To give a one sentence summary of this story: This is a porny, BL version of Madoka Magica. Even the ending was similar to Madoka, but like… badly written.
For those looking to read this: it’s not bad. I overall liked the story and if you like yanderes, you’ll like this. But I and most people don’t like the ending. It’s not the worst, but it’s definitely bad. It ends happily… But not the way you want it to.
Long ass review incoming(has spoilers, not including ending that’s a different review): I REALLY liked the first half of the story. I’m someone who eats up yanderes so initially I was fine with the darker turn the story took. So I wanna start out with the positives. I love the art. The art is gorgeous and the characters are very expressive. The artist is very good at being able to express the tone with her art. I also really liked our MC Chiwoo. He’s utterly adorable and I actually really liked the way his trauma and sadness was written throughout the story. He’s a happy guy that likes somebody he feels like he shouldn’t, and then later on when his heart is shattered by that very man he loves his mental health goes downhill, and by the third season where he has nobody and nothing he’s almost completely different. His downward spiral was not badly written and I was able to sympathize a lot with him. I have a controversial take: I actually liked the initial direction Hwan (our ML)’s character was going. In the first season, you see everything purely from Chiwoo’s pov, so you think Hwan is a nice, kind guy who loves Chiwoo in a friendly way. This does get torn away tho, because of a non-con scene where he takes advantage of Chiron when he’s asleep. I thought it was interesting at first, seeing this guy we think is just chill and nice, but has a dark side hidden. The story also brushes it off, and Chiwoo never finds out, so it’s almost like the readers are put unease, b/c this guy is clearly not a good person, but he’s always super nice so is it just a one off thing? The 2nd season is where we find out tho, that this guy is a dark, possessive character who has actually never been who we thought he was. I loved this, and then I didn’t. Which leads me to my criticisms of the story.
I feel like the issue this story has is that it has three seasons, and every season has an incredibly different tone that Sagold (artist and author) guns for, which was really not a good idea. If she was a better writer, I think she could’ve pulled it off. But… she’s not, so it just feels like she has an idea in her head with what direction to take the story, but then every seasonal break decides she doesn’t like it and wants to take a different approach. The first season was filled with *interesting* sex scenes, so it was kinda fun even though they’re pretty non-consent. Each villain’s character design is actually peak, and honestly every villain was dare I say hotter than the ML himself. You can tell Sagold had fun crafting their designs. The second season you get to know more about Hwan(the ML), and the darker feelings he has for Chiwoo(our cutie mc). The third season is just kinda… Bad. It felt like the author didn’t know how to end it bc she wanted our leads to get back together, but realized she didn’t know how to write it. This ties back to my criticism of Hwan and Sagold. Sagold writes Hwan’s unforgivable actions, but then realizes now in the third season that by this point there’s no easy way of making Chiwoo come back to him within the length of 17 chapters she outlines her final season to have. She tries to make him more sympathetic, but her own writing bites her in the ass b/c season 2 focuses a lot on Chiwoo’s friendship with the 2nd ML and how much he cares for him. So now in season 3 she tries to de-emphasize Hwan’s bad actions and more focus on how his life sucks without Chiwoo in an attempt to make the readers like him again. The issue with writing a redemption arc is that you have to be good at it. Sagold is not. Your characters can be evil, but you cant easily turn them from horrible, killing-your-best-friend-evil, to i’m-so-horrible-for-you-leave-me-alone-edgy emo kid Hwan is in the last five chapters of the story. Imo, she should’ve just stuck to her guns and just made Hwan stay as he was in season 2, and if she really wanted to keep Chiwoo and Hwan together perhaps made Chiwoo more depressed and in turn more willing to stay with Hwan, who knows all of Chiwoo’s secrets and so is the only person who truly knows Chiwoo. Chiwoo is lonely and lost, so making him feel tethered to Hwan, and rationalizes to himself why Hwan would kill 2nd ML.
Writing a review of the ending as a diff post because this is too long lmao.
To give a one sentence summary of this story: This is a porny, BL version of Madoka Magica. Even the ending was similar to Madoka, but like… badly written.
For those looking to read this: it’s not bad. I overall liked the story and if you like yanderes, you’ll like this. But I and most people don’t like the ending. It’s not the worst, but it’s definitely bad. It ends happily… But not the way you want it to.
Long ass review incoming(has spoilers, not including ending that’s a different review):
I REALLY liked the first half of the story. I’m someone who eats up yanderes so initially I was fine with the darker turn the story took. So I wanna start out with the positives. I love the art. The art is gorgeous and the characters are very expressive. The artist is very good at being able to express the tone with her art. I also really liked our MC Chiwoo. He’s utterly adorable and I actually really liked the way his trauma and sadness was written throughout the story. He’s a happy guy that likes somebody he feels like he shouldn’t, and then later on when his heart is shattered by that very man he loves his mental health goes downhill, and by the third season where he has nobody and nothing he’s almost completely different. His downward spiral was not badly written and I was able to sympathize a lot with him. I have a controversial take: I actually liked the initial direction Hwan (our ML)’s character was going. In the first season, you see everything purely from Chiwoo’s pov, so you think Hwan is a nice, kind guy who loves Chiwoo in a friendly way. This does get torn away tho, because of a non-con scene where he takes advantage of Chiron when he’s asleep. I thought it was interesting at first, seeing this guy we think is just chill and nice, but has a dark side hidden. The story also brushes it off, and Chiwoo never finds out, so it’s almost like the readers are put unease, b/c this guy is clearly not a good person, but he’s always super nice so is it just a one off thing? The 2nd season is where we find out tho, that this guy is a dark, possessive character who has actually never been who we thought he was. I loved this, and then I didn’t. Which leads me to my criticisms of the story.
I feel like the issue this story has is that it has three seasons, and every season has an incredibly different tone that Sagold (artist and author) guns for, which was really not a good idea. If she was a better writer, I think she could’ve pulled it off. But… she’s not, so it just feels like she has an idea in her head with what direction to take the story, but then every seasonal break decides she doesn’t like it and wants to take a different approach. The first season was filled with *interesting* sex scenes, so it was kinda fun even though they’re pretty non-consent. Each villain’s character design is actually peak, and honestly every villain was dare I say hotter than the ML himself. You can tell Sagold had fun crafting their designs. The second season you get to know more about Hwan(the ML), and the darker feelings he has for Chiwoo(our cutie mc). The third season is just kinda… Bad. It felt like the author didn’t know how to end it bc she wanted our leads to get back together, but realized she didn’t know how to write it. This ties back to my criticism of Hwan and Sagold. Sagold writes Hwan’s unforgivable actions, but then realizes now in the third season that by this point there’s no easy way of making Chiwoo come back to him within the length of 17 chapters she outlines her final season to have. She tries to make him more sympathetic, but her own writing bites her in the ass b/c season 2 focuses a lot on Chiwoo’s friendship with the 2nd ML and how much he cares for him. So now in season 3 she tries to de-emphasize Hwan’s bad actions and more focus on how his life sucks without Chiwoo in an attempt to make the readers like him again. The issue with writing a redemption arc is that you have to be good at it. Sagold is not. Your characters can be evil, but you cant easily turn them from horrible, killing-your-best-friend-evil, to i’m-so-horrible-for-you-leave-me-alone-edgy emo kid Hwan is in the last five chapters of the story. Imo, she should’ve just stuck to her guns and just made Hwan stay as he was in season 2, and if she really wanted to keep Chiwoo and Hwan together perhaps made Chiwoo more depressed and in turn more willing to stay with Hwan, who knows all of Chiwoo’s secrets and so is the only person who truly knows Chiwoo. Chiwoo is lonely and lost, so making him feel tethered to Hwan, and rationalizes to himself why Hwan would kill 2nd ML.
Writing a review of the ending as a diff post because this is too long lmao.