#soryo

[undecim13ber]

[strangemonochromes]

Taiyou no Ijiwaru (太陽のイヂワル) // Fuyumi Soryo

[buunloon]

Mars

This doesn't embody the vibe of the manga, but I tried to illustrate my love for the intimate scenes, when rei and kira would spend their days together in the old apartment.

[chocoxcaramel]

[animefeminist]

Love Him to Heal Him: Heterosexual wish-fulfillment in Mars and I Sold My Life For 10,000 Yen Per Year

Content warning: discussion of suicide, sexual assault

Spoilers for Mars and I Sold My Life For 10,000 Yen Per Year

There is a meme that recently made its rounds again on X (formerly Twitter) with the caption “the best ship dynamic.” A muscly man drawn in earthen shades stands imposingly to the left. A text informs us that he’s scarred, big, went through a lot, and tries to act tough and emotionless. To his right is a woman, endowed with impossibly big breasts, shadowed only by faint lines of blue and green. She is “just a decent woman” and has motherly vibes. In the lower half, the man lies on the lap of this motherly woman. She tells him, “It’s going to be okay.”

The romantic archetype of the scarred, strong yet secretly sad man being nursed emotionally by a female love interest is one so ubiquitous that such a meme evokes fictional examples near instantly. There are dozens of archetypes—hundreds of male characters—worth loving, but this one endures in anime, manga, and beyond. It speaks to a fantasy about “saving” this broken man. But if he gets saved, what about her? Is she saved by him from whatever sadness she has? Or does she just exist in the narrative to prop him up?

The shoujo manga Mars, written and illustrated by Fuyumi Soryu, and the manga I Sold My Life for 10,000 Yen Per Year, adapted from the novel Three Days of Happiness and published on Shonen Jump+, approach this question—the sad boy— in perpendicular angles. Looking at these series side by side, we can see the same archetype and corresponding fantasy play out in different hues for their specific target audiences, in all its glories and pitfalls.

Read it at Anime Feminist!

[mangapageappreciation]

[pekoeboo]

man. I've been reworking a lot of content involving Act II of Home Is Where You Are and like. ugh. it'd work so freaking well in novel form but I just Do Not have the dedication or the drive to start from scratch and rewrite everything that happens.

idk how else to share the updated version of that part of the story with y'all tho, considering that Khalan's journal is insanely outdated now and isn't entirely canon anymore, so I'll probably just have to accept that I likely won't ever be able to update the story for y'all in the way I wish I could. >n<;;

[highresshojosei]

Mars on the cover of Bessatsu Friend || January 1997 || マース

[citypopdaily]

Manhattan Wind by Miki Matsubara / 松原みき

Album: Pocket Park Year: 1980 Label: Pony Canyon (See･Saw sublabel) Lyrics: Kouhei Oikawa / 及川恒平 Music: Yasunori Soryo / 惣領泰則

[seasaltmemories]

Mars Review/Analysis

Mars was a series I had vaguely known about for a while. I've seen the iconic statue kissing scene, the male lead ranked as one of ppl's faves problematic love interests, and even had a mutual who talked about reading the series once a year. However it wasn't until a discussion on the portrayal of sex and other mature topics in shoujo that I figured it might be useful for me to read such a foundational work

Cue me reading the first chapter and breathlessly telling people it alone would count as the one of the best of shoujo. I binged the rest of the 15 volume series in a week, and through so many familiar ups and downs, it still felt like something special.

CW: Suicide, Sexual Abuse, Homophobia, Transphobia

Summary time:

Kira, a shy high school student, lives only for her art. Rei, An arrogant, rebellious and violent playboy, wears his delinquency like a badge of honor. They are exact opposites in every way, but when Kira sees Rei kissing a statue of Mars, she overcomes her fears and asks him to model for her. And, to everyone's surprise, Rei agrees.

On the surface it seems just like a typical good girl/bad boy story, and it is hard to say it isn't, but so much of what makes the story work is the details. Their meet cute is subdued, nothing but an excuse to get them talking again, but as they talk more and more, their chemistry just shines through. I don't know if it just fits my specific tastes, but it really is the stuff of girlhood dreams. Rei has this easy-going charm that is hard to look away from, and you can see Kira start to fall fast and hard despite herself, and by the end of volume 1, they've shared their first kiss and are more or less an item for the rest of the series

It is a pretty fast courtship for most romance stories, but the fact we skip the pining to get straight to an established relationship means we get this sort of easy physical affection that is so refreshing. Frankly I would enjoyed just watching them be absolutely adorable, but as we uncover both their dark pasts, they take on this young, restless "us vs. the world" love I can't resist

I mention before how a lot of Rei's appeal lies in his laid-back nature, rather than brood in a corner, he's outgoing and popular but the same carefree nature means he doesn't put much stock in social convention or consider the consequences his poor impulse control can get him in. It's a much more thought-out portrayal of a "bad boy" even as the dramatic details of his backstory build up. Considering his mother's early death, his estrangement from his father, and the fact he saw his twin brother commit suicide in front of him, it is clear his ease with everything is more bc of a general apathy, even towards his own wellbeing

Kira we learned started the series still recovering from the sexual abuse she suffered at the hands of her stepfather, as her relationship develops with Rei, she has to process a lot of trauma she still has surrounding her sexuality. It is clear her introverted, passive nature is not just a means of making her more relatable/easier to project onto, and that the real Kira has only started to come back out of her shell

I'd be lying if I acted like these issues were explored in nuanced, subtle ways, but even through the melodrama there was something real to it all that captured me. Like I usually struggle to latch onto most contemporary romances where the biggest obstacles couples face are their willingness to go ahead an make the first move. But these are real problems that real ppl face, even if it is heavily dramatized, and so their determination to stick together and make a place where they can be happy and safe just tugs at my heartstrings, even the breakneck pacing from one arc to the next, felt true to the whirlwind that is young adulthood. Did Fuyumi Souryo forget a plot thread when Rei's dream of becoming a pro racer fell away from the plot for like ten volumes? Maybe, but in life you're usually not really following a laid out plan and are more trying to survive from one crisis to the next while discovering patches of stability along the way

The melodrama really started to test my limits with the introduction of the antagonist, Masao. In contrast to Rei and Kira's detailed history of violence, Masao's just plain evil and attracted to the both of them for extra "creepiness" It's not just tasteless, it's boring, his entire arc nearly killed my interest in the series

Thankfully he only shows up for one arc in the middle and then briefly at the end to stir up more trouble. He's more bearable in those chapters thanks to the fact he's reflecting how much our main leads has grown, but his existence is painfully utilitarian, which applies to most of the rest of the cast, clearly only existing to highlight our main duo better. This also leads to some transphobia and insensitive portrayals of suicide.

Rei's mother and twin also suffer similar "secretly evil all along" reveals as Masao, which I do think cheapen Rei's struggle. Frankly we don't get enough time to unpack either character's history to really understand them, but even if the narrative doesn't suggest it outright, it is hard to ignore the feeling their deaths aren't so tragic bc of their flaws. Even so, they bothered me less than Masao for some reason. For all her violent tendencies, Rei's mother is still given sympathy that Masao never gets. And even though Sei's suicide note expresses a lot of misanthropy and sadism, to me there were enough lines almost suggesting he feared those tendencies within him and was also struggling in his own way. Perhaps their underdeveloped nature all helps keep either plot point form having to overstay their welcome

And that's the thing, despite all the dark and shocking plot twists I casually mentioned, what really stands out as I look back on the series, is the strong love Rei and Kira share. Going back to the plot summary, what you see is what you get. If you aren't on board with the series after volume 1, then it probably isn't for you. But few pieces of media have ever sold me on two character's love for each other as hard as this did. I mentioned before that I tend to need my media to acknowledge tragedy before I can accept their hope, but even when Mars isn't pulling out its soap opera cliffhangers, I always wanted to see how Rei and Kira would come together to support each other through their next stages of life.

[strangemonochromes]

Taiyou no Ijiwaru (太陽のイヂワル) // Fuyumi Soryo

[buunloon]

I really like this tv filter

[chocoxcaramel]

[bunniesandbeheadings]

Look what came in the mail for me!

Fuyumi Soryo is one of my favorite manga authors (she did Mars, which is 10/10 highly recommended, and was pretty much my personality in Middle and High School…) and I’m curious and also completely prepared to be annoyed, with how she handles Marie Antoinette

[himemiyas]

[mangapageappreciation]