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This Week in Anime
I'm Sorry, Twittering Birds Never WHAT Now?

by Jean-Karlo Lemus & Nicholas Dupree,

Yashiro might be a masochistic, hypersexual yakuza boss but it's his impotent subordinate Doumeki that might just awaken something within him.

CONTENT WARNING: This movie is full of sex. As far as the eye can see. Many of the screencaps included depict sexual situations. Please don't read this at the dinner table.

There is also brief discussion of sexual assault that is shown in the film (but not in this column). Reader discretion is advised.

This movie is streaming on HIDIVE.

Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed by the participants in this chatlog are not the views of Anime News Network.
Spoiler Warning for discussion of the series ahead.

@Lossthief @mouse_inhouse @NickyEnchilada @vestenet

Nick
You know Jean-Karlo, I feel like we kinda missed some chances for our topics during Pride Month. Like sure we covered those Sailor Moon movies featuring the famous cousins, but I think we need to rectify our oversight. Wonder if there's anything that would fit the bill on streaming right no—

...yeah that'll do it.
Jean-Karlo
I'm not gonna pretend that adults consensually rearranging their organs is somehow scandalous to me, I got introduced to Carnelian somehow after all. But hoboy, did Twittering Birds Never Fly introduce me to what steamy anime could look like. Hot. Damn.
This is the first in a planned trilogy of film adaptations of the rather well-loved BL manga of the same name, and yeah, when we signed up to cover this I wasn't aware of just how explicit this movie gets. But hey, props for creators not wasting your time. By minute three you know what you're in for.
You want sexy men? We got your sexy men! We got your man-hos, we got your implacable giants with hearts of gold, we got your anger-fuckers, we got your ukes, we got your semes... we have hands the sizes of which you ain't never seen. Hell, we've even got legs.
So just to start off, I do want to address something. As a straight guy I try to be cognizant of how I talk about media clearly not made for me—and I'm well aware that cishet dudes have a tendency to overstate how sexual BL and BL-adjacent series are. I promise that's not what's happening here. The synopsis for this film describes our main character as a "hypersexual masochist" and it's not joking:
Yashiro up there is a guy who responds to people saying "fuck you" by literally bending over the desk to facilitate it for them. Being hypersexual is literally the crux of his character. The movie explores what that means for him as a person and how that paints his relationships with people around him. That's the line between this movie and some random hentai; this isn't just about people having sex, it's about what that means to them as people and how it affects their lives.
Oh for sure, this film has a character arc and a point with all its sex, but it's also still like 70% fucking per part. Which means this is probably gonna be the most NSFW TWIA since Lynzee made me watch Eiken. My condolences/congratulations to editorial.
I was legit worried while pulling screenshots that they'd be too saucy for ANN. I'm terribly sorry, that's never happened to me before...
It's fine. They don't even show any genitalia. Though it is notable that the producers for this adaptation chose films instead of TV anime specifically so they could stay authentic to the manga's spiciness. Considering Yashiro's backstory starts with him getting spitroasted in an alleyway, mission accomplished!
Nick, you can't just say he was getting SPITROASTED
OK technically he was on his back but still, both ends were busy.
So, as we've established, Yashiro is a hypersexual yakuza who brings on a new recruit: Doumeki, who's fresh out of prison. Yashiro has a track record of sleeping with anyone that looks at him funny, and while Doumeki is placid enough to let Yashiro try giving him head he's also impotent, which spoils a lot of Yashiro's fun.
Well at first, anyway. It soon becomes apparent that Yashiro is purposefully keeping Doumeki and his, I quote "limp dick" around. It ties into this complicated way he exerts control over others by having them sexually dominate him. He does it with allies, enemies, and sometimes just whoever's around.
I believe that's what Christian Grey called "topping from the bottom".
Oh yeah, Yashiro definitely gives off 50 Shades vibes. Especially his interview skills.
Before we continue, we need to give folks a big fat content warning for sexual assault. It features heavily in the backstories of the characters.

Little time is wasted in exploring Doumeki's deal. While Doumeki is aloof and distant, Yashiro is a complete nosy rascal and is able to sus out that Doumeki's stint in jail came as a result of him almost beating his father to death for raping his younger stepsister. As it turns out, walking in on the act was also what traumatized Doumeki into impotence. This all cost Doumeki his career as a police officer.

Yeah, that's one of the parts of this film I'm not super wild about. While it's not used for needless suffering, it is a little questionable that both of our main characters were subject to some level of sexual assault during their childhood. Yashiro even blames that on why he's so obsessed with sex and all but says he's damaged goods.
The whole "gay men sure are obsessed with sex" is a harmful stereotype and regardless of how this movie may explore its ramifications for Yashiro, it's still a stereotype. I'm not terribly fond of that aspect myself.
It's at least exploring the topic with some level of sensitivity, and it's nice that every other act of fucking in the story is—if not always a great decision—at least consensual for all involved. Though yeah, Yashiro does trip into self-parody sometimes.

He's talking about someone trying to get out of organized crime, for the record.
There's another wrinkle in this story in that Doumeki has never had a romantic relationship with another man before. His first sexual encounter was with the female school nurse. He's genuinely smitten with Yashiro when they first meet, and part of his reluctance to go the full monty with him could partially be interpreted as him not being entirely sure how it works. You know, on top of his emotional constipation.

I can't blame him. Generally if you're gonna pop a cherry with somebody, you want it to be with somebody a little more emotionally available than this guy:
This is a rare moment where Yashiro doesn't react to the prospect of getting laid like a dog that heard the phrase "walk." Appreciate this rare gem.
It also exemplifies what Yashiro's about when sex is involved. He gets off while going down on Doumeki, but the idea of having a potentially equal romp puts him right off.
Yashiro might play at being a stone-cold absolute zero man-ho, but he's plenty romantic. He just doesn't like to admit it.


This is basically that princess fanning herself while leaving her handkerchief for some knight errant. There's a lot of very genuine emotion here. Tender little details like Doumeki obsessing over Yashiro's silky hair or Yashiro teasing Doumeki in his honeyed voice were actually quite nice to see. I can only hope someone someday has as much tender passion for me as Doumeki does for Yashiro's hair.
Specifically he's romantic for seemingly his only friend in the world. A friend he's been in love with for most of their lives and who he just recently learned is also into men, just apparently not Yashiro. A fact he found out when he hid a camera in said friend's house and got an impromptu sex tape for his troubles.
Ah, Doctor Kageyama. He's an old high school buddy of Yashiro's. Oddly enough, even he learned only recently that he was into men, and it took him meeting the young wild dog Kuga to learn it. But indeed, Yashiro never did quite get over Kageyama giving him the "like a friend" spiel in high school.

Doubly so as Kageyama was the first person—not even man, full on person—that Yashiro had ever fallen in love with. So seeing the guy discover he does in fact like men only to fall for some other guy was pretty devastating for Yashiro.
That hangup is basically the reason Yashiro takes such an interest in Doumeki. He's also a tall, stoic guy with infinite patience for Yashiro's bullshit, and his impotence provides a convenient barrier to keep things at arm's length.

Like, I made the 50 Shades comparison before, and this whole film is more or less a more competently written version of that story. Yashiro uses sex to control and distance people to avoid ever getting hurt again. Which is why he'll fuck his enemies just as quickly as shoot them.

Those two screenshots happen 30 seconds apart, by the way.

You have to imagine that part of Doumeki's patience is because he doesn't really know how he's supposed to react in the first place. He loves Yashiro, or at least feels attracted to him, but even if he wasn't a total cherry boy he barely knows what the guy is thinking at any given moment. All he knows is that Yashiro awakened something inside of him, and he worries that if he goes ahead and lets Yashiro have his fun he won't be interested in Doumeki anymore.


At the end of the day, Doumeki can't help but feel lonely in spite of himself, and Yashiro holds way more sway over him than even Yashiro knows.
It's a really interesting dynamic, and more or less the entire backbone of this movie. Because there's not really a "plot" as you'd call it to this whole affair. It's a series of character and relationship building scenes that paint a portrait of two men in very difficult and conflicted emotional trajectories. Oh, and the Yashiro gets shot.
Most tortuously of all, the film ends on a cliffhanger before we can find out if Yashiro pulls through. But being that this is a planned trilogy, we can hope he and his insatiable desire for getting reamed pull through in some capacity.
This is how he responded immediately after getting a bullet through his kidneys so yeah, I think this absolute wreck of a man will pull through.
To be fair, Yashiro's lifeblood probably is stored in the balls.
But yeah, Twittering Birds is a solid watch for anyone with both an interest in moody character drama and at least a tolerance for a lotta fucking. I'm not exactly the target demographic, but I came out the other end (er, phrasing...) having had a surprisingly good time.
I have a lot of respect for Twittering Birds, courtesy of its quiet moments. The introspective bits where we get to explore how Yashiro and Doumeki feel about each other are just catnip to me. I can't pretend to be scandalized by the sex, given the stuff I've got on my own shelves at home, but I struggle to imagine how other folks will take this. I don't know what it is boys' love fans like, so I guess if they live for these quiet, slow bits where men talk about how pretty the moon is, this film has you covered. That said, I can only wonder how this is going to spin out as a trilogy. I do appreciate the character study on display here, but I worry the upcoming sequel might peter out a bit. It's one thing to have the combination of scandalous sex scenes crossed with quiet introspection for an hour and a half. Can you do it again twice over? I'd like to see them do it and I really hope they pull it off. Twittering Birds isn't necessarily something I would have watched outside of work—but then again, being completely honest, very little of what I've watched for TWIA is and I've come out loving a lot of stuff I'd never have given a second glance to otherwise, like Horimiya and Those Snow White Notes. So I'm rooting for these very dumb boys.
I do also want to note it can be funny as hell when it wants to be. Which isn't often, but there are absolutely moments when you're supposed to bust out laughing and they absolutely work.
If you can't laugh while plowing someone, it's one of many signs that you probably shouldn't be plowing. A blowjob might not be "exits stage left, chased by bear," but it'll do in a pinch.
Just remember everyone, when YOU eat, make sure it's clean, properly prepared, and most importantly:

...okay this metaphor may have gotten away from me.
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