A Rude Awakening

Content note: This chapter discusses child sexual abuse.

Often when we encounter the cultural products of other countries we are brought up short by certain features of them. Manga and anime are no exception. Here we are expecting a sweet tale of cute schoolgirls, and no sooner do we begin reading Sweet Blue Flowers than we find Akira Okudaira’s brother being caught in her bed (SBF, 1:8). This is no case of prepubescent siblings cuddling together: since she’s starting high school, we know Akira is fifteen years old, and since he has a driver’s license, we know her brother is at least eighteen if not older.

What’s going on here? One possibility is that Shimura is making fun of a common manga and anime trope: the older brother with a “sister complex.” Akira’s brother pretty much fits the “siscon” template to a T: no girlfriend to be seen, still living at home, no apparent job or anything else to keep him occupied, and last but not least, no evident realization that he’s doing something wrong and unwanted.

Shimura gets a laugh out of Akira’s brother hypocritically warning her to “watch out for gropers!” (SBF, 1:11) and a subsequent chapter makes fun of his overprotectiveness in following her as she goes on a planned group date (1:102). The joke seems somewhat off, though: if the point of the story is to show the evolving relationship between Akira and Fumi, why undercut that at the very beginning by putting her brother front and center?

Instead of being a joke, one could speculate that Shimura’s intent is much darker, in particular, that she is implying that Akira is the victim of ongoing sexual abuse from her brother. Under this interpretation, Akira’s disinterest in relationships might not be simply a reflection of the way she is, but rather the result of childhood trauma that leaves her emotions numbed. But this seems somewhat at odds with the relatively light-hearted portrayals of both Akira and her brother elsewhere in the manga—though I’ll defer to the judgment of abuse survivors regarding this question.

My interpretation is somewhat in the middle: beyond being a nod to a familiar trope that could be exploited to humorous ends, Shimura may have also intended this as an example of how women have reason to distrust men and turn to other women (in this case, Akira’s mother) in response for their protection. The subsequent scene on the train reinforces this, as discussed in the next chapter.