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Ripping Someone Open Only Makes Them Bleed
擁有朋友與戀人，在書店打工的高中女生．糸林茜寧，每天都過得充實而美好。
但她同時也被「渴望被他人喜歡」、「不想被人討厭」的想法綁架，為了扮演最美好的自己而痛苦不已。
直到她遇見了一本名為《少女進行曲》的書——
書中的一切彷彿為她量身訂作，讓她稍稍從束縛中釋放。
就在《少女進行曲》確認即將被改編成電影之後的某一天，
茜寧在路上巧遇了一名與書中角色幾乎一模一樣的人，
甚至，他們的名字都叫「愛」，這真的是巧合嗎……？
各人向前邁進的步伐互相激盪，極致的青春群像劇——
但她同時也被「渴望被他人喜歡」、「不想被人討厭」的想法綁架，為了扮演最美好的自己而痛苦不已。
直到她遇見了一本名為《少女進行曲》的書——
書中的一切彷彿為她量身訂作，讓她稍稍從束縛中釋放。
就在《少女進行曲》確認即將被改編成電影之後的某一天，
茜寧在路上巧遇了一名與書中角色幾乎一模一樣的人，
甚至，他們的名字都叫「愛」，這真的是巧合嗎……？
各人向前邁進的步伐互相激盪，極致的青春群像劇——
- GenresLight Novel
400 pages, Paperback
First published July 27, 2022
24 people are currently reading
194 people want to read
About the author
Yoru Sumino
40 books468 followersAssociated Names:
* Yoru Sumino
* 住野よる (Japanese Profile)
* โยรุ ซูมิโนะ (Thai Profile)
Yoru Sumino (住野よる) is a Japanese writer best known for I Want to Eat Your Pancreas, the novel that became a manga and two films.
* Yoru Sumino
* 住野よる (Japanese Profile)
* โยรุ ซูมิโนะ (Thai Profile)
Yoru Sumino (住野よる) is a Japanese writer best known for I Want to Eat Your Pancreas, the novel that became a manga and two films.
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Displaying 1 - 18 of 18 reviews
June 14, 2025
Rep: Japanese cast & setting, MC with suicidal thoughts, cross dressing character, lesbian side character
This is my third novel of this author and so far this is her weakest work and her coolest title. Truth to be told, I read this only because of the title.
The story has an intriguing idea that is executed in rather mediocre way. Some revelations and especially the ending were worth it. It was interesting that one of the POV characters were a jpop idol and unexpectedly, the POV of her hater was interesting too. I liked the whole meta thing it has going on on multiple layers. That being said, something just bothers me about the whole thing and I can't wrap my finger around it. I suspect it's either the translation or simply the cultural difference.
Either way, I thing the author intentionally has written this in lower quality that that of her other works. Which, in its own weird way, worked. Maybe not for me specifically but for what she was trying to accomplish in general.
To be honest none of Yoru Sumino's works makes me love them enough to make me actively seek them or anticipate them. But as long as the audiobooks are easily available to me and have intriguing titles, I guess I'll keep reading them.
This is my third novel of this author and so far this is her weakest work and her coolest title. Truth to be told, I read this only because of the title.
The story has an intriguing idea that is executed in rather mediocre way. Some revelations and especially the ending were worth it. It was interesting that one of the POV characters were a jpop idol and unexpectedly, the POV of her hater was interesting too. I liked the whole meta thing it has going on on multiple layers. That being said, something just bothers me about the whole thing and I can't wrap my finger around it. I suspect it's either the translation or simply the cultural difference.
Either way, I thing the author intentionally has written this in lower quality that that of her other works. Which, in its own weird way, worked. Maybe not for me specifically but for what she was trying to accomplish in general.
To be honest none of Yoru Sumino's works makes me love them enough to make me actively seek them or anticipate them. But as long as the audiobooks are easily available to me and have intriguing titles, I guess I'll keep reading them.
September 23, 2025
“Her true self, like God, was a presence she tried to forget.”
“Ripping Someone Open Only Makes Them Bleed” by Yoru Sumino is a sharp coming-of-age tale about how desperation can drive us to extremes—and how the right person can pull us back. The novel starts as a glossy high-school dream—Akane has friends, a boyfriend, a part-time job—and then quietly reveals the cost of performing perfection. She’s addicted to being liked, curating every word and smile, until a chance meeting with Ai, a stranger who feels ripped straight from Akane’s favorite novel, nudges her carefully arranged life off its axis. What follows is a tender, ensemble coming-of-age where intersecting lives—an uncompromisingly “authentic” beauty, a self-mythologizing idol, a boy who hunts for other people’s missteps—press on Akane’s mask until she must decide what’s left when it finally cracks. It’s less a twisty mystery than a mood: the ache of wanting love, the danger of turning yourself into a story, and the fragile relief of telling the truth out loud. Sumino keeps the revelations humane and close to the skin, crafting a character study that lingers like a bruise.
Sumino’s novel is a study of masks: the glossy, ever-smiling version of yourself you parade around to earn approval, and the locked-away self that aches to breathe. The title isn’t just striking—it’s the argument of the book. Akane rips herself open every time she attempts to be liked, and that constant self-incision is what makes her soul bleed. The harm isn’t only in what others do to her; it’s in the ritual of self-betrayal she performs to fit the room, the friend group, the algorithm of affection.
The story shows how hard it is to say what you actually feel, and how easily we rewrite our motives as politeness or strategy. It also suggests that turning points rarely arrive with fanfare; they look ordinary, almost silly, and only later do we recognize how a small collision nudged an entire life. Communication—real, unvarnished, risky—moves the plot far more than any grand revelation. When words finally do land with their full weight, they don’t fix everything, but they stop the bleeding.
There’s a frank portrait of self-hatred here: the mental rooms we build where no one can hear us; the rituals that anesthetize pain; the private refrains that turn a mirror into an enemy. The book refuses to glamorize that darkness, yet it doesn’t scold it away either. Instead, it insists on ordinary mercy: the friend who says you don’t have to be on the brink to deserve a hand; the day-by-day effort that doesn’t make the ache vanish but makes it shareable. Survival isn’t a cinematic victory so much as consent to keep going with someone sitting beside you.
Another lesson reads like a warning label for the attention economy: cruelty dressed up as wit can feel like achievement because it guarantees a reaction. The book shows how easy it is to mistake engagement for meaning and how throwaway lines can reroute a life. Sometimes it is exactly that—petty and corrosive—but other times a blunt truth, or a refusal to perform, breaks the spell and lets someone walk free. Cheap validation eats at both sides; clear honesty can be a release.
The book also probes our defenses: the careful walls we build and then mistake for personality, the urge to reorder time to fit our favorite narrative, the thrill of “burning it all down” as if reinvention were the same as healing. It’s unsparing about the allure of shortcuts—substances, performance, performative positivity—and how each promises relief while quietly deepening the debt. Control, it argues, is not the same as freedom; a polished façade is not the same as intimacy.
One of the most intriguing threads is metafiction: the protagonist of “Girl’s March”, the fictional novel within the novel, aligns with two of Sumino’s heroines, and we’re left to puzzle out which one “The Girl” maps to more. That ambiguity isn’t a trick—it’s an invitation. The inner book refuses to hand us a single stage or a single moral; it reflects back our own preoccupations and asks the oldest, most destabilizing question in fiction: what would YOU do?
Finally, rather one of the most important aspects of the book is that when you live by other people’s expectations, you can drift toward a despair so deep that the only hope seems to be living inside your favourite story, even if that fantasy veers toward the most extreme escape. The novel acknowledges that temptation without endorsing it. Its counteroffer is stubbornly modest: choose what makes you genuinely happy whenever you can; accept help before the crisis headline arrives; cultivate a life rather than waiting to find one already in bloom. The work is slow and unshowy, but it’s the only way to stop the bleeding without tearing yourself open again.
———
RATING: 10/10
———
“Akane framed it as a selfish imposition—a humble request that the receiver could choose to grant at her convenience. Miyu was the type who avoided being alone as much as possible, unless it was mandated by work or school, but she was insecure about coming off as needy. So when Akane made it sound as though the stars had aligned out of sheer coincidence, Miyu lit up.”
“Not once had she ever felt the joy of conveying her feelings exactly as she felt them.”
“The moment they met was as mundane as a rolling orange colliding with someone's shoe.”
“This was something she hallucinated from time to time. Whenever her self-hatred surpassed the point that no amount of tongue-biting could control it, a small white room would appear, overlaid with reality. Four blank walls with no windows or doors—silent and sterile, like a solitary confinement cell. Inside the room was the real her, dreaming of the day she would be allowed outside, even though she was sure it would only ever be just that: a dream.”
“She could taste coppery red, clashing with the stark white room that overlaid her view.”
“The tacked-on insult carried the scent of sweet poison.”
“He seemed to quickly realize that she was referencing their conversation at the cafe, and didn't even try to hide his annoyance. Of course, her desire to be liked would normally never let her provoke that kind of reaction from a friend, so she convinced herself that she was merely laying the groundwork to be loved.”
“If only she could say it out loud, would the desire to die finally go away?”
“Unlike his classmates, celebrities with fanbases always had at least one or two haters. Whenever he insulted a famous person, someone always responded to it, and he experienced a level of attention he never got in his normal life. It was an extremely easy way to feel something akin to an accomplishment. So while he wasn't conscious of it, he liked when the celebs he targeted did controversial things on a daily basis.”
“They're desperate for something in life to care about, and they're dumb enough to think disparaging a stranger will give them a crumb of self-esteem. Your anger is wasted on them, Mei.”
“To Julia, the flow of time was not linear. It could be rearranged like puzzle pieces to fit her mental image.”
“Because Ogusu Nanoka didn't directly offer readers a stage for the story, it wasn't restricted to a single shape, and could reflect any number of real-world problems, making the reader question their own hearts and daily lives. It felt like she was asking, ‘What would YOU do in this situation?’”
“But even when she was naked, even when she soaked herself in hot water, she never felt truly bare.”
“Julia was proud of the walls she'd erected between herself and the world, and she had faith that that wad what everyone wanted. She never dreamed that they'd one day want her to tear it all down.”
“Through some law of physics, each ball went rolling off in its own direction and one fell into a pocket before either of them could even try to go for it. Akane wondered if this was what happened to the human body in a car accident.”
“Not once had The Girl ever found a flower already in bloom. She always had to make it happen herself.”
“Well, I may have incinerated my past, but as you can see, I'm doing just fine. So for those of you having a rough time right now, just keep your head up and once day you'll get to burn it all down.”
“It tasted so good, she could almost trick herself into thinking alcohol's entire purpose was to facilitate this moment when she was freed from her suffering.”
“Tonight, as with every other night, she was re-reading it in order to keep herself from falling apart.”
“To be blunt, he had no interest in the book itself. He didn't get any enjoyment out of novels—all that tiny text made his eyes tired. In elementary school, he always hated being forced to read excerpts and describe how the authors felt writing them, and from that point onward, he had never once gone out of his way to read a book.”
“She knew it was her true self because it was hidden somewhere only she could find it, and since she was the only one looking, she had a clear view of her own ugliness.”
“Then she realized that some part of her was trying ro mirror Miyu's tastes and it made her want to die.”
“‘Die,’ she whispered to her sickening reflection.”
“You can't do that.”
“Her heart ached as she imagined the emotional reaction of a teenage girl she didn't know. It must have felt so isolating—so INVALIDATING.”
“How does one go through life without ever doubting or hating themselves? I suspect that's exactly what people like us have always yearned for.”
“At that moment, Tatsuaki had yet to consider that a nobody like him could be responsible for altering someone's entire future with a single sentence.”
“I thought she was trying to brainwash us.”
“The need to be liked was slowly crushing her, and now she knew she could expect to be suffocated like this every single day for the rest of her life. In truth, she wanted nothing more than to escape from this stark white void of isolation.”
“All the people and things she'd seen today—all the smiles that were directed not at her real self, but the façade—rose and faded in her mind, over and over, until just one remained. Not her family, not her friends, not even her ex-boyfriend, but the girl she saw every morning in the mirror, glaring at her.
‘Die.’”
“They had no way of hearing a voice without sound.”
“You've never once stopped to imagine how it would feel to have your true self locked away, but that sure won't stop you from telling me I'm wrong, now will it?”
“You don't have to be on death's door for me to hold your hand.”
“Even if your personality or perception makes you so scared you want to die, I think you should keep living and do whatever makes you happiest, as much as you possibly can. This isn't me trying to pity you, by the way. I love all my friends, and none of them are perfect! That includes you.”
“Her heart still ached, but if she didn't have to bear it alone, then perhaps she could find it in her to keep trying, one day at a time.”
“Every experience we have in life is purely by chance, be it favourable, not so favourable, extraordinary, or mundane.”
“Every person, including you, including me, is a faceless character who was perhaps a protagonist at one point. Likewise, a novel is merely a narrow slice of ALL its characters, not an excuse to choose one to bless one with disproportionate fortune. In a world where so many choices are readily made for us by circumstance, luck, and other things beyond our control, I'm grateful that you're still here today.”
“I wish for this story to always and forever be solely yours.”
“Ripping Someone Open Only Makes Them Bleed” by Yoru Sumino is a sharp coming-of-age tale about how desperation can drive us to extremes—and how the right person can pull us back. The novel starts as a glossy high-school dream—Akane has friends, a boyfriend, a part-time job—and then quietly reveals the cost of performing perfection. She’s addicted to being liked, curating every word and smile, until a chance meeting with Ai, a stranger who feels ripped straight from Akane’s favorite novel, nudges her carefully arranged life off its axis. What follows is a tender, ensemble coming-of-age where intersecting lives—an uncompromisingly “authentic” beauty, a self-mythologizing idol, a boy who hunts for other people’s missteps—press on Akane’s mask until she must decide what’s left when it finally cracks. It’s less a twisty mystery than a mood: the ache of wanting love, the danger of turning yourself into a story, and the fragile relief of telling the truth out loud. Sumino keeps the revelations humane and close to the skin, crafting a character study that lingers like a bruise.
Sumino’s novel is a study of masks: the glossy, ever-smiling version of yourself you parade around to earn approval, and the locked-away self that aches to breathe. The title isn’t just striking—it’s the argument of the book. Akane rips herself open every time she attempts to be liked, and that constant self-incision is what makes her soul bleed. The harm isn’t only in what others do to her; it’s in the ritual of self-betrayal she performs to fit the room, the friend group, the algorithm of affection.
The story shows how hard it is to say what you actually feel, and how easily we rewrite our motives as politeness or strategy. It also suggests that turning points rarely arrive with fanfare; they look ordinary, almost silly, and only later do we recognize how a small collision nudged an entire life. Communication—real, unvarnished, risky—moves the plot far more than any grand revelation. When words finally do land with their full weight, they don’t fix everything, but they stop the bleeding.
There’s a frank portrait of self-hatred here: the mental rooms we build where no one can hear us; the rituals that anesthetize pain; the private refrains that turn a mirror into an enemy. The book refuses to glamorize that darkness, yet it doesn’t scold it away either. Instead, it insists on ordinary mercy: the friend who says you don’t have to be on the brink to deserve a hand; the day-by-day effort that doesn’t make the ache vanish but makes it shareable. Survival isn’t a cinematic victory so much as consent to keep going with someone sitting beside you.
Another lesson reads like a warning label for the attention economy: cruelty dressed up as wit can feel like achievement because it guarantees a reaction. The book shows how easy it is to mistake engagement for meaning and how throwaway lines can reroute a life. Sometimes it is exactly that—petty and corrosive—but other times a blunt truth, or a refusal to perform, breaks the spell and lets someone walk free. Cheap validation eats at both sides; clear honesty can be a release.
The book also probes our defenses: the careful walls we build and then mistake for personality, the urge to reorder time to fit our favorite narrative, the thrill of “burning it all down” as if reinvention were the same as healing. It’s unsparing about the allure of shortcuts—substances, performance, performative positivity—and how each promises relief while quietly deepening the debt. Control, it argues, is not the same as freedom; a polished façade is not the same as intimacy.
One of the most intriguing threads is metafiction: the protagonist of “Girl’s March”, the fictional novel within the novel, aligns with two of Sumino’s heroines, and we’re left to puzzle out which one “The Girl” maps to more. That ambiguity isn’t a trick—it’s an invitation. The inner book refuses to hand us a single stage or a single moral; it reflects back our own preoccupations and asks the oldest, most destabilizing question in fiction: what would YOU do?
Finally, rather one of the most important aspects of the book is that when you live by other people’s expectations, you can drift toward a despair so deep that the only hope seems to be living inside your favourite story, even if that fantasy veers toward the most extreme escape. The novel acknowledges that temptation without endorsing it. Its counteroffer is stubbornly modest: choose what makes you genuinely happy whenever you can; accept help before the crisis headline arrives; cultivate a life rather than waiting to find one already in bloom. The work is slow and unshowy, but it’s the only way to stop the bleeding without tearing yourself open again.
———
RATING: 10/10
———
“Akane framed it as a selfish imposition—a humble request that the receiver could choose to grant at her convenience. Miyu was the type who avoided being alone as much as possible, unless it was mandated by work or school, but she was insecure about coming off as needy. So when Akane made it sound as though the stars had aligned out of sheer coincidence, Miyu lit up.”
“Not once had she ever felt the joy of conveying her feelings exactly as she felt them.”
“The moment they met was as mundane as a rolling orange colliding with someone's shoe.”
“This was something she hallucinated from time to time. Whenever her self-hatred surpassed the point that no amount of tongue-biting could control it, a small white room would appear, overlaid with reality. Four blank walls with no windows or doors—silent and sterile, like a solitary confinement cell. Inside the room was the real her, dreaming of the day she would be allowed outside, even though she was sure it would only ever be just that: a dream.”
“She could taste coppery red, clashing with the stark white room that overlaid her view.”
“The tacked-on insult carried the scent of sweet poison.”
“He seemed to quickly realize that she was referencing their conversation at the cafe, and didn't even try to hide his annoyance. Of course, her desire to be liked would normally never let her provoke that kind of reaction from a friend, so she convinced herself that she was merely laying the groundwork to be loved.”
“If only she could say it out loud, would the desire to die finally go away?”
“Unlike his classmates, celebrities with fanbases always had at least one or two haters. Whenever he insulted a famous person, someone always responded to it, and he experienced a level of attention he never got in his normal life. It was an extremely easy way to feel something akin to an accomplishment. So while he wasn't conscious of it, he liked when the celebs he targeted did controversial things on a daily basis.”
“They're desperate for something in life to care about, and they're dumb enough to think disparaging a stranger will give them a crumb of self-esteem. Your anger is wasted on them, Mei.”
“To Julia, the flow of time was not linear. It could be rearranged like puzzle pieces to fit her mental image.”
“Because Ogusu Nanoka didn't directly offer readers a stage for the story, it wasn't restricted to a single shape, and could reflect any number of real-world problems, making the reader question their own hearts and daily lives. It felt like she was asking, ‘What would YOU do in this situation?’”
“But even when she was naked, even when she soaked herself in hot water, she never felt truly bare.”
“Julia was proud of the walls she'd erected between herself and the world, and she had faith that that wad what everyone wanted. She never dreamed that they'd one day want her to tear it all down.”
“Through some law of physics, each ball went rolling off in its own direction and one fell into a pocket before either of them could even try to go for it. Akane wondered if this was what happened to the human body in a car accident.”
“Not once had The Girl ever found a flower already in bloom. She always had to make it happen herself.”
“Well, I may have incinerated my past, but as you can see, I'm doing just fine. So for those of you having a rough time right now, just keep your head up and once day you'll get to burn it all down.”
“It tasted so good, she could almost trick herself into thinking alcohol's entire purpose was to facilitate this moment when she was freed from her suffering.”
“Tonight, as with every other night, she was re-reading it in order to keep herself from falling apart.”
“To be blunt, he had no interest in the book itself. He didn't get any enjoyment out of novels—all that tiny text made his eyes tired. In elementary school, he always hated being forced to read excerpts and describe how the authors felt writing them, and from that point onward, he had never once gone out of his way to read a book.”
“She knew it was her true self because it was hidden somewhere only she could find it, and since she was the only one looking, she had a clear view of her own ugliness.”
“Then she realized that some part of her was trying ro mirror Miyu's tastes and it made her want to die.”
“‘Die,’ she whispered to her sickening reflection.”
“You can't do that.”
“Her heart ached as she imagined the emotional reaction of a teenage girl she didn't know. It must have felt so isolating—so INVALIDATING.”
“How does one go through life without ever doubting or hating themselves? I suspect that's exactly what people like us have always yearned for.”
“At that moment, Tatsuaki had yet to consider that a nobody like him could be responsible for altering someone's entire future with a single sentence.”
“I thought she was trying to brainwash us.”
“The need to be liked was slowly crushing her, and now she knew she could expect to be suffocated like this every single day for the rest of her life. In truth, she wanted nothing more than to escape from this stark white void of isolation.”
“All the people and things she'd seen today—all the smiles that were directed not at her real self, but the façade—rose and faded in her mind, over and over, until just one remained. Not her family, not her friends, not even her ex-boyfriend, but the girl she saw every morning in the mirror, glaring at her.
‘Die.’”
“They had no way of hearing a voice without sound.”
“You've never once stopped to imagine how it would feel to have your true self locked away, but that sure won't stop you from telling me I'm wrong, now will it?”
“You don't have to be on death's door for me to hold your hand.”
“Even if your personality or perception makes you so scared you want to die, I think you should keep living and do whatever makes you happiest, as much as you possibly can. This isn't me trying to pity you, by the way. I love all my friends, and none of them are perfect! That includes you.”
“Her heart still ached, but if she didn't have to bear it alone, then perhaps she could find it in her to keep trying, one day at a time.”
“Every experience we have in life is purely by chance, be it favourable, not so favourable, extraordinary, or mundane.”
“Every person, including you, including me, is a faceless character who was perhaps a protagonist at one point. Likewise, a novel is merely a narrow slice of ALL its characters, not an excuse to choose one to bless one with disproportionate fortune. In a world where so many choices are readily made for us by circumstance, luck, and other things beyond our control, I'm grateful that you're still here today.”
“I wish for this story to always and forever be solely yours.”
November 22, 2024
The book took a little while to ramp up, but once we really saw the interplay between Akane and Julia (mostly - but Ai as well, particularly later in the story) and the snippets we learn about Girl’s March, it just felt very… cutting but in a quiet way. And Julia and Akane make such good mirrors of each other, with one being “just a girl” and the other being a public figure.
It is a lot darker than it first seems, especially inside Akane’s head - but I think that really sells her mindset and just how dire everything is, even though it would seem anything but on the surface.
It is a lot darker than it first seems, especially inside Akane’s head - but I think that really sells her mindset and just how dire everything is, even though it would seem anything but on the surface.
January 14, 2025
Suica Cards und Smoking Areas, fühlt sich so an als hätte ich Japan gar nicht verlassen @fey 🫶🫶
December 23, 2024
How many kinds of psychopathy stubbornly persist in the modern world? And should one ever stumble upon any agreeable impression of these variations, how might one go about smuggling them into some semblance of logic, order, or truth? Sumino's novel has an idea.
Of kind and variation, madness comes in many colors: the quiet simmering of a bratty youth's unearned indignation, the impolite wealth of a lifetime of indifference, the comical delusions of angst and anger (and their equally farcical consequences), and the seemingly contemporary but roundly ancient affectation for what most might call "the attention economy." Sumino's RIPPING SOMEONE OPEN ONLY MAKES THEM BLEED is a critical observation of the routine intersection of pride, vanity, jealousy, and presumptuousness, concerning both the interior and exterior worlds. Does a schoolgirl with deteriorating mental health have a reasonable means of reattaching to reality? Does a disassociated pop star deserve the friendships so near to her grasp?
Intriguing, and slowly edging toward the chaotic, one finds Itobayashi Akane, 17, whose premier failing is that she struggles to understand herself. Her desire to be liked by others, and to control the circumstances and variables constitutive of that likability, means every emotion and every behavior is tightly calculated and controlled. Itobayashi is a manipulative little fool. And in RIPPING SOMEONE OPEN ONLY MAKES THEM BLEED, readers find the girl fighting with herself over the integrity of this manipulative disposition, its utility, and end purpose. The turning point? Itobayashi reads a book in which she so closely identifies with the protagonist that she convinces herself that she is the protagonist (and that the book's events, too, mirror her perceived reality).
The dangers of eisegesis are not new, but the context always changes, and with the change in context comes a fatalistic change in the consequences.
Itobayashi isn't the only character too full of herself, but she is clearly the most unstable and the most dangerous. The novel frames the girl's descent from clarity rather remarkably, as the girl's unfailing confidence in her favorite book (which she believes was either written for, or about, her, specifically) and in her favored interpretation of the book (to parallel her personal trauma) only manifest when the girl evinces herself capable of distinguishing it. Self-harm, outrage, shame, and more, invariably follow ("She had acquired a reality worth fare more than the fleeting joy gained from misconception," page 47).
And so, RIPPING SOMEONE OPEN ONLY MAKES THEM BLEED asks of readers: What corollaries might be in evidence in the wake of a person who repeatedly, vocally, and stridently deceives herself into believing a false world is the real world? The more visible the crucible of self-discernment, when the perils of ego are more broadly and equitably distributed, the more widespread the violence, despair, and consequences of the false narrative.
Itobayashi is a high-school girl who shuns her true emotions at every turn. Ukawa Ai is quite the opposite. Ukawa is an adult who works at an underground concert venue, and his indifference to others appears to many as sheer coldness. He treasures his friends, but rarely feels so invested as to sidestep practical advice when someone he knows rather obviously lacks self-control. Whatever happens, happens. To Ukawa, years as a misspent youth have shaped him such that happiness, pain, anger, and uncertainty can exist equally and without reprisal ("[H]e let his anger live freely in his heart without trying to ignore it or tame it into something else," page 123). But Ukawa's penchant for serving as a bystander to his own life is tested when Itobayashi demands attention, whether truthfully or falsely.
Itobayashi adores attention and basks in the confidence she convinces others to place in her. Uemura Tatsuaki, her classmate, is quite the opposite. Uemura is a fascinating character for how closely he mimes the delusional intransigence of an angry young male ego. Indeed, "Tatsuaki wanted to stand above the rest" (page 286), so he secretly records others, he eavesdrops on their conversations, he scrutinizes their social media livelihoods, he spends too much time trolling celebrities, and so forth. The young man's grip on reality is firmly rooted in his presumption of intellectual superiority and his unending effort to mask his insecurities with adolescent rage. For Uemura, as for many his age, being angry at someone else means ignoring the precarious pains within himself. He may be a nobody, surrounded by attractive people and adults with too much authority, but his worthlessness feels all the more invasive when that insecurity turns into shame, when that shame turns into anger, and when that anger turns into something worse.
Itobayashi is obsessed with controlling how others perceive the self. Gotou Julia, a rising pop idol, takes it a step further. To a point, "from the moment [Gotou] started her career, she was keenly aware of her role as a spectacle to be witnessed" (page 265). However, Gotou focuses on "storylines," or narratives, that reassure her that the world's (and her fans') limited encounters with her are as pristine and precise as she wants. She's an adult, she works hard, and she enjoys her job. And yet, Gotou is a slave to the eternal and ritualistic quest of self-validation. Success means proving to the world that she is exactly who she says she is, according to her own rules, and in line with whatever professional spectacle to which she has agreed. But Gotou's past relationship with Ukawa informs readers that breaking clean into this new identity is not as easy as one might posit. And Gotou's current life as an idol, under the withering scrutiny of irate teens and ignorant fans, likewise portends an ignominious end if she, too, is unable to resurrect her true self while fighting for place and prestige within a manufactured narrative.
RIPPING SOMEONE OPEN ONLY MAKES THEM BLEED is an incredible book, but not for its complex and winding, multiple points of view. The book is a solid read for its unflinching glimpse of the pathologies inherent in a modern culture obsessed with self-justification, idolatry, wish fulfillment, anger fulfillment, and all of the appropriate and accompanying forms of narcissism. Sumino's previous novels specified individual facets of the human condition that often go awry. RIPPING SOMEONE OPEN ONLY MAKES THEM BLEED pops open an umbrella and welcomes as many as it can muster with a single unrepentant breath.
Lyrically and structurally, the book is firmer and more engaging than the author' more recently released titles, and longtime readers of Sumino's work will appreciate the added attention to ensuring these characters feel increasingly genuine. It's always pleasant to encounter a passage or two, in which the author reminds readers of their skill as a creative demiurge beyond the hassles of egocentric characters and their ill-fated plots: "But in that moment, her heart was a two-tone gradient of praying he wasn't and wishing he was. In the fog of ambiguity, there was no telling which was which" (page 339).
Of kind and variation, madness comes in many colors: the quiet simmering of a bratty youth's unearned indignation, the impolite wealth of a lifetime of indifference, the comical delusions of angst and anger (and their equally farcical consequences), and the seemingly contemporary but roundly ancient affectation for what most might call "the attention economy." Sumino's RIPPING SOMEONE OPEN ONLY MAKES THEM BLEED is a critical observation of the routine intersection of pride, vanity, jealousy, and presumptuousness, concerning both the interior and exterior worlds. Does a schoolgirl with deteriorating mental health have a reasonable means of reattaching to reality? Does a disassociated pop star deserve the friendships so near to her grasp?
Intriguing, and slowly edging toward the chaotic, one finds Itobayashi Akane, 17, whose premier failing is that she struggles to understand herself. Her desire to be liked by others, and to control the circumstances and variables constitutive of that likability, means every emotion and every behavior is tightly calculated and controlled. Itobayashi is a manipulative little fool. And in RIPPING SOMEONE OPEN ONLY MAKES THEM BLEED, readers find the girl fighting with herself over the integrity of this manipulative disposition, its utility, and end purpose. The turning point? Itobayashi reads a book in which she so closely identifies with the protagonist that she convinces herself that she is the protagonist (and that the book's events, too, mirror her perceived reality).
The dangers of eisegesis are not new, but the context always changes, and with the change in context comes a fatalistic change in the consequences.
Itobayashi isn't the only character too full of herself, but she is clearly the most unstable and the most dangerous. The novel frames the girl's descent from clarity rather remarkably, as the girl's unfailing confidence in her favorite book (which she believes was either written for, or about, her, specifically) and in her favored interpretation of the book (to parallel her personal trauma) only manifest when the girl evinces herself capable of distinguishing it. Self-harm, outrage, shame, and more, invariably follow ("She had acquired a reality worth fare more than the fleeting joy gained from misconception," page 47).
And so, RIPPING SOMEONE OPEN ONLY MAKES THEM BLEED asks of readers: What corollaries might be in evidence in the wake of a person who repeatedly, vocally, and stridently deceives herself into believing a false world is the real world? The more visible the crucible of self-discernment, when the perils of ego are more broadly and equitably distributed, the more widespread the violence, despair, and consequences of the false narrative.
Itobayashi is a high-school girl who shuns her true emotions at every turn. Ukawa Ai is quite the opposite. Ukawa is an adult who works at an underground concert venue, and his indifference to others appears to many as sheer coldness. He treasures his friends, but rarely feels so invested as to sidestep practical advice when someone he knows rather obviously lacks self-control. Whatever happens, happens. To Ukawa, years as a misspent youth have shaped him such that happiness, pain, anger, and uncertainty can exist equally and without reprisal ("[H]e let his anger live freely in his heart without trying to ignore it or tame it into something else," page 123). But Ukawa's penchant for serving as a bystander to his own life is tested when Itobayashi demands attention, whether truthfully or falsely.
Itobayashi adores attention and basks in the confidence she convinces others to place in her. Uemura Tatsuaki, her classmate, is quite the opposite. Uemura is a fascinating character for how closely he mimes the delusional intransigence of an angry young male ego. Indeed, "Tatsuaki wanted to stand above the rest" (page 286), so he secretly records others, he eavesdrops on their conversations, he scrutinizes their social media livelihoods, he spends too much time trolling celebrities, and so forth. The young man's grip on reality is firmly rooted in his presumption of intellectual superiority and his unending effort to mask his insecurities with adolescent rage. For Uemura, as for many his age, being angry at someone else means ignoring the precarious pains within himself. He may be a nobody, surrounded by attractive people and adults with too much authority, but his worthlessness feels all the more invasive when that insecurity turns into shame, when that shame turns into anger, and when that anger turns into something worse.
Itobayashi is obsessed with controlling how others perceive the self. Gotou Julia, a rising pop idol, takes it a step further. To a point, "from the moment [Gotou] started her career, she was keenly aware of her role as a spectacle to be witnessed" (page 265). However, Gotou focuses on "storylines," or narratives, that reassure her that the world's (and her fans') limited encounters with her are as pristine and precise as she wants. She's an adult, she works hard, and she enjoys her job. And yet, Gotou is a slave to the eternal and ritualistic quest of self-validation. Success means proving to the world that she is exactly who she says she is, according to her own rules, and in line with whatever professional spectacle to which she has agreed. But Gotou's past relationship with Ukawa informs readers that breaking clean into this new identity is not as easy as one might posit. And Gotou's current life as an idol, under the withering scrutiny of irate teens and ignorant fans, likewise portends an ignominious end if she, too, is unable to resurrect her true self while fighting for place and prestige within a manufactured narrative.
RIPPING SOMEONE OPEN ONLY MAKES THEM BLEED is an incredible book, but not for its complex and winding, multiple points of view. The book is a solid read for its unflinching glimpse of the pathologies inherent in a modern culture obsessed with self-justification, idolatry, wish fulfillment, anger fulfillment, and all of the appropriate and accompanying forms of narcissism. Sumino's previous novels specified individual facets of the human condition that often go awry. RIPPING SOMEONE OPEN ONLY MAKES THEM BLEED pops open an umbrella and welcomes as many as it can muster with a single unrepentant breath.
Lyrically and structurally, the book is firmer and more engaging than the author' more recently released titles, and longtime readers of Sumino's work will appreciate the added attention to ensuring these characters feel increasingly genuine. It's always pleasant to encounter a passage or two, in which the author reminds readers of their skill as a creative demiurge beyond the hassles of egocentric characters and their ill-fated plots: "But in that moment, her heart was a two-tone gradient of praying he wasn't and wishing he was. In the fog of ambiguity, there was no telling which was which" (page 339).
October 6, 2024
This book was so good :) the main character I feel is so relatable and later in the book you really get to thinking about the book “girls march” I love the ending and how it always goes back to the girl in the white room and I love when akane is doing something the girl in the book would do they reference her as “the girl”
February 8, 2025
Very conflicted about how to rate this book. Parts of me liked it, parts of me found it very annoying...but I also enjoyed it a lot more than I expected?! I don't know...
I will say, I feel like the English translation was very mid. But I didn't have a terrible time reading this and the audiobook was performed well too!
I will say, I feel like the English translation was very mid. But I didn't have a terrible time reading this and the audiobook was performed well too!
February 12, 2025
Probably my second favorite Sumino. It would take a lot to displace _I Want to Eat Your Pancreas_ for me. While I don't feel I was anyone in particular in the book, I feel like aspects of the book and characters were things I could relate to. Having just finished it moments ago I am still processing how I feel about it all, but can say for certain it was worth the read for me.
April 8, 2025
Not a perfect story, from a technical standpoint it struggles with pacing and trying to highlight too many perspectives at once, but the emotional core makes up for it. In my mind, this is what a Light Novel should be and I can totally see it affecting someone the way "Girl's March" affects Akane. A solid read!
June 30, 2025
Well let's just say I am disappointed. I liked the authors book "I Had That Same Dream Again" a ton, but this book fell short on a lot of things. Uninteresting characters and just not a interesting storyline.
November 13, 2024
Really well written. To me, embodied the concept of you'll only ever find what you're looking for. Can't form more coherent thoughts to express my feelings rn.
January 18, 2025
Very good story! Loved all of the characters!! Yoru Sumino is truly a master when it comes to developing characters!! Can’t wait to read more of their work.
January 29, 2025
Another great story by Yoru Sumino!
February 10, 2025
Beautifully written, painfully relatable. Perfectly reasonable and realistic outcome, magnificent ending.
April 21, 2025
DNF - definitely not my style
August 12, 2025
This book is boring and the main character is annoying and unlikable. I really liked I Want to Eat Your Pancreas, so I thought I would listen to this book but I didn't enjoy it at all.
March 22, 2025
Wow I picked this book up randomly at an airport and read the entire thing on my flight. I really loved this book. I did find it rather confusing with all the perspective changes. I can only imagine if I could really read Girls March it would be a terrible book from the way it's described. Not to self insert as Akane but this book made me feel so many emotions. It felt like it truly pulled something out from my own heart and bared it on the pages.
May 5, 2025
I have thought about this book and how it dealt with many of my own psychological pathologies too much over the past month to give it anything lower than a 5.
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