I have some secondary thoughts regarding Ogawa Chise. She is fond of the possessive, controlling seme. She put quite the spin on it in Kono Ore ga Omae Nanka Suki na Wakenai (2012), so that it registered but didn’t set off any alarms. I like the possessive, controlling seme, but there’s a line that’s easily crossed when your characters lurk in that territory.
I read Nishikaidan no Akuma (2010) the other day and I didn’t like it at all. It just seemed as if she used the curse/supernatural element to gloss over the fact that the story was nothing but an exhibition of non-consensual intercourse.
I was waiting for Ouji no Hakoniwa (2011) to be completed, but after reading Nishikaidan, I wanted to see what else she was up to. The first three chapters of Ouji have a possessive, controlling seme and non-con, but it doesn’t make me itch in the same way Nishikaidan does. I haven’t completely made up my mind about Ouji, though, so at the moment I can only say that the non-con makes sense with the point of the story. I think it’s interesting how she makes the advancement of Stockholm Syndrome a part of Yuzuru’s awareness of his current situation. But I don’t actually believe that it’s Stockholm Syndrome. This is partially because he’s so aware of it, but also because he was actively denying his feelings and his worth throughout the whole story, but in that denial is also his desire to be possessed. Presently my thoughts are that the desire specifically concerns Iwase and he returned to his old home hoping for something; looking for more than items to pawn. Yuzuru’s broken and Iwase’s twisted; nothing normal can come from that, so I need to think more on this one.
I’ve seen some screen caps of Gosan no Heart (2012). Initially, just from the illustrations, I thought that the seme was possessive; it’s what got me interested. However, recently, I’ve seen some with translated dialogue and my suspicions were confirmed.
When I first read Kono, I didn’t realize I was already familiar with her work; the past two years have pretty much been filled up with BL and seinen, so it’s been a while since I’ve explored shoujo. I was reminded when I checked MU to see what else she had to offer and was surprised to see titles already checked off. Thinking back on Hana ni Arashi (2006), the male lead was mildly possessive and controlling. He just swoops in one day and all but takes over the female lead’s life and she is kind of left with no “choice” but to deal with it.
I’m going to take another look at the rest of her shoujo because I don’t remember any of the others. I have another suspicion that I want to confirm: Did Ogawa take up BL to further explore the limits of the possessive, controlling male because the scenarios she wanted to present would be unacceptable in shoujo or is she just spreading her wings and soaring with her one-track mind in tow? According to MU, Hana was her first published title, so I think my suspicions will be confirmed once more, but we’ll see.
Notes: I am still writing the follow up to this.