TachibanaChiharu's Topics (173)

I approve of the message of this manga. Kouta had so many supporters, it's so nice to see that rather than a bunch of fat shaming buttheads (this was one of the things I didn't like about "kiss him not me"). Plus the seme being happy with Kouta however he is. When Kouta had a moment of pause as he tried to imagine senpai being a chubby and then senpai panicked... 'bout died.

Also, shame on you, Acchan! *shakes fist*

Ugh, how is this rated 9.0? It's so bad (the problem's always in the writing). It comes across as a completely plot-by-committee story to check off several tropes and fetishes that a standard BL audience might be interested in, and then gets mixed together in a tepid soup that doesn't quite gel.

Even the mildly amusing same-name subplot is half-arsed; a better take on it would've been to find out that uke's beloved "chi-chan" is actually the same person as the seme with a wig on or whatever, since they actually kind of look similar and have the same name. I would've died laughing if that had been the case at least. But it was far too generous of me to ever think that this minimum-effort production could've had that much thought put into it.

If you're looking for a rape-to-love story, go read "Oni to Tengoku" instead. It's way better.

List time! (spoilers, not that it matters)
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- Rape-to-love: an overused and tired trope to be sure, but not done well here
* subnote: stories with the rape tag can still be good. this isn't one of them.

- Seme just generally acts like a spoiled, selfish a-hole the entire manga and it's frustrating to watch

- Manga attempts to excuse Seme's raping of the uke in a number of ways but fails utterly:
* Sob-story backstory w/a little bro
* But then his bro shows up and seme treats him like crap
* Side-note: half-brothers are still brothers, ffs
* Lame trope of uke catching a cold for dumb, improbable reasons
* Uke getting sick just so seme can oh-so generously take care of him so the manga can pretend like the seme's not an a-hole, hypocrite rapist with a bad personality
* Seme has a dog that he seems to care about (which is movie short-hand for "good guy", look it up), but it falls flat because there's nothing likeable about the seme

- Mom is harangued by seme for being a slut when seme acts JUST LIKE HER

- Seme says he's a porn star early on but literally nothing is done with this

Sigh. I feel bad for the uke.

Not sure why in some stories I can tolerate Rape-to-Love and others I can't. In this one it didn't bother me so much, and I gave it a grudging pass. Something about the rest of the plot and the two protags makes this one interesting despite it. Also, it wouldn't be the same story without that aspect, cliche though it may be, and tbh, probably not as good either, given the nurse's twisted character.

I think to some degree I'll give some R2L stories a pass because in those ones I do like (like this one), the seme and uke both know exactly what the seme did and make no excuse at all for it. The ones that try to pretend like nothing bad happened, or that a sad backstory is some kind of excuse, I think, is where I draw the line.

It has officially become extremely difficult for me to remember that most guys are actually attracted to women in real life. I just can't see guys anymore without thinking "you're totally a bottom" or "top top top!". Arrrrgh.

Anyway. I kept LOLing at the girls in this story, as if they could ever get who they're after. Also, I thought for sure the archery club kohai was totally in love with the bottom, which was why he was being all tsundere to him. Surprised that it didn't turn out that way. :o

The precursor comic to this "Nirameba Koi" (featuring Ryuunosuke / Shima) took some interesting and vaguely refreshing departures from the plethora of tropes plaguing yaoi these days. But somehow, this sequel took a nosedive straight back into the old, familiar formula, and it's frustrating.

1. Seme is older and respected, the best, always right, desirable, and a mysterious enigma to his gang members, etc (eyeroll)

2. Uke is annoyingly stubborn for seemingly no reason other than to drag out the page count (sigh)

3. Seme rapes uke despite the uke constantly saying "no" and for him to "stop" (the first time they had sex after the time skip). Tetsuya is not privy like we are to Tora's internal monologue so he does not get a pass on this. (scowl)

4. Then, the seme gets to be right about the forced sex in that "the uke actually wanted it" because, turns out, he did, even though all context the seme was given at the time was that the uke did NOT want it. (facepalm)

5. Seme/Tetsuya is chased after by lots of girls despite the art making him one of the ugliest dudes in both mangas. Tora should've been the chick magnet since he's actually drawn to be attractive. (ugh)

6. Vaguely creepy age gap. (if the exact ages were mentioned, I missed it) Tora had just started high school (14-15) when they first met. Tora "I'm 25". Tetsuya, "Then, in 6mos it'll be 10 years since we met". Tora joined the gang a year after meeting Tetsuya (15-16). Tetsuya, "The me back then was the same age you are now. Nah, just a little younger." The age gap appears to be 8 years (24 Tetsuya - 16 Tora), but more to the point, is that a 24 year old pressured a 16 year old into sex. (cringe)

7. Lack of consistency for Tora's character from previous manga into this one. Previous manga focused hard on how Tora was a badass fighter and used to fight people in his HS days, and now Ryuu's fighting Tora's fights for him so he wouldn't be bothered, etc. Nowhere in this manga was Tora shown as a good fighter, or fighting anyone in high school, or whatever. (rubs bridge of nose with vexation)

I don't expect my boy-on-boy smut to be high works of art, but at least do better than this. >:/

So much hate for Kyujin, it's kind of sad really.

I anticipate generating a lot of anger for what I'm about to say, but it isn't fair to Kyujin's character to leave it unsaid amidst all the Kyujin-hating going on.

(spoilers)
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Do people forget that Doyeol is an abusive rapist with anger issues and is an obsessive, manipulative gas-lighter? Let's make a list!

* Doyeol acting crazy possessive in chapter 1 just by the idea of Kyujin going to college with other theoretical guys who might find him cute. Huge red flag here! Imagine if some guy your daughter or little sister was dating said that to her.

* Doyeol rapes Kyujin violently in chapter 2 for no reason but his own insecurities, and for some reason its conveniently forgotten? Don't give me no crap about a kiss; this is not equivalent at all. AND the two (Doyeol and Kyujin) weren't even in any kind of official relationship at the time (a later chapter made a big deal about the rings), so Kyujin had every right to do whatever he wanted, even if it was inconsiderate.

* Doyeol frequently exhibits serial-abuser behavior by taking advantage of Kyujin's confusion over his romantic feelings for Jimin and his feelings of obligation to Doyeol as his only surviving blood relative to either force Kyujin into sex, or force him to come back into their comfortable, unhealthy, co-dependent relationship.

* More serial-abuser behavior when Doyeol blows up at Kyujin and says really hurtful things, then comes back the next day being all kind and sweet and caring and making him dinner and all that. This is a huuuuuuge red flag. HUGE.

* Doyeol reads Kyujin's text messages from Jimin, responds to them in whatever way was convenient for him without consideration of Kyujin's feelings at all, after fully admitting and accepting that Kyujin was in love with Jimin and not him. He never admits to this invasion of privacy and Jimin/Kyujin never seem to figure it out.

* Additionally, the times where he pushed Kyujin into sex when he was clearly not interested (in the shower, the last chapter, etc).

* The shower scene was particularly ugly because you could see the step-by-step process that Doyeol went through to manipulate Kyujin further and further into increasingly more sexual things to get his way against Kyujin's will. Awful.

* In the final chapter scene where they return to the old apartment, Kyujin says no ("what're you doing? we can't do this anymore") even if its in a wishy-washy way, but Doyeol pushed him into sex after that anyway. Did everyone conveniently forget that Doyeol is married at this point, and Kyujin and Jimin are only dating? How in the heck is Kyujin's crime here worse than Doyeol's?


Now for Kyujin's list of screw ups:

* Not being clear and firm with Doyeol about how he felt about him once he had figured it out

* Kissing someone else casually when he and Doyeol have been in a carnal relationship even if their relationship was undefined/unofficial at this time (but he did tell him about it voluntarily); this was extremely inconsiderate

* Not moving out immediately upon realizing he and Jimin loved each other, even if Jimin was going to be gone for a year

* Buying the rings for he and Doyeol at a time when he obviously didn't understand his own feelings, which ended up setting expectations that would come back to bite Kyujin in the butt later

* Not telling Doyeol about running into Jimin after Jimin came back from 'murika. Hiding things is never good.

* Both of them get a ding for what happened in chapter 25, but Doyeol screwed up more because he was married and pushing hard for it and Kyujin was pushing back and did tell Doyeol no, even if in the most noncommittal way imaginable


Jimin I can't really say much about because he was immature and did some minorly crappy things as a kid before he left, but acted like a respectable adult when he returned. He seemed like the one most screwed over by the end of the story. Although he did say a few serial-abuser lines toward the end there that got me a little concerned that Kyujin was a psycho-magnet.

Anyway.

Kyujin from the start was clearly portrayed as confused about his feelings. First of all, their parents died when the boys were young and they only had each other for a long time. This situation is a perfect setup for emotional dependency without romantic love (Kyujin), or an emotional dependency with an irrational obsession (Doyeol). However, it is stated early on that despite their relationship, Kyujin doesn't love Doyeol as much or in the same way that Doyeol loves him. Even Doyeol admits he understands this, so he has no business getting upset when Kyujin does find someone he feels he loves in a romantic way later. Sorry it wasn't you, bud, but life is like that sometimes.

Furthermore, because Kyujin's never felt any kind of romantic feelings for anyone before, he seems to be having trouble telling his feelings of romantic love/lust for Jimin apart from his feelings of emotional dependency toward Doyeol. Of course Doyeol uses this to his advantage throughout the comic to manipulate Kyujin into feeling guilty and eventually doing what he wants (including chapter 25).

Lastly, when you've been in a given situation for so long, it's hard forcing yourself to break away from it even if you know it is the best thing for you to do. This is as true for Kyujin leaving Doyeol as it is for a person leaving a job they've held for a decade. Riddled with guilt, the unknown is scary and change is scary too. Anyway, this is a very common problem for people in abusive relationships. Kyujin is the victim of emotional abuse and manipulation, and it's hard for him to pull away from it because he has been manipulated into second guessing his actions. This happens to (mostly women) all the time in the real world here; cut the guy some slack.

tl;dr

The bad person in this comic is Doyeol. He's a violent, abusive manipulator and deserves everything he gets. The best thing for everyone would be for Kyujin and Doyeol to go their separate ways permanently, and for whoever Kyujin ends up with (be it Jimin or no) to be aware of how abusive his past relationship was and to help him resist the temptation to return to it. Because it will always be there, nagging him in the back of his mind, guilt-stricken and alluring.

Ahhh, the comment controversies attached to any of Harada-sensei's stories is always a joy to read.

Cigarette MVP.

So.... Rin x Sousuke's kid might be a girl named "Mikato" (Mikato is a female given name). At one point in the doujin, Sousuke calls the child by that (p13, where the kid keeps staring at Rin, "oi, mikato, sunna~"), but because there are no other indications in the doujin that it is a girl, and because Mako x Haru's child is never called by name (also no indication of gender), I decided to leave that out. Just some extra info! (=・ω・=)

Whelp, I finally read this one, after coming to this page on at least 4 separate occasions, looking at the comments, and saying, "nope". But this time, I figured, "Well, some people like it, and it's Harada-sensei after all. Even if the subject matter is distasteful, it will probably be well-written." And I was not disappointed.

I must say, this one is very difficult to get through. Not because of a poor handling of the subject, but because Harada-sensei does not pull punches here. There are many extremely uncomfortable scenes. But I mean, dealing with this sort of subject, they kind of had to be there, I guess. I appreciate her bold tackling of difficult topics. She treats it with the gravity such a dark topic is due. Nothing is glorified here, and no one comes out unscathed. The ending feels bittersweet and at the same time has a distinct wrongness and unsavoryness about it. As it should.

I probably won't read this again, but I think it's worth reading at least once, if you like Harada-sensei as a mangaka.