Sakura Gari

Souma and Masataka.

Sakura Gari is a Taishou Era romantic story by Yuu Watase, ten years in the making. It centers around the 16 year old Tagami Masataka as he tries to find his place in life. While attempting to start prep school as a rounin, he encounters Saiki Souma, the 25-year-old son of a distinguished noble of the Saiki Koushyaku family, and becomes part of the Saiki household as a mix of boarding student and servant. The Souma and the Saiki households, however, are hiding some very dark secrets, and Masataka unwittingly starts getting involved...

This manga is a rather explicit entry in the Boys Love genere, and is departure from the usual Yuu Watase's usual work in Shoujo romantic series.

Tropes used in Sakura Gari include:
  • Abusive Parents - Sakurako's mother abused Souma physically, emotionally and sexually, having snapped after her child became The Unfavorite.
    • Katsuragi hints that his mother was abusive too, during the Motive Rant he sprouts while he is raping and torturing Masataka.
      • For that matter, Katsuragi's wife Asayo suggests that her father was like this as well, saying that a beating was always a good remedy when she messed up.
  • Accidental Pervert - Masataka meets Katsuragi... when he walks on him giving Souma head.
  • Alone in a Crowd - Souma is constantly in a Friendless Background, especially his childhood where he was trapped in a living hell to the extend it almost drove him into Go Mad From the Isolation territory. That said, Masataka gets his fair share of this as well.
  • Alpha Bitch - Kanako Kawamori
  • And I Must Scream - Souma's childhood is... there's actually not a word to describe how horrible and tortuous his childhood was. It was just... being molested, raped, and tortured daily, isolated, lonely and ostracised, with all the adults turning a blind eye to how horrifically he is being treated. Rape as Backstory Up to Eleven He has a very good Freudian Excuse for his behaviour. In fact, considering what happened to him, it's actually surprising that he is able to function as well as he does. This extends beyond Break the Cutie and through the Trauma Conga Line; each new hit keeps breaking him.
  • Anything That Moves - Souma.
  • Aristocrats Are Evil - Most of the nobles and aristocrats are shown being very snooty and insufferable. Even Souma and his family, although not shown being snooty, are certainly very messed up.
  • Arranged Marriage - Kanako's father wants to engage her to Souma as soon as she graduates from her women's college. Souma refuses at first, saying he's too troubled to get married, but later he accepts. Nothing happens in the end, though, as he's stabbed by Katou in the last pages of the manga and it's not clear if he makes it or not.
  • Ass Shove - A not-comedic example -- one of Katsuragi's torture methods against Masataka included him forcibly shoving a household object up the guy's anus right after having raped him.
  • The Atoner - Souma's father tries to pass himself off as one. Souma's mother Abigail was a woman he had an affair with in England, but he had to go back to Japan to marry his fiancee. Abigail was already pregnant with Souma at the time, and she died at childbirth. His way of making amends to her? Have Souma dress up as Abigail and continually apologize to him. Yeah, he's messed up.
  • Attempted Rape - Subverted: it's believed that Terashima went into the warehouse Sakurako was locked in to rape her, as revenge against Souma; later we learn that she had called him up voluntarily, then crushed his hand and pushed him down the stairs.
  • Berserk Button - DON'T touch Masataka. Souma will fucking KILL you, and he will not make it painless.
    • And do NOT attract Souma's attetion to yourself. Either Katsuragi or Sakurako will catch and torture you, and neither will make their punishments easier either.
  • Beware the Nice Ones - Souma is gentle, kind, caring and generally submissive, allowing anyone to screw him if he can get by in life. But you touch Masataka and you've crossed the line.
  • Big Brother Complex - Subverted and followed in different instances. Masataka and his blood-related big brother Takafumi, although they don't look like they get along, are actually very close (with Masataka always having felt guilty about his older brother suffering while working under a different family). Masataka and his younger brother Mitsugu, however, are a different story - Mitsugu is clingy and Masataka is actually cold and mean to him. And then there's Souma and Sakurako, where their relationship actually goes into Brother-Sister Incest.
  • Bishonen - Souma and Masataka.
  • Bitch in Sheep's Clothing - Katsuragi seems to be a normal, efficient and handsome doctor at first. Then we see him having sex with Souma, but he still looks like a shady but not openly evil man, even supporting Masataka when he deals a What the Hell, Hero? to a nobleman during the ball. Later, we see that Sakurako has told him to slowly kill her father via poison. And later, there's both his abuse of his wife and what he did to Masataka (read: raping and torturing him out of jealousy.)
    • Oh that's not even the worst of it. Then we get to find out what he did to Souma!
  • Bi the Way - Souma doesn't really make gender distinctions.
  • Boys Love Genre
  • Break the Cutie - First, we see Masataka getting horribly and painfully broken in the Saiki household as time passes. Then we learn Souma that became so broken by the end of his childhood that he grew into an Empty Shell Stepford Smiler who allowed anyone to screw him if he could get by in life in return. Honestly, the base premise of the entire series is this trope.
  • Broken Ace - Souma. He's handome, affable, rich, intelligent, a skilled businessman. . . and horrifyingly screwed up.
  • Broken Bird - Katsuragi's wife Asayo, utterly broken for his abuse. She ends up killing him.
    • Souma is one of the rare male cases of this trope.
  • Brother-Sister Incest - Half-siblings version: Souma and Sakurako. They even have sex in the second chapter of the manga..
    • Except that Sakurako happens to be Youya, his brother.
      • And further subverted when we find out that Youya is in fact the product of Kato and the wife of Souma's father (the one he left Souma's mother for), and hence Souma and Youya are actually not related at ALL.
  • But Not Too Foreign - Souma is half Japanese, half English.
  • Cannot Spit It Out - Souma can't bring himself to tell Masataka that he loves him and instead rapes him repeatedly, and then gives him an index of poems to describe his feelings. A straight-out confession would have been much less psychologically scarring.
  • Casanova - Souma is the King of this... except that that he's not seducing anyone. Everyone else just wants to screw him and he lets them.
  • Celibate Hero - Masataka for the majority of the beginning, claiming that he has no interest in things like love, and that love is simply for people's self-satisfaction. (In fact, once he has a wet dream and goes take a cold bath in the nearest well, extremely ashamed). Which also brings him a bunch of internal conflict when he starts feeling attracted to Sakurako and Souma
  • Censor Shadow
  • Chains of Love - More like Ropes Of Love. There's a lot of centerfold pictures of Masataka and Souma tied up together.
  • Cherry Blossoms
  • Chick Magnet - Souma is shown attracting many, many female suitors.
  • Child by Rape - Masataka, who knows it well. He refers to himself as a "dirty child" because of that.
  • Clingy Jealous Girl - Kanako and Sakurako.
  • Cold-Blooded Torture - Dr. Katsuragi's rape and torture of Masataka.
    • Also, what Sakurako does to almost every single lover that Souma has among the household staff, and takes pictures of each abuse session. The most notorious cases are: Masataka (tied up, force fed a meal with glass shards hidden inside, threatened), Terashima (crushes his drawing hand, throws him down a flight of stairs), and an unnamed maid ( Bound and Gagged, savagely beaten up -- causing her to lose Souma's baby that she was pregnant with.) In the culprit's own words:

Sakurako: "That night, I called him (read: Terashima) deliberately... like with all the persons who had a relationship with Oniisama... It's so intresting! Just by punishing them for one night and taking pictures, all of them got scared and became strange..."

  • Coming of Age Story - For Masataka, albeit a VERY traumatic one.
  • Creepy Child - Both Souma and Sakurako, after the death of Lady Saiki.
  • Cute and Psycho - Sakurako's mother, who went crazy after Souma was appointed as heir and her kid was disinherited, and soon started abusing him in all senses.
  • Cute Shotaro Boy - Souma as an eleven year old. Unfortunately for him.
  • Dances and Balls - Souma takes Masataka with him to a Dance Ball. Masataka, being a commoner, feels very out of place and uncomfortable.
  • Dark and Troubled Past - Souma and pretty much the entire household. Masataka and his sibling/s as well
  • Deal with the Devil - metaphorical. Souma, after passing over the Despair Event Horizon the first time when he is broken by his stepmother's physical and sexual abuse, and completely isolated and alone because all the adults turn a blind eye to it, turns to Katsuragi for support. He tells him half-heartedly that if Katsuragi kills Sakurako, he'll let him have him. Wrong, wrong move.
  • Death by Childbirth - Souma's English birth mother, Abigail.
  • Death by Falling Over - Subverted: Sakurako pushes Terashima down the stairs after crushing his hand, but that's not what kills him. Catching fire is what gets him done.
  • Downer Ending - Souma forces Masataka out of the house, bars him from ever returning or seeing him again, in hopes to have him live his own life freely. Masataka is depressed, but decides to follow his advice and leave so he will fulfill such a wish. And then Souma sequentially gets stabbed by Katou on his way out. Points to anyone who can figure out why, after Katou confessing that he is Youya's father, and that Youya wouldn't want his brother, Souma, to be harmed, he then goes and stabs him. Cue allegorical image of the Sakura tree in bloom.
    • Because he felt left out?
  • Depraved Bisexual - A big reason why Souma is depicted as being messed up and depraved is because he sleeps with women and men (ignoring later implications that he causes their death).
    • Also, Katsuragi.
  • Depraved Homosexual - Some of the men that Souma sleeps with.
  • Despair Event Horizon - Both Souma and Masataka get hit with this.
    • Sakurako came real close as a little kid, when she walks on Katsuragi forcing Souma to kill her mother (Becoming a Creepy Child and then being confined to the old household grounds doesn't help). She finally goes right over when she thought she had killed Souma.
  • Determinator - Despite all of the trauma he goes through, when Masataka pulls himself together, he can come up with impressive bravery. Like when he throws the boiling tea on Katsuragi's face so he can escape his torture or saves himself and a pretty much suicidal Souma from dying in a fire.
  • Driven to Suicide - Masataka (almost cuts off his throat with a dagger), Souma (slits his wrists open and puts his bleeding arm inside the full bath tub), and Sakurako (slits her wrists open too, then drowns self in a freezing lake). Only the latter dies from it though.
    • Also subverted. Many outsiders believe that Sakurako's mother killed herself by wrist cutting, but Katsuragi killed her by poison and then forced Souma help him make it look like a suicide. This further leads to the start of Souma becoming a suicidal Empty Shell from both guilt and the heavy trauma he experiences when Katsuragi rapes him the night after this event and continues to sexually abuse him for the remainder of his childhood. Wait, wait, wait, we're not finished yet. Then It Gets Worse. No, really. Truth is... Katsuragi claims that Souma entered into a deal with him, when Souma, desperate and already broken from being abused, off-handedly says that he'll let Katsuragi have him if he kills Sakurako. Unfortunately, Katsuragi takes him at his word, and holds this over Souma's head for years, continuously reinforcing the idea that they killed her together, and driving him further beyond the Despair Event Horizon into true suicidal territory and making it impossible for him to ever return to a state even resembling psychological stability.
  • Dropped a Bridget On Him - A huge shocker coming in the form of Sakurako. Or better said, Youya.
  • Dysfunction Junction - Between Souma's childhood, being raped and tortured DAILY, silently and lonely while everyone pretends it doesn't happen, Matasaka's childhood as a lonely and psychologically abused Child by Rape, and the entire situation with Youya, and Souma's stepmother, you have Up to Eleven extremes that just keep on climbing.
  • Even the Guys Want Him - Souma. Souma. Souma. Souma. Seriously, this trope is Souma.
  • Eye Scream - Katsuragi rapes and tortures Masataka, and his last action is putting the other's hand in a pot of boiling water. To free himself, Masataka throws the pot on Katsuragi's face, injuring his eyes and badly scarring his face.
  • Fatal Attractor - Every one of Souma's lovers are shown to have horrible endings. He even notices and mentions it himself. Of course, this doesn't stop him from continuing to take lovers.
  • Fingore - Sakurako crushes Terashima's hand before pushing him down the stairs.
    • And Katsuragi puts Masataka's hand in boiling water.
  • Forbidden Fruit - The one person Souma finds himself truly falling in love with is the only person who has absolutely no romantic interest in him. As a matter of fact, it's addressed that the main reason he fell in love with Masataka was because Masataka was "different from the others." And Souma, of course, unaccustomed to not getting sex from someone he wants, proceeds to tie Masataka up and rape him repeatedly.
    • From a different angle, this borders on a strange inversion/distortion of I Love You Because I Can't Control You, where everyone wants to control and screw Souma, treating him like a possession, a "doll", but Souma loves Masataka because Masataka doesn't try to control or possess him (i.e. Masataka's affection is pure (read: not bound by sexual possessiveness)).
  • Force Feeding - In chapter 6 Sakurako tries to literally force Masataka to eat some of the food she made for him. He's reluctant to do so because the last time she fed him something she had secretly snuck in some glass.
  • Fridge Brilliance - Once you read the part where Sakurako reveals to Masataka her... er, his true gender, you may recall that a certain scene around the beginning had more than one subtle hint towards this particular reveal...
  • Go Mad from the Revelation - Happens to Youya, upon witnessing his mother's death. Which prompts him to become Sakurako.
  • Good Scars, Evil Scars - Masataka is heavily scarred after Katsuragi's Cold-Blooded Torture, which includes whipping. In returns, he leaves Katsuragi himself scarred when he throws boiling tea on him.
  • Heroic BSOD - Masataka has a HUGE one when he learns that Takafumi was dead in a police raid and Souma kept it from him. And we're not counting counting the one the morning after Souma raped him.
  • High Class Call Guy: Souma will let anyone fuck him as long as there is something for him to gain from them in return. One of the detectives even remarks on it, saying that even back when they were investigating his step-mother's suicide, he had the eyes of a prostitute.
  • Historical Fiction
  • Horrible Judge of Character - Masataka. Honestly, there are all these horrible rumors about Souma, Souma himself acts really weird, strange events keep occurring, and... he just thinks Souma is a nice master. Right.
  • Ho Yay - In addition to the obvious Yaoi relationships, there's a lot of hints that some side characters are attracted to Souma.
    • Considering that it's Souma, odds are they've slept with him already.
  • Humiliation Conga - Katsuragi, overlapping with Karmic Death.
  • If I Can't Have You - Everyone does this over Souma. And then Souma in turn does this to Masataka.
  • Ill Boy - Masataka's younger brother, Mitsugu. First, he has a weak heart. Then he gets Spanish influenza (the same one that killed thousands of people in that same decade) and barely survives. Finally, he catches pneumonia. Yikes.
    • Also, the reason why Souma leads the Saiki clan is because of his father's very frail health.
  • Important Haircut - Masataka gives one to Souma to signify Abigail's definitive passing and his father's acceptance of such a fact.
  • Impoverished Patrician - Abigail, and Souma until he's aknowledged by Lord Saiki and appointed heir.
  • Incorruptible Pure Pureness - how Souma sees Masataka. What is interesting is that originally Masataka is seen as pure because he's inexperienced and "untouched", however, conversely the more horrible things he goes through, the more and more he approaches The Messiah archetype,[1] gaining a compassion and ability to forgive love that is almost supra-human, so much so that by the end this becomes his default personality. One interpretation of this is that in the end he swaps one kind of superficial purity for a deeper psychological one. Depending on your point of view.[2]
  • It Got Worse - Masataka's situation seems to be this way with every chapter. As does Souma's backstory. By the end, they've gone way beyond the Despair Event Horizon.
  • "It's Not Rape If You Enjoyed It" - painfully deconstructed. Both the rape victim and the rapist suffer painfully because they think this is true.
  • I Wished You Were Dead - Masataka tells this to Souma in the middle of his Heroic BSOD. Souma tries to commits suicide.
    • Souma wishes this on his step-mother, and then Katsuragi steps in to replace her in the abuse-and-daily-rape detail after forcing Souma to be complicit. Let's just say, Souma does not have a good history with this trope.
  • Just Friends - Souma and Masataka at the beginning... although the very strong romantic undertones indicate what's to come. Masataka believes they're Like Brothers, while Souma wants something entirely different.
  • Karmic Death - Katsuragi was using drugs to slowly kill the already ill Lord Saiki. Souma forcefeeds him a high dose of the same drug through a kiss, as punishment for torturing Masataka and abusing Asayo, then deals a brutal "The Reason You Suck" Speech to the immobilized and poisoned Katsuragi before walking away. And after Souma leaves, Asayo (who has finally snapped after all of her husband's abuse) sets him on fire..
  • Kick the Dog - So not only is Katsuragi a disgusting pedophile, he rapes and tortures Masataka because of his jealousy and he beats his poor wife.
    • Sakurako's mother does this when she slaps and blames young Souma for the accident that her child got into. She already hated him because Sakurako was stripped of her heir position, but ever since then, It Got Worse.
    • Souma himself does this too, when he hides Takafumi's death from Masataka and keeps making him work off the poor dead guy's debt with sexual favors. It bites him REALLY bad in the ass when he tells that to Masataka, who snaps violently, and as a consequence Souma is so guilty that he tries to kill himself.
  • Ladykiller in Love - Well, not just a ladykiller, but Souma finally experiences real love for Masataka.
  • Little Miss Badass - Towards the end, Sakurako handles herself pretty well with a katana as she attacks Masataka after he discovers her... or better said, his secrets.
    • She already showed signs much earlier, when she catches Souma getting sexual favors from Masataka and then calmly threatens both of them with the same katana.
  • Looking for Love In All the Wrong Places - Souma is a combination of this and a Casanova.
  • Love Hurts - And how.
  • Love Makes You Dumb - Souma, you are a fucking idiot when it comes to Masataka.
  • Love Redeems - Souma. Eventually.
  • Love Triangle - There is initially a love triangle between Souma, Masataka, and Sakurako. With Souma pining after Masataka, who is attracted to Sakurako, who is a Yandere for her brother Souma. The attraction pretty much ends when she starts force-feeding him glass, though.
  • Loving a Shadow - Souma's father
  • Madwoman in the Attic - Sakurako, who has been locked in an old warehouse near the Saiki mansion for nine years after her mother died. Everyone else outside the household believes that she died of illness few after Lady Saiki died. After Terashima's "fiery" death, though, she's allowed to return to the main house.
  • Mistaken for Murderer - Souma by Masataka, with some Guilt by Coincidence thrown in.
  • Misunderstood Loner with a Heart of Gold: Rumours are everywhere, everyone calls him the "Angel of Death" or the "Western Doll", or say that he's cursed, but Souma is really a kind person. ... As long as you don't push him off the edge of what little psychological stability he has.
  • My Sibling Will Live Through Me - Or more exactly, My Mother Will Live Through Me. Damn, Youya - er, Sakurako.
    • Abigal and Souma. Nuff said.
  • Never Suicide - Because Souma hated his stepmother Sakurako for abusing and raping him, Katsuragi takes his words literally and forces a reluctant, young Souma to kill her.
    • It's worse than that - because Sakurako was daily abusing and raping Souma, one day he got fed up and casually mentioned to Katsuragi that if he killed Sakurako, he'd let him "have" him. Cue Katsuragi killing her with poison, and then pulling a shocked and horrified young Souma into the room to slit her wrists to make it look like a suicide. Of course, that night Katsuragi starts raping and abusing Souma. You have to wonder which was worse: Katsuragi or Sakurako?
    • If you account for Katsuragi and Sakurako's actions, the only person in the entire series who was actually confirmed to actually attempt suicide was Souma - although Masataka got close to attempting at one point too. And then Youya/Sakurako kills himself.
  • Not Evil, Just Misunderstood - Again, Souma gets saddled with this. Of course, he thinks that he really is evil.
  • Old Retainer - Several, though Ohatsu and Katou are the ones who fill in the most.
  • The Ophelia - The young maid who actually survived to Sakurako's torture/murder of Souma's lovers, but lost the baby of Souma's that she was pregnant with.
  • Please Don't Leave Me - Souma asks this of Masataka when he finds all the pictures Sakurako took of him having sex. He doesn't take it well when Masataka refuses. Cue It Got Worse.
  • Psychotic Love Triangle - Masataka/Sakurako/Souma and Masataka/Souma/Katsuragi.
  • Rape and Switch - Definitely Masataka is going this way. Poor thing.
    • Manages to just scrape through on a subversion in that Masataka was turned on when Souma hit on him in the library back in the very first chapter, indicating at least some kind of attraction before that point , but it still swerves close enough to this trope played straight to be a little uncomfortable. The fact that their relationship before this point was rather more pure and platonic with serious Ho Yay subtext could also be seen as another way this trope was subverted. It's still not a nice outcome for the poor boy, though.
    • Souma on the other hand, has this trope played rather more straight, where he was raped and used for sex by so many people that he eventually came to just not distinguish between genders and would sleep with men or women.
  • Rape as Drama - Masataka getting raped by Souma and later by Katsuragi. Oh, and Souma being raped by his stepmom Sakurako and Katsuragi and pretty much any person who finds him attractive, but that's more because he feels he has to indulge everyone's desires.
  • Rape Is Love - Souma raped Masataka because he "loves" him. This trope is then slowly and systematically deconstructed, pulled apart, twisted, inverted, and re-constructed upside down in an entirely different geography over the chapters following this event. First the reader gets to see how horrifically traumatised Masataka becomes, then how Souma desperately tries to stop him from leaving him, and then the consequences as they culminate in an It Got Worse climax, interspersed between the slow reveal of the sheer and utter god-awful Fate Worse Than Death that is their pasts, showing how broken, psychologically traumatised, and scarred they are.[3]
    • Same goes to Kasuragi, towards Souma. Except its a bit more like rape, torture and subjugate because he "loves" him. Well, "love" in the sense that he's wanted to literally possess him since Souma was eleven.
    • This goes into Fridge Horror as the only way Souma has ever been shown any affection is through the way various people rape and sexually molested him, or through his consensual sexual encounters as an adult. By this point sex is pretty much the only way that he knows of to show his affection. Hence why he didn't take it well when Masataka rejected him.
  • Really Gets Around - Souma. Almost everyone knows that a huge defining trait about him is that he's willing to sleep with anyone.
  • Secret Keeper - Sort-of. As a child, Sakurako saw how Katsuragi forced Souma to kill their mom. She went from The Cutie to Creepy Child and then to Yandere afterwards.
    • Another is the Old Retainer maid, Ohatsu, who witnessed Souma's abuse at the hands of Sakurako's mother, but didn't say anything because it would involve too many problems for the whole household.
    • And Souma witnessed Sakurako's murder of Terashima, but kept his mouth shut since he blamed himself for it.
  • Selective Obliviousness - Yes, Souma, we're sure that the reason why all your lovers keep dying in suspicious circumstances is because you break up with them. This stretches into Too Dumb to Live territory eventually. No, literally, he never realises that Youya was killing off all his lovers and that he would eventually try to kill him despite him threatening to do so, and he seems to just not take into account the fact that Katsuragi has a thing for torturing, raping and killing people and making it look like suicides.
  • Self-Made Orphan - Sakurako told Katsuragi to slowly poison Lord Saiki to death, apparently as revenge for her abandonment. Souma found out and used the same poison in Katsuragi's fatal Humiliation Conga.
  • Sensitive Guy and Manly Man - Respectively: Masataka and Souma, Masataka and Takafumi, Mitsugu and Masataka, Souma and Katsuragi, Youya and Masataka..
  • Shallow Love Interest - Sakurako passes herself off as this to Masataka, who genuinely starts falling for her. Unfortunately for him, she's a scary Yandere who actually hates him and is incredibly possessive of her brother..
  • She Cleans Up Nicely - Gender Flipped during the ball, with Masataka looking nice in a suit.
  • Shown Their Work - Watase made quite the bit of research on the Taisho period, and it shows.
  • Shut UP, Hannibal - Matasuka gives the non-verbal slap equivalent to Sakurako
  • Snow Means Death - Sakurako dies this way, slitting "her" wrists open with a katana and drowning self in a pond as the snow falls.
  • So Beautiful It's a Curse - The readers are constantly reminded in the story of how Souma suffered a messed up childhood due to his gorgeous looks.
    • By the end, this trope is played for completely horrible and terrifying physical and emotional traumatising effect. Break the Cutie all round.
  • Spurned Into Suicide - Souma's ex-lover Yoshino.
  • Stalker with a Crush - It's mentioned several times that anyone who starts having a relationship with Souma ends up becoming this. Souma, in turn, starts acting this way towards Masataka.
  • Stockholm Syndrome - Masataka developing feelings for Souma after being forced to stay with him after being blackmailed with his brother's debt. Lampshaded by Masataka himself when he wonders why does he keep coming back to the Saikis, even after all that has happened.
    • Lima Syndrome -- Souma, in return, develops genuine feelings for Masataka as time passes.
  • Stuffed Into the Fridge - Poor Takafumi...
  • Tall, Dark and Handsome - Katsuragi. Too bad he's an absolute asshole. He later is horribly scarred when Masataka subjects him to Eye Scream.
  • Together in Death - When Sakurako locks Souma and Masataka in a burning building, Souma resigns himself to this. Masataka, however, goes Determinator and saves them both.
  • Trauma Conga Line - Souma is the poster child for this trope, although Masataka gets slugged with it a fair few times himself.
  • Troubled Abuser - Souma
  • The Unfavorite - Sakurako became this after Souma's arrival. In response, Sakurako's mom starts abusing Souma.
  • Villainous Crossdresser - Youya, better known as... Sakurako.
  • What Beautiful Eyes! - Masataka's "beautiful and honest eyes", according to Souma.
  • White-Haired Pretty Girl - Sakurako, Souma's albino sister. More like Youya, a White-Haired Pretty Boy.

Masataka (upon finding a passed out Sakurako): This beautiful girl... her skin and hair, were all white.

  • Work Off the Debt - Souma does this to Masataka after Masataka's older brother Takafumi gets into debt. Of course, the method of paying is less than pure...
  • Yakuza - The people that Takafumi is in debt with.
  • Yamato Nadeshiko - Deconstructed, and how. Katsuragi's beautiful, polite and soft-spoken wife Asayo seems to be one, at first sight; then, Masataka notices the bruises on her neck and wrists, and the deal becomes a LOT more unsettling...
  • Yandere - Good god, Sakurako. The girl is absolutely batshit insane. One moment she'll be acting all sweet, the next she'll be trying to kill you.
    • Souma too, though he mellows out later on. And then we see why he is like that...
    • Katsuragi, for Souma.
    • Asayo, when she deals Katsuragi the last part of his Karmic Death.
  1. ↑ No, not Messianic Archetype
  2. ↑ It's worth noting that this is one of those cases where this trope is cultivated and deconstructed gradually over the entire series, and isn't used to invoke a Mary Sue as Masataka is very flawed.
  3. ↑ With the way this trope is so utterly decimated, this manga showcases one of the few times when a writer actually deserves the credit of Magnificent Bitchery.
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