TachibanaChiharu's Topics (173)

I have recently been trying to decide if I had someone who was cautiously willing to give BL a try just once, what series would I recommend them?

Well, Love or Hate is great, but unfinished. BJ Alex is good, but it is a very standard pretty trope-laden BL story (even if it uses its tropes very well). Killing Stalking is definitely an acquired taste, and only for people who are cool with that sort of genre. Window to Window is a great light-plot, heavy-porn series, probably not recommended for a first timer. Playtime with Hakdo, Walk on Water, so many other good ones. But my mind kept coming back to Momentum, and I just couldn't think of a reason not to pick this one as the best all-around excellent-quality option of all there is out there.

The art is great and more realistic looking (less cartoony). The plots are many and heavily interconnected. The characters are different, unique, very well fleshed out, and avoid lame archetypes. The cast is huge, very international, and the story handles all their interconnected lives well without feeling at all unwieldy. It's complete, so that's a bonus. I'm just not sure I cold recommend a better series tbh.

So, yeah. If you read nothing else in the genre, read this one. This author is just an amazing storyteller, which makes allllllll the difference. (Yes, there is a sad part toward the end, but it is more than worth suffering through that to read everything else in the story)

This series comes with the highest of recommendations. 5 stars. A+ marks. 100 cherry-red tomatoes. Read it!!!

This author has pretty consistently exceptional writing, both for plots and characters. Even in the 1-shots everything is so well fleshed out, and the characters are unique and have a lot of depth and complexity (like the angel story).

I appreciate that the author is unafraid to explore different and non-standard archetypes with her characters, like Jin being restless and unable to settle down (the angel guy feels like a non-cynical and more positive take on Jin's character tbh), or the kid who is impotent (heartbreaking, but it happens).

Good job, author!

Despite loving the Sekaiichi anime, it frustrates me to no end that the problematic parts of this story get a pass from readers while other properties with similar issues have been ripped to pieces in the comments and given a pretty low rating.

Disclaimer. I've seen the anime numerous times, and I read the manga only as far as to when Haitani started actively interfering and then decided to quit reading it. I may come back and read the end, skipping all the drama with Haitani and Nao, and just read whatever parts are the wrap-up for Ritsu and Masamune finally getting together in the end. I just couldn't take the forced extension of the drama between Ritsu and Masamune anymore.

Anyway, while all that is annoying and should get some dings from people as well (which I have seen some comments about), that's not what I'm really here to talk about.

When one says "problematic", this is code for "offensive to my modern SJW sensibilities". And this story has those sorts of issues all up in it, yet somehow still miraculously holds a 9.6 rating, while other stories with similar problematic aspects hold nowhere near the same rating. Hmmm. Curious.

Now, don't get me wrong. I enjoy Sekaiichi despite it, because there is a lot of good to be found here (*caveat: I don't like Junjou; it has everything possible wrong with it -- this opinion is based on the anime only). I'm not going to list all of Sekaiichi's good qualities because I think people probably understand those pretty well.

Time to complain!
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Kisa and Yukina I'm completely good with. Love these two. Probably the only couple this author has written about that seem to be completely unproblematic.

Tori and Chiaki. Tori was a huge problem in the anime, which it turns out was being toned down some from the manga. Yikes. Tori as a character in Chiaki's life is just a huge problem. He is such a psycho I don't even know where to begin. This storyline alone would, for another manga property, get it rated at 7.2 or so. Chiaki I never really liked, not because he was problematic, but in the anime at least, he's a total airhead and is basically useless for anything but drawing manga. He's actually better here in the manga, is a much more well-rounded and thoughtful human, so I was able to like him more in this version of the story. Buuuuuuuut.... I just can't like any of his storylines because of Tori. That said, Tori is fine as a support character as one of the editors on the team who can't get his mangaka to deliver on time. I'm completely fine with him in this support capacity. (The notes I took about these two upon my first viewing of the anime was "Chiaki's an airhead and his boyfriend is insane".)

The elephant in the room: Ritsu and Masamune. I struggle with these two because I really like both of them independently of each other. Both are well-realized characters with distinct personalities, they are both smart and diligent, and have a lot of appealing qualities that aren't tied to their roles as seme/uke (ie, girly things for the uke like cooking and cleaning -- I'm looking at you, Misaki). I like that both of them feel like men when I read about them, and both come across as attractive to other characters of both genders. Their whole backstory is just really great and really well written. When they re-meet in present day and discover that they were both victims of a huge misunderstanding, it's pretty much just the bestest "oh crap" moment ever.

But, well.... I guess I should just come right out and say it. No point in beating around the bush about it. Masamune rapes Ritsu repeatedly throughout the story and it's treated as sexy and fine.

Now, I also fell pray to the thinking of, "well, but" about these occurrences early on. But something nagged at me in the back of my mind the more I rewatched the anime. Then I finally made myself come and read the manga, where the sex scenes are way more explicit, and it struck me immediately what was bugging me. There is no "well, but" if you set aside your affection for the anime or the two characters independently. Ritsu says no, and Masamune forces it on him anyway. Just because Ritsu eventually admits it in his own mind doesn't mean it's ok. Just because Ritsu was in love with Masamune back in high school does not mean at all that he does now or will love Masamune again. This is extremely wrong-headed thinking on the part of Masamune, and when it's NOT being presumed true by an extremely hot alpha male that I wish would tie ME up, it comes across as gross and awful.

In my estimation, it's the storyline the mangaka chose to write for these two that is completely to blame. She chose to write a shoujo plotline in an R18 BL. In shoujo, characters generally don't have sex* (* there are exceptions, like KareKano), and so the only way to force a will-they-won't-they plotline into an R18 BL where the characters can't get together until the end yet still featuring tons of sex between them is to have someone getting forced into having sex against their will all the time. Really, this story should've been treated like a non-R18 BL all the way up until the final chapter. Then you can have your will-they-won't-they plotline with a good, satisfying sex scene when they get together finally at the end. If you need to sprinkle intermittent sex scenes throughout, have characters lucid dreaming about it, or daydreaming about it, or just feature Kisa and Yukina boning more.

I will still always love the anime. Masamune's voice actor is amazing, and the dialogue, plotting, music, and scene construction are tight. Ritsu and Masamune are still one of my all-time favorite anime BL couples and it saddens me that the manga put such a damper on their relationship for me. The problems were always there, even in the anime, but yannow, "Stockholm Syndrome" is one of those BL tropes that needs to go away for good (unless you're writing an edgy thriller that doesn't end well -- Unfather ; Kokoro wo Korosu Houhou), and I just can't automatically give it a pass because I love the anime so much.

I know a lot of people will disagree with me, and that's fine, everyone's entitled to their own opinions. But I feel better having gotten that off my chest.

Siiiigh. Moronic uke doesn't deserve the seme. I know I'll get downvoted a lot for this, but I don't care, it needs to be said.

Significant writing issues in this one prevented me from really enjoying it, and while reading it I could only focus on how it could've been fixed rather than the story it was trying to but failing to tell. Hear me out before going nuclear.

To start with, I don't like notion that because yaoi is seen as fap material, it doesn't need to have good writing. If it was just that, then it just would be porn with no set up, no plot, and no character arcs. It'd just be two hot guys screwing. So it deserves, as much as anything else that tries to tell a tale, to have quality writing as well. So saying "it's just wank material" is not an acceptable excuse for bad writing in this genre.

Anyway. The primary setup of the story doesn't match AT ALL how the story plays out which is the long and short of my gripe.
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At the beginning, the uke makes a (faulty) assumption about the seme and then takes action on this assumption without even talking to the seme about it by breaking up with him. Then the seme falls and gets amnesia and forgets the uke.

What plays out from here was SUPPOSED to directly respond to this setup where the uke is punished for his wrong-doing in the setup by having him do penance for his actions for the remainder of the story, and where his diligent attempts at atonement are rewarded by giving him his boo back.

But INSTEAD, the uke's stupidity is rewarded by the story forcing the seme to (re-?)pursue the uke despite his amnesia, like saying, "see, there's just something about you, I will always want and chose specifically you no matter what!". This is such a tired and overused shoujo plotline that I find myself way more annoyed than I should be to see it crop up here in a 9.3-rated story. (Remember, the uke is the reader stand-in, and this fulfills the reader fantasy that your amazing love interest will always love you hardcore no matter how crappy you are to them - yuck).

There were two ways this story could've been written to make both ends of the story match up.

1a. First, the easy fix. Cut the prolog breakup. The uke and seme are now in a perfectly content and loving relationship and things are going great. Then, by random happenstance, the seme trips and falls and busts his dome and forgets the uke. The rest of the story can play out as it does.

1b. A slight alteration of 1a to increase drama and make the story a little stronger would be to have them in a mostly happy relationship, but then the *seme* does something stupid/jerkish/inconsiderate to the uke, which causes the seme to fall, then amnesia, and then keep the rest of it the same.

2. The more complicated way to do it is to keep the prolog of the story the same as the original story, all the way through the fall and amnesia, and then change the ending to the following:

The seme wakes up, having forgotten about the uke, and then proceeds to live a new life without the uke while the uke watches from afar. Uke can't bring himself to completely stay away from the seme (because he loves him) and finds himself breezing by the bakery all the time or whatever to gaze on in longing.

Uke will witness some other guy hitting on the seme and the seme responding positively to it (while ignoring attentions by girls), which throws uke into a state of mental turmoil because if the seme was just going to date another guy anyway, what was the point of the uke breaking up with him to begin with, when they had been perfectly happy?

And then, to top that off, the uke witnesses seme's sister and new baby come by to visit, and the seme says something along the lines of "your kid is cute, but I'm glad he's yours. I don't want kids, they're too much work" (or whatever -- something indicating the seme either doesn't care about having kids or specifically doesn't want them).

At this point, finally, the uke realizes his grave mistake, and we get a "dark night of the soul" moment. Coming out of it, the uke will resolve to pursue the seme in earnest full-tilt, having learned his lesson, and then uke could fight for the seme against the new uke, and then at some point the story could use the ring subplot in a similar way, to jog the seme's memory and reconnect them, etc.

tl;dr

Basically, what I'm trying to say is that the uke screwed up at the beginning of the story, so the uke should be the one to shoulder the burden of getting them back together after somehow learning his lesson about the value of communication in a relationship. This is not how the story goes at all, the uke is rewarded by the plot for his bad behavior, and thus color me annoyed.

If Sam left a bunch of stuff, it's clearly so he could come back at any time he wanted to interrupt whatever you're doing. Pack it up in a box and take it to the cafe and drop it off... do NOT let him come over to get it or you'll never be able to get rid of him!

I fluctuate between Sam and Seth. Generally, I like Sam's character design better. The childhood friends story is also compelling. It also seems like Sam like-likes Henry too but doesn't quite understand what he's feeling exactly. But Seth is just such a breath of fresh air and a sweet little puppy cinnamon roll that I think he'd just generally be better for Henry's psyche over all.

In general though, I wish Henry'd just make a decision and lean hard into it. It seems like he's chosen Seth, but here he is again letting Sam worm his way back in with an excuse. ¯|_(ツ)_|¯

I had to laugh when thinking about the ages of the characters. For people they meet (in the future) that don't know that Shizuku is the product of something that happened before the alpha x omega met, you end up with the following logic playing out in someone's head:

21 yrs old omega - 5 shizuku's age -1 gestation = 15 years old when omega got pregnant

17 yrs old alpha - 5 shizuku's age -1 gestation = 11 years old when alpha impregnated him (if you don't realize that Hazuki is not the person that did it)

LOLWUT

Anyway, this story was almost great, but I had a few issues.... (also incl are things I liked after spoiler space)

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1. The comic tries to tout a theme of "being an omega shouldn't matter" but alpha is literally in love with omega because he's an omega (alpha knows nothing about him and instantly confesses the moment he sees him for the first time). I was trying to figure out if this was supposed to be a "Fated Pairing" that was trying be conveyed but because the word choice was different, I am still unsure if this is the case. STILL, if it was the case, alpha can only blame alpha/omega biology for his "love" for the omega, since they don't even know each other at all.

2. Omega was put in the position of damsel and victim far too much. I really don't like it when this happens because omegaverse is a mirror for putting certain subsets of men (omegas) in women's place in the real world, and I don't like the idea of needing to be constantly rescued by a "better gender" than mine. Addendum to this item - needing a man to take care of you ("getting a life partner"), which is what omega is encouraged to do over and over in this comic, feels kind of cringey when I think about it for more than a few seconds.

3. They attributed daughter's noble traits to "probably being an alpha" instead of just saying she's a good person, which again, goes against the theme the comic seems to be trying to convey on the surface of "your second gender shouldn't matter".

4. What is the purpose of the omega going to match-making events if he hates alphas? Either you want a life partner or you don't. Was he expecting to find a beta life partner? I don't really get it.



Now for The Good things

1. Older omega x younger alpha

2. Omega has a kid by another guy and new alpha on the scene is absolutely fine with it. It being a high schooler with this view of the situation seems to be a bit of a stretch, but I'll give it a pass. Anyway, I love it when the reality of the omega gender being for breeding is not ignored in a story.

3. Alpha doesn't seem to be absurdly rich, powerful, old money, only-son-of-whatever-conglomerate group, etc. He's just like a normal kid from a more wealthy than average family. I guess his family owns a fancy hotel, but it's not really played up in the story at all. He's basically treated as a normal kid for most of the story.

4. I love the mom helping out. It's great to have parents present and doing what they can to help the protags.

5. Grandpa cleaner guy was great. An alpha with a low-class job? That's so unusual in this setting!

6. Sometimes kids in a story can become the kiss of death for the story, but the daughter was pretty good and well-used in the story and didn't seem to disappear from the story when inconvenient (grandma was said to be babysitting any time she wasn't around in the evening, which was at least explained)

7. I like that the comic didn't pull any punches about the omega's fear of alphas after what happened to him in (high school? middle school?). Going through something like that would definitely cause PTSD.

8. I like that the omega made the conscious choice to keep the child produced by rape. It's a hard choice, especially at his his age (21 present age - 5 shizuku's age -1 for gestation = 15-16 years old). I'm glad that his mom supported his choice.

Did someone go and add all the sex scenes back into this comic as it is uploaded here? I've seen various comments that imply this may be the case, or it may be just the newer uploaded chapters have them, but I can't tell for sure.

Everything was going OK in this one until
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the uke pulls the gun on the seme, saying "date me or I'm going to kill myself". That's such a sleazy tactic, one usually used by abusers in a relationship. I get that the uke has mental issues. But this is the sort of thing that requires therapy and meds, not a boyfriend.

After this situation happens, I felt pretty uncomfortable reading the rest of it without them mentioning anything about this again. I don't think these two could ever be in a stable relationship without the uke getting some professional help at some point. This is not something that can just be solved by ignoring it.

(The whole gun thing was weird and creepy in general, and it's unclear, but I guess this takes place in the US, given the character names and easy access to guns.)

Ahhhh, I can't wait to see this whole thing core dump in a spectacular way next season!

I like that I cannot tell at all where the author is going to go with this comic. Is it gonna be a 3P (not likely, given Joowon's jealousy)? Is Taku's appearance in their lives merely going to be the catalyst to finally get Joowon and Haesoo officially together (after Joowon goes through a major character arc to clean up his act, obviously)? Is Haesoo finally going to be motivated to push Joowon away and choose Taku? Is Haesoo going to just end up alone after acting too bratty?

Ahhh, it could really be anything!

Also, I like Haesoo and Taku's relationship right now. They seem pretty into each other, respectful of each other, talk about deep things, try to help each other figure things out. The only thing I wonder is if this is what Haesoo really wants? He may just straight-up be a masochist, and secretly enjoy being treated like dogshyyt by Joowon.

Hmmm... give me more, Yeongha-sensei!! (๑•ㅂ•)و✧

Wow, the writing in this manga is spectacular; it gave me chills, and I couldn't stop reading it. I sat there several minutes after finishing it, shell-shocked.

I can see why there's so much controversy, and why it does make people feel uncomfortable. But this is very real, including the ending. It was never supposed to end well, if it was going to remain true to the characters and the story it was trying to tell. It sucks, but it is what it is.

Shockingly, I have no criticisms for this one. 5-stars, no hesitation.