Hige wo Soru. Soshite Joshikousei wo Hirou.

[Kraco]

Well, all of the pieces are here now. Did it work for you? It more or less did for me. The sympathetic friend suicide is a trope that gets me more often than not, and it comboed well with the mother's callousness.

It was already heavily suggested in an earlier episode that Sayu's friend would kill herself, so it wasn't any big surprise. I suppose this was quite a textbook background. Still worlds above any incest shit, though.

Brother was a bit too permissive for someone that holds a steady job... Give her cash and tell her to call you if she "thinks she's in danger"? Nah, she can stay at a local hotel if the objective is to give her distance from her mother.

I'd say that was the brother's, and also the mother's, personality problem. Those two are most likely quite similar personalities: emotionally stable, not thinking too much about anything useless, goal-oriented, efficient, not too sympathetic by nature in their practicality. So, when shit hit the fan in this sort of manner, they didn't really have any tools to deal with it, since nothing like that could ever happen because of their own actions. My theory is the brother just thought Sayu needs a bit of space, but he had no idea how emotionally damaged she was because it would be alien to his own nature. I reckon he really thought she would live for a week or two in a hotel, then come back as good as new once the money was all gone. Because that's likely the extent of his imagination and everything he himself would have needed.

On another note, how miserable is the depiction of the average Japanese man? It is that special to find someone who doesn't demand sexual favors for humanitarian aid of a minor?

Most people don't want to get involved in anything strange looking and simply pretend they didn't see anything. Another big portion would get it sorted out through the officials. A small minority would get personally involved. I reckon that city street might have even been close to some dubious parts of the town, so the portion of those wanting to get personally involved with unwholesome aims would be larger. After that first time, I'd go as far as saying Sayu was specifically looking for suitable types to allow that kind of living.