, and in the end, the special significance her bond with Esemori had in her heart was more important and dear to her than another guy more objectively attractive than Esemori, who was at the time an incompetent coward and asshole who prioritized his own feeling of superficial loss and abandoned his duty of supporting Yuko against the nightmare she was living (not that I blame him for it, he was a kid who felt that his first teenage romance was shattered in the worst way he knew). It got me thinking about women and the way they love the men they chose to cherish romantically and emotionally, that they wouldn't hesitate to pass up the chance to be with a more attractive man (even after being able to and actually dating such a man), so as long as they feel like there's a chance for them to be with the one they actually share and cherish that bond with, even if that's a lesser man who's not nearly as big of a "catch" and even if it's a woman as broken as Yuko. If you think Yuko saying those words at Lovers' Abyss, when she told him she wanted to be with him, weren't true, then I'd point to the night before, when she clearly reciprocated his embrace and actually initiated the kiss, full of desire for him... the reason why she even showed up in the rain at all, at that house where he was writing his novel, was because she felt her future uncertain and likely thought this was the last she would ever see of him, her last chance to consummate their childhood love as purely as they could in that moment. She clearly wasn't in any danger then and didn't need to manipulate him. Hell, she didn't even inform him of her and Uryu's plans to commit suicide together and knowing how much Esemori failed to pick up on her signs of abuse and home circumstances and generally proved himself unreliable when it comes to reading between the lines to figure things out, that couldn't have been a plan of hers to manipulate him into figuring out that they were going to kill themselves at Lovers' Abyss.
Even after everything that happened, all the pain and suffering she endured as a child, as random, strange older men thrusted on top of her, making her feel suffocated, unable to breathe, even after she had already started going out with Uryu, a man who could actually protect her, and even after Akira had already started dating Shino'oka, and for what all of her childhood, romantic bond with Esemori was worth, Yuko was really just hopelessly, madly in love with him. She really just wanted him to be with him. She still and always will love him absolutely. Idk, maybe a weird thought to have, making this about the way women love and such when I don't think there's much of a difference in the way men and women love one another, but being a straight man and quite the bit of a hopeless romantic, I couldn't help but see it that way. I just wish I could manually change the events of the past so that Yuko and Esemori got to live out their cherished dream of getting married to each other and having the children they desired.
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Dex-chan lover
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Nah, most likely author came up with this "revelation" somewhere along the way much later after flashback chapters and it's pretty weak. Esemori flashback was obviously complete segment with no further development. And it was the best part of this manga, in particular, this plot point where Esemori had to kick Uryu to save Yuko was really powerful and fucked up in a good way. And this new truth is just meh.
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