First date time, get your warm and fuzzies on.
Hanazawa writes such good dates that it's a shame most of his stories are about people who have little to no interaction with others.
BOYS ON THE RUN, by Kengo Hanazawa (ch68-69)
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The last date Tanishi went on was in chapter 4, also set in Ikebukuro. Having been there almost every weekend for a number of years, I’m happy to say it’s not as infested with random thugs as this story would have you believe.
Obligatory thanks for another double release man. You are a demi-god.
Starting to think Hana’s a bad influence on our man T…
Man oh man, here we go.
Shit just got real!
I agree with D.
What’s all this?? Is she in junior hisghschool or something?
Tanishi doesn’t seem able to land a normal girlfriend.
He can only date immature girls, being the immature guy he is.
Haha, well let’s open up some discussion. Who was in the right here, or were they both wrong?
Hana set the whole confrontation up as a way to get Tanishi to whip out his (fist pump). The fact they were waiting at the bottom of the elevator was just an added bonus.
That yakuza chick is such a bish, can’t wait to see Hana knock out all those gappy teeth of hers.
Well, while lashing out at every random thug is dangerous in the long run, Hana is still right about Tanishi being a complete wuss. Don’t they have police in Japan? It really doesn’t seem like this guy is with the Yakuza, more like a random little gang…
(And how can Tanishi STILL forget she’s deaf? The subtitle problem is something I thought about when they were choosing the movie, and I’m the reader…)
@DL: Hard to decide… as ever Hanazawa captures the ambiguity of things so well. Hana’s actions only really seem irresponsible in light of the two guys arriving with baseball bats. Tanishi’s failure to start shit with the punk is only really pathetic in light of the fact that he’s still pretending it’s out of maturity and reasonableness and not because he’s useless at confrontation. Just saying “Piss off, I don’t wanna get my head kicked in over a dinner bill!” would be as much a triumph for him as becoming a boxing champ.
I’m having trouble deciding myself. I asked a few people the summarized version of Hana and Tanishi’s situation and was a little surprised by the responses. The two guys I asked said that it would be stupid to start shit and throw punches with a guy who seems to be in a gang. That it could cause more trouble for the restaurant or at worst end up with you and the girl dead, which is way worse than a cheap dinner being stolen every now and then. The two girls I asked actually said that throwing punches is the only thing to do and that you’d be a pussy to just walk away. Makes me feel a little gross, although I certainly have fantasies of beating up the one dimensional bad guys from after-school specials. Makes me think of that episode of Louie in the donut shop.
Fashion is cyclical. Are girls today tired of the well-dressed, exfoliated, guitar strumming, bilingual pescetarians who dudes seem to be evolving into? Are they searching for the macho-men of yesterday? If that’s true, I hope they’re more Humphrey Bogart than Schwarzenegger.
And for those who don’t think spoilers ruin the ride:
http://postimage.org/image/yne8hlksb/
(Daniel edit: I don’t know what the hell this is but it’s not a spoiler lololol)
damasko:
“Makes me think of that episode of Louie in the donut shop.”
Exactly what I was thinking of.
I believe Tanishi’s being pretty hypocritical, since he was saved (in volume 1 or 2, I don’t remember) by Hana’s “bully hunter” tendencies.
Here’s an interesting post about that Louie donut episode that’s also relevant to BOTR’s men-and-fighting themes in general (note that the guy’s style is to be ostentatiously glib about social perceptions and stereotypes):
http://thelastpsychiatrist.com/2010/09/when_was_the_last_time_you_got.html
You might be reading a Kengo Hanazawa comic if……
…the main character discovers his girlfriend is a nude model, and that’s one of the least remarked-upon developments of the chapter.
It happened to me often in my teens.
There was this one time in the train on my way home from school, a group(more then 4) kids with migration background were throwing their trash on us, we asked them in a normal way to please stop.
You can guess, they didnt care, they continued to take the trash out of the garbage cans just to throw it right on our heads. We took this abuse without further resistance,it was a rather painful experience.
One time i was with some friends in the cinema and there were two kids with migration background that were threatening us to give them our money.
We talked back and resisted but one of those guys immediately started pushing and punching a friend. Then we all ran away.
One time was again inside a train. Similar to the top one, a group of kids with migration background started to insult us out of the blue. We didn’t provoke them or do anything to actively offend them which they interpreted as a request to continue their insults.
I was in a bad mood this day, when we were walking out of the train i took a good look at this one guy and spit a whole mouth full of direct into his face and then ran out of the train. It goes without saying, he was furious, shouted that he would kill me and chased after me, but fortunately he was too slow to catch me and he had to return to the train.
I was bullied a whole lot as a kid, could tell these kind of experiences for hours …
To the topic, my answer is that i am rather quick on my feet, so i talk back when something pisses me off but only if i have the option to run away if need be, if i am in a closed space and i judge the other party to resort to violence then i will not do anything that may provoke them.
You know, I’m actually pissed off at all this.
I don’t like her being a nude model. I don’t like her offering him a BJ out of the blue, without any kind word in between nor a kiss. What the hell.
Dammit Tanishi, pay more attention (specially to the “I’m married” part). You might actually earn a lot of points with her, but I’m not sure if she’s worth it.
At least she’s good at fighting.
Playing with fire is more dumb than anything, irl she would learn the lesson quickly. Let’s see for how long this superwoman thing will last, hope not for much cuz it’s like reading naruto.
Deleted a comment, let’s keep it at least slightly on topic please.
Hey Daniel, what the fuck dude, you put a toothpick in that chapter! Look what you did to us, huh?! My eyes are full of blood. Owie.
@Orpheus Haha, yeah, Hana’s grin at the end reminded me of Naruto’s or Luffy’s (One Piece) insane smiles. You can tell there’s a part of her that enjoys getting into trouble. Let’s hope she’s not biting off more than she can chew here.
Man, there’s some people that seem to give Hana plenty of shit because she’s pretty casual with sex. Chill guys, not everyone has to be a pure waifu to be an enjoyable character.
The casualness doesn’t bother me as much as that she’s married…
I don’t have issues with casual sex, I thought that what Tanishi did with the hooker was OK.
But somehow, Hana’s attitude towards sex is very awkward to me.
@Some Anon: In my view, Hana’s attitude toward sex (judging by what very little we’ve seen of it) is very natural and typical of most womens’ attitudes toward sex. It is awkward if your view of women comes entirely from non-Hanazawa fiction and not from real life. The one with the awkward view of sex is Tanishi, refusing what most non-hikikomori adults would consider a perfectly legitimate blowjob. (We can cut him a little slack for his PCSD (Post-Chiharu Stress Disorder) syndrome)
It is one of Kengo’s many great strongpoints that he has believable females (exhibit A: when the relationship with Tanishi broke down, Chiharu did not enter some sort of relationship limbo status like she would in any other manga; after a few weeks/months she got involved with another man, as a real woman would.)
It’ll be interesting when/if we find out more about Hana’s marriage…
I think that’s a little biased, dude. I’d hook up with a girl that casual about sex if I liked her, but I’d be extremely hesitant to date her. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with it, but I definitely think it’s slutty. Actually, now that I think of it, there were two blowjobs offered that night at the hotel. And after the second one, it certainly seems more like the first one wasn’t a joke. I don’t know, maybe I’m emotionally immature, but I’d feel really insecure going out with someone that flippant about sex. Especially the whole thing with a friend in the room. That would give me douche-chills.
Considering, Tanishi seems surprisingly secure. I think he’s just a little old fashioned in that sense. He’s a shy dude. I base this on nothing, but I get the feeling he’s the kind of guy who takes a while to warm up to a girl sexually, and then turns once he’s got her, turns into a fiend.
I have a tendency of hearing some hard felt blues when reading Botr, usually Chet Barker but this time I switched for Lullaby of Birdland because Tanishi and Hana just look so fucking cute together.
Hahaha that’s some great taste in music but wayyy too classy for this series.
Thanks a lot for the new chapters!! And yeah, Hana’s a handful, Tanashi will have to toughen up a little if he wants to keep up and be taken seriously by her. As far as right or wrong? Well, a matter of view point………but if it’s your friend (or date in this case), and they make a decision to say something or make a move……..if you’re their friend you’re supposed to back them up……no matter what.