By Spring - Vol. 1 Ch. 3 - Vending Machine
- Thread starter MangaDex
- Start date
Dex-chan lover
- Joined
- Jan 7, 2019
- Messages
- 999
"mom can i have a prostitute?"
"no, we already have a prostitute at home"
Prostitute at home:
"no, we already have a prostitute at home"
Prostitute at home:
Double-page supporter
- Joined
- Aug 21, 2018
- Messages
- 1,021
The mom looks like the lady from Yuki onna.
Group Leader
- Joined
- Jul 16, 2018
- Messages
- 1,052
So torn on whether to like this or not. MC's motive is dumb but understandable. Mother's character is strange in that I can't figure out what the heck she's doing. Teasing high school girl is interesting enough.
But all that work getting money for... a boob grab? I can only handle so many chapters like that for something that's not a comedy.
But all that work getting money for... a boob grab? I can only handle so many chapters like that for something that's not a comedy.
Dex-chan lover
- Joined
- Sep 1, 2019
- Messages
- 10,564
I do wonder though considering how distant his mother is from MC if him paying the JK girl is his only interaction with another woman of any meaningful degree, even if its just holding hands. MC's not so much dumb as he is uninformed and ignorant of the world at large as he hasn't had enough experience with it yet to make an informed decision. I'm not entirely sure if he fully knows the nuances of sex at his age but because he's just entering puberty, he is beginning to be attracted to women by nature.
If you read it from the angle that MC is a poor kid with limited understanding of the world because of his mother's distance/coldness, not being raised properly, and just being an immature middle schooler that doesn't fully of his lease on life yet, then it makes more sense where he's coming from. Sure we can think MC is acting dumb from the prospective of much more educated adults or mature people, but when you're in the first few years of Middle School, are a social outcast and have a difficult home life, you may just be on the same level as him
Though, I'm fully in the camp of this being a good story, so take that as you will.
@dotawolfbrother @criver
Also:
If you read it from the angle that MC is a poor kid with limited understanding of the world because of his mother's distance/coldness, not being raised properly, and just being an immature middle schooler that doesn't fully of his lease on life yet, then it makes more sense where he's coming from. Sure we can think MC is acting dumb from the prospective of much more educated adults or mature people, but when you're in the first few years of Middle School, are a social outcast and have a difficult home life, you may just be on the same level as him
Though, I'm fully in the camp of this being a good story, so take that as you will.
@dotawolfbrother @criver
Also:
Money, get away
Get a good job with good pay and you're okay
Money, it's a gas
Grab that cash with both hands and make a stash
New car, caviar, four star daydream
Think I'll buy me a football team
Money, get back
I'm all right Jack keep your hands off of my stack
Money, it's a hit
Don't give me that do goody good bullshit
I'm in the high-fidelity first class traveling set
And I think I need a Lear jet
Money, it's a crime
Share it fairly but don't take a slice of my pie
Money, so they say
Is the root of all evil today
But if you ask for a raise it's no surprise that they're
Giving none away, away, away
Get a good job with good pay and you're okay
Money, it's a gas
Grab that cash with both hands and make a stash
New car, caviar, four star daydream
Think I'll buy me a football team
Money, get back
I'm all right Jack keep your hands off of my stack
Money, it's a hit
Don't give me that do goody good bullshit
I'm in the high-fidelity first class traveling set
And I think I need a Lear jet
Money, it's a crime
Share it fairly but don't take a slice of my pie
Money, so they say
Is the root of all evil today
But if you ask for a raise it's no surprise that they're
Giving none away, away, away
@Tamerlane
The only reason I am reading this is to see how far the stupidity will go. There's nothing likeable in this manga as far as I can see. To put it concisely: pathetic MC trying to use chump change (that he didn't earn) to pay some possibly homeless girl to grope her. Indeed a classic of our time.
Considering this, the natural progression for a sequel will be: loser on welfare pays prostitutes for sex.
Yeah, no. I don't believe that even special needs kids would act like him. He very well understands the sexual implications of paying for whatever "services". He's just plain pathetic. I see no redeeming qualities in this MC whatsoever.
The only reason I am reading this is to see how far the stupidity will go. There's nothing likeable in this manga as far as I can see. To put it concisely: pathetic MC trying to use chump change (that he didn't earn) to pay some possibly homeless girl to grope her. Indeed a classic of our time.
Considering this, the natural progression for a sequel will be: loser on welfare pays prostitutes for sex.
Dex-chan lover
- Joined
- Sep 1, 2019
- Messages
- 10,564
Except that he's a kid. He's not an adult. You're viewing this from the angle of someone who is able to pick up nuances because you've learned to see the clues and context which he hasn't had the ability nor time to fully comprehend.
Your average middle schooler does not have enough life experience to most likely make an informed judgment about what sex is. He's just uninformed because he's both socially isolated so he can't read people well, as we see in the first chapter which establishes he doesn't really have friends (who most likely would be the ones who would teach him about the nuances of human interaction as his mother will not because of their emotional distance.)
Also note that he never said he wanted to grope her, he just stared at her chest, which I'd imagine is quite common for boys entering puberty. She infers that its what he wants to do, but its never outright stated.
I'll re-read the last few chapters but I will make a solid argument why this manga is good, so I'll be back in a few minutes. @criver
Your average middle schooler does not have enough life experience to most likely make an informed judgment about what sex is. He's just uninformed because he's both socially isolated so he can't read people well, as we see in the first chapter which establishes he doesn't really have friends (who most likely would be the ones who would teach him about the nuances of human interaction as his mother will not because of their emotional distance.)
Also note that he never said he wanted to grope her, he just stared at her chest, which I'd imagine is quite common for boys entering puberty. She infers that its what he wants to do, but its never outright stated.
I'll re-read the last few chapters but I will make a solid argument why this manga is good, so I'll be back in a few minutes. @criver
@Tamerlane
Your average middle schooler will never think of paying some homeless girl for sexual services with chump change.
This is not about being uninformed - it's about his decisions. Unless you want to argue those are typical for socially isolated kids. If anything socially isolated kids avoid interactions, let alone trying to pay for groping someone. It's literally the opposite.
Are we seriously going to go with that? He came with "the money", she inferred what for, he didn't deny it, and even enjoyed it. Good luck defending that one.
Dex-chan lover
- Joined
- Sep 1, 2019
- Messages
- 10,564
Split into parts for your convenience:
Okay, so in regards to the first chapter, there's a lot of good setup here.
That's all just in the first forty pages and there's a lot of interesting ideas and themes to unpack in it. It's completely internally consistent and it feels very natural for what it is. You may say you don't like Miura for one reason or another but he's not a poorly written character and he acts as you would expect a boy in his circumstances would as he's very confused and ill-informed about the world at large and he just needs someone to break that wall between him and everyone else down. I think you're doing a disservice to his character (keep in mind that I'm sure it's building towards an arc about him growing older and wising up to the world through the girl under the bridge and Takasaki) and how well constructed and written it is. It's quite the good bildungsroman for what it is. If you're not convinced, I'll analyze the other chapters in a similar manner because it is a good and compelling story in my opinion and MC is getting more hate than he deserves in all honesty. @criver
Okay, so in regards to the first chapter, there's a lot of good setup here.
Firstly, it is established that the main character is poor as he rarely ever gets to hold a 500 yen coin (which is little less than five bucks.) He can't even afford food from the convenience stand. As he travels, you hear gossip throughout the town about a girl living under the bridge and rumors about her. We get all of this in three pages which flows very naturally and with good dialogue. We see the main character's relationship to some townsfolk, one who is close to his mother (Matoba) and several give him dirty looks which indicates either him or his family is not well-received, a subtle-but well-foreshadowed piece of information.
We get subtle clues about the relationship between the mother and the son and the implication of child neglect or distance between them. She checks to make sure he brought back all the change and her reaction is shot in a very intimidating way. She has a lot of beauty supplies, but she tells her son that she can't afford a smartphone, which basically is a necessity these days. It implies that she cares for her son, but not to the extent that it hurts her bottom line and that she values herself above him. None of this is explicit but is easily inferred by closely reading. In the same manner, we can infer from the first chapter she's a prostitute without ever having it spelled out to us as the audience from how she'll get a text message from a man named Sugino that says he wants to meet up with her (again) and so she calls into work pretending that her son is sick.
We also see that once she leaves the house, MC masturbates to a magazine. If you notice, no sex is actually occurring in the magazine but it establishes that he is a pubescent boy that has is sexuality awaken a bit. This explains why he is rather uneducated in regards to sex throughout the piece or he seems a bit dense. He's never actually seen the real thing nor has he been taught it by adults, especially not his mother who wouldn't want her son figuring out what she's been doing behind the scenes at night. It is safe to conclude, therefore, that he's in his early stages of sexuality but not to a degree that he's going on anything but instinct and that he's just started to notice these things. Another thing that supports this interpretation is that we're introduced to his crush, Yuri Takasaki, whom he blushes when he sees her skirt flap in the wind and gets embarrassed when he thinks he got called out for it.
Another clue to indicate that Miura is unpopular and doesn't have many friends is in that Takasaki gets told by one of her friends that she shouldn't interact with him because he's poor, even though she says that he's a nice person. We get to see a little bit into what attracts these two together here with some good setup in that Miura appreciates that she's the only person who will associate or speak to him when the others bully or isolate themselves away due to his poverty, and Takasaki wants to get to know him better as she perceives him as "nice," in comparison to the other men around her at school. It's a lot that you can unpack from a few panels, and its extremely well-written for what it is, as you get a lot of character development from it.
Immediately after this, we see Miura sitting on a set of stairs eating a riceball and thinking "Girls...Girls...I wonder what it would feel like..." The ambiguity in the wording here is perfectly intentional. Is it lust he is talking about? The feeling of having sex as he matures into an adult? Or is he talking about what it feels like to be loved or to belong, which he is lacking in both regards both at home and at school. Before he can finish, he gets interrupted with a word that we know will get his attention because it's the last insult he heard: "poor." Though it doesn't have to do with him, he eavesdrops on a conversation about a girl selling "it" for cheap, which never discloses what it is, though he infers potentially "prostitute." He may have a vague idea of what a prostitute is but not be fully aware of the implications of it, in the same way you may some memorized definition as a kid but not associate any meaning with it, and later its revealed he heard kids using the word and so he may simply have overheard it once assumed that's what she was without knowing in detail about it.
Back at home, his mother is heading off to "work" again and gives him change to buy himself something to eat after leaving food in the crock-pot at home, another indication that MC has to take care of himself mostly and that his mother is neglectful. He buys the food he wanted earlier and Matobo both teases him for his soft-core porn books, which he says he won't tell his mother about, and asks him where she's been because she hasn't been coming to work, which shocks Miura. This is a really clever interaction as it makes MC doubt his mother's honesty which leads to him going to Kasguna bridge on his way back. Why he does this is left to interpretation. Perhaps he's worried that its his mom under the bridge? Perhaps he's just a curious teenage boy and wants to know what's going on there? He says as much later. Perhaps he's actually just looking to met someone? For sex? For companionship? It's left uncertain which is a good move in my opinion.
Also of note is as he goes down, she pretends to be asleep before making him jump by calling him unpopular. She then accuses him of wanting to "buy her," (wanting to sleep with her) but he just says he came because he heard rumors. She said she never met a middle school student like him, either implying that the others wussed out before they had sex or that Miura is more than has he appears. He actually tries to back off, but she says that he should give into her, and grabs his wallet, only to be surprised that there's only 24 yen in it, and so assumes that he has another wallet, but when she realizes he doesn't, she takes pity on him. She laughs for the first time in a long time according to her and says that she's decided to sell herself. And for once, she doesn't have sex, but instead pats him on the head. This is not only really sweet, but shows that MC doesn't only want sex or to buy a hooker, but is craving physical affection in anyway. The bare human minimum of human skinship that he lacks, the comforting pat on the head from another person or just a simple acknowledgement of who he is as just a lonely boy.
That night, we see his mother drinking beer, implying she's an alcoholic which may be one of the reasons they're poor, where he pretends to sleep, paralleling the girl from earlier, but is unable to as he actually "bought" a girl and for once in his life feels like he's been accepted on some level.
We get subtle clues about the relationship between the mother and the son and the implication of child neglect or distance between them. She checks to make sure he brought back all the change and her reaction is shot in a very intimidating way. She has a lot of beauty supplies, but she tells her son that she can't afford a smartphone, which basically is a necessity these days. It implies that she cares for her son, but not to the extent that it hurts her bottom line and that she values herself above him. None of this is explicit but is easily inferred by closely reading. In the same manner, we can infer from the first chapter she's a prostitute without ever having it spelled out to us as the audience from how she'll get a text message from a man named Sugino that says he wants to meet up with her (again) and so she calls into work pretending that her son is sick.
We also see that once she leaves the house, MC masturbates to a magazine. If you notice, no sex is actually occurring in the magazine but it establishes that he is a pubescent boy that has is sexuality awaken a bit. This explains why he is rather uneducated in regards to sex throughout the piece or he seems a bit dense. He's never actually seen the real thing nor has he been taught it by adults, especially not his mother who wouldn't want her son figuring out what she's been doing behind the scenes at night. It is safe to conclude, therefore, that he's in his early stages of sexuality but not to a degree that he's going on anything but instinct and that he's just started to notice these things. Another thing that supports this interpretation is that we're introduced to his crush, Yuri Takasaki, whom he blushes when he sees her skirt flap in the wind and gets embarrassed when he thinks he got called out for it.
Another clue to indicate that Miura is unpopular and doesn't have many friends is in that Takasaki gets told by one of her friends that she shouldn't interact with him because he's poor, even though she says that he's a nice person. We get to see a little bit into what attracts these two together here with some good setup in that Miura appreciates that she's the only person who will associate or speak to him when the others bully or isolate themselves away due to his poverty, and Takasaki wants to get to know him better as she perceives him as "nice," in comparison to the other men around her at school. It's a lot that you can unpack from a few panels, and its extremely well-written for what it is, as you get a lot of character development from it.
Immediately after this, we see Miura sitting on a set of stairs eating a riceball and thinking "Girls...Girls...I wonder what it would feel like..." The ambiguity in the wording here is perfectly intentional. Is it lust he is talking about? The feeling of having sex as he matures into an adult? Or is he talking about what it feels like to be loved or to belong, which he is lacking in both regards both at home and at school. Before he can finish, he gets interrupted with a word that we know will get his attention because it's the last insult he heard: "poor." Though it doesn't have to do with him, he eavesdrops on a conversation about a girl selling "it" for cheap, which never discloses what it is, though he infers potentially "prostitute." He may have a vague idea of what a prostitute is but not be fully aware of the implications of it, in the same way you may some memorized definition as a kid but not associate any meaning with it, and later its revealed he heard kids using the word and so he may simply have overheard it once assumed that's what she was without knowing in detail about it.
Back at home, his mother is heading off to "work" again and gives him change to buy himself something to eat after leaving food in the crock-pot at home, another indication that MC has to take care of himself mostly and that his mother is neglectful. He buys the food he wanted earlier and Matobo both teases him for his soft-core porn books, which he says he won't tell his mother about, and asks him where she's been because she hasn't been coming to work, which shocks Miura. This is a really clever interaction as it makes MC doubt his mother's honesty which leads to him going to Kasguna bridge on his way back. Why he does this is left to interpretation. Perhaps he's worried that its his mom under the bridge? Perhaps he's just a curious teenage boy and wants to know what's going on there? He says as much later. Perhaps he's actually just looking to met someone? For sex? For companionship? It's left uncertain which is a good move in my opinion.
Also of note is as he goes down, she pretends to be asleep before making him jump by calling him unpopular. She then accuses him of wanting to "buy her," (wanting to sleep with her) but he just says he came because he heard rumors. She said she never met a middle school student like him, either implying that the others wussed out before they had sex or that Miura is more than has he appears. He actually tries to back off, but she says that he should give into her, and grabs his wallet, only to be surprised that there's only 24 yen in it, and so assumes that he has another wallet, but when she realizes he doesn't, she takes pity on him. She laughs for the first time in a long time according to her and says that she's decided to sell herself. And for once, she doesn't have sex, but instead pats him on the head. This is not only really sweet, but shows that MC doesn't only want sex or to buy a hooker, but is craving physical affection in anyway. The bare human minimum of human skinship that he lacks, the comforting pat on the head from another person or just a simple acknowledgement of who he is as just a lonely boy.
That night, we see his mother drinking beer, implying she's an alcoholic which may be one of the reasons they're poor, where he pretends to sleep, paralleling the girl from earlier, but is unable to as he actually "bought" a girl and for once in his life feels like he's been accepted on some level.
That's all just in the first forty pages and there's a lot of interesting ideas and themes to unpack in it. It's completely internally consistent and it feels very natural for what it is. You may say you don't like Miura for one reason or another but he's not a poorly written character and he acts as you would expect a boy in his circumstances would as he's very confused and ill-informed about the world at large and he just needs someone to break that wall between him and everyone else down. I think you're doing a disservice to his character (keep in mind that I'm sure it's building towards an arc about him growing older and wising up to the world through the girl under the bridge and Takasaki) and how well constructed and written it is. It's quite the good bildungsroman for what it is. If you're not convinced, I'll analyze the other chapters in a similar manner because it is a good and compelling story in my opinion and MC is getting more hate than he deserves in all honesty. @criver
Dex-chan lover
- Joined
- Sep 1, 2019
- Messages
- 10,564
To address some concerns:
-We don't know for certain that he explicitly wants things sexual in nature. It's implied he just wants someone to be close to him that he can communicate and interact with because he doesn't have that from anyone else. Sure, we as the audience know what a prostitute is, but we aren't completely certain he knows, or understands the full implications of it. You have to approach this from the prospective of someone who has a limited understanding of how people work because he doesn't have anyone particularly close to him. His only family is his mother who's very egocentric, everyone at his school refuses to associate with him directly, and he doesn't interact with anyone besides friends of his mother
-He's not avoiding interactions but he doesn't fully understands the implications if his actions because of his young age. He's 14 years old, so he's got a very narrow and limited view of what things are, especially given his circumstances and that his school isn't full of the types you'd expect from high-achieving or particularly intelligent types. If he only wanted sex, why did he bring her food? Why does he seem genuinely concerned about her well being? I don't think MC is a shallow person who only wants to have sex but is looking for a deeper emotional connection which he is not getting due to his social isolation, and so has to pay someone to get that connection. It's sad, sure, but it's not like Miura is a badly written character or inconsistent. There's nothing objectively wrong with how he acts and its very internally consistent with what we know about him, as he's very submissive and takes things as they come rather than acting on them.
-Yes, we are going with that because of context. If you've been paying attention, it's never outright stated he wanted sexual services from her. He just looked at her breasts and she thought that's what he wanted, but in the chapters leading up to this, the most they ever did was have her flick him on the head and have him get head pats. To say that he didn't deny it is the appeal to silence fallacy, as we know that he isn't the most responsive individual to begin with and rarely speaks with people or communicates to them directly. Also, he never actually touched her breasts. It's quite easy to defend because each time leading up to this, he never had sexual with her or did anything sexual with her. She's teased him a few times, but all they did was interact with one another in a way that wasn't openly hostile or aggressive. MC's not trying to get laid I don't think, but is just looking for someone else who can understand his plight and get over his anxieties. I think you've completely looked at their relationship on the surface level where it's very much more complex than that and there's more to dissect and understand than you're letting on. I definitely think re-reading it a few more times and focusing on diction, context, and character interactions will amend that issue
@criver
-We don't know for certain that he explicitly wants things sexual in nature. It's implied he just wants someone to be close to him that he can communicate and interact with because he doesn't have that from anyone else. Sure, we as the audience know what a prostitute is, but we aren't completely certain he knows, or understands the full implications of it. You have to approach this from the prospective of someone who has a limited understanding of how people work because he doesn't have anyone particularly close to him. His only family is his mother who's very egocentric, everyone at his school refuses to associate with him directly, and he doesn't interact with anyone besides friends of his mother
-He's not avoiding interactions but he doesn't fully understands the implications if his actions because of his young age. He's 14 years old, so he's got a very narrow and limited view of what things are, especially given his circumstances and that his school isn't full of the types you'd expect from high-achieving or particularly intelligent types. If he only wanted sex, why did he bring her food? Why does he seem genuinely concerned about her well being? I don't think MC is a shallow person who only wants to have sex but is looking for a deeper emotional connection which he is not getting due to his social isolation, and so has to pay someone to get that connection. It's sad, sure, but it's not like Miura is a badly written character or inconsistent. There's nothing objectively wrong with how he acts and its very internally consistent with what we know about him, as he's very submissive and takes things as they come rather than acting on them.
-Yes, we are going with that because of context. If you've been paying attention, it's never outright stated he wanted sexual services from her. He just looked at her breasts and she thought that's what he wanted, but in the chapters leading up to this, the most they ever did was have her flick him on the head and have him get head pats. To say that he didn't deny it is the appeal to silence fallacy, as we know that he isn't the most responsive individual to begin with and rarely speaks with people or communicates to them directly. Also, he never actually touched her breasts. It's quite easy to defend because each time leading up to this, he never had sexual with her or did anything sexual with her. She's teased him a few times, but all they did was interact with one another in a way that wasn't openly hostile or aggressive. MC's not trying to get laid I don't think, but is just looking for someone else who can understand his plight and get over his anxieties. I think you've completely looked at their relationship on the surface level where it's very much more complex than that and there's more to dissect and understand than you're letting on. I definitely think re-reading it a few more times and focusing on diction, context, and character interactions will amend that issue
@criver
@Tamerlane
Edit: To address your second post - most things I have addressed already. But to reiterate:
More is not better. Retelling the story was unnecessary - I can read just fine. I tried my best to extract what I see as your main points relevant to my comment from all of this.
That's subjective, but my aim was never to attack the manga on a stylistic basis - most manga fail in that regard anyways compared to actual literary works, so I avoid doing such comparisons, unless there are blatantly glaring flaws like an ugly exposition dump. Anyways, you can work off the assumption that for this manga I am ignoring all stylistic flaws.
Unrelated to the whole point, but no, it is not a necessity - you'll live through without a smartphone, probably with a longer attention span at that (you can look up the research on that).
I am not sure where you're going with this. There are 5 year olds that masturbate, what about it? As in what point are you trying to make with this?
How does the latter part follow from the former? He's using a softcore porn magazine to jerk off, I have trouble following your conclusion that he's supposedly not educated about sex.
This is where I disagree. In Japan they have sex ed from 10-11 years. By all means he would know what sex is, not to mention you usually know what sex is way before you have sex ed classes. So I guess that "argument" simply fails on basic reasoning grounds.
How is this relevant? I never questioned the fact that he is socially inept - I questioned your conclusion that this somehow motivated him paying a homeless girl to grope her.
Yeah, no. I don't know if you realize it but you are picking an interpretation outside of the source material to try and push your point based on extra details YOU came up with (as opposed to the author). That's not how it works. You have no reason to believe this outside your desire to defend the MC. So let's keep it at that.
Let's put it that way - what do you go to prostitutes for? He knows what he is doing, as his actions confirm later on.
I do not see this as sweet - I see this as pathetic and unethical. And his later actions go onto confirm this mind you. He basically sees her as a vending machine of what he perceives as affection (including the sexual connotations). He doesn't really care about her as a person as is obvious - in his eyes she's just that weird homeless girl under the bridge that sells her affection to him for chump change. This is wrong and pathetic on several levels.
That's jumping to conclusions.
The reasons are clear - he's pathetic and his moral compass is off. To makes matters worse he's not trying to do anything to improve his situation. Pretty much an unlikeable character.
No. I do not expect a boy in his circumstances to act this way. Poor middle school students do not pay homeless (underaged) prostitutes en masse in reality.
I would rather you address the points I had made initially rather than detract in retelling the story (that is not an analysis btw). Also do avoid making conclusions by making jumps in logic as the ones pointed out in this comment. As it is, it seems like you are trying to prove statement X, and to that end you are willing to sacrifice logic steps (jumping to conclusions), add your own details to the story (which the author has not included), or outright make wrong conclusions (the sex ed thing). I think it is fair to say that you were fairly biased in your response, considering all of these issues. Please avoid that in your next response.
Edit: To address your second post - most things I have addressed already. But to reiterate:
Very complex relationship indeed. I give money to the homeless girl, she gives me "affection". As I said - she's reduced to the level of a vending machine for him.
This is not appeal to silence - he had the option to avoid such a situation, he willingly decided not to. What evidence do you need here? He paid for a service, and didn't decline it. And if you're not convinced, then you will probably be next chapter, when he comes for more, which should make this pretty clear. It honestly feels like you're trying to find loopholes to justify the MC's behaviour, no matter how ridiculous those are. I suggest applying Occam's razor to all of your arguments before you decide to write them down, you may notice that a fair amount of them would fail.
Dex-chan lover
- Joined
- Sep 1, 2019
- Messages
- 10,564
This post is long so bare with me, but in response, I think this would serve in lieu of further chapter dissections. I think my biggest criticism of your perspective is that it seems that you're missing subtext and the deeper and less surface-level interactions between the characters, which is where you're falling short so to say. I don't think you're arguing in bad faith or anything, but I feel like you've missed some key details that make important differences when discussing if this is a good or bad manga. @criver
Also worth noting is that you probably learned a lot about what sex is during your formative years from your friends more so than you did from school, as the first few years of sex ed is very limited whereas your friends would make dirty jokes or would teach you off-color stuff that they wouldn't or couldn't teach you at school. If you remove that aspect, you probably would be less informed than the normal person at that age.
Also you fundamentally missed the subtext of their interactions. MC doesn't have any friends, nor anyone close. Everyone, even his mother, is distant and cold towards him. He's an outcast, a pariah and a scapegoat. What else can he turn to? What else can he try to do? So he turns to the outcasts and pariahs of society. Why would he go to prostitute with money? Does he even fully understand what a prostitute is beside a person you take money to in exchange for something intimate? I don't think it's fair to his character to simply look at an action devoid of the context around the action and pass judgement on it, especially in this case where we know MC doesn't understand people.
-
For instance, this scene implies he's going to check in on her and make sure she's okay. The way it's shot gives the impression that her interptation of events is in the wrong and that MC is genuinely concerned about her
When MC says something like "I'm making sure to save up to buy you again," in context it reads, "I'm saving up so you don't have to live under the bridge anymore," more than "I want to fuck you." He's just young and lacks the ability to grasp the connotations of what he is saying because he lacks people experience. For instance, when he rides on his bike which breaks and he drops the cake, which he is implied to want to give to her, he does seem thankful that she's there at the end. These are not the actions of someone who does not care.
In context, it's sweet as its framed as someone who is innocent and ignorant of the true ways of the world trying to help in anyway he can but is unable to due to circumstance.
Additionally, he IS trying to improve his situation, but he keeps being shot down. He tries to connect to Takashi but he fears being rejected like he is by everyone else. When she tries to talk to him, her friend shuts her down and when they met in this chapter, he runs off because he's scared of what she might think if she founds out he's rumming for loose change. He also is paying the prostitute to have someone to talk to or interact with more than anything, which is something, and probably is the only thing he CAN do as he has no control over anything else. He's too young to be employed, he's too socially inept to properly articulate or communicate his feelings and even if he could, no one would listen. To say he's not doing anything to improve his circumstances is a fundamental misunderstanding of his circumstances and is like telling a depressed person to stop being sad or a homeless person to just buy a house. It's not that simple.
-
Do you expect lonely and disenfranchised people to act out of desperation? Do you expect kids living in poverty that are unable to work and have improper and irresponsible parents to make poor judgment calls? Keep in mind again, he never has sex with her and he's more looking for an outlet of any kind that he can connect to people with. He is not doing anything inherently wrong as he's literally giving her the equivalent of pennies (all he can muster) in exchange for small things that aren't sexual in nature, like her time or being patted on the head. She's the one that takes his wallet. He doesn't give her the money. She's the one who assumes he's there for sexual favors. He has never indicated as much. Look at their interactions, she's the first to assume he's there for her "services" 100% of the time and he never is the one to start down that road. It's more reasonably inferred he wants to talk with her and the only way he knows he will get her to talk is with money than to say he just wants sex.
-
I'll admit that it is a tiny bit, but if your family is poor and your mother is drinking on a weekday night, it implies its more habitual than anything, as if she can barely afford an eraser, why would she buy beer instead of something cheaper? It's a subtle indication, and I made sure to say "implies" as we don't know for certain but instead that it's a reasonable inference based on what information we have. It's another piece of the puzzle to show what relationship these two have more than anything.
-
Thanks for the constructive criticism but I want to point out I don't think I said anything too out of line. I reiterated the plot because I needed to in order for my analysis to make sense. Just exploring the interactions between Miura and his mother alone technically is an analysis in and of itself, and I did try my best to lay out my logic both her and in the above statements. It's important to note that I'm going over plot again and again because I need you to know what happens for me to properly tell it in a coherent way. I'm not drawing a conclusion first but I am actively trying to present the evidence as it appears to me and as what I think the author intended to communicate. This may differ from your interpretation but we need to understand the basics first before we can get to that point.
2. This is an appeal to silence as an appeal to silence fallacy refers to someone's non-response as a confirmation of something. Him not denying or saying anything doesn't prove that he is complicit in trying to solicit her for sex. Again, I don't think that's what the author is going at here as it seems to me that both by framing and by how we see his facial expressions of sadness and shock when she assumes he wants sex or his reaction of remorse and guilt whenever she berates him, it implies he's just a kid over his head more than he is actively making the choice that an adult might make of wanting to pursue sex with full understanding of what they're getting themselves into. You're judging him as an adult that has clarity of mind and full understanding of his actions, which I don't think is quite the right interpretation based on what we see.
-My point was that the story setup a lot of things well in a relatively few dialogue boxes and in such a way that it flowed well and wasn't too exposition-based. It wasn't ham-fisted and one point lead naturally into another, which is my point in regards to comic composition and the principles of good story-telling both from an artistic level and a visually based medium perspective. We learn a lot about the characters, their situations and how they view the world in a short amount of time
-You can SURVIVE without a smartphone but as technology advances, we're more dependent on things like internet access. It's no longer a luxury, as many things like school systems are integrating such technology into life. It's implied he doesn't even have internet access considering how he "pleasures himself" to a magazine instead of a computer. Speaking as someone who didn't own a smartphone until last year, my junior year of High School, society is very dependent on your ability to access the internet, communicate, and stay in touch with various people that is required just to be up-to-date on your assignments and info. This is in the middle of Indiana so imagine a society like Japan in making do without a Smartphone. It's interdependence because of how much everyone else is relying on it.
-The point was that whilst he has not seen what goes on during sex and is not aware of the actual process, he has reached a point in growing into adulthood where he is lusting after people. He doesn't know the nitty-gritty of sex but is still at the age where he begins to "awaken." It also establishes that he most likely hasn't seen hardcore pornography which explains is lack of knowledge on it.
-The latter half here is a typo, as I meant to say "or why he seems a little bit dense," but my point is that he has a very surface level understanding of the situation rather than one in which someone who is more educated and mature like your or me may think up.
-Just because you have Sex Ed, doesn't mean you have the complex understanding of what it is. Kids at 11-12 probably only vaguely know how sex works and someone who doesn't have enough people skills like Miura is demonstrated not to half probably is even less informed on the subject. Just because you're technically taught it doesn't mean you actually understand it. Considering how people here are taking cram school, and its implied that most of the kids at this school aren't the sharpest, it's still plausible that your average 5th-6th grader won't have a complete understanding of sex, especially if they haven't seen it, and when you remove certain social learning aspects from the equation, you're even more unlikely to know what it is on a level beyond what is basic
-Miura being socially inept means that he doesn't know the complexities and nuances of basic human interaction. If you have limited experience with interacting with people, a lot of unspoken things and aspects of body language will be lost to you. Say someone like you or me may understand the implication of seeing a homeless girl take money off the street or understand that your mother claiming she's going to work only for you to find out she never showed up is suspect or implies something deeper. but that's because we're aware of the unspoken cues we've learned from media, interacting with people, and knowing how they act. Miura has been so isolated that its unlikely he would be able to know the full implications of it, as he doesn't know people well enough.
Also worth noting is that you probably learned a lot about what sex is during your formative years from your friends more so than you did from school, as the first few years of sex ed is very limited whereas your friends would make dirty jokes or would teach you off-color stuff that they wouldn't or couldn't teach you at school. If you remove that aspect, you probably would be less informed than the normal person at that age.
-No, this is not me inserting my own interpretation in lieu of textual evidence. From how he acts and what he does in chapter 1, he very much doesn't understand fully what a prostitute is. He does not act like he wants sex from her. He does not act like he wants her solely to satisfy his own desires. The girl says this herself when she says that he acts like no middle school boy she's ever met, which we can deduce all the Middle School boys she's met have tried to solicit her for sex. Every time we see the two interact, sex is always brought up by the JK and never by Miura. He always refuses each time she asks him if he came for sex, and he vehemently denies it. I think he's a confused kid that isn't entirely sure what he's doing but is just going through the motions with it because he hasn't thought it through
-No, his actions do not confirm what he knows what he is doing. He never has sex with her nor does he ever do anything sexual. If you look at all their interactions, the JK is leading HIM on, not the other way around. Also I want you to point to where in the story it demonstrates fully well the implications and complex understanding of what a prostitute is. I doubt he knows what it is more than a surface-level understanding and he probably doesn't know much about it. Understand that he's just a kid, and not just a kid, but a kid who is not very well educated or particularly knowledgeable about people and social cues. I seriously doubt he would be able to understand the full implications of prostitution and the ethics of it not just at this age but at this time in his life.
Also you fundamentally missed the subtext of their interactions. MC doesn't have any friends, nor anyone close. Everyone, even his mother, is distant and cold towards him. He's an outcast, a pariah and a scapegoat. What else can he turn to? What else can he try to do? So he turns to the outcasts and pariahs of society. Why would he go to prostitute with money? Does he even fully understand what a prostitute is beside a person you take money to in exchange for something intimate? I don't think it's fair to his character to simply look at an action devoid of the context around the action and pass judgement on it, especially in this case where we know MC doesn't understand people.
-
-Are you sure about that? He brings her food in the second chapter and he does a lot that would imply otherwise
For instance, this scene implies he's going to check in on her and make sure she's okay. The way it's shot gives the impression that her interptation of events is in the wrong and that MC is genuinely concerned about her
In context, it's sweet as its framed as someone who is innocent and ignorant of the true ways of the world trying to help in anyway he can but is unable to due to circumstance.
-Okay, you got on me about bringing up subjective points but this seems to me like a glasshouse. Both something being pathetic and something being immoral are subjective claims, but to a larger point, what DO you expect him TO do? He's not of the age where he can work and everyone has already shunted him to the side. He can't make friends because no one wants to associate with him and his own mother is barely even raising him. You talk about his moral compass being off, but we don't know if he was even taught to have own because every person around him baring Takashi treats him like garbage and refuses to associate with him. Strangers talk about how horrible his mother is in his presence, people give him dirty looks in the street, and other kids harass him. If you were a kid and no one taught you how to behave, you probably would have a warped sense of the world as well. This also ignores that you can have a morally questionable main character or a complex main character that does awful things. Mersault from Camus's The Stranger is an apathetic man who stops caring about the world and kills a man for seemingly no reason but we still root for him, or how a myriad of classic characters are terrible and we're forced to sympathize with them through their struggles. See a Clockwork Orange for an example of that.
Additionally, he IS trying to improve his situation, but he keeps being shot down. He tries to connect to Takashi but he fears being rejected like he is by everyone else. When she tries to talk to him, her friend shuts her down and when they met in this chapter, he runs off because he's scared of what she might think if she founds out he's rumming for loose change. He also is paying the prostitute to have someone to talk to or interact with more than anything, which is something, and probably is the only thing he CAN do as he has no control over anything else. He's too young to be employed, he's too socially inept to properly articulate or communicate his feelings and even if he could, no one would listen. To say he's not doing anything to improve his circumstances is a fundamental misunderstanding of his circumstances and is like telling a depressed person to stop being sad or a homeless person to just buy a house. It's not that simple.
-
Do you expect lonely and disenfranchised people to act out of desperation? Do you expect kids living in poverty that are unable to work and have improper and irresponsible parents to make poor judgment calls? Keep in mind again, he never has sex with her and he's more looking for an outlet of any kind that he can connect to people with. He is not doing anything inherently wrong as he's literally giving her the equivalent of pennies (all he can muster) in exchange for small things that aren't sexual in nature, like her time or being patted on the head. She's the one that takes his wallet. He doesn't give her the money. She's the one who assumes he's there for sexual favors. He has never indicated as much. Look at their interactions, she's the first to assume he's there for her "services" 100% of the time and he never is the one to start down that road. It's more reasonably inferred he wants to talk with her and the only way he knows he will get her to talk is with money than to say he just wants sex.
-
I'll admit that it is a tiny bit, but if your family is poor and your mother is drinking on a weekday night, it implies its more habitual than anything, as if she can barely afford an eraser, why would she buy beer instead of something cheaper? It's a subtle indication, and I made sure to say "implies" as we don't know for certain but instead that it's a reasonable inference based on what information we have. It's another piece of the puzzle to show what relationship these two have more than anything.
-
Thanks for the constructive criticism but I want to point out I don't think I said anything too out of line. I reiterated the plot because I needed to in order for my analysis to make sense. Just exploring the interactions between Miura and his mother alone technically is an analysis in and of itself, and I did try my best to lay out my logic both her and in the above statements. It's important to note that I'm going over plot again and again because I need you to know what happens for me to properly tell it in a coherent way. I'm not drawing a conclusion first but I am actively trying to present the evidence as it appears to me and as what I think the author intended to communicate. This may differ from your interpretation but we need to understand the basics first before we can get to that point.
-I think this an oversimplification. There is a lot more going on in terms of subtext, such as how she's always jumping to the assumption that he wants sex first before he ever actually says anything. In all likelihood, he's just a confused kid that doesn't know what he wants, but he does seem to genuinely care about her more than simply as an "affection vending machine." That's why he goes to check on her at the start of chapter 2 despite not having very much money with him, or why he's searching out money constantly. If it wasn't for her, he could just find another prostitute he could sleep with if that was what really was his goal, but I don't think that's quite it. It's hard to say for certain as we're only three chapters in, but there's a lot more going on with these two than the surface-level view I think you're taking
1. Occam's Razor refers to the principle that the answer based in the most evidence is most likely correct. I've been trying to source said claims whereas I can only see you asserting them as fact.
2. This is an appeal to silence as an appeal to silence fallacy refers to someone's non-response as a confirmation of something. Him not denying or saying anything doesn't prove that he is complicit in trying to solicit her for sex. Again, I don't think that's what the author is going at here as it seems to me that both by framing and by how we see his facial expressions of sadness and shock when she assumes he wants sex or his reaction of remorse and guilt whenever she berates him, it implies he's just a kid over his head more than he is actively making the choice that an adult might make of wanting to pursue sex with full understanding of what they're getting themselves into. You're judging him as an adult that has clarity of mind and full understanding of his actions, which I don't think is quite the right interpretation based on what we see.
Aggregator gang
- Joined
- Jun 8, 2018
- Messages
- 384
Damn, I wanna protecc this boy.
*unrelated comment
-This site really need a reply button like what disquiss does. It is really hard to read the comments when you dont know where the fck it starts like "what the context here" and maybe add a upvote and downvote function too so the readers who enjoy the series does not get plastered by people arguing to each other on the internet. This is the reason why I still read on kissmanga even though they have god-awful advertisement, at least they have a good community of people that can even make the worst series even better and more enjoyable to read. Not like this site where many comments are fcking salty because they have different viewpoint to other people, like seriously fam is this your first time on the internet? how fcking sad you must be? gadamit, I'm okay with yall posting your opinions but holy shit you have long gadamn line longer than this comment holy shit man.
this comment section the whole comment section of this site is like the earth, too much salt, less fresh water.
*unrelated comment
-This site really need a reply button like what disquiss does. It is really hard to read the comments when you dont know where the fck it starts like "what the context here" and maybe add a upvote and downvote function too so the readers who enjoy the series does not get plastered by people arguing to each other on the internet. This is the reason why I still read on kissmanga even though they have god-awful advertisement, at least they have a good community of people that can even make the worst series even better and more enjoyable to read. Not like this site where many comments are fcking salty because they have different viewpoint to other people, like seriously fam is this your first time on the internet? how fcking sad you must be? gadamit, I'm okay with yall posting your opinions but holy shit you have long gadamn line longer than this comment holy shit man.
Similar threads
