Otp: Osmanthus - Tumblr Posts
One more thing. I put change into a lab flask. You always asked me to get you a ginger ale in high school. All this time, I kept all the change you gave me, and put them in a nice lab flask at home.
Utsukushii Kare Ep. 6
Just a regular question - the significance of -kun, -chan and -san (in what context are they appropriately used)? Also, why Kiyoi is offended when Hira uses -kun ?
PS: if you have already explained this previously, please let me know where to find the post :)
Hi! Thanks for the question! I absolutely love talking about things like this, so thank you so much for asking!!
I feel like this is one of the most boring and at the same time most interesting question to ask about Japanese language, haha. The answer probably varies depending on who you ask, and so I am certain some people will want to add to or correct the explanation I'm about to give!
Wall of text incoming...
Here's a short introduction to some of the social hierarchy in Japanese language
...and how it affects your understanding of interpersonal relationships.
"-san", "-kun" and "-chan" are all examples of suffixes that you attach to people's names according to your relationship with them. The closest English equivalents would be "Mr/Ms/Mrs/Mx" but they are not the same. A lot of subtitlers do translate them like this, but I myself prefer not to do so.
Japanese language and culture is in general very polite and based on social hierarchy. The entire language and how you express yourself and how you conjugate words change depending on your relationship with the one you are talking to (strangers/business relation/family/younger/older/etc etc).
In general, once you get familiar with/close to someone, you drop all suffixes. This is called "yobisute" (呼び捨て). You might sometimes keep some form of "chan" if it's a deliberate nickname - like Koichi calling Mitsuru for Micchan in Eternal Yesterday (It's a cute version of Mi-chan - Mitsuru-chan).
"-chan" is mostly used to refer to kids below the age of 12 (elementary school or younger), but you will also hear young adults use it to refer to females (a male may call his college classmate Miko for "Miko-chan"), in which case it becomes a term of endearment (or, depending on how you look at it, slightly condescending due to the patriarchal nature of current Japanese society and language). Koichi using this nickname for Mitsuru is noticeable - it shows that he is very affectionate towards Mitsuru and considers them to be very close friends.
"You will meet Kim-san at 16:00"
"-san" is the most common suffix. It's the "safest" to use and it has no gender. The first time you meet someone, you would typically address them as "Last name-san", e.g. Suzuki-san. If someone refers to "Suzuki-san" in a conversation, you will not be able to tell the age, the gender or virtually anything about this Suzuki - except that the speaker is not particularly close with said Suzuki. In this case, it will be the equivalent to the English Mr./Mrs./Ms/Mx.
In a school or business setting, a teacher or a superior would normally refer to female students or subordinates with -san. They would add "-kun" to a boy's name. In Old Fashion Cupcake, Togawa says "Nozue-san" and Nozue says "Togawa-kun".
"-kun" is usually used to refer to boys younger than yourself, but typically above the age of 12ish (around junior high school age).
I know that technically it can be used to refer to a girl as well, but I have personally never heard or seen that. If someone refers to "Suzuki-kun", you would automatically assume that Suzuki is a younger male.
In the Utsukushii Kare setting, Kiyoi is creeped out by Hira referring to him as "Kiyoi-kun" because it is, well, kind of weird.
Girls will call their male classmates for "-kun" and it's fine, because it's kind of cute and submissive; if they're close friends, they'll usually drop it.
Boys will most likely just use last names only, adding no suffixes. Hira referring to Kiyoi as "Kiyoi-kun" not only puts a distance between them, but it even makes him sound submissive. Kiyoi is the only one whom Hira addresses this way - he just says "Shirota" and "Miki" etc. about everyone else.
Kiyoi isn't offended, he's just plain weirded out by it. When he asks Hira to drop it, Hira immediately objects with Muri dayo! ("No way!", "Impossible!") because to Hira, dropping the suffix means lowering Kiyoi from the pedestal that Hira has placed him upon.
Here, Kiyoi literally says "You were able to call (it/me)", because Hira for the first time drops -kun from Kiyoi's name, which immediately changes the relationship between them. Things like this are incredibly hard to get across in a translation, because it's such an ingrained and fundamental part of Japanese culture and language. But it is the first time Hira puts Kiyoi on the same level as himself.
I could do a whole other long post about how the way Japanese people talk tells you so much about who they are as a person (such as whether a boy uses "ore" or "boku" about themselves, or whether they use proper non-gendered speech (like "jyanai") or male speech (which would be "jyanee"). It is an incredibly effective way to show the relationships between characters in media, but sadly this will more often than not be lost in translation.
I hope this answered your question!!
Utsukushii Kare + text posts (1/?) - Kiyoi edition
+ EXTRA:
For @lollipopsub who all the way back in December posted “My fave part of bl tumblr atm is those text posts with screenshots and rly funny tweets etc on top but have no one made them for utsukare :o”
Consider this my way to thank you for all the amazing work you’ve done for the utsukare community online <3
Updates on Utsukushii Kare: Eternal + S2 (as per Jan 26, 2023)
hi lovelies 💓
a lot is happening for this fandom at the moment, so I got a request to gather as much as possible of the info we've received so far!!
Here is a pretty long post summarizing what we know thus far!
The movie is called Utsukushii Kare: Eternal. The tagphrase on the poster is "Time and time again, I will search for you. Time and time again, I will love you. That is my eternity."
The movie will premiere April 7 in Japanese theaters.
The movie and the drama is NOT THE SAME THING.
I've seen a lot of people who seem to think the movie will just be like a special cut or something, but no, we're getting lots and lots of new story!!
The stories will connect, and the movie will serve as a continuation of season 2.
Here's the first trailer for the movie:
That's all we know about the movie so far.
Onto the drama!
Season 2 will start airing February 7
.... on a handful of different Japanese channels. At the time of writing, nothing has been confirmed about international distribution.
The first trailer for the show will be released next week, Tuesday the 31st of January!
The synopsis for Season 2:
"The days pass in bliss... Hira is in his 4th year of university and Kiyoi is active as a newly debuted actor. They live together in Hira's house as boyfriends. However, Hira's religious worship is unchanged, and the way he crawls and bows as low as possible without hesitation is causing neverending worries for the beautiful, arrogant King, Kiyoi. In addition, Hira has discovered a new hobby of following Kiyoi around while in disguise so as to not be found out. He did his best to not disturb Kiyoi, just watching, alone and quietly – but then an event lets him befriend a fellow fanboy.
As graduation grows closer, Hira's friends are busy hunting for jobs, and Hira starts worrying about his lack of job experience...
What road will Kiyoi and Hira choose as they move towards adulthood?"
The above, taken from the official website, is nearly the same synopsis as the second book, Nikurashii Kare, so it's likely that the season will be based on this book.
Cast so far:
So we have Koyama again, and otherwise there's a lot of new casts. A few have also confirmed that they'll be in the movie too: Hira's sister Naho, his nephew Tomoya, and it sounded on the actress as if Anna will also be in the movie. The rest are only officially confirmed to be in the show, but to be fair, absolutely nothing has been revealed about the movie yet other than title and the fact that the stories will connect.
The OP & ED songs will be done by the same artists as season 1, just switched around - so the opening song for S2 will be "Bitter" by Roce (ロス), who sang the ending song "Follow" from S1. Bitter will be from Hira's POV.
The ending song as well as the theme song for the movie will be by Mosawo (もさを。), called Kinmokusei ("Sweet Osmanthus", it's the name of this flower). Kinmokusei will be from Kiyoi's POV.
I think that's it for the time being, but I will try to update you whenever other more relevant news come out, and ofc I'll do my utmost to subtitle the upcoming trailer as soon as possible!!!
if you read this far, ilu <3
Pursuer-distancer roles & attachment style in Utsukushii Kare, Part 1: Hira
Note: As I write this, only the first episode of season 2 has been released. This is based on season 1, episode 1 of season 2, and (sparingly) on translated bits of the novel that I’ve read. There seem to be some issues with the current subtitles so impressions could change as better fansubs come out or if streaming ones are improved. I’m watching the show on Viki so any quoted dialogue is from their subs.
I wrote about pursuer-distancer dynamics in this previous post. Now I’m going to dig deeper into how they play out in Utsukushii Kare. I recommend checking out the more detailed explanation of pursuer and distancer roles in that post, but I’ll give a super concentrated summary now as well.
So, a pursuer-distancer dynamic in a relationship occurs when one person takes on the role of emotionally pursuing while the other takes on the role of emotionally distancing. These roles are deeply interrelated—they rely on each other in order to work. It’s difficult to sit with the fact that we both crave intimacy and fear it/need some degree of independence. But that difficulty can be avoided if one person expresses all the need for closeness in a relationship while the other expresses all the need for independence. Neither of these strategies really work, but they are meant to fail, at least partially. It’s a “careful what you wish for” situation. If pursuers got all of the intimacy they seek, they’d be overloaded, and if distancers got all the space they asked for, they’d be lonely. Hence the part where they rely on one another to work, to help them fail in the ways they need to.
(Screenshot via MDL by ruiLIKK)
In many ways, Hira is the epitome of a pursuer. I think it’s what makes him fit the role of a seme so well despite constantly putting himself in a subservient position and even refusing direct overtures from Kiyoi. Like most pursuers, Hira seems to want closeness with the person he loves but his covert fears of intimacy and need for independence cause him to sabotage his own efforts. What’s less typical are some of the strategies he uses both to seek intimacy and covertly avoid it, as I’ll talk about more below.
Pursuers are often people with a preoccupied (or “anxious”) attachment style. In Attachment in Psychotherapy, David Wallin describes preoccupied patients as people whose formative experiences taught them that the best way to get their needs met was by “mak[ing] their own distress too conspicuous to ignore.” This would make sense for Hira. His parents (portrayed more in the novels than the show) seem to be disengaged most of the time, but they spring into action when they get worried (a prime example is when they take him to see a medical provider about his stutter and buy him an expensive camera). By the time of the main story, he mostly seems to mask his distress so they’ll leave him alone. But at that point, those early experiences have already had their effect.
Hira’s experiences with peers have been uniformly terrible, and they are also a type of formative experience. As I’ve said, it’s commonplace to have a fear of intimacy as well as a desire for it. But Hira’s history with people his own age would definitely worsen his fears of being close to others. At the same time, these same negative experiences and the fears they’ve created have isolated him, making his need for intimacy even more acute. Like I said in my previous post, Hira is intensely ambivalent about intimacy. (So is Kiyoi, but that’ll have to wait for part 2.)
In his discussion of preoccupied attachment, Wallin goes on to say that the making-distress-conspicuous approach to getting needs met renders the preoccupied person “hypervigilant for actual or imagined signs that a relationship partner might be disapproving, withdrawn, or rejecting.” Yep, this is classic Hira.
As much as possible, Hira interprets everything that Kiyoi says or does negatively—as meaning that Kiyoi doesn’t love him, won’t stay with him, won’t meet his needs, and could never approve of him. If necessary, he’ll create a reason for concern out of nothing.
When you see Kiyoi making this face and his hair starts billowing in a mysterious breeze, you’re inside Hira’s mind witnessing a complete fabrication. (Screenshot via MDL by doramasaurusrex)
At the same time, Hira definitely pursues Kiyoi. His relentless staring communicates his interest. He takes every opportunity to be around Kiyoi. When he gets to communicate with Kiyoi privately, he’s all compliments and reverence. His willingness to do whatever it takes to be near Kiyoi, even behave like a servant, is also a form of pursuit. But, like all pursuers, he has built-in safeguards against accidentally getting (too much of) the intimacy he wants but also fears:
First, he chose a seemingly unattainable object. When Hira first fell for Kiyoi, he wasn’t aware of all the reasons Kiyoi might actually be capable of returning his feelings. Even setting aside his negative bias, he had every rational reason to believe that Kiyoi was unlikely to ever love him back.
By the time it turns out that Kiyoi may not be completely out of his reach, Hira has had a chance to observe his distancing tendencies. Just choosing a distancer as a potential partner is a way of decreasing the risk that you’ll get more than you bargained for by pursuing them.
Next, when Kiyoi builds a kind of friendship with him and even kisses him on graduation day, he changes his phone number. Perhaps he really is unaware that he can replace his submerged phone without changing his number. But personally, I really wonder if a part of him did this intentionally. At the very least, he could still have asked about keeping his number or tried to contact Kiyoi to give him the new one. He had real reason to hope Kiyoi might like him back (if nothing else, the kiss!) and whether by neglect or (on some level) intentionally, he made further contact impossible.
The most pervasive and destructive way that Hira sabotages his own efforts at intimacy with Kiyoi is through his distorted thoughts, including the biased interpretations and pure fabrications I mentioned above. He creates a narrative that says that:
Kiyoi is permanently superior to him, rendering him permanently out of reach
To whatever extent he does attain intimacy with Kiyoi, or even seek it, this is a kind of crime against nature (“touching a god”) that will undoubtedly cause some kind of unstoppable cosmic misfortune as a punishment,
Relatedly, any intimacy with Kiyoi can only be temporary.
This last factor leads me to one other thing I should mention. I was thinking about how I’d conceptualize Hira’s personality. I looked at my favorite book on the subject, Nancy McWilliams’s Psychoanalytic Diagnosis. I felt like I should check out the chapter on self-defeating/masochistic personality (note: not related to masochistic sexual practices!) but was reminded that people of that type are typically more resentful of what they see as undeserved suffering. Hira, on the other hand, perceives himself as completely deserving to suffer. So I looked at the chapter on depressive personality. The main defense depressive personalities use, McWilliams writes, is introjection: turning any hostile feelings inward toward the self. Much more like Hira. This is totally consistent with his pervasive sense of doom, hopelessness about improving his lot in life, and inability to take in positive comments about himself.
Of course, despite his self-sabotage, Hira does actually want to be close to Kiyoi. And he achieves that, in some ways. Pursuers do want intimacy, as their self-presentation suggests, they just tend to create conditions that decrease the chances they will get as much of it as they claim to want. So Hira sabotages his chances of getting his needs met. And every time he does get close to Kiyoi, he feels like he is adding to his list of crimes or the amount of suffering he’ll have to go through later to make up for any joy he feels. It’s like a form of emotional avoidance that dovetails with his behavioral avoidance.
Take, for example, his thoughts (delivered in voiceover) while on his outing with Kiyoi in S2E1. “They say the amount of happiness one feels is predetermined. In that case I may have only misfortune in my future. Kiyoi might dump me. Kiyoi might hate me. Kiyoi might die before me. What should I do then?” I don’t know who “they” are supposed to be here, but this is not an idea I’ve ever encountered in any culture or religion, except maybe Calvinism or something. It seems like Hira has just seized on a somewhat random idea, but this idea feels true because of his self-defeating narrative. It comes as no surprise, then, that when Hira starts ruminating about these possible future misfortunes, he stops himself from experiencing closeness with Kiyoi in that moment—which does not go unnoticed by Kiyoi. “Don’t live in your own world,” he tells Hira. “We’re hanging out in this one.” It barely seems to register with Hira that Kiyoi looks irritated and hurt. Clearly, Hira’s distractibility and negativity when he’s trying to enjoy his company is painful to him. And again, he has managed not only to detract from his enjoyent of the closeness he has with Kiyoi, but also to sabotage the potential for closeness in the interaction he’s having with Kiyoi in the present.
(Screenshot via MDL by ruiLIKK)
It’s worth noting that a related kind of distorted perception seems to affect Hira in other situations where people are showing an interest in him romantically and/or sexually. Take his interaction with that model at the party in S2E1 for example. He’s extremely gullible when he believes her claim that the other attendees are angry with him and think he’s rude. And though he registers that she’s getting close to him and touching him in a way that makes him uncomfortable, he doesn’t seem to understand that she’s putting the moves on him or that she’s interested in him. He’s beyond surprised when Kiyoi shows him the piece of paper with her phone number that she slipped into his pocket.
Watching that scene, I asked myself if I had just failed to notice before that Hira had a profound lack of social awareness. But then I thought about where this had come up and where it hadn’t. Hira shows social awareness in other situations, like when he observes what goes on between the students in Shirota’s circle in high school. It seems he’s only this clueless when it comes to admitting others might like him. The same happened with Koyama, when Hira seemed unaware that they were on a date. Hira does lack social skills in a lot of ways, but his awareness isn’t that bad except in this area. The main issue seems to be that anyone being attracted to or interested in him is classified as “impossible.” This is how, in S1E6, he not only turned down Kiyoi offering to date him but managed not to remember it ever happened.
That’s it for now on Hira’s side of the equation. I have part 2, on Kiyoi, almost ready to post as well, so that should be up pretty soon. Edited to add: I forgot to include another side of Hira’s pursuing role in his relationship with Kiyoi: pursuing sexual intimacy specifically. We get new information about this aspect of Hira and Kiyoi’s relationship in S2E1 in a couple of scenes. In the opening scene, once Kiyoi is awake, Hira asks if he’s angry with him for being “too persistent” the previous day. We don’t know for certain what this persistence was about, but their mutual shyness about it and Hira’s reference to it being caused by Kiyoi’s cuteness suggest that he was hitting on Kiyoi. We don’t know the outcome of it, though. The other moment happens when, after the incident with the model stirs up Kiyoi’s possessiveness, he (bashfully) announces that he and Hira are going to “do it” that day (resulting in a huge grin from a surprised Hira). It’s interesting—and simultaneously endearing and strange—that on the one hand, he can just decide this for the two of them (assumably because Hira always jumps at the chance), which gives him an air of imperiousness, but on the other, that he’s so uncharacteristically shy about it. Both of these scenes are very consistent with Hira’s role as a pursuer. He seems less ambivalent about this type of closeness than others, but he also seems to respect for Kiyoi’s boundaries (”persistence” notwithstanding). Basically, he seems to be on board with being the one petitioning for sexual contact while Kiyoi acts as more of a gatekeeper.
I won’t kiss you for a while. What? I won’t do it until you decide to face me properly.
Hagiwara Riku as HIRA & Yagi Yusei as KIYOI 美しい彼 シーズン2 (2023) dir. Sakai Mai
Utsukushii Kare S2E4: “face me straight on”
Thanks to @linnie-la91 for this screenshot. This line, along with the one following it, ended up being a pretty good summary for this whole danged season: “But he’s a weirdo. We always fight.” Thankfully, the season ended with Kiyoi and his weirdo getting along better.
At long last, here are my thoughts on the big moments in season 2 episode 4 of Utsukushii Kare. There were a lot of them! I’m going to touch on some of the psychology threads I’ve been examining throughout this season but I’ll save my really in-depth analysis of those for another post on the season as a whole.
Every episode of this season has been packed with character development and things that both clarify and chart changes in the relationship between the leads. It’s not surprising that in the final episode this ramped up even more. Overall, in terms of the dynamics I’ve been writing about, Hira and Kiyoi are finding a more balanced way of relating to each other. Emphasis on *more* balanced, since it’s definitely not there yet, and they might not want it to be entirely balanced anyway. It’s a much-needed and significant improvement. Instead of Kiyoi completely on his own pursuing Hira and getting nothing but fake-pursuit role-playing in return, we saw Hira taking risks and showing awareness of Kiyoi’s actual mental state (instead of the thoughts he wants to ascribe to him for fantasy reasons).
So, first, the “I’m not going to kiss you…until you finally decide to take me seriously” scene. This move might strike some people as manipulative on Kiyoi’s part. Withholding affection, contact, or physical intimacy definitely can be manipulative. But I actually think it’s a very reasonable boundary to set under these circumstances. Kissing, and whatever might come after it, is one of the few types of pursuit (maybe the only one?) that when Kiyoi engages in it, Hira reliably reciprocates. But physical intimacy often works differently from other types. It’s not unusual at all for someone who distances in other ways to be the pursuer or be much more receptive to being pursued when it comes to sex. In Kiyoi’s case, there are a couple of reasons why this kiss moratorium makes sense. One of the main recommendations for repairing a polarized pursuer-distancer situation is for the pursuer to stop or reduce pursuing (in a calm, mature way, not engaging in reactive distance). Usually this leads (eventually) to the distancer having to try doing some pursuing in order to get their needs met. This is the area of their relationship in which Hira is most likely to really feel the absence of Kiyoi pursuing him. It’s a good start to trying to reverse those roles.
Also, if I were in Kiyoi’s shoes, as much as I might really want the comfort and reassurance of some physical intimacy after all of the hurt I experienced, I would be very wary of getting into something that would likely feel very bittersweet at best under the circumstances. Being physically intimate with someone who has hurt you deeply when that hurt is not resolved can be painful and destructive. It’s not unreasonable to want to avoid that. Acting like he was going to kiss Hira and then announcing the moratorium in that way was a little mean. But I can see why Kiyoi felt like turning the tables on Hira a bit.
The talk in the park/on the shrine steps was a huge deal and moved the needle in a few different areas. First, Kiyoi accepted that hints and implications wouldn’t work with Hira and voiced his thoughts and feelings directly. This meant putting himself in a more vulnerable position, which isn’t easy for him. It showed real growth. Hira responded in kind, which represented even more growth for him given how much he’s been living in his own head throughout season 2 (well, arguably, his entire life). Even though his thinking about being “unworthy” of Kiyoi wasn’t hugely different, the fact that he was speaking about it openly and listening to what Kiyoi had to say in response was a big change.
I loved the direct yet gentle way Kiyoi said, “I don’t care if you’re a pebble or not.” This was immediately followed by Kiyoi doing the same movement/pose he did when asking Hira if he would keep his dance lessons a secret in season 1, looking Hira in the eye from close up and slightly below him. There was a strong contrast here given how much closer they’d become and how much kinder Kiyoi was being, but at the same time, there was also a parallel in that Kiyoi was challenging Hira by saying, “I won’t let you have a one-sided love again.”
Speaking of parallels, I find it really interesting that Hira brings up what Kiyoi said the night they got together, but I’m not entirely sure what to make of it. Rather abruptly, he looks at Kiyoi and says, “‘If it’s the same as until now, then no.’ When you said that, it made me happy.” I don’t blame Kiyoi for thinking Hira might be making fun of him, because he does his sort of sneaky smile here, just like when he’s teasing Kiyoi about being cute. But I think he seems sincere. This is also the first time either of them really talks about that night (despite parallels galore and clearly intentional references to it in the show). I think it’s promising that Hira is actually acknowledging it after seeming, pretty much this entire time, as if he’d forgotten all about it. But I’m not sure how to interpret that weird smile! And I’m not super clear on the comment about it making him happy. Is there a part of him that was already more willing to change, more interested in finally meeting Kiyoi as equals, than most of his actions in season 1 would suggest?
Then there’s the exchange about jobs and supporting themselves, which I actually think is one of the most significant moments in the episode. Hira has been talking himself down in part because he’s convinced he won’t be able to find a job after graduation, so Kiyoi brings up the fact that he could actually afford to support both of them. Hira makes a really obvious sour face in response to this and turns away. Kiyoi’s voiceover says, “There it is. Lord Hira gets stubborn about the weirdest things.” (It’s worth noting that this wording sounds a lot like Koyama’s description of Hira in season 1 when he badmouths him in front of Kiyoi as a sort of test–but that’s just in English, I don’t know about the original dialogue.) Kiyoi says, “You don’t like that?” and Hira nods decisively. “Then I was lying. I want you to be like a workhorse. I’ll throw you away if you cause me any trouble.” Of course, Hira grins at this. When Kiyoi says, “So creepy,” I don’t know if I’ve ever agreed more with him applying that label to Hira.
But for all the weirdness of this exchange, it’s a lot healthier than the way they’ve been communicating, and if Hira is paying attention to this and doesn’t get selective amnesia again, it could point the way toward progress. The blatant way Kiyoi says, “then I was lying” makes it particularly clear he’s just saying what Hira wants him to say, just playing along. If Hira needs for Kiyoi to be this cold, imperious, princely figure, he’ll play along sometimes, but he’ll make it pretty obvious that it’s just a game. If Hira can be content with this and not, as I said, conveniently forget about it being more like role-playing than reality, this could really be a way for them to compromise. Kiyoi just wants to know that at the end of the day Hira knows he’s an actual human being who really loves him and that he’ll drop the servant act long enough to meet Kiyoi’s need for a real partner. Hira has been expecting reality to conform to his fantasy and when it doesn’t, he’s just given up on perceiving reality accurately and let his fantasies seep into real life. If he can handle getting his needs met through this playful version of the fantasy and still remember that it’s not a fully accurate reflection of their relationship, they could really get somewhere.
I want to just briefly touch on Kiyoi’s conversation with Anna here. I found it really sweet. He shows a side of himself with her that he hasn’t anywhere else on the show. He’s partly being deferential out of politeness, but he also seems sincerely in awe of her and genuinely shy. At the same time, he’s remarkably unguarded and sincere whenever they talk. I love his expression and his manner when he comes out to her. It’s so direct in such a cute way. Her excitement about his relationship is also really endearing. Like other folks, I can see that events seem to be pointing toward her being in danger in the movie and I’m also worried for her, because she’s such a likable character. Her mention of “trusting [her]self” and “being true to [her]self” is interesting but I’m not sure if it’s pointing toward something to come in the movie or meant to apply to this episode.
Next up: Hira’s rather bizarre job interview with Noguchi Hiromi. This whole thing was pretty fascinating. I loved Noguchi’s outspokenness. He really went after Hira with no holds barred and yet he did it in a remarkably nonjudgemental way. I found it very significant that even though Noguchi is very critical both of Hira’s personality and his photography and even though at a certain point Hira’s aware that Noguchi is offering him a job, with all of the job interview associations that brings up, he never stutters when he’s talking with him. Well, I take that back. He does stutter very briefly when they first start talking, and then when he starts to excuse himself after Noguchi says his assistant quit so he’s super busy. But those are very low-stakes moments, moments when they’re just starting to interact or he thinks they’re about to stop. When Noguchi really starts giving it to him with both barrels, he’s fine. He even speaks to him in a rather challenging way when he asks, “What part of that makes you want me to be your assistant?” Despite his thought that “he and I don’t match,” it seems they’re actually really well suited to each other.
The other really notable thing is, of course, Noguchi’s take on Hira as seen through his work, coupled with Hira’s confirmation that “it’s like he sees right through me.” Noguchi sees things in Hira that the viewer hasn’t really had a chance to observe. I’ve read a little bit of the first novel and some of this comes through more there, but there are only the slightest hints of it in the show. Here’s what Noguchi says (per the Viki subtitles, flaws and all):
It was such a childish photo. You should’ve just chosen an empty place rather than erasing people. Going out of your way to erasing [sic] people made it very clear that you hate this world…What I felt from your photo was tremendous selfishness and disgust. You haven’t succeeded at all, but you think you’re amazing. But instead of showing it outright, you make a shell by belittling yourself. You look down on this world with youth, stupidity, and ambiguity.
I wrote previously about how in some ways Hira seems like a depressive personality but in others like a self-defeating one, and how the biggest difference between the two is that the self-defeating person typically feels aggrieved or resentful. We haven’t seen that aggrieved side come out overtly in Hira in the show much at all, but Noguchi sees it, and Hira confirms it. This is actually pretty consistent with other aspects of his character as well, but I’m going to save my full discussion of that for my post about the season as a whole.
And now, for that job announcement/gift/kiss scene. Whew, it’s a lot. Hira tells Kiyoi about the job with Noguchi, then tells him, “there’s a photo I want to take.” Basically, he wants to take at least one photo of Kiyoi as a professional and have it published somewhere with his name attached. Kiyoi understands what this means and is really moved. It’s symbolic of something a lot bigger than just taking a photo. Hira’s talking about meeting Kiyoi on something resembling his own level. This is a great example of what Kiyoi was looking for when he asked Hira to “face [him] straight on.”
Next, Kiyoi gives Hira a gift for Valentine’s Day, a little box of chocolates and a rubber duck. The duck thing has particular significance given the short thing that the show released on social media a little while ago, in which Kiyoi and Koyama are talking about Hira and they both talk about Hira’s relationship with “Captain Duck” in a pretty disparaging way. Giving Hira a duck is a way of showing acceptance of his eccentricities and meeting him where he is. And Hira’s excitement bears this out–he’s ecstatic.
And then we have the part of the scene where Kiyoi holds out a piece of chocolate to Hira, ends up feeding it to him, and then one thing leads to another and they’re kissing and collapsing to the floor. I’ve already analyzed this to death so I’ll just summarize here. It’s not 100% clear whether Kiyoi’s moratorium on kissing just applied to him making the first move. It would make sense if it did, since the whole point was for Hira to come to him instead of him always having to do all the pursuing. But either way, it seems like he was ready to lift it, because Hira really had made quite a bit of progress by that point. Or, well, he at least was clearly heading in the right direction. His thing about photographing Kiyoi professionally seemed to clinch it in Kiyoi’s eyes.
With that kiss, the show also suddenly acknowledged a dynamic that apparently is very overt in the novel because it’s more explicit about their sexual relationship. I gather it should also be pretty obvious, from the use of certain words and other cues, to folks who are familiar with certain tropes that often show up not only in BL and yaoi manga but also other genres. This set of tropes was also mentioned in the first episode of season 1, when Hira apologized for being “too persistent” and said he couldn’t help it because Kiyoi was “cute.” Basically, between these references, the actors’ performances in the kissing scene, and the distinct way of talking that Hagiwara Riku adopts when Hira tells Kiyoi, “I can’t wait any longer tonight,” it’s heavily implied that there’s a kind of role reversal that happens when Hira and Kiyoi are physically intimate where Hira is very authoritative while Kiyoi is more reactive, even shy. Of course, there’s always something to be said for a climactic kiss as you’re nearing the end of any sort of romance-dominated story. But it’s also a bit of a wild choice to throw this very different way they relate to one another at the audience so close to the end of the season.
Which brings us to the end of season 2. I’m grateful that the most pressing issues between Hira and Kiyoi were left resolved, but there are still tons of loose ends and things that were just getting started when the season ended, which makes sense as they were leading toward the movie. That works great for the audience in Japan, who just have a little over a month to wait until Eternal comes out in theaters. But there’s no telling when it’ll be available to those of us in the U.S., and folks are saying that similar things have taken between six months and a year to make it over here. Well, here’s hoping they at least make an announcement before too long so we’ll have an idea of what to expect…and preferably that they announce it won’t be an entire year.
the persistent and the cute
Over the last few days, there’s been a really interesting discussion in the comments of my reblog of the gifset @tinngun put together of the Utsukushii Kare season 2 finale kiss. I’m transplanting it here because 1) it seems like @tinngun could use a break from all those notifications and so forth 2) the conversation was totally getting buried and I think it might be interesting to folks who probably wouldn’t see it without it being brought back out into a main post. So, first, here’s a quick recap of what I posted when I reblogged the gifset post in the first place. Well, the part that’s pertinent to this conversation, at least. I commented on the tropeyness of the scene, including allusions to Hira and Kiyoi’s sexual relationship, which (from what I hear) gets quite a bit of time in the novels but by virtue of TV as a medium, is mostly not portrayed in the series. In other words, since this part of the relationship isn’t shown directly the vast majority of the time, it has to be sketched out through these allusions, including what I’d consider coded language.
With regard to the coded terms, I brought up something @bookittyboop had mentioned to me previously, that “persistent” and “cute” have specific meanings in BL/yaoi/other related genres. Basically, someone labeled as “persistent” is more active/forceful sexually and someone labeled as “cute” is yielding/more passive, with these roles being mutually reinforcing (i.e. the more yielding the “cute” person is, the more forceful the “persistent” person becomes).
Then I talked about the way Hagiwara Riku’s voice shifts in the line, “Sorry, Kiyoi. I can’t wait any longer tonight.” I had checked out some clips of other roles of his and noticed that among other things, he really seems to use his voice to differentiate between characters. This helped me to notice how distinct his “can’t wait” voice was, and I thought this was probably a voice belonging to the “persistent” part of the character. And I was less sure about this, but I thought Yagi Yusei was playing into this as well by reacting to the voice by kind of melting/going all floppy in response to it (he’d been fairly swoony before that, but it definitely seemed to be going up a notch there).
Then @xnoel, perennial fountain of information, pointed me to this quote from an interview translation (highlighting added):
So yeah, this seems like confirmation! I mean, what else would Yagi be referring to when he talks about “Hira’s ‘dark’ side” than this authoritative husky whisper thing?
Then I got some really great comments which I’m going to share here with permission, in part because I asked if anyone could point me toward more information on the “persistent”/”cute” thing.
The ever-helpful @nieves-de-sugui said:
a little bit of translation notes for your analysis! Hira is saying, literally, “I can’t hold back (anymore)” and it’s a very tropey sentence to say in BL (and shoujo) right before getting it on. It’s also the main indicator of taking over/taking charge of the sexual encounter. There’s a lot of one taking over and the other giving in. (I think there’s a lot here about how Japanese people relate to sex and how it should be done).
(I said I’d run into this trope in Kdramas before as well.)
And then the kind and knowledgeable @bookittyboop pretty much took me to school on the whole persistent/cute dichotomy! They left comments in two clusters at different times so I’m putting a little dinkus (the line of asterisks or symbol that marks a transition between sections) in there to show where that was. Oh, and I took out some greetings/closings and stuff like that for flow purposes. Here we go:
The best source I can think of (because otherwise this is the kind of thing your get through osmosis once you’ve watched enough Japanese media) is @absolutebl’s post [link added by me] on the whipping boy trope, though there is more to it. I would classify Hira as a whipping boy/attack dog/service top and Kiyoi as more of a kuudere than a tsundere as well as a spoiled prince/pampered princess.
Their characterization and dynamic (and derivatives) is a staple not only in bl but in Japanese media. You’ve got a male character (Hira) who is the unassuming or even the loser archetype but unearths or shows a “manly” and protective side in benefit of his loved ones (many times after his “cowardice” or “uselessness” has let them be hurt) and slowly makes something of himself.
Then you got a (normally female) character who is a combination of cold and aloof (kuudere) or prickly and explosive (tsundere) but actually wants to be cherished and uses the gruff exterior as a way to protect herself from heartache/rejection.
The first archetype normally admires the second and wants to be at their service while the second sees the potential in them and the adoration makes them feel safe. In normal circumstances the first character has a submissive personality and the other a domineering one. The second character is also going to find emotional vulnerability extremely difficult to express. But in certain circumstances, there is a “mom friend hack” button.
* * *
When character 2 opens up/shows vulnerability, character 1 identifies a need in the other to be cared for and takes confidence from being chosen to provide that. There’s also gap moe (duality cuteness) and horny “I’m gonna worship you so good you will forget everything else,” "gotta get top marks at satisfying you,” and “you’re so cute I wanna eat you up” buttons.
The second character in turn feels attracted, safe and tethered by that show of confidence and let’s themselves (their barriers) go more and more . Those energies feed into each other and that’s how you get to our kiss scene. Sometimes(Kiyoi’s case) they add coyness and shyness (“no, that’s too much you beast”) because God forbid the tsundere/kuudere lacks plausible deniability when they go back to their senses. (there’s a “baby it’s cold outside"element too)
This is where @absolutebl chimed in to say they thought @bookittyboop was doing “a GREAT job” with this explanation.
And I agreed, and thanked them for the time and effort involved in such a useful explanation, but asked about the “mom friend hack” because it was new to me. Here was their explanation:
The mom friend is the responsible, caring one, prepared for any eventuality. If you’re a generally anxious person but also the mom friend, you’ve got a hack where you handily navigate situations which would normally be embarrassing or anxiety-inducing if it’s for your loved one’s benefit.
For example:
-Buying condoms, pregnancy tests, emetics or other "embarrassing” stuff
-telling waitstaff they got an order wrong and to please change it
-asking a teacher to explain something again or revise an exam score
-giving a jerk a piece of your mind
Basically, you may not be able to stand for yourself or even make perfectly mundane, normal requests for your own sake, but the power of love lets you rationalize things, be brave, and do it for others.
I just realized I probably didn’t clarify enough. Hira’s thing is not exactly a “mom friend hack” but it’s similar to it in the sense that “being needed” lets him overcome a mental block.
And they added, re: my theory about Kiyoi’s response to the Persistent Voice:
As for the kiss voice and Kiyoi’s reaction, I too am convinced that was all on purpose. Bl drinks from yaoi manga, which has a treasure trove of visual cues and tropes. If there was a manga version, we’d probably have seen Hira suddenly get wolfy ears and shiny eyes + Kiyoi blushing like a maiden (maybe a fade to black with the dirtiest onomatopoeia known to man) to signal someone’s getting railed within an inch of his life 😂. This is the real life equivalent.
So, yeah. Lots to think about here. I’m glad to know I seemed to be on the right track. It’s funny how there is so much material out there about some tropes and genre terms (googling seme and uke will get you more results than you know what to do with) while other tropes are harder to find anything about. (If only because of the vagaries of search terms, which might be a factor here.) If nothing else I’ll have this post to refer back to and I hope others will do the same if they find it at all useful.
Thanks again to @bookittyboop and @nieves-de-sugui for their thoughts! And to the illustrious @absolutebl for chiming in with praise (for @bookittyboop) and confirmation.
postscript:
There are a couple of things I keep noticing about that kiss scene since this discussion that I wanted to point out. I guess the fact that, due to both of my reblogs, I had a gifset of the scene at the top of my profile for three days probably has something to do with it.
First, I hadn’t noticed how much Kiyoi really is slipping into a “cute” persona even before the Persistent Voice is used–just in response to Hira’s first kiss. His eyes get very soft and he does that affectionate head-bonk but the pièce de résistance, to my mind, is the rather childlike way he sticks out the end of his tongue. So, yeah. The first stage of cuteness comes before the Voice is even used.
Second, I hadn’t even reckoned with just how floppy Kiyoi gets after the Voice. He’s swaying around so much that Hira keeps having to grab him so he doesn’t just keel over. He’s gone almost boneless.
I guess it’s just really fascinating to me how this set of tropes can be so pervasive in one culture (or at least noteworthy chunks of it) and yet almost entirely novel to me. I mean, I was aware cultural differences existed, of course, but sometimes getting hit by the reality of them is still startling.
today on everything i love and that is perfect about utsukushii kare (bc i just binged rewatched both seasons), i find it so fantastic and perfect how they, not even advertently, show how hira and kiyoi grow out of their high school personas, bc that is so a thing that happens and is something i find hardly any media really navigates as well as i see it here. high school is very much a rigid place, and in it you play your part; the popular kid, the class clown, the nerd and so on, but outside of high school, after high school, when you grow up and enter the wider role, there aren’t those roles to fulfil. you have to be you, and to do that, you have to figure out who that ‘you’ is, whether thats something you’ve always known or had inside and just kept buried or hidden, or thats something you’ve yet to discover and have to find, and then go on to actually be that, and shed all of that behaviour you learned or picked up or hid behind in high school.
idk if this is a universal thing, but it is something that especially speaks to me, being more of the hira, the loner, unpopular, shy kid. that role offers a lot of safety in high school, which is weird to say bc its not a place you aspire to be nor is it particularly enjoyable, but in a way it spares you of further ridicule. if you just fill that role and don’t do anything that acts outside of it, you can get by just fine, then high school is done and you move on. thats what utsukushii kare shows so well. the way hira is treated in high school is never really that outright bullying you stereotypically think of, which i love bc thats not really what high school is actually like. really, it is more of what you see in the show. this lower level stuff that you kind of just go along with even if it is objectively mean. the name calling is not loud insults, its those pet nicknames that follow you and remind you of the things you dont like about yourself, the things you’re embarrassed about. its the established hierarchy that you are at the bottom of that signals to you everyday that you are less important than everyone else. and hira goes along with it partly bc of kiyoi but also bc its safe and, dare i say, comfortable, bc hira has not just not known different, but doesnt wish to either, which is how he settles into his dynamic with kiyoi.
on the other hand, kiyoi’s place as the popular kid is something he is more visibly uncomfortable with, at least to me, and you see it even before you learn about what his real dreams and interests are. the way he acts with the people that surround him, he is never exactly like that. his treatment of hira especially is kinder while still hiding behind that film of treating him as the group’s lacky, but when people treat hira unkindly, he steps in, and i like to think this is from a place of him just being a good person and not just a defensiveness of hira bc of however he feels. its weird bc he does want to be admired so his place shouldn’t feel so wrong, but i think its from a place of wanting to be admired for his merit, for who he is, not out of any control or fear. he wants to be level with people when it comes to reality, and praised for the things he can do well, his abilities, not just some abject superiority others think he possesses. and i cant tell you how much i love this character for this whole ‘cool guy who’s expected to be so cool and not care about anything but actually really wants to do well at stuff and has a passion for acting and dancing and performance and just wants to be loved’. like that is one of my favourite character tropes ever and utsukushii kare does it with kiyoi to absolute damn perfection, which is only added to when you think about the queerness underlying it, kiyoi acting as this stereotypical straight popular high school boy who’s too cool for everyone but really not only is he not straight and have these complicated feelings for a boy, but he also loves performance and theatre and i love that those two things aren’t separate and it makes so much sense. there is just this young queer boy who wants to be liked hiding behind this veneer of coolness and popularity and its fabulous.
so when they do get out of high school, we get to see kiyoi embrace that side of him that he always kept hidden, not just doing what he loves, but actively pursuing it, trying hard, putting in the effort and dedication and i adore that. it lends itself so well to the mantra of ‘trying your best is the coolest thing you can do’ which i wholeheartedly believe. not caring isn’t cool. caring is cool. trying your best is cool. and not only does it make kiyoi more admirable as a character, but it feels like kiyoi is a lot more comfortable and welcoming of the admiration he gets, bc now it feels deserved, and its funny that that manifests through him being humble and playing himself down bc thats the very human thing to do when you’re praised, but it also parallels the way hira downplays and degrades himself which is actually, in a twisted way, him thinking highly of himself, which we see discussed in the last ep of season 2.
bc when hira leaves high school, he still clings to that role, even though there’s no one around him maintaining it. for him to be lowly, there has to be someone around him thats above him, but there isn’t now, which is why he clings to the dynamic he has with kiyoi above him bc it carries over and maintains his safe space. and what we see in season 2 is kiyoi removing that, asking hira to not raise him up just so he can put himself down, he wants to be level. and with kiyoi trying to take away that safety, that leaves hira having to figure out what his place actually is in the world, a world he’s always removed himself from. that’s why his discussion with noguchi is so important, bc kiyoi has struggled to be direct and put it into words with hira, either bc he struggles to say those things or doesn’t want to be so harsh with hira, but noguchi has no issue with holding back, nor feels any need to be gentle. he tells hira flat out you are selfish and ignorant to a fault and think so highly of yourself that you think you are the only person in this world. and thats what hira needs, a real challenge, someone who sees his mindset and twists it to show all the negatives of it. its never what hira intended, but its the message he sends to others; by belittling yourself, you give other people’s words and thoughts no weight or importance, thinking you know better. by removing people from your photos, by hiding behind the camera, you are not escaping the world, you are saying the world is only for you. there is only one plane to exist on, and by trying to be there alone, you deny everyone else of their existence. the option is not to not participate, its to participate alone. and what i’d hope continues in the story (idk what the movie is about at all) is a journey for hira to find how he can be involved at the same level as everyone else, to step out of the safety of self inflicted isolation and join in, feel comfortable finally taking up space and find who he is outside of high school.