The character designs are very appealing, and each of the characters had a distinct design to them, rather than looking like the same face with different eyes or hair color. The unfortunate part is this great art is wasted in the smut scenes, which were a bit thin and/or glossed-over. Sad.
The plot setups for each story are good/interesting and have potential, but the stories lack the connective tissue that allows the characters to make sensible logical leaps from one phase of a relationship to another. Like the two in the first story were obviously circling each other looking for an in, but then the seme attacks the uke out of the blue, and the uke is just ok with it? The second story was like, oh, did he jerk him off in the locker room but he's just ok with it even though I saw nothing to think the uke was gay to begin with (much less the seme), and now they're presumed to be in a relationship with no word about it on-screen? Wat? The third story was just nonsense schlock lol.
I mean, that said, I still enjoyed them. I especially liked looking at the art of the uke in the first story. More of my otome game ikemen please!
The first couple is big-time stockholm-syndrome, and the second couple is a yandere/torture kink party. While all of this is questionable at best, the second couple is at least straight-forward to the point of being shameless about it being non-con. The first couple couches the non-con aspect, as well as kidnapping, gas-lighting, and other problems, in a cutesy across-time love story that is only superficial.
It's fine to like either story if that's your kink, but it should only be with the caveat that it is understood that both stories are non-con and the things that happen to the first uke are just as bad (if not worse; his whole life was hijacked from him) as what happens to the second uke.
(spoilers)
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At least the second couple is straight-forward about its non-con weird yandere/torture/tentacle kink. I mean, I can accept that when it is making no excuses for itself or trying to pretend it's something it isn't.
This part is a personal opinion and I could definitely see where others would legitimately disagree -- I feel no pity for the fox spirit here; he was absolutely voluntarily complicit for hundreds of years in the search and eventual kidnapping and rape of the mountain god/dog's protectorate, ryuuichirou. I mean maybe that is not an appropriate punishment for what he did/contributed to with ryuuichirou, but I'm just saying, he ain't no saint. Because this was a BL/R18, we get torture rape instead of the mountain god/dog just simply beating the stuffing out of him or straight-up murdering him for it.
Anyway.
The first couple is that sort of insidious stockholm-syndrome stuff that fools naive people into thinking it's cute, when it isn't. First of all, the seme and fox effectively conspired to kidnap the uke, directing his life path to lead him to his eventual rapist, then entrapped him in a situation where he felt obligated to stay. Recall that the seme was not considerate at all the first time he raped him; he didn't prepare him properly and there was blood in the panel (go back and look if you don't believe me). Hardly a "cute" level of consideration for someone who has been searching for his missing lover for hundreds of years.
Also, the uke raises legitimate concerns, that the seme only likes the person who he was 400 years ago. Buuuuut, instead of properly addressing his concerns, he was made to feel bad that he was even questioning the situation (of his kidnapping and rape). Like, "shame on you, naughty uke, did you ever consider the seme's feelings?" Who CARES about the seme's feelings! The uke is allowed to make decisions about his own life and have bodily autonomy and all that! By the way, it was the fox that was shaming the uke like this. What a jerk.
Also, the author properly built up the relationship between the 400-years-ago uke and 400-years-ago seme, which explained why they liked each other. The uke was kind to the seme back when the seme was unreasonably ostracized, then and they started hanging out together, spending a lot of time together. Eventually they decided they loved each other. This is a completely fine natural progression of a romance. But the two in modern day? Maybe the seme has all his memories, but the uke does not. To him, the seme is a stranger. Trying to force a romance between modern-uke and seme-with-400-yrs-of-memories doesn't work. It needs to be built-up like the story from 400 years ago had. Especially if you're going to have the uke question whether the seme likes him or the him from 400-yrs ago. It's a completely valid concern that was never properly addressed.
Also, the author forcing the modern-uke into deciding he loves present-day-seme in like 3 days is bull in the same story where a cute love story took weeks if not months to build up 400 years ago, meanwhile all that's happened in the modern story is that the uke has been kidnapped and raped, none of which is cute or fluffy. What is even going on here?
tl;dr
The writing in the first story is sloppy which is what makes the whole thing bad. The connective tissue was just not there to bring together the romance of the two modern guys, and it also feels like the author didn't think about the implications of some of the plot decisions, like how the uke's life was basically hijacked, while simultaneously not allowing him persistent access to his memories from 400 yrs ago. It makes the whole story creepily non-con, but they also try to pretend the oh-poor-baby seme is a good person, which is incongruent with his behavior toward the uke.
There are very few comics I can't get through, even if they're bad, but this was one of them. I closed it after the first chapter. I shall explain below. Be warned going into this that if you have any quality standards for what you read, you are likely to be significantly disappointed by this one that has a shockingly high 9.0 rating.
Usually I navigate to a new comic's page, and if the score is high enough, I'll just start reading. This one was high enough so I just went straight to reading it. Well, after closing it at the end of chapter one, I came to look at the comments to try and figure out what was going on with this tepid mess here. At least I can say there's controversy. It always bugs me when I read a title with very poor writing that has a good rating the comments are all full of praise, lol.
Anyway. Because I only read chapter 1, my comments are only for chapter 1. Going forward, I'm going to assume the son is 4 years old because that seems about the right age but it isn't clear in chapter 1, so I'm just stating upfront that this is my assumption.
There were 3 main problems that got me to give up on this, and they're kinda complex, so here's my best attempt at an explanation:
- Dad goes from homophobically straight to buttsexing a guy at the speed of light with almost no build up, context, or good reason. Because he has a kid and was married to a woman, I think it's safe to assume he was more-or-less straight-identifying prior to this. Neighbor is unapologetically gay, and dad even comments on this. Dad then makes vaguely disparaging comments to himself about his gay neighbor being gay even though dad continues to interact him regularly and trust him with not only babysitting his 4 year old, but going as far as allowing him to pick the 4yo up from daycare and walk him home. This amount of trust given to a veritable stranger makes little sense even if we remove the whole gay/straight thing from this dynamic.
- Dad only cares about his kid when it's convenient to the plot. He is inconsistently characterized as both overprotective (the freakout and hitting of neighbor when kid ran away), or horrifically negligent of his kid (when he leaves him alone while sexing neighbor, or letting near-strangers pick the kid up from daycare).
The scene where dad and neighbor have sex for the first time is particularly bad. I was like WTF, because dad tells his 4 year old he'll be right back because he is going to go apologize to gay neighbor, implying he'll be back in like 5 minutes tops, then goes over to the neighbor's apartment, LEAVING THE 4yo ALONE, while he proceeds to angry-sex or rape or something the neighbor for an hour or whatever.
Also, bellowing "I love you" at this point is dumb and makes no sense, especially given all that's happened and how little they really know each other, and how recently dad was having low-key disgusted thoughts about gay neighbor's gayness.
- The elephant in the room: dad hitting gay neighbor for not calling him immediately when gay neighbor found the kid alone at the park. This whole turn of events is stupid for 3 main reasons:
o Not only is hitting someone (who is not threatening you in any way) wrong,
o It's extra wrong when you KNOW (and dad does know this) that he was previously in a physically abusive relationship, and
o Given the completely reasonable extra context of "what if gay neighbor's cellphone's battery had died", would it still seem right to hit gay neighbor over not calling him once he found the kid? Wouldn't the logical thing be to walk the kid home, which is what gay neighbor did? I just DO NOT get what the author was going for with this. How did this even get published in this state?
Also, COME ON. A kid of that age cannot outrun an adult that easily who isn't mobility impaired in some way. Kids are clumsy, bumbling, short-legged catastrophes. They have meltdowns when their shoelaces come untied. That kid would make it about 10 ft before dad caught up, or the kid fell on his face accidentally, or collapsed to the ground having a meltdown over something dumb.
Also worth noting is that the kid is not properly characterized as his presumptive age, and he appears to be drawn too small most of the time for the age he's supposed to be. His dialogue is too clear and proper and adult-like to be coming from a 4yo. It's also generally too insightful.
And this is all in just the first chapter. ‾|_(ツ)_|‾
I love the fact that despite the typical BL premise, this story is anything but typical. There's no laundry list of lame, overused BL tropes here (getting sick from the rain, etc), and the story is firmly grounded in reality instead of melodrama-BL-crazyworld. For instance, when the characters' situation overflows, the two actually just sit down and talk about it rather than (as I expected) a melodramatic chase through the streets followed by passionate bellowing at each other while onlookers stand around looking horrified.
I also love that the uke is characterized as a seme in both personality and appearance. Like, in any other story, Tomoaki would be the seme. I also like that the seme Naoki was totally cool with switching, even if it turned out the uke wasn't interested.
Did I miss that somewhere?? When did the matter of Naoki being on bottom come up in the story?!
Oh wait, was it the bath scene? I thought they were just talking about tomo actually being interested in taking a bath together but never asking. ╮(￣▽￣)╭
Nice art. I hope the story gains some traction in the next chapter or so. Everything's just a little too scatterbrained for me to really appreciate the situation the two are in, since they keep voluntarily making the decisions that put them in these melodramatic situations in the first place.
The untranslated panel in chapter 6 effectively says:
"Shiba-chan's got no stamina.
Just like a little kid."
Tysmmm
I literally assumed it meant "Shiba-chan is cute"
But I was wrong (≧∀≦)
....because I'm insane, I guess I'm going to write a quick-summary (but long! you have been warned) ending for this since it seems the author dropped it, thus it will never be finished, and I like to have at least some closure in the stories I read. (I can't believe it was dropped at such a critical plot moment, but oh well).
Keep in mind this is the most f'd up version of an ending that my brain churned out in the 8 hours since I've finished reading this.
This is a plot summary (possibility) ending, not a fic.
(spoilers)
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Chapter 10 - Shows Kei jumping in the first panel. Riku has not had enough time to process all the things really going and acts on an instinctual level, chasing after his brother to join him? Stop him? Even he's not sure why he acts. They both go over the edge. Darkness descends.
From here, the plot unfolds to reveal --
One of the twins wakes up in the hospital. The other twin is nowhere to be found. Bandages are on his face and head, but you can still see one eye. It's unclear from a character design standpoint who this is. Mom is called and comes in to see him. His mother calls him Kei. His mind engages and he has 3rd party perspective flashes of the scene in the house when Riku discovered Kei under two guys. The argument after. The scene on the rooftop. He looks up at his mother and asks what she's talking about, he's Riku, can't she tell her own kids apart? Mother is distraught. He then looks around and asks, "Where is Kei?" Cut to black.
Later, we see "Riku" returning to school from an apartment he lives in by himself, now a year behind. Everyone is calling him Riku. He has the mole under his eye as has been an identifying mark of Riku's character design throughout the manga. Ozu Kousei is shown to be in his grade too. The two don't interact initially.
We find privately that Kousei has noticed Riku and remembers the rumors surrounding Riku's brother Kei (being a slut) and takes an interest in Riku. Later he stops Riku and talks to him. We find out Kousei was hospitalized for a while after being beaten up by some gang, which held him back a year too. He clearly has anger issues but has the brawn to back it up most of the time. But he was jumped by a group, armed with blunt weapons, and couldn't get away.
The two seem to have a silent set of words pass between them as they stare at each other. They go off and screw like rabbits. "Riku" has degrading and self-harming thoughts every time he has sex. Kousei always seems vaguely frustrated and angry when he's with "Riku". After Kousei leaves one night, his messed up thoughts lead him to rip up every picture he has of Kei while both laughing and crying.
We see Kousei train with the basketball team, lifting weights to train, etc. His thoughts drift to Riku, and he gets worked up and furious, and doesn't know why, and storms out of the weight room. Sex that night is a lot rougher and ugly. Riku has A LOT of dark thoughts as his mind thinks about other things than what Kousei is doing to his body.
(back in present day)
We're not sure what Riku has told Shuuji specifically of this story, since it was framed as a flashback in Riku's mind in the comics. We assume he knows the high-level details now but not the nuances nor the state of mind of anyone involved at the time. Shuuji's visibly shaken and runs away again. Riku watches him go, a blank expression on his face.
Shuuji is distraught having heard such a wild story. He stays up all night thinking about it, thinking something isn't quite right, and eventually resolves that he will dig into what really happened. So he skips school the next couple of days, going to gather info. He looks up articles, puts the screws to his teacher to give him more details, he goes to the hospital but doesn't get much.
We see a brief scene of Riku talking to Kousei, mentioning off-handedly that Shuuji is absent, and that he never skips school (being the goody two-shoes he is). Kousei's mood darkens visibly.
Back to Shuuji. Eventually he finds info about: 1) Riku's mom and stepdad have divorced in the intervening years. 2) Ozu Kousei was not a student at the school during the twins' original freshman year.
Shuuji tracks down Riku's mom, they talk, although mom is reticent. Shuuji talks about his father's suicide all emotionally, and Riku's mother eventually breaks down and confesses to Shuuji that both the twins survived. (this would be a good place to end a chapter)
While both were in comas in the hospital, stepdad confessed to what he had done to Kei, feeling guilty, thinking that he had been the cause of what had happened. He agreed to pay for everything in restitution and they got divorced while the twins were both still in comas.
Turns out that Riku had woken up first and had amnesia, so she sent him to live with a different family under a different name, and paid that family to treat him as one of their own. They would play it off like he was the son of a relative that died, and he had been staying with a different aunt but she didn't want to deal with him and his delinquent ways anymore after he was hospitalized, so he had been passed to the current uncle/aunt he was now with and treated like a sibling.
Riku/Kei's mom did this because she felt Kei had dragged Riku along in the suicide attempt, and didn't want that to ever happen again, so she wanted to keep them completely separated. Riku's hair was redyed black, the mole under his eye was gone anyway as a result of injuries from the accident, and he was told that he had played basketball competitively at his previous school, and was encouraged to get back into it to get his mind off things after his hospitalization.
When Kei woke up, he vehemently claimed he was Riku, and after discussing it with the doctors, the mother was instructed to call him whatever he wanted to be called. So she called him Riku, even though she knew it was Kei. She told "Riku" that Kei had died in the suicide attempt to keep him from seeking his brother out. She'd been trying to get him to go to a therapist to help him get back to where he would realize who he was again, but it hadn't worked so far, plus "Riku" had been skipping appointments anyway.
She intentionally doesn't keep up with what Kousei is doing because she doesn't want to have any information to tell in case "Riku" pushes her about anything. Not that Kousei/Riku remembers her anyway (amnesia).
Shuuji returns to school, but he is obviously upset by what he's heard. He's spaced out, doesn't pay attention like he usually does. "Riku" notices and asks him what's up, where he's been, since Shuuji never skips. Shuuji seems stunned seeing "Riku", and escapes from the classroom before answering. "Riku" watches him run away with a calculating expression.
Kousei runs into Shuuji in the hallway as he's making his escape from "Riku", and makes a beeline for him. He grabs Shuuji by the collar and drags him up to the suicide roof of the school while Shuuji struggles ineffectually. Kousei's just hella much stronger. He tells Shuuji his dad saw him meeting with "Riku's" mom while on a delivery, and that he'd thought he'd told Shuuji to keep his damn nose out of "Riku's" business. He then beats Shuuji up and rapes him.
"Riku" appears in the middle of this since this is where he normally comes to hang out alone and think. He freaks out because he sees Kousei doing this to Shuuji, who is innocent, and Kousei is making a particular angry face... a face "Riku" suddenly remembers. It looks just like, JUST LIKE, the exact same face his brother had made years ago when he discovered Kei having sex with those guys. "Riku" screams "RIKUUUUU STOPPPPPP!!!!!"
Kousei, the real Riku, looks up. His face is distorted in pain and misery. He is looking straight at "Riku"/Kei as he keeps Shuuji pinned to the ground. Electricity darts across a close-in shot of Kousei's eyes, (where you finally see the tiny scar under his eye on his cheek where the mole used to be) indicating he has realized something. A look passes between them. He says quietly, "Kei". He then turns away, tears in his eyes, and sprints for the edge of the roof. "Riku"/Kei screams "RIKUUUUU NOOOOOOO!!!" and darts after him.
But Shuuji moves, leaping from his prone position on the ground to grapple "Riku"/Kei's leg, causing Kei to fall on top of him, and the two of them watch helplessly as "Riku"/Kei screams "RIKUUUUU!!!" and Riku/Kousei jumps from the roof.
They both hear a sickening crunch.
Fade to black.
Kei's memory of the end of the original jump is shown in flashback panels. Riku followed him over the edge, caught Kei in his arms, and cradled Kei protectively as they descended so Kei'd survive.
Fade back in.
"Riku"/Kei cries/howls uncontrollably while Shuuji holds onto him like a vice. The two stay there for what seems like eons before the school administrators come retrieve them.
We find out later that the real Riku (Kousei), has died.
Kei tells his mom, who meets Kei and Shuuji at the hospital, that he is Kei, and then fesses up to intentionally seducing his stepdad because he was in love with Riku and was trying to take his frustrations out on everyone who seemed happy around him. Mother accepts this and does not overreact to it. She thanks Shuuji for saving her son, and apologizes for what Riku did to him. Kei looks angry/frustrated listening to this, and turns to Shuuji, saying it wasn't Shuuji's fault at all; he had told Kousei to leave Shuuji alone, that Shuuji had every right to talk to him (Kei). Shuuji is surprisingly understanding given what happened to him, and expresses regret that he wasn't able to save Riku/Kousei too. Kei hangs his head, and silent tears fall.
Kei transfers to a different school. Shuuji returns to school and graduates.
Years later, it is winter. We see a gravestone that says "Ichinose Riku". Flowers sit on it, next to feet standing in the foreground. Pan up to adult Kei, looking down at his brother's grave marker. "It's been a while," he says. Then you hear from off panel, "yes, it has." Pan to the side. Next to Riku's grave marker is Shuuji's dad's grave. Flowers sit on it as well. Pan out to Shuuji, who stands before his father's grave, looking down as well.
Time passes as they pray silently.
"Sometimes coping is too hard," says Kei, while Riku's gravestone is in frame. It is unclear if he's talking about himself or his brother.
"Sometimes people do inexplicable things for no obvious reason," says Shuuji, with his father's gravestone in frame.
"It should've been me," says Kei, sighing, kicking a stone on the ground to the side of the grave petulantly.
"I'm still not sorry for saving you," says Shuuji. Riku's face overlays with Shuuji in kind of a hallucination when he says this.
"I am," says Kei, but he has an ever so slight smile on his face.
"It's not your fault. There was never anything wrong with you," says Shuuji.
Kei snorts. "Still holding strongly to that belief, are you?"
"Forever," replies Shuuji, reaching across the space and taking Kei's hand, squeezing it.
"For as long as forever is, I guess," replies Kei, squeezing his hand back.
Another moment of silence as the two stare down at the graves, this time holding hands. We are finally treated to a frame of them both together. Shuuji's a lot taller than he used to be, a good 4" above Kei now.
"Time to go, don't'cha think?" asks Shuuji.
"Yeah," replies Kei.
"I'll buy you dinner," says Shuuji, a smile slipping onto his face.
"Mmmm... nabe," says Kei.
"Expensive," mock-grumbles Shuuji.
"So stingy," says Kei, a smile on his face.
"But you're worth it," says Shuuji.
They exchange a meaningful look, then both turn together away from the graves. Kei jams his hands in his coat pockets, looking at the ground, while Shuuji walks normally next to him.
THE END
I swore this wouldn't end up a fic, but I guess the final scene did somehow anyway.
Anyhoo. Implication is that they may or may not be in a relationship; up to the reader to decide.
meant to upvote sorry(づ￣ ³￣)づ
What the frick
I needed to read twice to understand
Soooo...
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Riku is Kei
Kousei is riku?????
But kousei still remembers???
This is all non-canon for the story dont forget. This is the poster's theory as to the ending
This was a pleasantly entertaining comedy manga about one high schooler's frustrations brought on by being in long-time love with his incredibly dense friend.
Eno was so annoying when he was introduced but I get his purpose in the story. I really hoped he'd secretly be in love with Nanase, since the setup was there for this to happen, but alas, it never materialized.
I would also love a spin-off about the two voyeur friends, Takahashi and Kuraoka, but alas again.... sensei denies us.
What was there though, regarding the relationship between the two protagonists, Nanase and Hina....
(spoilers)
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...they both do turn out to reciprocate their feelings, and this is all 100% present in the story that sensei meticulously laid out.
(disclaimer) I'm just gonna say right now that this is in response to some comment I saw claiming Hina didn't really love Nanase, because I completely disagree, and I will be explaining why, since I feel all the evidence is plainly there, but I will admit that some of it is a bit nuanced. It gets a little ranty at the end; fair warning.
How is it that Hina loves Nanase? Let me count the ways...
1. He says that he does.
QED.
Oh, that's not good enough? Well, aside from it being literally (note proper use of "literal" here) present in the story, and that it was completely Hina's own conclusion about himself.... Fine. I'll make a big long list, as I love to do it seems. :P
- Hina is portrayed as a dense idiot who lives in the moment and doesn't think about stuff too much.
- He was friends with both Nanase and Eno in middle school.
- Nanase stuck by him while Eno went to another school, thus it was just Nanase and Hina for a while.
- Nanase and Hina spent lots of time together before having a sexual relationship, just being friends and generally enjoying each other's company. Thus they liked being around each other regardless of the sexytime they have later.
- Later, after Hina initiated a physical relationship, Hina found that he enjoyed the sexytime he spent with Nanase as well.
- Prior to Eno's appearance, Hina had all of his emotional and physical needs met by Nanase, so he never had to think about his feelings about the situation at all. Not like Hina ever thought much about anything. The two were basically like an old married couple at this point already. Hina even liked him despite all the nagging he did about going to school and eating his veggies and whatnot.
- Eno appears and forcibly drives them apart due to his own jealousy. Hina starts hanging out with Eno because of Eno's insistence and Nanase backing off because he respects Hina's personal autonomy, and because Hina is friends with both of them and just goes with the flow. Hina is living in the moment again, but slowly starts to realize that his emotional and physical needs are not being met by hanging out with Eno instead of Nanase.
- When Hina faps while thinking about Nanase after not being around him for a few weeks is the moment he realizes that he's feeling in a way about Nanase that he doesn't think about his other friends. Keep in mind that all this stemmed from Hina's wrong-headed conclusion that Eno and Nanase were dating, and Hina chose to think about and get jealous of wanting to be with Nanase, not Eno. So there is a difference between whatever Nanase was to him and what Hina's typical sort of friend, like Eno, was to him.
- Remember, Hina had dated girls in middle school, so he had at least some experience with this.
- But also note that Hina voluntarily stopped dating girls once he and Nanase got into their physical relationship, due to no prompting or instance by Nanase.
- Hina then uses Eno as an experiment (at the restaurant) to see if any of his friends would do to fill the hole left by Nanase, and found that Eno just didn't do it for him. Either way, there was no response to or from Eno, so Hina concludes that it's not the same. Nanase had been filling the role of something more than a "friend" to Hina, and Eno was the litmus test to determine what "friend" constituted.
- I'd also point out that people are less likely in a society that's extremely homophobic to even consider how they feel about their same-sex friends in a romantic sense, which could explain part of the reason why Hina'd never thought about it before. But I will admit that Hina has utterly no personal decorum and no personal filter to such a degree that this concept may not apply to his character much. Still, he admittedly knows what gays are and thus his behavior must be influenced by this to at least some degree, however small.
- Anyway, the fact that Hina came to the conclusion that he loved Nanase all by himself, without Nanase's prompting, despite Eno's interference, or their friends pushing them together, and even then, when Nanase ran away because even Nanase felt their "likes" weren't the same... Hina forced the issue, something he'd never done prior for anything, stating in no uncertain terms that he did in fact like Nanase, and basically Nanase had no business making up Hina's mind for him.
- Also, Hina saying what he likes about Nanase is that he's good at sex is reason enough for a dunder head to love someone. Yubin was asked the same question in Window to Window and he immediately responded that he likes Ginu's pretty face. Both are pretty shallow reasons, but why ask an idiot to give a nuanced description of why he loves someone when it's been made clear all throughout the manga. Going back to Window to Window, Ginu muses that he probably loved Yubin from the start for no reason at all. Why does there have to be a reason? And why does that reason have to be good enough to prove to someone who isn't even involved?
All that aside...
It's always bothered me when I hear people say "can't two guys just be friends?" because the implication is always that they shouldn't like each other romantically no matter how much they care about each other. Friendship is a much better basis for a romantic relationship than what I would consider the opposite, pure lust, because at least then you get by default someone you enjoy being around, who respects you and cares about your well being, and who you probably have a few things in common with. And if you also find you can be sexually fulfilled by them, then what's the problem, chief?
So yes, as portrayed in this manga, from the nuance all the way at the beginning of the story to the explicit statement at the end: Hina loves Nanase too. Love isn't this magical thing that you need to shout passionately into the wind, or fight a war over, or go through some kind of trial by fire to realize or earn. It's not something you can define at the best of times, and it isn't something for other people to decide for someone else.
Also, this is a comedy manga, so it seems kind of disingenuous to try and foist nuanced character development on basically a 1-page gag comedy. Notice that the story is presented in a 1-page vignette format at the beginning, and about 3/4 of the way through (around vol 6 ish), there is a section presented like a regular serial manga in chapter format while the Eno x Hina x Nanase situation finally works itself out, and then it switches back to the 1-page gag vignette format for the rest of its length. Expecting deeply nuanced character development (which I would argue is still present) is inappropriate for a series with a tone like this. You're supposed to spend your time laughing at the hijinks, not delving into whether or not there was enough nuance in Hina's portrayal to decide if he really does love Nanase or if he's just fooling himself when he says he's does.
Whine whine whine, would I like some cheese with my wine? Why yes, I would, thank you. I need it, after writing this far-too-lengthy brainturd. :P
This story had some really great writing overall. The characters, how the plot was structured, the backstories and motivations... all good stuff. Even the red-haired dude got an arc in the story, and he's just a side character that was in like 7 panels at most.
But.... (there's always a 'but'). I still felt there was a fatal flaw that really prevented the story from hitting quite the highest of highs (although I still rated it 5/5).
(spoilers)
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The author seems to get her wires a bit crossed on what is considered the wrap-up for Chiwoo's character growth. I think this is why I (and others) probably feel the story is incomplete. Chiwoo is depicted as very reticent throughout the story and his wrap-up should've been him accepting Kyujin by verbally conveying his feelings (i.e., saying "I love you" too). Just a kiss is a cop-out. Chiwoo had never been able to reply to Jihyun's many "I like yous" even though at one time Chiwoo did seem to love Jihyun. And even Chiwoo admits (multiple times!) that his lack of communication was sort of the catalyst for everything bad that happened in the story. Because of all this, he needed to tell (not show) Kyujin that he loved him back. THAT was supposed to be his character growth. Boo.
Anyway, that said, I do remain hopeful since Lezhin still lists this series as "ongoing" we might get a bonus chapter of fluffy nonsense for this couple whereby Chiwoo is done being a tsundere.
A few other points to make:
It seems a little ridiculous that this ended up being a non-R19 story given the level of violence and looming dread in the series. Jihyun's presence was always extremely oppressive and I can't see how lightsaber dicks would be worse than reading about this psycho beating the crap out of people, blood flying, ending up in the hospital, etc.
Also. While I like both Chiwoo and Kyujin, I find their story less interesting than Jihyun's development over the course of the series. I would love to read a spin-off story about Jihyun's redemption. Those final scenes of Jihyun where he was realizing that he not only could love someone, but had, and that his own actions had ruined everything with that person were great. And that you can't force love, can't buy it with money, and that you should treasure the people you care about. Plus him realizing that his personality had inadvertently been shaped by his father's crappy behavior. Wow, this is some great stuff. Give me Jihyun (in America or wherever) finding someone who can help him get out of this self-destructive rut he's in. I would eat that sh!t up.
Also I totally want an R-19 series or side-story of Jihyun's older brother boning Jihyun's teacher. There's so much sexual tension there I about died every time the two were on-screen together. Jihyun's teacher kept poking the tiger with a stick and I kept waiting for the situation to explode, but alas... boo hoo. :)
I dont think think I couldve said any of this better myself
Exactly this!