beta
yo is anyone else hyped for the new Gorillaz album?? I listened to several of the tracks (non singles) and Busted and Blue is pretty bangin imo
Yess!!! Im syked they always have at least 3 good songs in every album
Yes! Ive even preordered it on vinyl, haha. Ive tried to avoid listening to the songs that havent been released yet, but all the ones ive heard are amazing!
tfw you read a BL involving multiple couples and your favorite couple only gets 3 chapters while the ones you don't care about get 30 whole volumes
My issue isn’t even that Akamine and Utsumi are toxic. The story makes that obvious. Rather, I take issue with how the story continuously flagellates Akamine for a rape that he doesn’t even remember committing, all while Utsumi rapes and backstabs him… and the narrative continues to sympathize with Utsumi. Yes, rape is Really Fucking Bad. But from what is shown, Utsumi is even more violent than Akamine is, yet he is framed as both Akamine’s victim and Akamine’s savior - for all of his violence and machinations, Utsumi is supposedly this tragic guy who spent years resenting and pining for Akamine, and is saving Akamine from his own unrequited feelings for Saeki. Like, the story shows how getting raped ruined Utsumi’s life, but he does the same thing and more to Akamine, who not only refuses to fault Utsumi for literally anything, but proceeds to blame himself for hurting Utsumi’s feelings… by being in love with Saeki. Seriously? The guy ruins your life and admits to conspiring with the man you love to manipulate you into committing white collar crime, and all you can think about is the guilt and pain of unrequited love?
Beyond the premise this story is hardly all that shocking. The story moves past the rape by chapter 6 anyway in favor of a psychological love triangle, gay yearning, and corporate politics. Rape becomes secondary to the primary grievance of unrequited love; Utsumi even fantasizes about fucking Akamine in the alley he was raped in, which is played for laughs. The first few chapters almost feel like an entirely different story; Akamine is shown as openly belligerent in chapter 1, and afterwards he becomes this passive, self-pitying guy. He’s a violent drunk, but this is never explored past the first chapter. It’s like the mangaka initially planned on writing a darker story but decided on a tragic love story after the fact.
Like yeah everyone in this story is fucked up and selfish, but it would have been far more compelling if Akamine asserted himself and tried to push back - you know, reciprocal retribution, like an actual revenge story. But he doesn’t. He shows hints of pushing back in chapter 1, but this goes nowhere. Instead he’s entirely passive, goes woe is me, Saeki doesn’t love me, I hurt Utsumi, I’m a terrible employee. Despite everything, I do like Utsumi and Akamine together, but this story is pretty maudlin in retrospect.