TachibanaChiharu's Topics (177)

Seems like the description made a mistake. Either they met 8 years ago in >middle school<, or they met fewer years ago in high school. It would be weird for both of them to have met in high school (3 years) and then both still be in (4-year) college 8 years later. If it were middle school, it would all make a lot more sense.

Time for another BL dissertation for my BL PhD!

This one was so close to hitting the mark that it pains me to leave it off my "Quality Omegaverse" list, but I can't in good conscience have it on the list when I feel I would have to change some obvious story elements to make it consistent.

As for what it did well; it has a really solid premise. I like the non-standard relationship. The twists and turns of the story take good advantage of the Omegaverse setting, even though I would have them play out slightly differently. I like the Beta in general, and I like the Alpha's variant life philosophy (having a harem of Omegas), and his business-like approach to how he runs his personal life. I do generally like the flawed Omega too, although I'd probably have him be less bratty, ideally.

As for what I would change to improve everything overall...
(spoilers)
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List time! I have written a walkthru below for how to implement these items in the plot afterwards.

* Make the Omega less bratty. This sort of behavior makes him less sympathetic and there is no reason for it tbh.

* Drop the "abused omega at work" subplot. It is introduced first, at the beginning of the story, so you think the story is going to be about this initially, then it simply _isn't_ at all, and then later that whole plotline is completely dropped in favor of the love triangle plot. Why would a (bratty) Omega want to continue to work after being pair-bonded to a rich Alpha if the Omega's abused at work? This doesn't make sense. Instead, make his work life not only pretty normal, but that he and his boss and coworkers have a good relationship.

* Introduce the backstory of the Omega/Beta sooner (right after the first time the Beta and Omega have sexy time), so that we completely understand the quandary that the Omega is in from the beginning. This will serve two purposes: 1) make the thrust of the story more clear, that it is the Omega struggling to do what he wants (the Beta) versus what he thinks he wants (an Alpha), and 2) it'll make successive plot developments even more poignant and sad because of this added info from the beginning.

* Have the Alpha's bite be the Omega's choice rather than random happenstance of the Alpha showing up and pheromone-induced violence enacted by the Alpha right after that.

* Have the Beta finding out that the Alpha isn't managing the Omega's heat properly be less of "haha, I'm a moustache-twirling villain", and more of a "this is a flaw in my worldview and life philosophy that is adversely affecting the protag Omega right at this particular moment". It makes the story so much stronger if the Alpha isn't specifically a bad person, he's just overwhelmed by his lifestyle choices and the protag suffers because of it.

* Show more of the struggle the Beta/Omega couple has to go through to have sex after Omega has been bitten; this should be way more difficult and traumatic than the story showed. If you're going to go with a plot development this dark, you have to be willing to go all-in and show it in all of its ugly, miserable, awful glory. Channel Harada-sensei if you have to. *shudder*


Those are the general changes. The writing in the story has solid ideas/concepts behind it, but the author simply fails to execute everything properly, which is probably why people (or me, at least) feel, upon completion of the story, as if it all somehow fell flat without being precisely able to put their finger on why. I had to sleep on it, then ponder it for about 30min after I got up before I could figure out what didn't sit right with me.

In general, it really bugs me that with all the juicy setting stuff provided by Omegaverse, so many authors fail to really capitalize on it. To use it to its full potential. Even though there are Omegaverse stories I do really like, no one has really managed to explore what a society would truly be like if humanity had grown up from the beginning of time having a secondary gender (caveat: the furries omegaverse stories come closest, but I just... furries just aren't my thing, I've only read like two of them, and tbh, even these stories don't go far enough). A more realistic society would look like none of these stories. Tangent: There is no way the Alphas of society would allow the Omegas to go completely uncontrolled and unmonitored among the populace. Thus there would be no way the Alphas would allow for a situation where Omegas would be randomly going into heat all the time (the drugs would be effective and free, Omegas would be tracked and monitored closely, and emergency heat suppressors would be commonplace, like fire extinguishers or garbage cans). So I can appreciate that this author thought to introduce the "Alphas have harems" thing here, because this would definitely have been a thing that happened (likely in the past). It's just too bad she couldn't bring the story together around it.

Anyway, tangent aside. This story doesn't need to fully explore a realistic Omegaverse setting in order for me to rank it highly, it just needs to pick a concept and execute it well, without having any pointless nonsense crowding up screen time. Unfortunately, it has some of these problems, so, in order to repair the story and trim out some of the fat, here is a plot rework proposal:

- In the beginning, introduce the Omega working at a pharmaceutical company that makes Omega drugs. Opening scene would be boss walking by Omega's desk, casually chatting with him about how Omega is off next week for his "heat week" (or whatever they call it). Have the boss be perfectly kind about it, like they have a good relationship, this has been happening for a while, and everyone's fine with the arrangement. Convo between boss and Omega here should introduce the sub-plot of the protag Omega's heat not responding to drugs, and that the boss hopes that someday, if they keep adjusting the formula, there will come a day where protag Omega _DOES_ respond to the drugs (as in, they want to help him).

- Have the Omega head home and give his Beta friend a call to chat with him about the date the Omega has set up with a promising Alpha tonight. Have this convo introduce the main plot of the story -- make it clear in this conversation that 1) the Omega's heat can't be controlled by drugs (reinforce this idea here), 2) thus, the Beta has been sexing him up for years to help control his heats instead, 3) bring up Omega's beliefs that he desperately needs an Alpha mate to truly gain control of his heats, hence the date, and 4) make it clear Omega is looking for an exclusive, idealistic, lovey-dovey type relationship with some imagined future Alpha in a pair bond with him.

- Keep everything the same about the date, the aftermath, meeting up with the Beta, and the Beta sex0ring up the Omega for heat control. The key point of this part is that the Alpha is very business-like about the transaction; he's offering the Omega anything he could ever want but love.

- Move the flashback-to-childhood scenes that depict how the Beta/Omega met to immediately after the first Beta/Omega sexy time. The readers will now know early-on that the Omega loves the Beta, but feels like a burden to the Beta, and that as an Omega with uncontrollable heats, he feels he _neeeeeeeds_ an Alpha in his life to manage his heats better so he will no longer cause trouble for the Beta. The Omega will expresses the wish that the Beta were an Alpha for the first time here. Have the Beta remain a Cipher, so the reader doesn't know precisely what the Beta thinks of the arrangement the two have until where it is revealed in the actual story.

- Cut the scenes of the Alpha bursting in at the Omega's workplace and humiliating the Omega's boss. Instead just have the Alpha pursue the Omega hotly in the usual BL ways, but never crossing the line to jerk territory.

- Intersperse with these scenes more scenes of the Beta and Omega hanging out together (like are in the original story) and scenes of Omega at work interacting with people normally/pleasantly. Show a handful of instances of Omega's boss worrying about him.

- Instead of his normal heat, have the Omega go into an out-of-cycle heat that's pretty bad. Have him ponder whether to text his Beta friend or the Alpha. He chooses to text the Alpha. Alpha shows up, goes into rut. Have the Omega regret his choice immediately as soon as he opens the door to let the Alpha in, but it's too late. Have things play out about as they do in the story from here.

- Have the Omega feel intense shame at what he's done, which now becomes the reason that prompts the Omega to ask the Alpha to move him to a new apartment and all that, so he can hide from the Beta and wallow in self-pity.

- Slightly change the scene in the story where the Beta witnesses the Alpha mackin' on some other guy. The Alpha says "[This other Omega] is my mate too", but add ", and I am managing his heat right now. I can get to protag Omega by the end of the week". Beta still gets mad, saying that's not soon enough, since the heat suppressors don't work on protag Omega and make him sick. Skip the crap about the kneeling stuff; there is no reason to make the Alpha villainous here. Have the Alpha just give up the Omega's new address and tell the Beta it would be super helpful if he could go by to check on the Omega and get the Omega's heat under control, if possible. Alpha may or may not believe the Beta can do this, but have him genuinely care about the protag Omega's well-being and accept any help the Beta can give to the protag Omega. This is a key point -- the Alpha should be defeated by his business-like life philosophy rather than by simply being a jerk. He doesn't actually have the time to manage all his Omegas even if truly intended to. The moral of the story is to follow your heart, rather than to do the logical things people pressure you into in your life.

- Have the Beta arrive at the Omega's new crib in about the same manner as in the story. Add a little dialogue to the scene here where the Omega tells the Beta he's been hiding from him because he made a terrible choice and completely regrets it but that it's not Beta's fault at all, it was his own stupid fault, etc etc. Have the scene basically play out the same way, but with the added sense that the Omega feels shame for his stupid decision to invite the Alpha over instead of the Beta.

- This may be hard to watch, and likely why the manga did not fully depict this, but: show more of their sex scene where the Beta has to completely tie up the Omega in order to have sex with him. Have it be traumatic, like a brutal rape, even though we know its just a physiological reaction of the Omega's body and the bite. Omega should devolve into growls and screams, like he can't talk anymore; he's reduced to animal-brain reactions. Have it stress the Beta out mentally, but the Beta, being great, is up to the task and is able to handle it.

- The rest of the story can play out as it does, with the heartfelt confessions, marriage, the kid, etc.

- Add to the post-credit scenes, this one: Omega is inspired to work with his company to develop a Bonded Pair blocker for Omegas. Have protag Omega suggest the idea, help with the development, and perform the trials with the company's scientists. Have his company be the first to release such a drug to the market. Have it be very successful in the marketplace, and work really well on protag Omega, since it was developed specifically to help him. Have protag Omega be promoted grandly to product manager or something. Show Omega and Beta are now able to have normal sex again after this drug is released. This would be an amazing payoff to 1) the uncomfortable sex between the Beta/Omega after the bite bond, 2) the "Omega's career" subplot that lurked in the background of the story throughout, and 3) turning a difficult, heart-wrenching story into a happy ending all-around by the end.

It is good to read this for historical reasons, especially if you like omegaverse, but understand that there are a lot of problems present in this series. As an alternative, the anime is a good, concise, and cleaned-up (as in, the problematic issues are lessened) version of primarily the shiro x yonekuni arc, and watching that is better than nothing, if you don't want to tackle the manga.

Issues are many -- Riddled with tropes (but this is an older manga, so it's expected). The meandering plot between tangent couples, norio and kunimasa's plot being dragged out forever (despite them being an incredibly boring couple to read about). Hopping over to couples and folks who have nothing to do with the main characters (norio, et al). The entirely incredibly problematic bear-faction. My favorite, yonekuni x shiro get no screen time after their initial run (which becomes unresolved in a later norio x kuni arc where it says shiro and yonekuni haven't had 'relations' since that last time when shiro's curse was lifted, and that things have become awkward between them, and then nothing is ever re-resolved about it).

Also be forewarned that the manga has no end; the final volume (9) has been translated and released in English by Sublime (it wasn't posted here yet when I read this months ago, but I did read the official english release at that time), but the plot dead-ends in the middle of a really interesting side couple (dog teacher being hotly pursued by snake student) and I am bummed I'll never get to read the conclusion of that storyline, since it was actually really good. The author seems to have given up on working on this, or is otherwise releasing it at such a slow pace that I'll be 6 ft under by the time vol 10 is finally out.

Despite the low rating, this was pretty good! I get the impression that even though this is a website full of extremely kinky smut (as well as other stuff), that there is still a lot of prudishness going around about characters' choices about who they have sex with, leading to arbitrarily low ratings on certain titles. While this comic isn't particularly top-shelf stuff, it is pretty good and worth a read, and IMO, warrants a better rating than its current 8.3 (probably more like an 8.8).

Anyway, back to this comic.

The story is pretty good as it is. Both characters are kinda jerks in general, no one really becomes a better person by the end, but we have kind of a situation where two crazy, manipulative guys shuffle the deck chairs of their relationship around by the end of the story.

With about 3 changes, this manga could've been way better, something really outstanding (omg llists! and spoilers):

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Recommended changes to improve this story overall:

* An actual character arc for Naru. Naru, the main-character, is a selfish, bossy brat and extremely inconsiderate of Kei at the beginning of the manga. Have him learn a lesson about treating people you care about well by the end of the story.

* Crank the rabbit-holes up a notch. Once Kei initiates a relationship with surrogate-bottom, have Naru have his growth moment then decide to be the bigger man about it and let Kei go, since Kei'd always had the choice to approach Naru, yet chose the surrogate-bottom instead, making it seem like he hadn't necessarily liked Naru from the beginning. After Kei pretends to be sick and screws surrogate-bottom in their room while Naru looks on, have Naru leave and go immediately to apply for a room transfer. Later, Kei returns to find all of Naru's things gone and just a note saying that Naru had asked that surrogate bottom not be allowed in the room, Kei had not complied with this request, so Naru's leaving. Then the plot can be branched out any number of interesting places from here (new roommate becomes a new love interest for Naru, Naru starts becoming friends with people in his class, Kei flails, going a little more crazy trying to find a way to salvage the sitch, etc...). This is the sort of plot twist that makes BJ Alex so dang satisfying to read and there's soooo much you can do with it.

* Really truly explore the S&M angle this manga only lightly touches upon. At the beginning of the story, Naru acts like a dom, and Kei sits in the role of a sub, but both are play-acting without realizing the other is doing so. Once they split up, and then later get back together, have it be revealed that Kei was always secretly an obsessive psycho dom (kinda hinted at in the story, but not taken far enough), and have Naru realize that he (Naru) really gets off by being humiliated and dominated by Kei. Have them both not only mutually enjoy this new arrangement, but both find it way more fulfilling than their play-acting at the beginning of the story.

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.