Totally agree and can relate with your view of the manga. I had the same mindset as you jumping in this rollercoaster of a manga lol.
The latter part of your comment I'm not so sure of.
What problem do you refer to in the "The fact that significantly older man develops relationship with minor is so common it is a symptom of the problem"-part?
As you can see in the topics/comments here, there are some people confused by the negative reaction to the interest the blond guy has been showing in seunghee. I was thinking of a comment in particular when I wrote what you quoted but I can't seem to find it now. But it referenced several other BL couples with large age gaps between adults and minors that apparently no one had issues with. That's what I wanted to point out as a problem. That there are so many adult-minor couples, and that they're not usually presented negatively in-story. The ones I remember that they listed were junjou romantica, and kuroshitsuji (I don't think that's bl, actually, despite all the doujinshi). I started reading bl very young and didn't realize a lot of common BL tropes were bad until I was older and started reading discussions on those things. So I'm hoping that the fact that we're having these discussions here is helpful to people, especially if they're young and naive like I was. Don't want kids thinking that adults being romantically interested in teenagers is perfectly okay, at least.
Another point I wanted to emphasize that this manhwa makes is that young, insecure, and socially isolated lgbt kids are at-risk of being taken advantage of and manipulated by adults in the communities that they try to find support in. There's the stereotype of the "gay pedophile predator" that's overblown by homophobes that these adult-minor couples play into. It's not a good thing, especially when a lot of BL is made by presumably straight women for other presumably straight women. Let's not fetishize gay relationships. So I'm very appreciative of this manhwa for not romanticizing this particular issue. I hope it helps someone who needs it.
Ah, yes I got you.
The issue of romanticizing an relationship between an adult-minor is certainly a recurring theme in many bl's. Though I do want to believe the authors did not have the younger demographics in mind while writing . I would say they're appropriating their bl for teens and up, or for those who have the ability to think critically and take the content with a grain of salt.
Also I believe that the fans/readers are partly at fault for being too accepting of the theme by making djs and fanfictions with certain controversial couples... Authors would feel further inclined to write more as long as the feedback is shown to be positive.
I do appreciate the author as well for the raw and realistic portrayal of seunghee and blondie. Tbh manhwa like this are so much more interesting to read as they are so few. It motivates for discussion, and as you said, resulting in raising further awareness of the issue at hand.
I was initially put off by this because the title and the summary led me to believe it'd go down a certain road of clichés and it almost does at the beginning. But I'm impressed with where the story has gone and how it managed it. I'm definitely gonna buy this soon. The thought and skill put into this should be rewarded. I didn't expect all everything between seungtaek and kyubin, but I'm very into it. Seunghee has been frustrating but I'm not gonna hate on him because it's understandable really. I just hope that now when he gets the focus he can find friends and all that good stuff. The path won't be smooth but I hope the creator knows what they're doing and doesn't break my heart.
Yikes at all the pedophile apologists in these comments though. This story is making a whole point about an issue facing young, lonely lgbt individuals and some people are missing it hard. The fact that BL where "significantly older man develops relationship with minor" is so common is a symptom of the problem. I had to laugh at the one comment listing all of them because yeah... they're all pedophilic and wrong. Many of us read and/or watched them at a time when we didn't know better and were young ourselves. I know I was, at least. We can recognize them for what they are now, hopefully.
You're free to enjoy your morally dubious to outright terrible things, just don't pretend like they're not bad.