Nori, Nori, Nori.
How do I count the ways I disliked this route?
Yes, it had a “happy” ending. Yes, there was some character growth. And, in some ways, Nori ended the route in a healthier emotional and mental state than when he started the route.
However, Chapters 1-5 thoroughly disgusted me and, more importantly, there were unhealthy behaviors from these chapters that were never properly addressed.
This man needs the help of a licensed therapist. I know this is an otome game and not reality. However. This man needs the emotional and mental help that only a licensed therapist can provide…not a girlfriend.
As always, character and plot analysis and spoilers after the cut!
Lies. Manipulation. Coercion. Sexual Assault. Steam rolling over boundaries, yet getting angry when someone even remotely pushes against his.
Nori (VA: KENN) does every one of these to Akari, multiple times, in this route.
This is not a healthy relationship, Y’all.
Now, I know the point of a character’s arc is growth and development. In fiction, a character starts in a certain place and his or her arc is what brings him or her to a new place by the end of the story.
However, I felt, the writers completely neglected one very important component of Nori’s character arc. There was no accountability or healthy resolution by the end of the route and considering how he treated Akari this is very concerning.
This man needs a licensed therapist…not a girlfriend.
Now, of the three backstories I’ve read in Sympathy Kiss, Nori’s is the most tragic. He lost his loving parents when he was 7 years old and was sent to live in an orphanage.
When he was old enough, he went to culinary school where he excelled. Nori won a prestigious award and everything seemed to be going well. However, jealous classmates set out to make Nori’s life miserable. They stole his cooking supplies and bullied him over the food he made.
And for a man with a fragile psyche, this bullying did a lot of damage. And it makes sense. Some of his best memories with his parents was of them all enjoying food together. Nori’s prized possession was a family cookbook. And for an emotionally and mentally fragile young man, experiencing bullying over something he completely cherished is heartbreaking.
Well, Nori survived culinary school by keeping to himself and landed a job at a French restaurant. However, his troubles continued with frequent bullying. Nori’s fragile psyche was reaching a breaking point.
What finally broke him was when a classmate stole some of Nori’s recipes and published them under his name. Nori, not knowing this happened, a short time later published the same recipes. All of a sudden, Nori was caught up in a recipe stealing scandal. Now, his colleagues at the restaurant defended Nori.
However, at this point Nori was so lost and broken that he just quit his job to protect the reputation of the restaurant. Nori lost his sense of taste and began a life of homelessness.
Content to shut the world out, Nori essentially became a vagabond housekeeper for women who would take him in. He presented himself as a “puppy” house pet who would clean the house.
Honestly, this storyline didn’t trouble me in the slightest. Nori is a fragile soul and I could totally sympathize with the young boy who lost his parents at a young age. Cooking and sharing food were some of his most favorite memories with his parents, So, for cooking to become a point of pain for him must have been unbearable. I wanted Nori to work through his trauma and to, again, find joy in something he loved to do.
And if he wants to be a live-in housekeeper, that’s perfectly okay. The reason this wasn’t the right fit for Nori was because he wasn’t genuinely content with his life. The only reason he became a live-in housekeeper was to keep running away from his problems. So, Nori becoming a live-in housekeeper is directly tied to his loss of self-confidence and fear of cooking.
My problem with Nori is the how he wormed his way into Akari’s life and apartment, which, to me, is a separate issue from the two I mentioned above (leaving cooking behind and becoming a live-in housekeeper).
I don’t know if Nori was desperate to live with Akari because he saw her as kind or if he treated all women this way, but from the very beginning Nori *rarely* respected Akari’s boundaries or her right to say “no.”
So, for Akari, her romantic development with Nori resembles the fable of the frog who is boiled to death.
You know the one:
If a frog is suddenly put in boiling water, it will instantly jump out. However, if you put the frog in pleasant tepid water and gradually heat it, the frog will stay in the water until it boils to death.
This perfectly describes Nori’s strategy for weaving himself into Akari’s life.
This man is a liar…and he knows it. He lies to her that he has amnesia to avoid answering her questions. So, anything he didn’t want to talk about could be “covered” by his dubious case of amnesia. And while he wanted to get to know Akari better, he was dead-set on not opening up to her at all. And because Akari is kind, she doesn’t press the issue. She lets him lie, without any concern to her safety.
And when Akari does express an interest in Nori and pushes against his lies, a bit, Nori gets angry. Because Nori can’t handle anyone even remotely pushing against his lies and the topics he doesn’t want to think about.
Nori gets mad that Akari is asking about his past and pursuing him to cook for her work proposal. He doesn’t understand why Akari is pushing him to share his gift of cooking with the world. Why can’t she just not have any expectations of him or just stop encouraging him to start doing what he truly loves for others again?
I don’t know, Nori. Maybe Akari wants you to show the tiniest bit of responsibility for your life?
So, what does Nori do? He emotionally withdrawals from Akari and walks away from the conversation. To placate Nori, she says she’ll do anything he wants. And he asks her to sleep with him (cue *eyeroll*). The writers give the option to refuse, which is clearly the one I selected. Then Nori tells Akari she should never say to a man she’d do anything he wanted. Because Nori knows there are men out there, like him, who would take advantage of her kindness.
Earlier in the route, when Akari found Nori’s plate of food on the counter, being kind, she was moving it to the table for him, with no intention of eating it. Nori saw her holding the plate and proceeded to slap her hand, which caused Akari’s favorite plate to fall to the ground and break. Being his insecure self (this all goes back to his culinary school trauma), Nori accused Akari of eating his food. Akari vehemently denied Nori’s accusation, yet he remained silent. So, Akari finally had enough and demanded Nori leave her apartment. Sadly, she goes to find him and bring him back to her apartment because she is kind and she feels guilty for being the reason that Nori is sleeping on the streets.
This is an unhealthy, unbalanced dynamic that directly ties into another of Nori’s strategies!
He knowingly manipulates her kindness and the guilt she would feel for turning him away.
After Akari initially lets Nori stay at her apartment over the weekend, on Monday morning she tells him he needs to leave. And seemingly, Nori listens and leaves the apartment with Akari when she goes to work. Well, wouldn’t you know it…he’s back that night waiting at her door when she gets home from work. He says he couldn’t find anyone else to stay with, banking on Akari’s kindness to let him back in. And Nori’s manipulative hunch is correct. Akari lets Nori back in her apartment because she’s kind and she couldn’t bear the idea of him sleeping on the streets.
When Akari emphatically tells Nori he has to stay on the sofa to sleep and not come to her bed when the curtain is pulled, Nori agrees to this boundary. However, a short time later, Nori says he had a “nightmare” (cue *eyeroll*) and cuddles up right next to her, completely steamrolling over Akari’s boundary. And Akari, because she is kind, if not incredibly befuddled, doesn’t kick Nori out of her bed once she realizes he fell asleep.
On a different evening, Nori does have a nightmare while sleeping on the sofa. Akari goes to wake him up. Nori pinned Akari down beneath him, kissed her neck, and groped her body. Akari’s body stiffened, she grabbed his hand to stop him, and was confused, yet he refused to let her go. Once again, because Akari is kind and she feels responsible for his bad dream because she may have hurt his feelings earlier that day (umm, what?), she doesn’t leave Nori and sleeps next to him all night. While clear manipulation, this is also sexual assault.
Speaking of sexual assault…some examples…
When Akari is sick and coming in and out of consciousness, Nori kisses Akari without her consent. She wasn’t even completely aware of what he was doing. And his reasoning for the kiss is that if she gave him her cold, she would get better faster. No matter what ridiculous “reason” Nori gives, he just wanted to kiss her, and this is sexual assault.
When Akari is bathing in the tub, Nori busts in the bathroom, without consent, and declares he is going to wash her back. Akari didn’t ask him to wash her back and her first reaction to when Nori burst in her bathroom was to wrap her arms around herself and remain motionless in the tub. She tried to convince him to leave, but he refused to listen. So, to cope with the situation, Akari had to pretend that she was at a hair salon. Because this was the only way her mind and body could make sense of this situation. It even said, she resigned herself to letting Nori have his way with her body.
And what makes this insidious from Nori, is that by this point in the route Akari has been conditioned that her “no” doesn’t matter to him. So, even when she did desperately want him to leave the bathroom, she had already subconsciously given up and “accepted” that Nori would not respect what she wants. So, she is resigned, when she lets Nori have his way with her body.
This is gross.
And, to me, this is the insidious foundation of Nori’s strategy with Akari. From the beginning he steam-rolled over her boundaries.
From hand-holding to hugs whenever Akari arrived home from work to washing her back without being asked. Things that weren’t okay to Akari at first, eventually becomes things she accepts without ever consciously giving her consent. It’s like she woke up one day and said, “Yeah, he’s been doing this for a while now, so I’m kind of used to it. I guess I can’t say “no” now!”
Wearing someone down over a period of time is a form of coercion. And Akari giving up saying no because she realizes her no is worthless to Nori is not the same as her saying yes. This whole relationship is built upon coercion, and Nori is never held accountable for this.
This man needs a licensed therapist…not a girlfriend.
Now, you may have noticed I italicized every instance of Akari being kind.
Is this the message of this route? In order to be kind to emotionally and mentally fragile people you can’t have any personal boundaries and you have to take complete responsibility for their choices?
Because that is the message presented in this route.
And, to top it off, whenever Akari tries to hold Nori accountable he gets angry and/or runs away.
Akari is not responsible for Nori!
He’s a grown-ass man! If he sleeps on the streets that is his choice. He made the choices that have led to his current situation. And it’s not right of him to guilt, manipulate, and coerce Akari into feeling responsible for him.
The most prudent way for Akari to care for Nori would be to encourage Nori to see a licensed therapist, not let him sleep on her sofa.
Because. This man needs a licensed therapist…not a girlfriend.
Sigh.
In the Perfect Ending, Nori gets a job and begins cooking professionally again. He vows to move out of Akari’s apartment, for a time, before asking her to come live with him. This portion of his character arc is completed, as Nori grows emotionally and mentally to become a healthier person.
Unfortunately, the reader does not get this kind of resolution in terms to how Nori has treated Akari. He acknowledged it was natural for him to be casual and say flirty things to women he had lived with and he was the same with her…at first (Um…come again, Nori?). And he ends this admission with self-deprecating comment: “I’m the worst.”
So, the best we get is Nori acknowledging that he was pretty messed up for a while? No apologies? No promises to never treat her this way again? No accountability for anything he directly did to Akari?
Yes, Nori. You truly are the worst.
Nori knows he did wrong to Akari. Simply by stating this inadequate-in-comparison-to-what-he-actually-did admission, he demonstrates he knows what he did. He knows he crossed many (oh so many) boundaries. He knows he took advantage of Akari’s kind nature. But he refuses to take full responsibility and accountability for his actions and actually apologize. He refuses to acknowledge that there are things about him that need to change.
And what’s maddening, is that Akari doesn’t require accountability and an apology from him. And maybe Nori knew that. Maybe he knew that Akari wasn’t going to hold him accountable, so he didn’t even bother with it.
No accountability from Nori means there is no proper closure to this part of his character arc.
This is where the writers left him.
A manipulative, coercive young man who is not above sexual assault to get the physical touch and closeness he wants from Akari.
Ick.
-Final Thoughts-
I think Nori’s loss of confidence and desire to cook storyline was understandable and I felt empathy for Nori.
I hope we have more male characters in fiction (and men in real life) who feel comfortable working in the home and even raising kids! I just ask that if we do get more male characters like this, they are well-adjusted emotionally and mentally and are not working in the home to run away from their problems. I want to read about men who truly treasure being in the home and taking care of their families! So, obviously, I didn’t mind the whole “house-husband” dynamic.
HOWEVER.
I HATED how he treated Akari throughout the route. So, you can imagine how disenchanted I was with his inadequate admission to Akari in Chapter 6. I don’t want to beleaguer this point much farther. So, let me sum up my thoughts with this…
Nori needs a licensed therapist…not a girlfriend.
In fact, this is my feeling about his entire route.
Don’t give me a Perfect, Love, or Work Ending. Give me a “Nori-Sees-A-Therapist” Ending! Now that is something I can get behind!
I really felt this was a missed opportunity by the writers to encourage and support emotional and mental health by having Nori seek out a licensed therapist to help him with his trauma. Sadly, this is not the route the writers chose.
Instead, we are left with this.
Otomes as Novels 