Confused feelings in Netsuzou Trap volume 2
In volume 1 of Netsuzou Trap, or NTR: Netsuzou Trap, to give it its full name, we were introduced to the troubled relationships of Yuma and Hotaru, immediately jumping into them cheating on their respective boyfriends with one another.
We saw how main protagonist Yuma was clearly having a variety of confused feelings about the situation. She wasn’t sure if she truly liked her boyfriend Takeda enough to want a full-on romantic and/or sexual relationship with him, but also didn’t want to hurt him because he is indisputably a thoroughly nice person.
At the same time, while Hotaru’s advances on Yuma very much placed her as the aggressor in the cheating situation, Yuma also didn’t immediately shy away from what was going on. She was confused, scared and more than a little aroused. And it’s with this swirling miasma of conflicting feelings that we join the second volume of Netsuzou Trap.
Volume 2 of Netsuzou Trap kicks off with the tail end of the trip we saw the girls and their boyfriends taking at the end of the previous volume. Hotaru had retired back to her room early with her boyfriend Fujiwara, and it seemed like Yuma would be “expected” to have sex with Takeda, given the situation.
However, a slight spanner was thrown in the works of Yuma’s feelings when she called on Hotaru to see if she was all right after retiring early. Fujiwara answered the door, and Hotaru was nearly naked; it looked very much as if the pair of them had been having sex before Yuma arrived.
Herein lies one of the interesting examples of how Netsuzou Trap handles the NTR concept. The initial premise of the series is that Yuma and Hotaru are cheating on their respective boyfriends with one another — but the presentation of this scene and how much it clearly breaks Yuma’s heart makes us feel as if Hotaru is the one cheating on Yuma. It’s a complicated situation, for sure, but it’s hard not to root for the girls on the cover, after all — plus over the course of Netsuzou Trap’s first volume, we started to get some indications that Fujiwara might not be all that nice of a person.
Takeda, meanwhile, continues to be an absolute sweetheart; when he lays down Yuma on the futon in their room and looks as if he is about to try and initiate some sort of intimate entanglement, she turns away, clearly not up for it, and to Takeda’s credit, he immediately retreats and doesn’t force the issue.
Of course, this is really the beginning of the end for their romantic relationship, and both of them know that in their hearts — though both of them are still inclined to try and cling to that potential happiness while it still potentially seems within reach.
But the damage is done. Takeda knows that something is bothering Yuma, though he doesn’t know exactly what to begin with. When he phones her right as Hotaru is putting the moves on her, he recognises that her ragged breathing and obvious distraction means that someone is there, but she lies to him and says that she is alone — something that, to her credit, she does feel bad about.
But he seemingly refuses to believe that anything untoward might be happening. It’s Fujiwara who first raises the possibility of Yuma not telling Takeda everything — and while he does so in a completely insensitive manner, it’s obvious that he’s a perceptive type. This likely stems from the fact that he, too, is a cheater, as we see in this volume — something which Hotaru appears to be absolutely fine with, recognising that Fujiwara was “never really serious” about her in the first place.
And so we have to ask an important question: why is Hotaru still with Fujiwara, then? Particularly, given that one particular chapter in this volume carries the strong implication that Fujiwara is abusing her. When Yuma shows up to Hotaru’s apartment to bring over some food, she is wearing an eyepatch; Hotaru claims that she fell, but this sort of thing is a textbook example of how abuse survivors tend to react when they are not able to immediately extricate themselves from the situation.
Yuma, having a bit of a hot head on her, confronts Fujiwara directly about this, but of course he doesn’t give any indication as to whether or not he had actually hit Hotaru. Indeed, we don’t really get a definitive answer as to whether or not he did — though the implications are pretty strongly there.
Given this revelation, we can start to understand Hotaru’s behaviour just a little better. If she is caught in a cycle of abuse, she probably wants to escape from it. And she sees her time with Yuma as an opportunity to do just that — even if it’s just for a moment.
It can be looked upon as Hotaru relying on Yuma just as she used to do back when the pair of them were younger — only she obfuscates this by positioning herself as the more dominant, assertive party in their relationship. And she has the ideal opportunity to do so as Yuma is upset about how her relationship with Takeda has fallen apart; Hotaru offers her body as a means of making Yuma feel better, when deep down, Hotaru also needs comfort.
The cast of Netsuzou Trap are a stubborn lot, however, and of course no-one will admit any of this directly, leading to further confused feelings and an escalating situation. Fujiwara is the only one who appears to have any real awareness of what is going on, and evidently has had an idea about Yuma and Hotaru’s closeness right from the beginning.
But he uses the power that this knowledge confers on him to commit further acts of abuse — firstly, by attempting to coerce Yuma and Hotaru into a threesome with him and, when Yuma gives him a well-deserved slap in the face for suggesting such a thing, by covertly snapping a picture of Yuma and Hotaru during one of their impromptu play sessions.
While the stubbornness and wilful refusal of any of Netsuzou Trap’s characters to actually communicate effectively with one another is frustrating — and only gets more so as the manga’s run continues! — this is, in essence, a core part of the overall story. A lot of the situation that Yuma and Hotaru in particular get themselves into could have been completely avoided if they were up-front with both one another and with the people who are supposedly close to them.
But there are many reasons for a breakdown in communication, or an inability to communicate effectively. In the case of Hotaru, the cycle of abuse she suffers under Fujiwara clearly makes her hesitant to truly trust anyone, even Yuma, while Yuma’s concerns stem from her questioning her own sexuality — whether or not it’s “right” for her to be involved in a same-sex relationship, and how others might react to her and Hotaru were their involvement with one another to become public.
It’s the stuff drama is made of, in other words — and with four more volumes of Netsuzou Trap to get through before any sort of resolution, there’s clearly more of that to come.
Netsuzou Trap volume 1 is available now in Kindle and paperback form from Amazon. Further details and alternative retailers can be found on publisher Seven Seas’ website.
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