Responses
I understand you completely, I was liking the story so far and the the arc started and it went down hill for me. I am rereading most of the stories in my profile (I guess I could call it that) and I am seriously doubting my tastes.
I understand your frustration because I just read a manga that I had a similar problem were they brushed sexual assault off.
It is disconcerting how they put it in a manga as a subplot to make two characters closer, and then it is fine and dandy because she finds true love.
so he doesn't even apologize for sexually assaulting her and almost raping her ? and he gets to "leave" the story as this pitiful man who gave up his "love" so that she can be happy with who she wants?! WTF!? Japan need to stop with this bullshi*. I see these rape culture situations all the time in Japanese manga and I'm tired of it. It was so obvious with how their se* culture works. The guy calls himself a gentleman when he was just touching her 2 seconds ago and the first thing the ML asks when he sees her on the ground drunk is "have you slept with her?" ?!?! wtfffffff I honestly don't know why people aren't calling these subtle cultural problems out more. Fiction is fiction except its based in reality and stuff like this teaches me how casual they are with rape.
Also I know that there are stories where rape is used for plot. Thats not what I'm mad about because obviously that was used for a reason however subtle things like this is stuff that isn't used for plot tells you about how they approach se* and its disgusting.
I was honestly so excited with this story. This was the first time where I saw a hetero manga where the girl clearly consented. I expected more.