Responses
they literally have a conversation where the bottom complains about how harada was gloating about his wife and her bentos when they met so yes asami absolutely knew harada had a wife when they were in a "relationship"
Omg wait I missed that! Ok in that case yeah, was def not cool of him to do that. Still can't ignore that power dynamic tho (doesn't excuse him but it's still there).
I was kinda surprised how many ppl r hating on Asami. Tbf we don't know whether Harada was married when they were seeing each other. Was it still wrong? Yes. But we also gotta remember that 1) Asami was younger and seemingly new at that job 2) Harada was his boss. My understanding was that Asami broke things off with Harada when he realized that he was marrying Minako. The pregnancy seemed like a relatively new development too, because Asami cried thinking how pathetic he was for loving/thinking Harada loved him when Harada was having sex with Minako. Also tbf, not everyone knows the marriage status of their boss. I feel like the really trashy one was Harada and honestly, Minako deserves better. If Asami did know about Minako, I think that would be wrong and reflect poorly on him, but in truth we don't know.
I saw ppl thot the women were portrayed poorly in the manga and ngl, the women felt barely there. Would've loved to see more with developed characters, but I really liked Minako. She really put Sakuraba in his place when it came to gender roles and living life for urself. Even if her husband is a PoS, her quality of life isnt dependent on him and i think she"d be just as happy being a single mom bc she's very strong.
The other girls were mostly Sakuraba's exes (who were mostly there to show how crappy he'd been to them) and coworkers that seemed to be picking up on something. I think it mostly showed how strict gender roles inflicted by the patriarchy harm everyone in ways that may not be immediately evident. (Cuz duh it harms women, but in even MORE ways which sucks) Def doesm't excuse Sakuraba's behavior, but it gives a bit of a wider view of how horrible patriarchy is.
Was the manga perfect? Lol no. Were the characters flawed? 100% but that makes them more realistic. Gay relationships, straight relationships, they're messy and flawed. Morally grey characters in a messy gay relationship, let the gays (encompassing all LGBT+) be just as messy as the straights. That's true equality.