Thoughts from Episode 9: fellas,

Until now, there have been more than a few moments to make readers wonder who exactly Tsuwabuki is infatuated with, and in this chapter, the penny finally drops for him too. Following on from last time, Suiren has realised somebody is watching her from behind the blinds. As Tsuwabuki tries to woo her, she stalls for time by making him explain what he means by “love”. Suiren then wonders why his description aligns so well with her own feelings towards Togu – while Tsuwabuki wonders why he isn’t more excited to be meeting his supposed “ideal woman”. He gets impatient with Suiren and himself and tries to rush in (as is his wont) but Suiren fights back and he runs off with his tail between his legs.

Later, the Emperor sees the plum blossoms in Umetsubo’s quarters and immediately throws a party! Sara learns that Tsuwabuki has been moping, Umetsubo briefly stirs the pot, and Sara then goes to speak to Tsuwabuki while everyone is chasing after a butterfly. After a moment of panic when he finds out that Tsuwabuki tried it on with Suiren, Sara attempts to reassure his colleague that he’s still cool and manly even after being rejected. Tsuwabuki then lets slip that he finds Sara more attractive that Suiren (!) and when the butterfly lands on Sara’s cap shortly afterwards, the young guys’ hands touch (!!) and Tsuwabuki blushes (!!!). In the end, Tsuwabuki is left questioning whether his feelings are really for Suiren or for Sara.

Something that Saito does a lot in Torikae baya is setting up parallels between different characters or situations: for example, Episode 7 compares Sara’s first meeting with Shi no Hime and Suiren’s first meeting with Togu, and ends with both siblings nervously thinking about “sleeping in the same bed” (同じ御帳台に寝る). And then in the current chapter, Suiren wonders “Am I… in love with Togu-sama!?” (東宮さまに恋していたのか⁉私は) while Tsuwabuki asks himself “Am I not in love… with this woman?” (恋してない―のか？自分は).

Along those lines, I’ll talk a little bit today about a couple of techniques where one thing is mapped onto another – one of these uses furigana and the other is in the art itself.

First, when Suiren realises that the mystery man behind the blinds is Tsuwabuki, she has a brief flashback to when Sara was telling her about him, and then this happens:

In the present, TSUWABUKI can still be seen through the blinds, one hand raised.

SUIREN                              [thinking] The man who desires me…

SUIREN pictures the TENGU caressing a scared young SUIREN’s face.

SUIREN                              [thinking] A man.

Looking across the room, SUIREN shouts out in fear.

SUIREN                              [thinking] The tengu!!

Suiren’s second line here is originally 男, with おとこ written to the side as furigana – straightforward so far. The third line is 天狗…!! but rather than being written with the furigana てんぐ, this is also glossed as おとこ. Techniques like this are used pretty often in manga, allowing the writer to do things like providing quick translations/explanations of unusual or strangely written words, or suggesting multiple meanings at once, like Saito does here. Mapping the sound of “otoko” onto the kanji for “tengu” lets her convey both ideas at the same time.

In this case, all we need is a one-word line and an image of the tengu from Episode 1 to understand that Suiren’s worries about men are closely linked to her and Sara’s childhood experience of being kidnapped. For her, any man could potentially be a tengu, and therefore a serious threat.

Panel from volume 2, page 142.

©Chiho Saito／Shogakukan

The other example of mapping one thing onto another comes later in the chapter. Tsuwabuki has just admitted that he thinks his work buddy is prettier than his work buddy’s famously beautiful sister and then tellingly asked himself “Was that a weird thing to say?” (おれ今 変なこと言わなかったか？). He says he used to imagine Suiren’s appearance when looking at Sara, and then looks at Sara while picturing Suiren’s face alongside.

On the one hand, this highlights how similar Sara and Suiren are in appearance. On the other, it gives us a sense of what Tsuwabuki has been seeing all along, and how, now that he’s seen Suiren too, this has taken on new meaning for him. The moment where we see Sara and Suiren as if they were one person acts as a turning point in this plotline. It’s right after this that Tsuwabuki begins to question the true nature of his own feelings.

Maybe all those times he told his colleague “your sister must be smoking hot if she looks just like you”, it wasn’t reeeeeally about the sister…