Love and Curse - Vol. 3 Ch. 14 - Earthquake

[MangaDex]

 

[AkatsukiKawa]

One more chapter...

Thank you for the work as always !

 

[HellShade]

Is there a possibility that this is all fake? Wouldn't this lead to an investigation against her pedo dad for example?

 

[Naemi]

amazing chapter, thank you very much for the translation

 

[sleepyknight]

god i was so worried she'd gotten pregant, its sad that she lost the cat but i'm so glad aiko got out of her marriage too. the way her husband kept blithely pressuring her about family while ignoring all the massive red flags about her situation skeeved me out

 

[77BLc9JwJGpLVARkamJx]

Could've told the husband earlier about not wanting to have sex and kids but better (not too?) late than never, dude gonna get crushed and probably traumatized from this experience too.

 

[krkj]

Is there a possibility that this is all fake? Wouldn't this lead to an investigation against her pedo dad for example?

Statute of limitations probably

 

[krkj]

Confused, all the dates are from the same year or sequential over multiple years? They having dinner in november after divorcing in august; or did she get called into the police station for two different events

 

[Hem]

Is there a possibility that this is all fake? Wouldn't this lead to an investigation against her pedo dad for example?

If she didn't mention her dad raping her, why would they look into her family members that aren't even in the same city?
She's an adult.
For all they know she's just your run of the mill crazy lady that got drunk and hit a man.
They probably would have suspected that the man made some shady advances towards her if she wasn't being so honest about her own craziness.

 

[Hem]

Confused, all the dates are from the same year or sequential over multiple years? They having dinner in november after divorcing in august; or did she get called into the police station for two different events

Looks like 3 years, at the very least 2.
I think the very first two or three events MIGHT have had some going backward instead of forward in time, but she became a highly depressed reclusive shut-in again at some point, so the amount of things she did - outside of moping in bed - were probably low until she started dragging herself out of the very deepest part of that black-hole of depression.

So if this was 3 or more years and each event was advancing in time - she had one major noteworthy event in regards to this work at first then nothing of significance (for us) happened until the next year.

In the next two years she spiraled into a mentally worse place as Yu enabled her depression and she came to the realization of how trapped she felt by her 'wanting to be normal - but not being able to' and how guilty it made her to 'trap' a person like Yu in a relationship with 'a person like her, that couldn't even give him children or intimacy'.

Because of that mindset the number of noteworthy events increased until the drinking incident where she was likely trying to cope with the fear of Yu leaving her and perhaps had some panicked/contradictory hidden hope that if she stumbled home drunk enough to have sex that Yu wouldn't be disappointed or angry at her for getting drunk in the first place.
I imagine she might have felt somewhat of an obligation to get into a state that allowed her to have sex with her husband, she had to feel guilty for not being able to be intimate for a long period of time (also no sex = no kiddos = failure to her ideal of a normal wife).

Of course the saddest part is that Yu letting her go drink alone meant that he had likely given up on her, which she might have been aware of herself at least on some subconscious level by that point.

At least because of all this she started to become more aware of the aftereffects her own traumas, woke up to some of her more harmful unhealthy coping methods, and admitted to the things she simply didn't desire to do or couldn't bring herself to do to appease others - even if some of the things she believes she'll never be able to have for herself are rather sad to give up on.

 

[HellShade]

If she didn't mention her dad raping her, why would they look into her family members that aren't even in the same city?
She's an adult.
For all they know she's just your run of the mill crazy lady that got drunk and hit a man.
They probably would have suspected that the man made some shady advances towards her if she wasn't being so honest about her own craziness.

Oh no no, I meant in real life. If the mangaka is exposing her father for raping her, wouldn't that lead to an investigation? Maybe they would look into Mondoism? I know Japanese police is pretty shit but seems a bit risque for a manga to call out real people like that, which makes me think it might be fake.

 

[Hem]

Oh no no, I meant in real life. If the mangaka is exposing her father for raping her, wouldn't that lead to an investigation? Maybe they would look into Mondoism? I know Japanese police is pretty shit but seems a bit risque for a manga to call out real people like that, which makes me think it might be fake.

I guess in more nosy countries you have to go by a fake name or wait for the offending parent to die before you can write a story and not get anyone investigated.

In this case, it probably is "She didn't come report it directly to us, so it's not our problem" if it isn't a statute of limitations thing.

As far as the religion thing, any "new" religion is mocked as a cult or scam and people call you crazy for following or joining them anyway, so Mondoism would barely feel the blow to it's already low public perception unless someone with a lot of social reach made it their pet project to say all Mondoism followers are pedophiles.

 

[EchoGirl]

Could've told the husband earlier about not wanting to have sex and kids but better (not too?) late than never, dude gonna get crushed and probably traumatized from this experience too.

Honestly i'm surprised he wouldn't know about her past before even getting married tho at least she cut her dad off when he mentioned Mondoism

 

[Hem]

Honestly i'm surprised he wouldn't know about her past before even getting married tho at least she cut her dad off when he mentioned Mondoism

Yeah, shame and fear kept her from telling her husband about her past.
Unlike the modern west, which honestly can be a bit TOO open at times about sharing past issues, she was raised in the era where Japan still held-fast to being tight-lipped about sharing traumas about blood related "Chester D. Molesters" and various other sexual things that could "devalue" a woman.

Her husband seemed kind enough that he probably would have supported and loved her either way, maybe even attempted to assist her with coping and healing in a positive manner.
But unfortunately like many people do, she kept him in the dark in order to protect him and not burden him - which instead probably just left him wondering what exactly caused her to behave in such inexplicable ways time and time again - until he finally lost hope in her.

 

[Nosebleed]

I guess in more nosy countries you have to go by a fake name or wait for the offending parent to die before you can write a story and not get anyone investigated.

It is extremely easy in Japan to go after someone for defamation, and this is most likely the reason this is semi-autobiographical (ie real story but details were changed)

Greatest example is Mondoism (門道教), which is not a real cult/religion, so whatever religion she was indoctrinated in was not directly named either.

And of course "Yamada Aiko" is not a real person, she is a stand in for the author, and no one in her family is named either. I'm sure her friends/classmates had their names changed as well. If you know Japanese you'd notice most of the names used are really generic too (Tanaka, Matsumoto, Shiotani, are all names you could find a dime a dozen of anywhere)

This feels very much like a case of names of people and entities changed to avoid any defamation/litigation lawsuits against the author.

 

[Hem]

It is extremely easy in Japan to go after someone for defamation, and this is most likely the reason this is semi-autobiographical (ie real story but details were changed)

Greatest example is Mondoism (門道教), which is not a real cult/religion, so whatever religion she was indoctrinated in was not directly named either.

And of course "Yamada Aiko" is not a real person, she is a stand in for the author, and no one in her family is named either. I'm sure her friends/classmates had their names changed as well. If you know Japanese you'd notice most of the names used are really generic too (Tanaka, Matsumoto, Shiotani, are all names you could find a dime a dozen of anywhere)

This feels very much like a case of names of people and entities changed to avoid any defamation/litigation lawsuits against the author.

I'll admit that I didn't pay much attention to the names, so that is a good detail to point out.
I figured Mondoism was one of those generic cults that we see in Japanese works, didn't really think it was real.

For the most part I figured the author used a fake name to publish this work (I didn't even look at her name) but it would be fairly trivial for an interested government/police organization to figure out who she really is if they felt like it.
'Course there might be some legal red tape preventing them from acting once they get her real name, especially if they can't get the victim to cooperate ("No officer, I was merely lying in my manga!").

For better or worse, the two barriers of "we don't care/not our problem" and "red tape" are there to keep us from suffering under a police state.
The author is the one that needs to pull the trigger and she decided not to, some may claim that self sacrifice to be meaningful for the sake of her family and others might think her a fool that could be letting an abuser be free to do more harm.

 

[enstoblue]

🥲

 

[silverpetricof]

I'll do my best Fumiko...

Thank you for the translation.