TachibanaChiharu's Topics (174)

It's really cute that YJ was drawn as a lefty, and this tiny attribute, while never specifically mentioned, was never forgotten by the author throughout the story. There's a moment where he's making dinner in Hyun's apartment and he's cutting up a carrot with the knife in his left hand, how cute. Wish the author had emphasized more the advantages of being a lefty in baseball though.

There are only two compiled volumes of Megumi and Tsugumi right now.
https://www.cmoa.jp/title/157036/
https://renta.papy.co.jp/renta/sc/frm/item/166796/

The volume 2 compilation was released in December of 2019.

The author is serializing more in Qpano, which is released as a physical magazine only, which makes it difficult finding information on. Megumi and Tsugumi are on the cover of the May 2020 issue.
https://www.amazon.co.jp/Qpa-vol-101-キュン-雑誌-S井ミツル-ebook/dp/B088NMND1S/

Checking the author's twitter for the latest news on M&T:
- Megumi and Tsugumi is being (currently) serialized in Qpa.
- A cast list for a BL CD for M&T vol 1-2 was announced Oct 21st 2020.
- Qpa vol 106 (note: released Oct 1st 2020) contains M&T chapter 15 (tweet = September 23rd 2020).

Author's tweet / comment for chapter 15, for those curious: "The Yamada family and Megumi party in swimsuits. Tsugumi flirts up a storm without even realizing it."

If the release trends hold for this series, ~2 more chapters will have to release in the magazine to complete a full volume 3. I would guess early 2021 for a volume 3 compilation, like maybe February. That said, I'm not sure what delays there might be due to covid, so who really knows.

This one held my interest throughout the whole run, even if there were a few problems. I also really liked the art, even though it was more on the cartoony side than some comics. The smut was also pretty good, although it gets to be too much with the 2nd couple after while I think.

Anyway, I think this is worth the read, personally, despite flaws.

(spoilers)
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
Disclaimer: most of this is minor, and I still enjoyed the comic despite all of this.

Both arcs of this comic were the exact same story and hit almost the exact same plot beats - main character likes the love interest, then gets flung into love interest's sphere of influence where the love interest holds something (blackmail, you owe me) over them so their relationship can progress, both main characters act like emotional disasters anytime their love interest pays attention to them, then at some point they get over their love interest for being wishy-washy and start acting cold, then after things come to a head because main character is ignoring love interest, the love interest breaks, then love interest becomes mushy after the relationship starts, completely unlike they were before, where it then comes to light the love interest totally loved them the whole time, and not only that, since way before the main character thought, and oh it was love at first sight on the love interest's part.

Also, a flaw in both arcs, but both love interests had confusing to borderline nonsensical reasoning for dragging out the melodrama between them and the main character (in other words, refusing to date the main character). For Youngwon, I guess he wanted Haemin to like him more and/or become more obsessed with him than he was with Haemin (this really had no backstory context for why this would matter to Youngwon though)? And for Dongha... he wanted Sanho to become so obsessed with him that he'd do anything for Dongha (like the puppy I guess)? Instead, for Youngwon, tie his motivation in with his parents always being absent due to work, and him always being lonely. And instead for Dongha, have him have a puppy he cared a lot about in childhood only to have it die in some random happenstance tragedy, which is why he's obsessed with monitoring Sanho's every move, or something like that.

As it is, the characters feel like they're just spinning their wheels to lengthen the comic when there was no sensible reason for them to remain apart. Youngwon was especially bad here, where I constantly questioned why they weren't already in a relationship if Youngwon had been totally enamored with Haemin from before the start of the comic. In reality, it never would've happened this way. The whole point of all this is to get a confession out of the other person, then date them or whatever; Haemin confesses multiple times and is rejected for no motivated reason each time, and I'm just like, "but, whyyyyyyy".

Another head-scratcher; Youngwon has a complete personality change at the end of the first arc for no reason, and acts completely unlike himself for the remainder of his screen time. This doesn't happen in reality; people don't completely change personalities when they get in a relationship. This was so baffling.

Well. At least the comic never forgot how crazy Dongha was, and Sanho even mentions it in the epilogue, and then just mentally shrugs and says its part of what makes him cute. But yeah, Dongha is generally problematic with how he tries to control Sanho's actions, monitors him constantly like a naggy mother, and has mood swings like crazy.

Also, the Youngwon ex-bf plot thread, and the ex-bf using him for his money and him not liking that, is completely forgotten and never addressed with respect to Haemin. If you're gonna inject drama with this fucboi at the beginning of the comic and then give all these reasons why things didn't work out the ex ("he wanted me for my money"), at least address the issue wrt Haemin somewhere along the line.

I also didn't really like the plot point of Youngwon boning the ex-bf "one last time" towards the beginning. It didn't really contribute anything to the story other than make certain readers dislike him as a "cheater" or a "slutty bottom" even though he wasn't in a relationship at the time and could thus do what he wants. But at this same time, if he's so in love with Haemin, why would he even think about boning his ex? He was totally intending to jump Haemin's bones after he'd worked the situation enough, and he was completely confident he'd be successful with Haemin (and was), so there was no point to showing this with the ex. All the story needed was for Haemin to see Youngwon and the ex making out in the parking lot, which lets Haemin know that Youngwon would be open to a guy-guy and sexual relationship, and that is literally the only point to the ex's presence in the story since he evaporates immediately after.

I also low-key got irked when Haemin said some crummy things about Sanho right after they re-met outside of the coffee shop, given all the traumatic BS that Sanho's been through. A main character like Haemin should generally be portrayed with a better personality than that, even if he didn't know the details of Sanho's life (which I don't think he did, tbh). But the reader does know these details. This is a writing problem -- authors usually write protagonists to be generally good people, who do good things, and make good choices, so that readers can emotionally connect with them. It was a pointless thing to make Haemin do, since it just makes him look bad and wasn't really a set up for anything else later in the story. Just have him have pleasant memories of Sanho from HS instead; have Haemin comment that he wanted to be friends with Sanho, but he was too intimidated by Sanho's outgoing personality, and then Sanho disappeared before they could really hit it off or something.

Also, why in the heck do they not know they're all dating each other by the end of the comic?? Freaking Dongha and Sanho have been wearing rings for months (ok, Haemin definitely knows), but c'mon! Dongha/Sanho call Youngwon Haemin's roommate in the epilogue, ffs! Given the fact that Haemin knows, he may as well just introduce them all properly to get rid of all that unnecessary awkwardness.

I read all of this on Lezhin and loved it for the hilariously insane and deranged main character, Dongsoo. As far as the rival (Inhan) goes, you'll be annoyed at him at the outset, but then eventually you start pitying him due to Dongsoo's deluded notions of himself, his relationships, and whatever it is he thinks he wants. Dongsoo's raging derpitude is relentless and his shameless and hypocritical behavior had me ROFL throughout pretty much the entire thing.

I also find this one interesting for a number of reasons: 1) the main character is really engaging to read about while simultaneously being pretty petty and shytty throughout, 2) this really is some kind of weird hetero/BL crossover that you don't often see, 3) the women in this are great, and their actions are in some ways responsible for pushing the two together without any of them really being portrayed as harpies, and 4) this is 100% a BL farce that actually has a progressing plot and fully realized character development.

Manager Cha is sporting some really intense crazy-eyes.

But on a more serious note... Both leads actually like each other, what a concept! Also, Manager Kang is so hot I don't even. And the dopiness of Sunwoo is pretty funny without being annoying. Even Sunwoo's family, despite not being in it much so far, still influences the plot in interesting ways. The "we only have one room left" scene, I was prepared for a typical 1-bed-in-the-room-so-we-HAVE-to-sleep-together subplot, and when I was presented with a 2-bed room, I was stupefied and instantly interested in what the author was gonna do with it. And the shower scene -- I fully expected a trope moment there too and rolled my eyes when it was mentioned, and then it went in a completely different direction that informed the character's personalities, which is what scenes like these are supposed to do.

After coming off of a really long, poorly-written comic that took me over a week to slog through, My Purrfect Boss is such a breath of fresh air, I can't say enough good stuff about it. I loved every moment of this. Thank you so much Cuke Soap, this brain-bleach was just what I needed. I'll go unlock season one on Lezhin now! <3

You're better off not reading this topic if you like the series, because I did not, and I don't have much nice to say. I can't help but look at this and what it could've been if it hadn't gotten lost in its own self-absorbed grandeur. The stockholm-syndrome B-plot romance and the stereotypical leads were the main culprits here, actively detracting from both the more interesting conspiracy A-plot, but most especially, from the likeability of the characters over all. Given just how much relationship wrap-up there is at the end of this series, to not really like either character involved in it really makes it a slog to get through.

Also, there's something a little head scratching about just how similar this series is to Penthouse XXX. The semes/ukes are basically the exact same characters (personalities, roles, appearances, jobs; everything, basically) in both series. The uke lives with the seme and is employed by the seme, who is a rich CEO. Cold/frigid things. Bodyguard vs assassin are very similar jobs. Even the character colorings are almost identical. Not sure which comic came first, tbh.

Anyway, let's get into it. (you should probably stop here. this is waaay too long)

(spoilers)
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.

We'll start with some easy things first.

The art seemed OK most of the time, and the color art was appreciated, but many many times, especially with Felix, it looked like he was cross-eyed. Or whatever the opposite of cross-eyed is, where the eyes aren't looking in the same direction, but outwards. It was frequent and irritating to look at and I found myself constantly distracted from whatever was going on in the story to stare at outways-cross-eyed Felix and wonder if Giovanni found that to be hot.

As far as tropes go, it's cute that so many orphans grow up to be billionaires so that the typical high-octane seme in the BL story can have a sob-story background. This is so lazy, and it's never really explained how he got to where he is today. But, I can't really hang the pervasiveness of this sin on this comic in particular, since it's used so many other places. I can, however, ding it for not even trying to explain how he ended up as a CEO at 32.

Moving on. Having sex in extremely inappropriate places, at inappropriate times, just to show how much of a "tiger in the bed" the seme is. The uke being a typical stand-offish, stubborn, sex-hating, i-don't-want-it-but-i-kind-of-dooooo tsundere. Cornball date stuff, movie theaters, flowers, fancy dinners, cooking for one another -- it might be at least somewhat cute/endearing to read if you like the characters, but if you don't, it makes you want to gag. The comic trying to show off Giovanni's awesome noble seme-ness by doing stupid/inappropriate things like exposing himself to an attack to protect Felix's sister so he can look cool to the uke and reader, and then completely forgetting about Felix's sister in the next scene. There are loads more tropes, but I don't want to get bogged down in minutiae this early on. Instead of rolling in tropes like this so hard, ground things in reality more and come up with something different for your characters to be doing than stuff out of a typical BL romance.

Next thing worth noting is that, at the beginning of the story, no context is provided for both Felix's and Giovanni's "normal" before they get up to the hijinks of the plot. This lack of establishment for both characters makes it really hard to empathize and connect with either of them. We don't see what a normal day at Giovanni's office is like, that he is super competent, overworked, and always cold (temperature), lonely, etc etc. We don't see really anything about Felix and his life other than he's being forced to do something to Giovanni by someone, but with no more details than that. Giovanni in particular suffers because of this, since without the context of him actually being portrayed as the CEO of a company, in that he does high-stress work and is indispensable, he just comes across as a worthless rich guy who shirks his duties and gets his way when he tantrums. He's freaking annoying. And it takes forever to get to a point in the plot where you actually do see him working his butt off, doing anything for anyone but himself, but it's really far too late by the time the comic gets there. There were many times near the beginning where I found myself asking, "does he actually ever go to work?", "I'd like to paid millions for doing nothing", "if he just pawns his work off on his secretary all the time, why don't they fire him and hire the secretary as the CEO instead?", etc.

Anyway. Now on to sexuality problems. Neither character states that they are gay at the beginning of the story (or even throughout the entire comic), and yet Felix goes traipsing into some kind of bar at the beginning, somehow knowing Giovanni would be there, and basically flings himself at another man with no shame. Was Giovanni in a gay bar? Never mentioned. When Felix grabs Gio's hand as he tries to leave, and bellows out a confession at him in the middle of the bar, it's horribly cringy because there is no way to determine how awkward this is supposed to be in the context of the setting. Will all the straight people nearby gasp at the flamboyant gay couple having a fight? Is this actually a gay bar and all the gays just ignore this display as something that normally happens? Is there a problem with a powerful CEO being seen in a gay bar? Or in a normal bar, being confessed to by a presumably gay man? But no, there's nobody around reacting to this display in order to provide any context, so we also don't know how to react either.

Then, without any kind of consideration about safety or sexuality or propriety, Giovanni decides to yoink Felix off to bone, with still no context around whether either character is gay or not, or whether they should even be pursuing sex at this point. Just because someone confesses to you doesn't mean they want to f!ck right here, right now. Anyways, Gio's behavior here makes it seem like he might be gay when asking Felix if he's ever done this before. But, at a higher level, it really just seems like all Gio cares about at this moment is the warmth he can feel with Felix, and nothing else really matters. Like if the warmth was attached to a woman, he'd have taken her without half a thought instead. On the one hand, this seems very progressive, in a "hearts not parts" sort of mindset. But on the other hand, only caring about the warmth is treating someone like an object, which is really crappy. I talk about this more in-depth later. Anyway, back to sexuality. Honestly, I feel like Felix is likely not gay, and Giovanni is likely an "I've never really thought about it" bisexual, given how the plot develops. By the end it doesn't matter anymore, but it does at the beginning of the story, since it would provide a foundational set of expectations surrounding their interactions to come and immerse the reader more.

Anyway. Giovanni then abuses his power of authority over Felix, now his hired bodyguard, by raping him over and over throughout the story. Never once does Felix say he wants it in the first 2/3 of the story, and is always telling Giovanni to stop it and has the worst, ugliest scowl on his face every time Gio starts smooching and licking and groping him. But Felix can't quit/leave, because he has to do the task for Oliver. So he tolerates it. Even after Felix and Gio have a moment in chapter 50-something, where the whole data-stealing situation comes to light, Felix is still telling Giovanni to stop it. Now, to be fair, Felix does initiate things sometimes, but those times are always caveatted with a "...but" of some sort. Like when Giovanni was hospitalized; either Felix had sex with Giovanni or Giovanni died. Not really much of a choice. He also initiated things to distract Giovanni while trying to download the data on Giovanni's computer. One time he was drunk, which IMO doesn't count. Another time Felix felt it was owed because he'd just caused Giovanni's company to lose the big contract they were after. All of these things aren't really him wanting sex, but are instead mostly Felix just feeling obligated into providing sex to Giovanni. Then of course Felix finally drinks the kool-aid by the 2/3 mark, convincing himself he's in love with selfish Giovanni, now that he's been sexed into submission. This whole story is just window-dressing on a tired rape-to-love/stockholm-syndrome plot.

Furthermore, Giovanni's problem of treating Felix like a space heater is particularly arrrrgh. This is objectification at its core. Giovanni orders Felix to go buy condoms just to get him out of the house so he can talk to his brother alone, and when Felix returns without condoms (note: because he doesn't want to have sex), Giovanni tells him its his own fault that he's going to have a stomach ache from Gio forcing raw sex on him. Hey, how about you have some consideration for your partner and wait until tomorrow when you can pick up some condoms? Whatever, just be my cum-dumpster, Felix! Later, Felix confesses all his sins to Giovanni, and instead of reassuring and comforting him in such an emotionally vulnerable moment, Gio instead inappropriately sucks him off. At the same time, Giovanni also tells Felix he gets to basically be his sex slave for the rest of his life to make up for the stealing of the data! Argh. Giovanni knows that Felix has been forced to steal this data by Oliver, who has him by the figurative balls, and has been threatening his family's lives. Giovanni should instead be showing how he is the better person by letting go of any notions of Felix owing him something and letting Felix choose what he wants to do instead of forcing him to do whatever Giovanni wants. Also, just because he lets him go later for a completely different reason (as part of the deal he made with Oliver to get Oliver to back off of Felix) does not mean that Giovanni didn't mean it (be my sex slave forever) the first time. He had no way of predicting the future. You can't backtrack Giovanni's personality and motivations like this and expect me to believe it. Not after 50 chapters of build up. Oliver being an even worse ahole was what it took to force Giovanni to take a step back and treat Felix (sort of) like a human rather than a possession. Also, it's totally weaksauce for the story to force Giovanni to let Felix go rather than making it a character choice moment where Giovanni decides on his own to be a better person.

A few random things --

I find it hilarious that when Giovanni forces Felix to be hospitalized after Oliver tied him up and jerked him off, Giovanni used himself coming onto Felix as a litmus test to determine if Felix was having PTSD over the sexual assault stuff Oliver did to him. But YOU did much worse things to Felix, Giovanni, OF COURSE he would react with displeasure when you came on to him! He ALWAYS did! Giovanni is so deluded I don't even.

It's also irritating to have Felix stuck in this situation with Oliver due to the cost of paying for hospital bills (for his mother!), and then have him get into the exact same situation with Giovanni (when Felix's mom gets hit by the car). One can only hope that Giovanni would be a decent enough person to just let it go rather than try to extort favors out of Felix as well. Oh wait. Oh. Oooooohhhh.

When Giovanni, in his deal with Oliver, fires Felix, he's cold with Felix, telling him basically to go away and stay away from him. And then after a few days or whatever (time gap unclear), Felix goes to the hospital because his friend told him Giovanni was hospitalized. The fact that his friend told him this with no context, and Felix asking no questions, is just bizarre. In the real world, when someone calls you on the phone to tell you someone you care about is hospitalized, you ask them why and what the prognosis is, and then they tell you. But then at the hospital, when Felix runs away and Giovanni chases him, after that, things just kind of go back to normal without a single word about the firing, why it was done, why Giovanni acted so cold to Felix, etc. It's so weird and nonsensical, like the author forgot to include a chapter where they had that conversation or something. WTH.

During the Felix-goes-to-jail arc, his mom and sister never go visit him, and never mention a thing about it during or after, ever. Wut? How long was he in there, anyway??? He's bailed out at some point I guess but it's not even shown so you have to just figure it out from context clues, the fact that he's going places with Giovanni a that aren't jail. No one ever tells Felix on screen that Giovanni isn't the president of the company anymore, but at some point Felix just knows this to be the case. It's kind of a big deal for Felix to find out about this on-screen, since Giovanni gave the company up FOR FELIX. How could you not show the argument they get in or whatever about it?! Oops!

Towards the end, Giovanni chastises his brother Leo for getting Felix drunk while he's sick, then Giovanni proceeds to have sex with the drunk and sick Felix instead of just putting him to bed. How stupid and hypocritical. This whole concept of "let's use every excuse to cram in another sex scene" just ruins the times when the sex does matter, because by the end you're spammed with so much of it you become desensitized to it, stop caring, and start paging-down through it just to get to the next part that actually has plot stuff where you can read something more interesting and not completely predictable.

Also, their whole lovey-dovey couple ending way overstays its welcome by chapter 88, even if you ignore the fact their relationship was incepted by rape after rape after rape. The story should've ended when they exchanged "I love yous" and the plot with Oliver was wrapped up. Arguably, the plot with Oliver should've been pushed up and a lot of the BS relationship clowning-around should've been cut. Junk plot threads like "the disapproving brother" or "Giovanni gets sick" or "Felix gets sick" or "Hey we found some sex toys" are pandering plot tropes that should not be there unless you're going to do something new and unique with them. Just cut the typical BL BS and focus on the conspiracy story.

It would've been nice if the story had bothered to wrap-up the doping scandal, the inception for all of this. You know, with the arrest of Oliver and cohorts, it should come to light that the doping accusations were false, and were fabricated to hide the fact that Felix was J Group Daddy's biological son, and then Felix's name is cleared. Y'know, just saying. >:/

In the side stories, Giovanni and fam have italian names, and he and Felix fly to France, and speak English. This was a little head-scratching, but it's probably just some translation hijinks. I'm guessing their names in the Korean version are actually Korean names, and that they go to France and Felix speaks Korean with Noah (not English). Can't really confirm this though.

Having Felix get salty because Giovanni had dated someone else before him is really kind of lame. They're both adults. Giovanni acts like a horn dog all the time, so you'd have to expect it (even if it didn't happen to be the case). Most adults have dated someone else before; why would Gio be an exception. This sort of plot is a remnant of BL's shoujo roots (this dumb obsession with being someone's "first" for everything), and it's way overused and frankly inappropriate in R-19 stories about adults. Putting it in here does not help the comic at all with the problems it has, but instead drags it down even more.

Shoehorning in a short about how Felix and Giovanni had met once as kids was lame and totally pandering BS that was tossed in at the last moment. Two people don't need to be destined from birth in order to have a good relationship or to find a partner loves them a lot. This was dumped into our faces with no warning as some yet-another-thing for the readers to be all "d'awwww" about, but it's never mentioned when it flashes back forward. For the characters to never have realized it by the end... why put it in the story at all? It doesn't really matter if we know. It matters if THEY know. And they don't seem to.

Really, the side stories/extras should've been about some of the side characters instead.

And now for a rumination on this whole plot to steal the data, in general --

I just don't see how Felix completing his assigned task by Oliver really has anything to do with Oliver's mom wanting to kill him and his whole family. The problem Oliver's mom has with Felix will still exist whether or not Felix does the task. In that - Felix is still alive and can claim his birthright as the heir of whoever J Group daddy either way. Felix's existence is the threat. Whether or not he can be useful is beside the point.

Not only that, but Oliver's mother forcing the doping scandal effectively brought to light to Felix that Felix was the legit heir of the gazillionaire, which is the opposite of what she wants. Felix knowing about his heritage means he he could've used it as leverage at any point with both Oliver and Oliver's mother. Or just decided to bring both of them down. The two even said at the beginning of the story that J Group Daddy would protect his biological son over the fake son, so there seems to be nothing to lose here. Felix should've pulled the trigger on this the instant Oliver tried to blackmail him.

Meanwhile, Oliver should've just pretended to help Felix when the doping scandal hit by going off and then coming back to say he couldn't do anything, that someone more powerful than him was pulling the strings. Oliver doing what he instead did ruined his relationship with Felix (which he didn't seem to want to happen) while initiating the ruination of his inheritance since Felix now knows (which he also didn't seem to want to happen), unless he could manage to kill Felix first before Felix could contact big daddy J (which he also didn't seem to want to happen). Could you possibly more thoroughly ruin your own life with moronic choices, Oliver?

Also, Felix accepting Oliver's ridiculous scheme meant that Felix would have to believe that Oliver had any sort of ability to control what his mother did. Which was BS, because he definitely didn't, given how the doping scandal went down. She operates outside of her son, and does what she wants. And she wants prestige and billions, doesn't care about Oliver's feelings or Felix's poor sob story. Felix doing the task was not going to change the amount of control Oliver had over his mother. I mean, maaaaaaybe if the result of the stolen data was that Oliver would inherit immediately, no take-backs, then sure, ok. But that's not what happens at all.

And another thing. If Oliver really was in love with Felix, he should've just used all his power and influence and money to get him out of the situation with Oliver's mom to begin with rather than getting him involved in dangerous tasks that might get him killed, or exposing him to attacks from Oliver's mom since Oliver was tracking Felix's location during this, or Oliver threatening Felix and his family, making Felix increasingly angry at him, or any number of things that Oliver did that someone who loved Felix wouldn't have done. This whole thing is just stupid, and Felix should've said "eff off" the instant Oliver copped an attitude with him during the doping scandal. (I might ask if the police are a thing, but why bother at this point)

In the end, this story has so many problems it would require a complete rewrite to fix it. Even basic things like character personalities need to be completely reworked. Felix needs something personality-wise that breaks him out of that typical shoujo-heroine / BL-uke stereotype. Giovanni needs to be shown to be a good guy from the beginning, and their "relations" need to be shown to be consensual. Oliver needs to be treated as character with his own hopes and dreams and act accordingly, you know, in his actual self-interest, rather than doing mean things to Felix for no reason other than the story needs a bad guy doing stuff to Felix that he doesn't like.

Also, I liked Oliver's character design way more than Giovanni's. YMMV :P

I've said enough. Penthouse XXX, while having its own flaws, was better.

This ran to 169 chapters!
And here I thought Sign was long at 115.

(〜￣△￣)〜 Probably an unpopular opinion here, but --

This had such a strong start, but the story seems to have already gotten lost in fucboi land. *sigh*

Soo-young's boxing career was destroyed by an injury he didn't have the funds to pay to repair, while his boxing hyung used his weakened state to sexually prey upon him seemingly against his will. Then, after he breaks away from his hyung, he gets mixed up with korean yakuza to pay back a debt his dead-beat father owed. Boss became interested in him because of his animalistic fighting spirit, so lets him join the org to work off the debt. Boss, meanwhile, is quietly trying to find the mole/leak in his organization.

But instead of starting to address any of this, now it's just like everyone wants to spend a round or two in Soo-young's yaoi hole with nothing else going on with the rest of the plot. While I will admit the art and smut is very aesthetically pleasing, this isn't the story promised from the set up at the beginning. I really want to see Soo-young beating people into a pulp and rising up in the org, and becoming and more and more entranced with the damage his fists can inflict on others, while they search for the mole, etc etc.

The boss wanting Soo-young to be his side-ho should've been a plot development later, much farther into the boxing/debts/mole plot. Soo-young should've been working his butt off to impress the boss over the course of the story, not have the boss entranced with his shapely glutes right from the get-go and going on a ex-bf-smashing rampage like right near the beginning of the story. *facepalm*

I hope this sidetrack to explore Soo-young's sexy poopchute is gonna be done soon so we can get back to the meat of the story.

While I generally liked this one, something seemed a little off about it once I got to the ending.

After sleeping on it, I realized what bugged me about it.

(spoilers)
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
The end of the story gave the role to Ms Seo that should've been given to Ms Song.

I'm going to assume with the rest of everyone that Manseok ended up with Ms Seo, because that makes the most sense given the story we got. But it doesn't really make sense, given the setup of the story.

Ms Song is the female mirror of the main character, Manseok. Manseok is a plain guy who has one particular fashion-related habit (fetish) that is in severe opposition to his gender norms. Meanwhile Ms Song is plain girl who has a habit of not conforming to her gender's fashion norms. Contrast that with Ms Seo, who is a girl who celebrates her gender norms (in terms of fashion) to such a degree that it's noteworthy.

Basically, Ms Song was put in the same sort of bad state at the beginning of the story that Manseok was. This should've been the story of both of them triumphing over the nay-sayers together.

And let's be honest here, Ms Seo, despite petty jealousy going around the office, isn't going to have trouble catching a boyfriend given she's good-looking, a fashionable dresser, and an aggressive go-getter. She intimidates some guys, sure, but there is no way that any of those dudes at that office wouldn't go for a round in her foxhole given the chance.

Also let's not forget that Ms Seo was one of Manseok's abusers at the beginning and middle of the story, while Ms Song has always (if quietly) been on Manseok's side the whole time. Ms Song has liked Manseok for years (starting with when he stood up for her once), while Ms Seo constantly used him to get out of doing busywork, or pushed BS her bosses pushed onto her down the hill to Manseok, that is until the end of the story when he stood up for her once.

Now, I'm not saying that Manseok is incapable of landing a hot gf, and I'm not saying that Ms Seo isn't allowed to have a redemption arc, but I do think that stories and character personalities should build on themselves, and that the author fails to keep a steady through-line with the character arcs in this story between these two girls, and it's a huge flaw.

What I mean is this -- It should've been Ms Song who fussed over Manseok's well-being and ran off to the hospital with him, and it should've been Ms Seo who decided to stay and snoop around Manseok's apartment without his approval. Ms Song is characterized as being insecure and not wanting to stir the pot while also being thoughtful; these personality traits would prevent her from invading Manseok's personal spaces without first asking him. Meanwhile, Ms Seo, being outgoing, aggressive, and not wanting to bother with tedious stuff, would easily justify sending someone else off to the hospital with Manseok, while also thinking she had every right to look around his house and inside rooms that are closed-off.

This change would force the two girls back into the right tracks for the remainder of the story, and would effectively swap their roles at the end of the story. I mean, this is supposed to be an underdog sort of story, where the socially oppressed characters are able to stand tall and "win" in the end. This should've been Manseok along with Ms Song.

In the end, I think the author just wanted to pair Manseok up with the "princess" character, since winning the hottie is more masturbatory than winning the "plainy". Poor Ms Song. I guess you do have to spend hundreds of dollars a month on fashionable apparel and makeup and spend hours a day styling your hair and applying makeup to look good for the guys, else you'll never be able to go anywhere in life. Ho hum.

It's honestly a hard to believe this was written by the same author as Munetaka-sama no dame maid. This story was soooo much better than that one. And really good 3P story? Shock! This may in fact be the best BL 3P story on the website.

I also can't believe (but am happy) that all of the dangling plot threads were wrapped up here, like:
(spoilers)
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.

The estranged mother, how Yuu's second gender slipped through the cracks, how Yuu came to be suppressant intolerant, researching into how two alphas could bite-bond with the same omega, what the exclusive alpha-only school decided to do when an omega was discovered among its ranks, Yuu's difficulty paying bills and finding lodging when not supported by his family, the two alphas getting their funds cut off by their familys and having to figure out what to do as well, etc. Most authors don't even think about half of this stuff!