Heisei Haizanhei ☆ Sumire-chan - Vol. 3 Ch. 23 - A Cheap Takeout Woman

[spons]

nah fuck off bruh, I'm pausing this manga for a few chapters to blitz through this when it's funny again

 

[Late_Komei]

Damn, we are really going there huh?

 

[Nivek]

This is why when I go drinking I only drink non alcohol drink or low key bring my own bottle to the bar. And I'm a dude so this shit is really bad for women.

unironically the game was rigged here, that's always ask your host to drink everything first

 

[outinthegardener]

"Special Tea" huh. I hope she throws up in his mouth.

 

[PlasmaLance07]

Spoiler

So basically, this guy gets women drunk or drugs them, takes them to hotels, lets them sleep, and then tries to coerce them into becoming prostitutes when they wake up. The way the author wrote this arc is completely ridiculous and nonsensical.

Nigga what. My head actually decided to take a break now

 

[PlasmaLance07]

Spoiler

So basically, this guy gets women drunk or drugs them, takes them to hotels, lets them sleep, and then tries to coerce them into becoming prostitutes when they wake up. The way the author wrote this arc is completely ridiculous and nonsensical.

Why prostitutes he a pimp or yakuza or something

 

[Guyincognitus]

Spoiler

So basically, this guy gets women drunk or drugs them, takes them to hotels, lets them sleep, and then tries to coerce them into becoming prostitutes when they wake up. The way the author wrote this arc is completely ridiculous and nonsensical.

Bro what!? Alright, I'm dropping this shit. I am simply not putting up with any more bullshit.

 

[Late_Komei]

Just brought a new glock guess I get use it early.

I'll buy a glock too so we can air out his hoe ass together.

 

[Litreara]

Why prostitutes he a pimp or yakuza or something

Bro what!? Alright, I'm dropping this shit. I am simply not putting up with any more bullshit.

Spoiler

By coercion into prostitution, I mean that he gets women drunk or drugs them, takes them to a hotel, waits for them to sober up, and then tries to pay them to have sex with him.

His logic is ridiculous. Administration of a substance with Intent? Fine. Kidnapping or false imprisonment? Fine. But rape? WHOA, WHOA, that’s crossing the line. That’s why he waits for them to sober up before trying to pay the women he intoxicates and drags to a hotel to have sex with him—it’s utterly preposterous.

And his backstory? Absolute nonsense. He had his heart broken by a childhood friend (who, conveniently, resembles Sumire) after she was corrupted by the entertainment industry. Ever since, he’s viewed relationships purely as business transactions. So, because his childhood friend was corrupted by the industry, his response is… to corrupt other women by coercing them into prostitution? That doesn’t make any sense.

This is beyond ridiculous. I have no idea how the author thought this was a good idea—or how an editor approved it. Actually, I do know. It was an editor at Young Magazine, the place where all the dumpster fire manga get published.

Predictably, Sumire refused to sell herself.

 

[outinthegardener]

Spoiler

By coercion into prostitution, I mean that he gets women drunk or drugs them, takes them to a hotel, waits for them to sober up, and then tries to pay them to have sex with him.

His logic is ridiculous. Administration of a substance with Intent? Fine. Kidnapping or false imprisonment? Fine. But rape? WHOA, WHOA, that’s crossing the line. That’s why he waits for them to sober up before trying to pay the women he intoxicates and drags to a hotel to have sex with him—it’s utterly preposterous.

And his backstory? Absolute nonsense. He had his heart broken by a childhood friend (who, conveniently, resembles Sumire) after she was corrupted by the entertainment industry. Ever since, he’s viewed relationships purely as business transactions. So, because his childhood friend was corrupted by the industry, his response is… to corrupt other women by coercing them into prostitution? That doesn’t make any sense.

This is beyond ridiculous. I have no idea how the author thought this was a good idea—or how an editor approved it. Actually, I do know. It was an editor at Young Magazine, the place where all the dumpster fire manga get published.

Predictably, Sumire refused to sell herself.

To be fair, I don't think this is a dumpster fire manga. It's a manga about a dumpster fire woman in a dumpster fire industry. It's taking things to the absurd extremes because it's a comedy. That doesn't prevent it from making good points about exploitation; of labor, of sex, of bodies.

 

[Litreara]

To be fair, I don't think this is a dumpster fire manga. It's a manga about a dumpster fire woman in a dumpster fire industry. It's taking things to the absurd extremes because it's a comedy. That doesn't prevent it from making good points about exploitation; of labor, of sex, of bodies.

Spoiler

In this arc, if the manga were actually using absurdity to critique exploitation, I’d be on board with that. But that’s not what’s happening here. Instead of exaggerating reality in a way that highlights the industry's problems, it presents a series of nonsensical character decisions and expects the audience to accept them at face value. There’s a difference between intentional satire and a story that just throws absurd things at the reader without clear purpose.

If the manga were making a meaningful point about how the industry exploits people, we would expect its exaggerated elements to reinforce those themes. Instead, we get a character whose logic doesn’t add up, a backstory that contradicts itself, and plot developments that feel contrived rather than insightful. Even if you argue that it’s a comedy, that doesn’t automatically mean it’s making a good point about exploitation. If anything, the comedic elements make it even harder to take any supposed critique seriously, as they undercut the gravity of the subject matter.

And even if the industry itself is a "dumpster fire," that doesn’t excuse weak storytelling. If the characters’ motivations don’t make sense and the plot feels like a series of random developments rather than a coherent narrative, then calling it satire or comedy doesn’t magically fix those flaws. A well-crafted satire maintains internal logic even when exaggerating reality—yet in this arc, the manga just feels like a mess.

 

[CaponNC]

Reading the spoilers here, I do hope this arc is just a hiccup to, so far, a good manga. 7.5 out of 10 good, but still good.

 

[LocoBolon]

Why is people so upset? So far this is a great manga and it has been pretty straightforward with what is going to offer.
It is a romantic comedy where our main characters find themselves in absurd predicaments all with an ecchi undertone and this is not the first time it plays the 'jealousy' or 'ntr tease' card.
It's a comedy but has a clear romantic story line: our little boy will show grit and determination to save his hero who is also the woman he fell in love when he was a child who went from being an idol to fall from grace to spend her days drinking and smoking with lustful old men at a bar as a way of living.
The road is going to be funny but bumpy and our beautiful but clumsy fmc is not only going to make many stupid mistakes but also is naive and defenseless enough that will put herself in danger of being taken advantage or worst.
As the series goes on the hero will show more and more aptitude to the point where the age-gap romance will become inevitable.
This mangaka has already shown some serious skills so I would advice everyone to stay and enjoy the ride

 

[rabidfish]

Why is people so upset? So far this is a great manga and it has been pretty straightforward with what is going to offer.
It is a romantic comedy where our main characters find themselves in absurd predicaments all with an ecchi undertone and this is not the first time it plays the 'jealousy' or 'ntr tease' card.
It's a comedy but has a clear romantic story line: our little boy will show grit and determination to save his hero who is also the woman he fell in love when he was a child who went from being an idol to fall from grace to spend her days drinking and smoking with lustful old men at a bar as a way of living.
The road is going to be funny but bumpy and our beautiful but clumsy fmc is not only going to make many stupid mistakes but also is naive and defenseless enough that will put herself in danger of being taken advantage or worst.
As the series goes on the hero will show more and more aptitude to the point where the age-gap romance will become inevitable.
This mangaka has already shown some serious skills so I would advice everyone to stay and enjoy the ride

I guess people are too sensitive to NTR (with reason, there's some really evil stuff out there)

 

[Litreara]

Reading the spoilers here, I do hope this arc is just a hiccup to, so far, a good manga. 7.5 out of 10 good, but still good.

Spoiler

This is the lowest point of the manga. After this, the author stops using these bait plots—at least for now. I wonder if there’s any other type of bait plot he can come up with… We’ve had the porn bait plot, and now the rape bait plot. What’s left for him to use?

 

[Desertking1]

I love NTR.

 

[jolynehoestar]

Spoiler

This is the lowest point of the manga. After this, the author stops using these bait plots—at least for now. I wonder if there’s any other type of bait plot he can come up with… We’ve had the porn bait plot, and now the rape bait plot. What’s left for him to use?

my only problem is this wasn't how this series went at first, both the oneshot and the early chapters were about this girl failure trying again for her best and only fan. Then suddenly it turns into bait to bait action. Characters are loveable and chill so it feels off too but dunno man I just accepted this manga won't be as good as I thought it would be.Atleast when it turns into comedy it is still fun to read

 

[outinthegardener]

Spoiler

In this arc, if the manga were actually using absurdity to critique exploitation, I’d be on board with that. But that’s not what’s happening here. Instead of exaggerating reality in a way that highlights the industry's problems, it presents a series of nonsensical character decisions and expects the audience to accept them at face value. There’s a difference between intentional satire and a story that just throws absurd things at the reader without clear purpose.

If the manga were making a meaningful point about how the industry exploits people, we would expect its exaggerated elements to reinforce those themes. Instead, we get a character whose logic doesn’t add up, a backstory that contradicts itself, and plot developments that feel contrived rather than insightful. Even if you argue that it’s a comedy, that doesn’t automatically mean it’s making a good point about exploitation. If anything, the comedic elements make it even harder to take any supposed critique seriously, as they undercut the gravity of the subject matter.

And even if the industry itself is a "dumpster fire," that doesn’t excuse weak storytelling. If the characters’ motivations don’t make sense and the plot feels like a series of random developments rather than a coherent narrative, then calling it satire or comedy doesn’t magically fix those flaws. A well-crafted satire maintains internal logic even when exaggerating reality—yet in this arc, the manga just feels like a mess.

We may disagree about what values make a story good or a character make sense. Some of the things you say seem like false dichotomies to me. Such as "intentional satire" versus "absurd things without clear purpose." I don't think those are mutually exclusive. Dada art comes to mind, where new forms of making objects were thoughtlessly put together as a way to critique post-industrial society. Society didn't fit the old narratives, leading to confusion, leading to new narratives being made to try and explain it. Those narratives were rife with contradiction and incoherence.

Sumire-Chan is not exactly Dada, not exactly satire, and somewhere between comedy and drama. It has elements of both. It's messy and sometimes confusing, but I think that's fine. It's true to life. No one's life is structured like a Greek play, or like a Beatles tune. Serious ideas can be raised with unserious methods. It's existentialist.

I'd also challenge that the character's motivations "don't make sense," or that making sense is necessary for good storytelling. A character could have contradicting motives that create tension, or madness, or absurdity. Part of art is engaging the viewer to make sense of the work. We will always construct meaning to fit things into categories or simplify things to make them understandable. I can do that for this arc- Let's imagine our date rape creep has a contradiction. He wants to get laid, but he doesn't want to see himself as a rapist. While he could go full evil and abuse girls while they're drugged, he waits for them to wake up and tries to bargain with them. If they agree to his terms, he's not a rapist! It's absurd and vile, but it relates back to the exploitative nature of transactions. I don't know if that is the author's intent, or if it will play out that way. I do know that however it plays out, I will invent narratives to try and explain it.

 

[CaponNC]

I guess people are too sensitive to NTR (with reason, there's some really evil stuff out there)

Is this really NTR? The cousin doesn't have any romantic interest or claim to Sumire, and romantic claims is what usually makes NTR a thing. If it was the cousin's classmate in this situation, I'd agree, but it's Sumire instead.

Spoiler

This is the lowest point of the manga. After this, the author stops using these bait plots—at least for now. I wonder if there’s any other type of bait plot he can come up with… We’ve had the porn bait plot, and now the rape bait plot. What’s left for him to use?

Spoiler

Glad to hear it. I'm in the same sort of mindset. The whole porn arc is actually a bit off putting overall. Like, I get it: this manga is about the exploitation of a woman's body. Whether it's the exploitation on her own accord through dojin work, through being part of an idol group, or through being a piece of meat in porn, it's been about selling your own body & image one way or another.

But somehow the porn part sticks out to me as a big sore point. I think it would have been much better if the porn part was done within the context of dojin porn, which is becoming a bigger factor in Japan now: Fantia and Ci-en have huge dojin porn sectors that are the equivalent of Onlyfans, cutting out the exploitive JAV agencies that prey on girls. At least then it would have been thematic to the manga.

 

[Litreara]

We may disagree about what values make a story good or a character make sense. Some of the things you say seem like false dichotomies to me. Such as "intentional satire" versus "absurd things without clear purpose." I don't think those are mutually exclusive. Dada art comes to mind, where new forms of making objects were thoughtlessly put together as a way to critique post-industrial society. Society didn't fit the old narratives, leading to confusion, leading to new narratives being made to try and explain it. Those narratives were rife with contradiction and incoherence.

Sumire-Chan is not exactly Dada, not exactly satire, and somewhere between comedy and drama. It has elements of both. It's messy and sometimes confusing, but I think that's fine. It's true to life. No one's life is structured like a Greek play, or like a Beatles tune. Serious ideas can be raised with unserious methods. It's existentialist.

I'd also challenge that the character's motivations "don't make sense," or that making sense is necessary for good storytelling. A character could have contradicting motives that create tension, or madness, or absurdity. Part of art is engaging the viewer to make sense of the work. We will always construct meaning to fit things into categories or simplify things to make them understandable. I can do that for this arc- Let's imagine our date rape creep has a contradiction. He wants to get laid, but he doesn't want to see himself as a rapist. While he could go full evil and abuse girls while they're drugged, he waits for them to wake up and tries to bargain with them. If they agree to his terms, he's not a rapist! It's absurd and vile, but it relates back to the exploitative nature of transactions. I don't know if that is the author's intent, or if it will play out that way. I do know that however it plays out, I will invent narratives to try and explain it.

Spoiler

While I appreciate the effort to frame this arc’s messiness and contradictions as intentional or reflective of real-life chaos, I fundamentally disagree with the idea that this excuses its weak storytelling or lack of coherence. My criticism isn’t about the manga as a whole—it’s about this specific arc, which is riddled with problems that undermine its potential to say anything meaningful.

You argue that the character’s contradictory motivations—like drugging women but waiting for them to sober up to avoid being a “rapist”—could be interpreted as a critique of transactional exploitation. I don’t find this reading compelling, and it feels like this interpretation requires a lot of work from the audience to make sense of the story, rather than the story supporting it naturally. The character’s logic in this arc is utterly preposterous: he’s fine with Administration of a substance with Intent and kidnapping/false imprisonment, but rape? That’s where he draws the line? This isn’t a meaningful exploration of moral hypocrisy—it’s a ridiculous and contrived justification for his actions. If the author intended this as a critique, it’s not coming through clearly enough to resonate. Instead, it feels like a cheap attempt to bait and shock the audience without offering any real insight.

I also take issue with the character’s backstory in this arc. While it’s clear that he’s propagating a cycle of exploitation—having been hurt by his childhood friend’s corruption in the entertainment industry, he now corrupts other women by coercing them into prostitution—this feels unconvincing and shallow. Even if his actions can be explained as a twisted reaction to his pain, they come across as hypocritical rather than meaningful. If the goal was to critique the industry or examine the cycle of exploitation, it falls flat because his personal trauma doesn’t meaningfully connect to the harm he’s inflicting in a way that deepens the story. Instead of exploring exploitation meaningfully, the story falls into the trap of using it for shock value without any real critique. This undermines the arc’s potential to say something meaningful about the cycle of harm and instead makes it feel lazy and contrived.

You mention that life is messy and unstructured, and I agree—but storytelling isn’t life. It’s a constructed narrative, and even when it embraces chaos, it needs to have some level of intentionality to be effective. This arc’s messiness doesn’t feel like a deliberate reflection of life’s chaos; it feels like a failure to craft a coherent or compelling story. The result is a narrative that’s hard to take seriously, even if it’s trying to address serious issues.

Finally, while I agree that viewers can and should construct their own meaning from art, there’s a limit to how much of the burden should fall on the audience. If a story is so opaque or incoherent that readers have to invent entire narratives to explain it, that’s a sign of weak storytelling, not artistic depth. A good story should provide enough framework for interpretation without relying on the audience to do all the work. In this arc, the character’s motivations and the plot developments feel totally contrived.

In short, I agree to disagree. I don’t think this arc’s messiness or contradictions serve a meaningful purpose. The character’s logic is ridiculous, his backstory—meant to justify his actions—is nonsensical, and the plot feels like a series of random, shocking moments designed to bait the audience rather than form a coherent narrative. Absurdity and chaos can be powerful tools, but only when they’re wielded with intent and skill—and in this case, I don’t see that happening in this arc.