According to Enokido, yes, this happened.
I wonder, though: does Nanami know about this? Was she also a victim?

Touga in the series has always puzzled me. I'd managed to figure out all the other characters (to a degree anyway) but I never really understood Touga or why he behaves as he does.

As a victim of rape he makes more sense though.

Never much liked him before, but poor Touga.

Saionji must have grown out his hair long to be like his friend... while never knowing why Touga had to grow his long in the first place.

That's quite sad.

gorgeousshutin wrote:

p.s. According to the article, Touga was ordered to wear his hair long as to be child-prostituted to the Kiryuus.  Then, Saionji with his long, nicely curled waves . . .

And before we talk about Akio's long locks, lets just remember how pretty that mane must've looked from Mrs. Ohtori's POV with him down on one knee kissing her shin during their sessions

Well, in Saionji's case, he's supposed to be representative of the old-fashioned Japanese male (I believe both Ikuhara and Saito have stated that in separate interviews) so it's far less unusual for him to have long hair. And Akio's hairstyle is more of a mullet, so it's not as effeminate as Touga's uniformly long locks.

Atropos wrote:

I wonder, though: does Nanami know about this? Was she also a victim?

I'd say no to both of those - and frankly, if she doesn't know anything about it now, then she never will. Assuming that she ever found out that her and Touga are real siblings after all, then he'll have discredited himself to the point where she'd never buy it if he tried telling her that their adoptive father was such an evil piece of work. Actually, I can't even very readily see Touga telling her about it in the first place.

I think I've already said most other things I want to say about this topic in the thread about Enokido's SKU privacy files, so I won't be redundant...

Decrescent Daytripper wrote:

I know there's some opposition to it being canon for the TV version, since it wasn't in any broadcast episode (though it had been planned to be, and the idea informed the presentation we did get), but what's the opposition? What does this, if included, preclude or irrevocably alter in a negative way, from what we otherwise have?

I might have brought this up already in the privacy files thread, but I think some people find the idea of Touga having that kind of traumatic backstory insulting in a similar way to how, say, Nakago's backstory in Fushigi Yuugi frustrated a lot of people; it comes off as a cheap bid for sympathy after all the bastardry the character has done over the course of the series. I guess, also, people like to give SKU a lot of credit as an intelligent series with very complex characters; chalking everything Touga does up to him being a rape victim must feel like too easy an explanation to them.

Decrescent Daytripper wrote:

I can see several layers of tragedy, relevance, and echoes that it adds, but the only thing it precludes, to my understanding, is that Touga wasn't sexually abused until explicitly Akio. It simply pushes the date of his first sexual abuse to a handful of years later and implies his style and presentation are motivated by... something else; maybe he's just a dick.

Interesting that you put it that way, because I virtually never see people labeling the Akio/Touga relationship as sexual abuse - and maybe we should be seeing it a little more in those terms. Granted, it certainly doesn't look anything like what comes to mind when one thinks of sexual abuse - in fact, if not for certain factors I'd just call it consensual and leave it at that - but it's so easy to forget that a) Touga is still a minor, and b) Akio is in a position of power over him in more than one sense. And while Touga may well just be a hedonist, for someone as proud as him to be so seemingly okay with offering his body to Akio in such a way is... suspicious. If nothing else, I'm pretty damn convinced that Akio is not Touga's first time with another male.

The privacy files also make a point of saying that Touga acted like he enjoyed being abused by his parents - and he certainly seems to enjoy having sex with Akio, if the bed scenes and silhouette shot are anything to go by. Repeated behaviours, perhaps?

gorgeousshutin wrote:

MikoGalatea wrote:
The privacy files also make a point of saying that Touga acted like he enjoyed being abused by his parents - and he certainly seems to enjoy having sex with Akio, if the bed scenes and silhouette shot are anything to go by. Repeated behaviours, perhaps?

That makes so much sense!
That being said, even if rape happened, I feel that it'ss just part - not all - of what Touga went through to turn him into the person we see in TV SKU.

But it would very much be the biggest facet, the defining facet, in attempting to explain his behavior. We can argue that other factors were involved, but everything would always be pointed back at this.

Why can't he develop healthy relationships? Betrayed by the adults in his life and abused by them.
Why does he seemingly have sexual relations as a means of defining his power? Sexually abused as a child and has come to equate sex with power.

We could go on and on with this line of thinking. Almost all, perhaps all, of his behavior can be framed by that singular event. And, in the tradition of anime of largely having a character's motivation almost entirely defined by a singular event (Nakago - FY, Misato - SSE, etc), this becomes the easy shorthand to explain Touga. And because it's the tradition of anime to do this, it would come off as the intended answer.

Touga is simply better as a character without having that trauma to define or shape him.

Last edited by Ashnod (09-05-2012 09:50:49 AM)

Ashnod wrote:
But it would very much be the biggest facet, the defining facet, in attempting to explain his behavior. We can argue that other factors were involved, but everything would always be pointed back at this.

Now, I think (I'm not saying it's the only answer out there, of course) more than one singular event, a person's continual childhood upbringing is what defines a person, especially when he's a teenager, the most.

Now, I think the rape will define/explain a lot of the sex-based portions of Touga.  But the backstabbing Saionji parts of him should've come from something other than direct rape - rape or not, that something has to do with the source of his upbringing, namely Mr. and (maybe also) Mrs. Kiryuu.

Even suppose TV Mr. Kiryuu did not rape Touga, he is likely the one whose child-educating (or, lack of child-educating) turns Touga from a cat-caring little boy into the secretly insecure, power-desperate, ass-offering-to-Akio teen he becomes.

For me, TV Touga is the teen he his largely because of Mr. Kiryuu whether there is  rape or no rape.  So the rape is, for me, just more venomous icing on Touga's evil cake (god that sounds corny even to myself) - not that all-encompassingly-defining from my POV.

gorgeousshutin wrote:

Ashnod wrote:
But it would very much be the biggest facet, the defining facet, in attempting to explain his behavior. We can argue that other factors were involved, but everything would always be pointed back at this.

Now, I think (I'm not saying it's the only answer out there, of course) more than one singular event, a person's continual childhood upbringing is what defines a person, especially when he's a teenager, the most.

Now, I think the rape will define/explain a lot of the sex-based portions of Touga.  But the backstabbing Saionji parts of him should've come from something other than direct rape - rape or not, that something has to do with the source of his upbringing, namely Mr. and (maybe also) Mrs. Kiryuu.

I disagree. I can very much make an argument for his treatment of Saionji being traceable back to being raped and/or abused by his father figure.

Double post to Ashnod since I still see you online:

But, suppose there is no rape, how do we explain TV Touga's - who gets male-dominant sex easily from females - literally being a "bottom boy" to Akio just for the sake of getting power?  Why would a seemingly priviledged kid who already enjoys unrivaled prestige on campus feel the need to go that far just to get "power of revolution" that would imply "changing his currently fine-looking situation"?

Ashnod wrote:
He's not Akio. He's not content to remain with mere comforts and pleasant company. Touga wants to make his mark on the world. He wants to change it and leave some part of himself upon it, so that people know he existed, he mattered. He wants, to borrow from the series, to revolutionize it. Significantly more than Saionji or Miki and just slightly more than Juri.

For now, I will put aside Akio's continual discontent with his current situation, which prompted him to (in a way) prostitute himself to Mrs. Ohtori to keep a steady footing in Ohtori - his stage for gainning back Dios' power so he can be all-encompassingly Godlike once again.

But for TV Touga to simply want to "make his mark on the world", isn't staying as the SC Pres., then getting into a top grade university by his stepfather's strings, then some big company CEO position afterwards, then ruling over some too-big-to-fail international business empire the way things logically work in the world? 

The Touga we see in TV SKU is on a privileged path (hinted as richer than most of the rest of the private school goers)  that will for sure lead to his becoming powerfully wealthy in the future - if he work hard and be devious at the right times, then perhaps powerful enough to rebuild landmarks in Japan or beyond, and puppet world leaders with his wealth ala Wall Street Firm owners. 

Is Touga that impatient, that he want the adult-tycoon-influence over the World immediately at age 17?  If so, then he's "unusually desperate", and I still am inclined to think of the "why" behind his refusing to go step by step to get what he wants.  All this, up to sexual submission to a man when he clearly likes girls . . . just because of the impatience of youth?

Lurv wrote:
Honestly, reading about all this makes me curious what Touga and Nanami's biological parents were like, even though it's not as important.

TV Touga on parents-related subject:
Touga:  Yes. Nanami and I were both sent to the current Kiryuu residence.

Movie Touga on same subject:
I was sold to the Kiryuu househouse (or something similar to that effect).

In either version, biological parents were heavily implied to have placed Mr. Kiryuu's will/wishes over that of their biological children.

Lurv wrote:
I wonder why they did it, though.

I'm guessing bio parents need wealth/support/networking from the Kiryuu household, and that Touga is secondary to the "worldly goodies" they needed then?