Introduction to the future demise of Sae-ism
Abandon all hope, all ye who enter.
From this point on, Sae-ism is dead, except for some occasional post-mortem spasms of good storytelling. We're past the point of no return: from now on, Sae-ism will be a lazily put together mess of boredom with occasional insane plot points dropped like bombs in the desert.
My Sae-ism... what happened to my Sae-ism...I keep reading it out of sheer devotion now, because you wouldn't abandon your wife if she got dementia, but I don't wait anymore for the moment Tohru magically regains his passion and his skills, because we're honestly past hope at this point. I'm gonna bitch & moan & throw fits over Tohru's terrible writing a lot. Is this still a shrine then?... A memorial maybe. I just know that it's owed, and that I'm following Sae-ism until the bitter end, no matter how many Dragon Ball-style training arcs, infuriating mischaracterizations or stretches of boredom there are. True love is ETERNAL.
Volume eleven
So right at the start of volume 11 we get a confusing mix of good and bad, because Tendo (tumblr sexyman) and Taicho (dismembered desecrated corpse of the great Captain Kigurumi) are introduced at the same time. Pretty symbolic if you ask me. I still don't know what was the point of making Tendo vape, he never does it again either, it's just fucking hilarious 😠Tohru vapes too though IS HE TOHRU'S VAPESONA I will make fun of this forever, and for sure the vape isn't the only thing that's fruity, what the fuck is he wearing. Anyways so they're going in the new Sae's childhood village and investigating on her past, and we get a real shocker as we see that Sae looked like a fucking gremlin as a child. So this is the beginning to the whole Sae the tenth backstory thing that I talk SOOOO MUCH about. Too bad it has to have its roots in these shitty volumes.
They go to the hospital to visit someone that has got more information on the matter, and..... and....... and....... that someone is........ wait can someone hold my bucket........ that someone is....... KAI 🤮🤮🤮🤮 THE CURSE BEGINS HERE. KAI IS INTRODUCED, the world shatters, the Twin Towers fall etc etc as the homophobic youth begins speaking, as he never should. He starts telling the first version of Sae the tenth's backstory; yes because we'll get three retellings of it in total. I am NOT complaining, her backstory is one of the most compelling things in the whole series, single-handedly breathed life into post-volume 10 Sae-ism etc etc. and I will absolutely take whatever perspective I get on it. The funny thing is that out of the three retellings, Kai's is the most USELESS and actually kinda confusing one??? It sounds like the least genuine one out of the bunch. Because he narrates it in this weird, solemn, almost boasting tone, like he's a fucking DnD bard or something, and brags about saving her from bullying ONCE. This clashes with Sae's retelling (which is arguably the most accurate one, because she lived it all herself), where everything is quiet and unsensational, even when she's abducted by a weird freaky maid with a face mask and is involved in a freaky secret organization and their arranged marriage/suicide traditions. Through Kai's version Sae is also depicted smiling quite a few times, but in both her father's retelling and in hers, she never displays any sort of emotion (except for surprise. Once) from when she was a toddler up until her father dies... And the same scenes are being retold!! I wonder which one is real! it's almost as if a RAT like Kai is distorting the story through his own morbidly nostalgic and romantic lens! And that's what Kai does, he romanticizes his and Sae's previous life because HE was doing fine, and HE thought that Sae was doing fine. He doesn't stop romanticizing it even when faced with irrefutable evidence that Sae's life was, in fact, not fine at all. Irrefutable evidence: because he has READ her father's diaries, words straight from his fucking mouth!!! He knows everything, but somehow that doesn't faze him? Even something as shocking as Sae's backstory (I'll get to that in volume 13). The truth is that I don't like him at all because all he does is follow Sae around saying "hey bestie do you want to go back to when you were a socially isolated, unkempt loser sheltered by your creepy piece of shit dad?". That's too kind actually, he doesn't even ASK her. At the end he meets her and DEMANDS she goes back with him to their childhood village. He just ASSUMES that she'll be happy to do it. That's the other thing Kai does, assuming things about Sae based on his flawed and outdated perception of her: see volume 12 for examples. I hate Kai man.
Then apart from this there's nothing noteworthy, Sae decides "fuck domestic violence, we're going international" and tries to kill everyone in the main cast so that they won't interfere anymore, she has a new bodyguard, we get two identical shots of this guy next to each other, chase scenes, I got the png of Shibako carrying groceries here, we get to see Kokai's handsome manly face in drag (fuck it THIS is noteworthy!), there's a really cool scene with Ran committing arson, Sae laughs about having killed two of my favourite characters (Tazuru and Madoka.... this hurt), Misao is pretty sad about having been tortured blah blah blah I don't care like this is very fucking TAME as far as Sae-ism volumes go. And I didn't exactly like that, because as I said over and over, what I love about Sae-ism is that it's intense. This feels like a lackluster, dusty imitation of the previous volumes. But it was NOT HORRIBLE, which can't be said about volume 12. No don't make me talk about volume 12 please. Please.
Fav parts:
•omg hiii Tendo
•Kokai in drag
•Ran arson
•Kai giving me reasons to hate him
Awards: uhhhh
Verdict: 4.5/10
Volume twelve. It doesn't deserve anything nice.
What volume 12? 😀
No seriously because it's so fucking BAD this is horrible. Look it doesn't even get to have a nice decorated div. This is the hugest flop in the flop era of Sae-ism, if I was reading this in real time as it came out I would have hanged myself, this was catastrophic, this was a disaster, this is the flood that almost wiped out the flourishing Sae-ism civilization. Especially considering what Tohru has SERVED previously, this is lower than the fucking bottom of the barrel, this is pure shit. I am the biggest Sae-ism appreciator so I have STRICT quality control standards, that's why Tohru should fucking hire me, and this is the LOWEST that the quality has ever went.
I'M NOT HOMOSEXUAL (IIIINSTITUTIONALIZED), YOU'RE THE ONE THAT'S HOMOSEXUAL (IIIINSTITUTIONALIZED)
Tohru has shifted his focus on painfully uninteresting, painless, passionless, meaningless characters that have nothing going on for them, that no one could possibly feel compelled to care about. This is what happens for the ENTIRE, fucking, volume. For the ENTIRE volume. There is no reprise. The three chapters are named after the three fucking lowliest unpitiable disgusting men ever, and their sad excuse of a backstory gets infodumped. Every single chapter, for pages.
For example: one of them is this guy, Sae's bodyguard. He literally first appeared in the previous volume, and he dies immediately after giving us nothing. You can't just infodump his backstory when he's about to die and expect me to care, when he hasn't done anything meaningful. It's impossible to care about him. Making up a sad backstory at the ass end of his """arc""" won't fix this; if anything, it makes it worse, because it's obvious that Tohru is desperately trying to make him interesting. He's begging us to care about these characters, when they are so fucking bland and passionless: and, ironically enough, this is confirmed by the same backstories that were written to make them look interesting and pathetic (as in full of pathos). Back to this guy's example, basically he has a daughter and he never fucking talks to her or acknowledges her. The daughter starts infodumping his backstory while performing unpaid child labor for Sae (giving her a haircut). It's abysmally boring and trite. You know the AI sad cat stories on youtube shorts? This is exactly like one of them, I am not fucking kidding. Basically the guy was a criminal and then a boxer and then he beat up someone and went to prison so he didn't get to connect with his daughter as she grew up. That's it. I spared you the pain of reading like 30 pages of this. Then, a... I can't fucking say this. A mysterious masked killer (see how many genius ideas are in this volume. Also it's Tendo) comes to the uhhh Sae-ism hype house and kills the guy. As he dies, he recalls his daughter (that's new!!) and tells himself "damn I didn't even make her smile once. I am a failure". YES YOU ARE???? Like what am I even supposed to do? Care about the suffering he has inflicted on himself and others because of his own misbehaviours and neglect? 1) He's boring 2) every bit of suffering that could make him interesting is self-inflicted and derives from his own insipidity SO HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO CARE? Thank you Tendo for killing this sad excuse of a man.
The second character is not just boring, he's ENRAGING in a bad way. Worse, we're talking about Taicho, captain Kigurumi... the deranged violent furry I loved. I've been literally grieving his character since reading this volume. He's dead to me. Now he's just somebody that I used to know. This is way worse than the bodyguard's backstory, because it's not only a flop storytelling-wise, but it's also a flop ethic-wise?? Tohru was genuinely trying to make us feel bad for this man, who's not the victim in any conceivable universe, but a sloppy asshole. Like MAN I'M SO SORRY THAT YOU FELL IN LOVE WITH BASICALLY A FUCKING TEENAGE GIRL FOR NO REASON AT ALL OTHER THAN SHE WAS HOT, AND PROCEEDED TO RUIN YOUR RELATIONSHIP WITH YOUR BROTHER AND BOTH OF YOUR ENTIRE FUCKING LIVES OVER IT... And you know what? IT'S DEFINITELY HER FAULT! Not yours for being such an impulsive and shallow piece of shit. Okay, he hates the Saes because they're cruel. Fair. But who do you think made them this way, if not the predatory people all around them? I don't even mean it in the romantic/sexual sense: predatory as in like, undermining Sae in order to gain something for themselves and boost their own ego. Whether they want a hot girl (like this guy and his dumbass brother), elevated economic and social status (literally everyone affiliated with the Nazo corporation), or to keep their sense of self afloat and their life meaningful (like Tazuru). By all means tell me about them, because the entire Maki family/Nazo corp thing is beyond fascinating, but for the love of god DO NOT try to make me feel bad for them... Tazuru is an exception, despite being another of Sae's oppressors in her own way, because she was largely a victim of her own - even after escaping her childhood situation.
Tendo is actually kind of an exception too. The reason why I visibly adore him (despite saying that I want to put him in a washing machine) is because, even though I lumped him in with all the other "predators" earlier, he's very different than them. He just wants Sae's money, not anything of actual value from her. To him, Sae herself is a burden and having to interact with her is an inconvenient: he just wants to marry her to become the head of the Nazo corporation, and then fuck off to their own two separate ways. He doesn't want anything to do with her apart from that. Lets her keep sex slaves and all that. This is an unicum in the history of Sae-ism: he doesn't put her life at risk for his own personal gain, he just puts her through an annoying ceremony for like an hour and then fucks off. AND HE'S STILL AVAILABLE FOR GIVING AN HAND, LIKE DELIVERING STUFF TO THE CASTLE, AND HE ALWAYS SMILES AND IS FUNNY BECAUSE he wants to keep his position HE'S A LITTLE ANGEL. He doesn't want to fuck her. He doesn't want to fuck her. This makes me want to run into the woods naked. HE DOESN'T WANT TO FUCK HER!!!!!!!!! WOOOOOOOOOOOHOHHHOOHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! When I got excited over him saying that Sae didn't have to force herself to have a child with him, that's how you know the bar is in HELL, and Tendo is the coolest chillest hot pookie angel for doing the bare minimum. He's awesome, because his selfishness actually makes him the least selfish character out of the bunch. And this is incredible.
But anyways, in no conceivable universe is the furry guy a victim, pitiable, worthy of sympathy, or even STRIKING in his assholeness, because, much like the bodyguard guy, every bit of his suffering depends on his own stupidity!!! It's hilarious (as we italians say, I laugh in order not to cry) how Sae only ever said brief, very formal sentences to him and his brother, but they went completely fucking hogwild and destroyed their tight-knit relationship with each other, their entire lives, and others' lives over their shallow infatuation with her. This is in fact a very fucking dumb backstory in general, but I wouldn't have been soooo mad about it if Tohru wasn't trying to make us feel pity for this guy... Like there's this disgusting corny ass full-page shot at the end of this miserable torturous flashback scene, where he stands up looking all cool while saying like "no Misao you don't get it I have to kill Sae because this is my brother's legacy....... he lives on.........." STAY THE FUCK AWAY FROM HER??? AND KILL YOURSELF YOU AND HIS LEGACY. Thank you Tendo for shooting this sad excuse of a man.
This guy used to be great, precisely up to the point he took off his mask. I miss captain Kigurumi. I miss his furry fighting skills and his hammer. He could have kept being great. He didn't need this backstory. I've never watched Big Bang Theory but imagine if they had a comedy relief dog for 4 seasons and then gave him a shitty dramatic backstory. Tohru killed this phenomenal, funny, brilliant character that DIDN'T NEED depth, and made him artificially, pointlessly and nauseatingly "deep", in a way that might not have been forced, but that sure does sound like it. What a shitty backstory in general. Headcanon: captain Kigurumi died in volume 10, this guy is a fake. THAT'S THE ONLY WAY I CAN DEAL WITH THIS I miss him so much. Let's all gather, have a moment of silence in his honor and reminisce about his best moments. *flips through treasured family yearbook*
omg look they're playing ðŸ˜ðŸ˜ðŸ˜ðŸ˜ðŸ˜ðŸ˜ this would be adorable in season one, too bad he shouldn't be allowed within 10 kms of a child
Look... I don't even want to talk about the third character/backstory. There's a reason why any time I remember volume 12 my asshole puckers as if I tried to scoop out my shit with a slice of lemon. At least he gets killed. By Tendo again, our savior. Thank you Tendo for killing this horrible, DISTURBING, sad excuse of a man. Tohru hath forsaken us.
The "homosexual tendencies" line is from here. This MIGHT UNIRONICALLY BE THE BEST PART OF THIS VOLUME. THE TRANSLATION GETS ALMOST ALL PRONOUNS WRONG SO I CANT POST IT, BUT BASICALLY KAI JUST DISCOVERED THAT SAE LOVES MISAO AND IS TALKING SUPER DRAMATICALLY ABOUT SAE BEING A LESBIAN, LIKE IT'S THE MOST ABSURD THING EVER. THIS MURDERED ME BECAUSE OF HOW DRAMATIC HE IS WHILE TALKING ABOUT IT. LIKE, SAE TORTURED MISAO PHYSICALLY AND PSYCHOLOGICALLY, KIDNAPPED HER, PUT A BOMB INSIDE HER BODY TO KEEP HER FROM RUNNING AWAY, COSTANTLY JACKS OFF TO HER BEING IN PAIN, KILLED HER FRIEND, SENT HER OTHER FRIEND TO JAIL, ALMOST KILLED HER FUCKING PARENTS, ALMOST MURDERED HER FRIENDS AGAIN, TORTURED AND BRAINWASHED MADOKA THEN KILLED HER, BUT THE TRULY MIND-BOGGLING THING IS THAT SHE LIKES PUSSY. IM NOT EVEN MAD ITS JUST SO FUNNY. LOOK AT TENDO RIGHT THERE. BLESS THIS DUMB FUCKING MAN. LOOK AT THE CLOSE-UP OF KAI'S EYE I WILL NEVER GET OVER THIS. Actually I'm going to take this one step further and theorize that Kai finds THIS so absurd (instead of the 72728187272 crimes that Sae committed, which he knows about btw) because he still sees her as an unsexed, asexual creature, like she was when they were kids. He refuses to see how she's grown (in a bad way of course, but she's still grown). She's drastically changed since she last spoke to Kai: he refuses to acknowledge that, and when he's forced to do so, the thing that shocks him the most is not any of the terrible things that she's done, but the simple fact that she has a sexual identity, just because HE can't fathom her being anything other than the sexless creature who she was in the past. He might see her fucked up actions as not very surprising, because in the past she hated everyone except for her dad and Kai - so he may have accepted, at least subconsciously, that her antisocial tendencies might escalate in the future. But her having any form of sexuality is absurd to him, because he would have never predicted it. He can't imagine Sae existing OUTSIDE of his perception of her, and he can't see her as anything other than what he thinks she is. Am I reading too much into it? It could be, but personally I don't think so. Kai is fucking weird.
Sae don't listen to him.... Be who you are for your pride don't hide.........
Also, a few pages later, Kai apologizes on behalf of Sae, "as her childhood friend". What a weird, arrogant thing to do. He thinks he knows her so intimately that he's able to act on her behalf - he doesn't, at least not anymore. Again, she has changed and he sees it, but he rejects this very evident fact and pretends she's still the Sae he used to know. And he ends up looking like a DUMBASS, because obviously Sae would never sincerely apologize for what she's done. So that's Kai for you.
And that's it that's literally the only valuable thing that can be extracted from volume 12. That and Tendo wearing a fursuit, but hot men engaging in furry culture are only an unworthy replacement for the true, raw, authentic emotions of Sae-ism. Where are they. What is this. What are you giving me. Where did you put the greatness. What happened. Food for thought: Madoka died at the end of volume 10, flop era started in volume 11. Hmmm. No but like seriously this is so fucking bad, mouth-puckering bad, and I can't comprehend the fact that this was written by the same guy who wrote the fucking rest of the series!!! WHAT IS THIS..... 😠I was genuinely wondering if this was the period of Tohru's very bad physical illness, but no, that was in 2021 (told you guys I stalk him), and this was written in 2022?? But you know it's bad when it could only be justified by the fact that the author was shitting blood while writing it.
I didn't like this volume.
And of course the introduction to the training arc. Wait. No. NO. NOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Fav parts:
•when I hadn't read it yet
Awards: WORST SAE-ISM VOLUME EVER
Verdict: Father, why have you forsaken me? /10
Okay, back to the regularly scheduled layout.
Volume thirteen
This volume is, in a word... Confusing?? As in I don't know how to feel about it. On one hand, there's the god-awful training arc, which is enraging. On the other hand, there's Sae's backstory detailled for the first time, which is intensely shocking and uncomfortable in a good, well-narrated way. So there's both good and bad, and it's hard to form a coherent opinion on this volume. I find it uncanny, probably also because I first read it while coming up on a monster dose of edibles that I had redosed multiple times because I thought they were bunk. But even apart from that, it's a weird experience.
Okay. Training arc is the first thing that happens, so that first. Okay. I'm still pissed about this. So pissed. Okay. Misao said in volume 12 that she wanted to get "stronger" so that she could stop Sae. This is a bullshit conventional-anime-ass plot point. It's just so cliche. But instead of sending her to find the Dragon Balls, they send her to the desert where an old guy lives, and her training consists in the old guy being mean to her for a month. You heard me. Being mean.
Do you fully comprehend what this is. This is a cliche anime training arc. It's cliche, conventional, boring, it doesn't belong in Sae-ism. To the untrained non-aficionado eye, it's just that: cliche. But to me it's fucking enraging. We're talking about Misao, okay. Tohru. I'm talking to Tohru now, because I don't see how it could be possible for him to forget the entire fucking storyline that he's forged so far. Do you think this, an old guy being an ass to her, is the worst thing that has ever happened to her? To Misao? The worst thing ever? To Misao, since the entire fucking series basically rests on her suffering? I am genuinely perplexed at the fact that Tohru came up with this??? It's like he FORGOT EVERYTHING THAT HE'S WRITTEN BEFOREHAND??????? If we're going with the assumption that going through hard stuff makes you stronger (which is a questionable assumption in and of itself, and again, very cliche), why not LITERALLY EVERYTHING ELSE? This is very tame in comparison to ANYTHING ELSE that has happened to Misao. If we're following that assumption, saying that THIS is the thing that will push her to "become stronger" (I FUCKING HATE THAT PHRASE..... SHE ISN'T GOKU) sounds really fucking naive, and it sounds like TOHRU HAS FORGOTTEN EVERYTHING THAT HAS HAPPENED BEFORE????? Tohru. You don't have dementia. You're only 49, you're still a young buck alive and kicking. Remember the torture chair? That was literally only three fucking volumes ago?? Yeah, remember the ACTUAL PHYSICAL TORTURE? Remember LITERALLY ANYTHING FROM VOLUME 1, CHAPTER 2 ONWARDS????????? TWELVE FUCKING VOLUMES. YOU HAVE TWELVE FUCKING VOLUMES TO CHOOSE A FORMATIVE TRAUMATIC EVENT FROM. DO NOT GIVE ME THE FUCKING ANIME TRAINING ARC. I am genuinely mad because this is INSULTING to the reader, who remembers all of this, and to the character of Misao herself. You want to pretend she WASN'T FUCKING GROWING ON HER OWN and that she needed a bullshit training arc??? REMEMBER VOLUME 11? "I'll handle this myself"? REMEMBER VOLUME 9? "No one will come to save me, I have to do it myself"? WORDS THAT YOU LITERALLY FUCKING WROTE YOURSELF, TOHRU? DO YOU RECALL WRITING ANYTHING? She didn't need this dumbass cliche training arc, this is INSULTING to her character and everything she went through, this is INSULTING to MY GIRL MISAO, okay she's kinda dumb as rocks granted but SHE'S THE PROTAGONIST OF SAE-ISM, WHICH IS ONE OF MY FAVOURITE PIECES OF MEDIA OF ALL TIME, SO I WON'T STAND FOR THIS. GIVE HER THE RESPECT SHE DESERVES. Can you see Tohru MISSING THE POINT??? LOSING FOCUS??? AGAIN???
It's not even just the fact that other bad stuff happening to Misao was unneeded. Sae-ism is literally just a collection of bad stuff happening to Misao and for ten volumes I ate that shit up, I still am, I never want it to stop, I love it, would sacrifice my newborn for it. It's that this particular arc is so fucking SHITTY jesus christ... old man being mean? Seriously? You think that's gonna faze me? You think that's gonna spark my interest? It feels like a fucking sitcom... It's a fundamentally bad idea: that, coupled with the fact that it's UNNEEDED as said above, just makes it feel like... petty torture porn? When Sae does it it's brilliant psychological horror, when an old man does it it's petty torture porn. Unironically this, I'm not even joking in the slightest. I am NOT horny for Sae, FUCK YOU. It's not because of that, rather it's because I actually CARE about Sae and what she does. She's a brilliant character, I know her, I can understand her motives and her feelings, and I want to see more of what she does, I want to know everything about her, I want to see her on screen, because I CARE. Who is this man? Why am I supposed to care? Like who is he? What thing of importance does he do? What are his motives, where's his deep characterization? Which fucks should I give? This arc ("arc", it's like fifty pages, which is wayyyyy too long but still) is such a fucking DRAG, it's both boring and abrasive. There is literally not a single redeeming quality to it. Well actually maybe, the egg panel was something I guess. But nothing could ever redeem this. Madoka mentioned, at least. Oh how I miss you honey. I'm glad you died before seeing all this bullshit.
This is the ugliest goddamn thing I've ever seen in my life. Why does he live in a minecraft middle eastern fortress. What is that place, what is that cliff, what is that waterfall, what is that lake. If you look closely you can even see my hatred and pure rage. This is ugly. This is the clearest fucking sign of disrespect and degradation that the series has gone through, inexplicably. This is the sign that makes us wonder where are the long gone days of the original, dramatic, strong, gripping, bloody, angsty, scheming, violent, tit-biting, stun-gunning, phone-licking, hammer-smashing, cliff-diving, mansion-exploring, bursting-with-emotion-and-vitality Sae-ism, and whether it was worth it to replace all that with an aberrant anime-cliched parody of itself. Am I reading the same manga? This shot is so fucking bad it makes me want to be there just so I can jump from the shitty ai-generated-looking cliff, I want Tohru to look at this, and then look at the shots from inside the seaside villa in volume 3, and tell me if he doesn't feel an ache and a void in his chest like God herself is telling him it isn't meant to be like this. It doesn't have to be like this.
Okay the worst part is over now 😇 Let's get to the merits. The new Sae's backstory that I drone on and on about. This is the second retelling of it (with the third being from Sae herself in the recent chapters), but it's one that actually matters, unlike Kai's. I said that this is probably the most disturbing part of the whole series, which - again - is saying a lot. Basically: the new Sae's father (before he was the new Sae's father) met Sae the eight and fell in love with her (EWWWWWW another one of those.......) and was actually selected as a candidate to be her husband, but he didn't make it in the end and he was veeerrryyyy sad boohoo (EWWWW ANOTHER ONE OF THOSE!!!! It's just like T*icho's story in volume 12). Sae the eight bore twins which was unexpected and didn't fit in well with the whole Maki family tradition stuff. Tazuru was supposed to kill one twin, but she wanted to keep around a "spare Sae" in case the "main Sae" died without a heir. Which... okay, smart move? However what was NOT a smart move was entrusting the child to the new Sae's dad. He accepts. He names the child Akane. Shocker: Akane grows up looking identical to Sae. The guy thinks she's hot. This is getting bad. And they fuck, this responsible grown-ass adult and his barely legal stepdaughter fuck. Keep in mind I was reading this while the monster dose was beginning to hit, and I was asking myself: "wait so he adopted this child just because she looked like the girl he liked?". And then I went: "ah". IT IS NOT OVER YET. She ends up fucking pregnant because he was too stupid to use a condom (??????????), and obviously, being a Sae, she dies horribly in childbirth in front of his eyes. What do you think he's going to do now? Give up the child because he's not mentally stable enough to raise her? Do you think he's that self-aware? Somehow Tazuru just leaves the child to him, again. I love Tazuru but GIRL...... WHY???? HE'S GONNA FUCK HER AGAIN!!!! This doesn't happen, but the alternative isn't nice either. This guy is obviously wracked with guilt, rightfully so, from inflicting a painful death onto his adopted daughter, all just because he didn't wear a fucking condom. What's the logical solution (if you aren't going to give up the child to SAVE HER FROM YOU).... be a better father??? No. Obviously he was afraid that she might have sex in the future, because he knew from experience that childbirth would kill her. But instead of teaching her sex ed or something, very basically he sheltered her and controlled every single facet of her life to turn her into a dumpy asocial quasifemcel with no friends apart from Kai but he's not even a human being in my opinion. This is all clearly unnecessary, but the subtext here is that the father would have been attracted to her again if she grew up normally. Damn.
So like, this whole story is similar to that of Taicho in volume 12: guy feels entitled to Sae and ruins his and her life over it (actually TWO lives of two different Saes this time!); and I hated Taicho, so why do I like this? Because it's told way more tastefully, as in it doesn't expect you to feel sorry for the dad; and most importantly it serves a purpose. Whereas Taicho didn't need one, this backstory sheds a LOT of light on the new Sae's psyche, which has been a mystery since she first appeared: her whole shtick is emotional manipulation and deceit, and having appeared out of nowhere with mysterious motivations. ONLY through her father's influence can her thought process be explained. For a deranged long ass analysis of Sae the tenth's whole character and this backstory, read this page (please). For now, all I'll say is... this was uncomfortable. And I was reading it for the first time while coming up on an uncomfortable amount of edibles too, so feel bad for me. This is far from the general vibe of the series, this is unusually heavy: reading the shameful drunken confessions of an incestuous dead man was something I did not expect from Sae-ism. (Why does everyone have a diary JAJAHAJAJAH WHAT FUCKING LOSERS - wait.) But I welcome it nonetheless, because such a sensitive topic was handled brilliantly, and the unraveling of Sae the tenth's mind (only possible after knowing this backstory) is actually the best thing about post-volume 10 Sae-ism, and the most stimulating, complex thing to think about in the whole series. So, this is FAR from a flop, this is a huge storytelling success... possibly the first one since volume 10???
And it's CONFUSING to see how Tohru made a fucking mess and a masterpiece, both in the same volume??? It's really hard to rate because of this. Between highs and lows we get a... sorta mid? ending, where basically Sae and Misao confront each other and everyone's also there, Misao disses Sae and she starts bleeding fucking everywhere, then she just slaps the shit out of Misao. Regarding this scene I used to be like "Silly Tohru she used the torture chair 3 volumes ago why should I care about this 😂😂😂" akshually in hindsight I think it's genuinely a good scene, because the torture chair was a logical and well-pondered decision for Sae that fit into her view of violence as an educational tool, but this is the first and only time we see her completely lose her shit and suddenly lash out, a la Sae the ninth. It's almost a throwback, really. And it's surprising to see her act... human?? At least anger, Sae the ninth's primary emotion, is a normal state of mind which leads to certainly not excusable but at least understandable actions. Sae the tenth always acts like a malfunctioning AI chatbot. I reckon this is actually the most normal thing she's ever done, therefore the most unusual (for her), therefore this is a good scene
As if Tendo didn't slay enough in the previous volumes by killing the two assholes, he ups his game and attempts to kill Taicho!! after having pretended to be on his side. He's a saviour!!!
Proving to be the biggest gay ally, he also attempts to murder Kai the homophobic bowl cut rat, but to the great detriment of the human race he's interrupted. But like, as you can see this whole scene in general is pretty much a fucking mess, and seeing this precise panel I realized I was too high and had to lay down lol
Again, this volume is hard to rate!! because the bad aspects were really bad and the good aspects were really good. Overall I'd still classify this in the flop era, because it's got spectacularly shitty elements, but the sheer quality of Sae's backstory has to be kept in mind (read my analysis 🥺). Overall it's definitely not the worst - and I'll tell you this: at least it isn't BORING..... ↓↓↓↓↓↓↓↓↓↓↓
Fav parts:
•Sae's backstory
•the final confrontation scene (it's shit but I kinda have a soft spot for it okay...)
Awards: most confusing volume; worst arc
Verdict: I can't grade this /10
Volume fourteen
I'm gonna be real with you guys nothing fucking happens in this one, except that Tendo marries Sae for Nazo corp business shit and Sae takes Misao to her female separatist no twinks allowed disney castle with a crocodile moat. Hence the crocodile heart frame png up here ↑. I really liked the crocodile moat it was really funny. I don't have anything else to say because this volume is boring as fuck, it's not good but it's also not catastrophically bad like the other three volumes I discussed in this page, so there's not really much to say. Like. I took inspiration for the theme/layout/palette of this page from this volume, but there was nothing else to take??? It's typical post-volume 10 boredom and nothingness, even though I still remember it fondly, because it was the last volume that had been published when I did my original Sae-ism binge in april 2024. So, thank you for being the last of the Big 14 for me, volume 14. Without the flatteries of nostalgia, everything else is destined to just fade from my memory in a haze of mediocrity. And that's why, I think, the volume-specific/era-specific pages will end here (unless maybe a new volume's palette catches my eye? But I doubt it, all the new covers suck absolute ass) and will be replaced with a generalized "new chapters" page. Volume 14 was the end of something, for me, and it has to be for you too, reader, if you exist.
Also at least Tendo was alive here, holy shit. It always gets worse.
Fav parts:
•I mean. Interations between Sae and Tendo (miss you pookie) always crack me up so here's that
•the CROCODILES of course
Awards: last volume of my original binge...
Verdict: 8/10 for nostalgia
