chlorine's Manga

I'm not really sure what I think of this. It was good, I enjoyed it and I especially loved the characters—the title character in particular—but it just . . . Moved a little too fast for my liking.

The biggest issue this story has is that it just doesn't let itself breathe, which for a story that is exactly ninety chapters, was an issue that took me incredibly off guard. If anything, I had braced myself for the opposite.

For example, once Shavonne falls in love with Lewellyn, as soon as he confesses his love he gets Lewellyn to promise to stop killing—which Lewellyn upholds, which in and of itself is kind of surprising considering him being a serial killer was initially the entire appeal of the story—and then as soon as they start dating, Shavonne starts pulling back and convincing himself he shouldn't fall in love.

The story starts with a good, steady pace, but once it starts to pick up, it never slows down despite the fact that I think the story would've rather greatly benefitted from it. It's nonstop conflict after conflict and because there isn't that slowness between each story beat, some of the conflict—such as Shavonne pulling back from the relationship due to the fear he has over the possibility of Lewellyn leaving him—feels underdeveloped and out of left field.

Another thing is that a very specific plot aspect ended up feeling a little lackluster; a good chunk of this story is a flashback, dealing with the years Shavonne can't remember in which he worked at a prison and the unique relationship he had with Lewellyn, a prisoner there. Lewellyn is called "The Dog," assumedly because he always bites and attacks the other prison guards. But when Shavonne visits him, Lewellyn doesn't bite. And this part of the story is genuinely, unarguably the standout. It was phenomenal.

The dynamic between Shavonne and Lewellyn during that time was just so perfect to me, and struck my heart in such a direct way. The imagery of Lewellyn with the dog muzzle and the way he's been dehumanized by all these other guards reminds me of the quote, "I'm not a violent dog, I don't know why I bite," from the movie 'Isle of Dogs.' He's been raised in that environment, growing up only knowing abuse. He isn't allowed to speak, and when he does speak, he barely knows how to because he wasn't ever taught to write or read. He was raised as The Dog. So when Shavonne enters his life, and is the first person at all to show him sympathy and kindness and actually view him as a person, it's like he opens a whole new world to Lewellyn. Lewellyn slowly learns how to be a person, and falls in love. He's head-over-heels for Shavonne and undyingly loyal.

And then one night, when Shavonne enters Lewellyn's cell, he's completely different. He's stern and stoic, completely apathetic. It's as if he doesn't care for Lewellyn at all and the love they once shared is now gone. All he does is sit in a chair and pretend to be asleep. And it tears Lewellyn up. He's worried he's done something wrong and he's constantly trying so desperately to win back Shavonne's affection. And it's like this for a while. But some days Shavonne would return to his old, warmhearted self, as if there's a crack in his facade. And you just don't get why. Earlier in the story, in the present time, it's heavily alluded to that Shavonne is under some type of mind control which is tied to his amnesia. So you figure that his change is attitude is because of the mind control.

It is not.

It turns out that the other prisoner guards and higher-ups found out about Shavonne's nightly visits, so one of the higher-ups tasks him to basically groom and manipulate Lewellyn into becoming a weapon. He is to domesticate The Dog. But that's just something Shavonne struggles to do, so it makes him have what's essentially a mental breakdown. That's why he's so apathetic and constantly swinging from one emotion to the other. Which . . . I just thought it was really lame, honestly. I feel like his sudden change in behavior and then constant wavering to be too odd to really be excused with that explanation, it feels incredibly lackluster.

Shavonne was also a great character. A big thing for him is that he longs to have a life greater than the one he has, not to just have a good life but to feel like he matters. He has a plot near the end of the story where he is conned into accepting a fake publishing job, thinking he's being taken in by a publishing house and writing an entry for some royal competition, and it's so important to him. He views this as his ticket to finally being more than he is because he feels what he is now is fucking nothing, and he so desperately wants to be more than that, and I thought that was such a . . . Striking personality and arc for him to go through. And theoretically, him pushing Lewellyn away and believing he can only love him to a certain extent because he fully believes Lewellyn will eventually leave him is great, but the execution wasn't as smooth as I would've wanted.