TachibanaChiharu's Topics (173)

Crazy peeps here be readin' mpreg and urethra plug stuff and in the same breath be sayin' bara shouldn't be allowed on the whole site because of a one-chapter fisting manga... c'mon. ┑(￣Д ￣)┍

Whelp, I feel like Taku would be better for Haesoo (both his calm considerate nature and general stability), but it seems like Haesoo wants spitfire Joowon regardless. What can ya do? ╮(￣▽￣)╭

I guess it's more-or-less up to Joowon to make a decision one way or another at this point and take action. I just worry, because Joowon's treated Haesoo so poorly historically, I can't really tell if he's learned anything from this ordeal or not. I hope so, for Haesoo's sake.

Well, I think this could be over by ~ch86 if the author is willing to call it done once Haesoo's love life is finalized, leaving all the tangential plot threads dangling. The loser would still need some wrap-up, along with the salty ex-model of Taku's, the stalker ex-bf of Haesoo that ex-model has been using to creep on Haesoo, and srsly, where's my photo exhibition melodrama? Been waitin' for that plot bomb to drop since around chapter 30-something, LOL. I'm guessing this will most likely wrap up at ~ch100, or possibly sooner with several side-stories. It feels right on the precipice of being done though. ε=ε=(ノ≧∇≦)ノ

I do hope that this comic won't feel as draggy upon reread after it's complete and all the chapters can be read back-to-back/binged. I like what the author has done here generally, it seems pretty hard to write a legitimate love triangle where you really aren't sure for most of the comic what the outcome will be. Props. (๑•ㅂ•)و✧

In the latest chapter (83), Joowon....
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Seems poised to maybe tell folks in an interview that he beat-up the bully in HS for Haesoo's sake. I'll be interested to see if he just uses Haesoo's name, says "my brother", or says "my lover/fiancee/husbando". Joowon's such a lose cannon, anything's possible. He's gotta be such a fun character to write for sometimes.

What l think leaves readers with mixed feelings by the end of this comic is that the story set up at the beginning is not the story we got in the end.

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At the beginning of the story, Jungyeon and Sunwoo are introduced to each other, where Sunwoo is the younger, socially-awkward son of the man Jungyeon's mother is remarrying. These are the first two who get screen time together, and this is the first plot point that is explored. First off, this is totally by itself a Marmalade Boy setup where the expectation is that these two ("siblings") will get together in a romantic relationship. And then the story goes on to painstakingly have Jungyeon try his hardest to pull Sunwoo out of his shell, while feeling more and more comforted by Sunwoo's quiet consideration and care of him. Classic setup for an in-family romance.

Meanwhile, we find out not much farther into the story that Jungyeon is in a relationship with another man, Hyunjin, and Jungyeon is insecure because he thinks Hyunjin doesn't like him that much despite Hyunjin acting like a low-key obsessive, crazy, yandere stalker. This is confusing since these two perspectives of the same relationship don't really agree with each other about what the current state of their relationship is. But it's clearly presented as not-good for Jungyeon. This usually signals that a break-up is needed somewhere later in the story, so the audience is now expecting it.

Also, normally, the reveal that a male character has a boyfriend (not a girlfriend) is BL plot-signaling to get the perspective character (in this case, Sunwoo) to think about dating same-sex, something he would never have considered before. Again this sets up Sunwoo as someone who is intended to the be the focus of the main romance.

It is also worth mentioning that Sunwoo had enough perspective chapters and screen-time to be considered on-par with Jungyeon, making him very clearly the secondary lead. Both of these characters have way more screen time than Hyunjin gets. Hyunjin is generally treated by the story as a supporting character, at least for the first 2/3 of it.

So, with all this set up, we're expecting that by the end of the story, Sunwoo's confidence will have improved to where he finally stands up for himself (and/or Jungyeon) against Hyunjin, causing a break-up, after which Jungyeon and Sunwoo's love for each other will be confirmed. This is the basic conclusion we, as the audience, are promised.

But instead, we get a story where the Jungyeon stays with his original boyfriend, Hyunjin, who is actually a good person, and our second lead, Sunwoo, is left with no boyfriend, not even a potential love-interest, and let's be honest here, has no wrap-up at all romance-wise.

The setups that did have payoffs were that Sunwoo's confidence did increase to where his social anxiety is reduced to more normal levels and he can interact with people now and stand up for himself now, but he didn't really gain anything from it (he actually lost everything he wanted from it). And Jungyeon, tired of being in a nebulous, unclear relationship, finally has a relationship that is stable and committed, even if it's not with the person we're lead to believe it should be from the setup at the beginning of the story.

There really needs to be a set of side-story chapters or spin-off story that wraps up Sunwoo's love life. Something that takes the things his character learned/gained in this story, and uses them to help him get past relationship hurdles in the new story. He'd actually be a great flat-arc lead for a spin-off story.

Anyway, all this is to say, this is why this story might leave a bad taste in your mouth, or leave you with a really confused jumble of emotions by the end of it. The story leads you to believe you're reading one type of story, then pulls the rug out from under you about 2/3 of the way through and ends it as a different type of story. Setups without proper payoffs are bad, setups with incorrect payoffs are bad and confusing, this is not any kind of clever subversion of anything, this is just immature writing. I will give the author credit though, (s)he did a brilliant job with the awkward tension at the end of the story and the almost slasher-style horror tone of the scenes where Sunwoo and Jungyeon begin to realize what a horrible train-wreck has begun unfolding.

Well, then. Just to be a completest on the topic -- A comic where this sort of setup is done well (probably) is "Love or Hate" (incomplete, but seems to be circling toward a conclusion finally).

How is what cousin implies he did to Yukihisa in ch2 any different than what the main character did to Yukihisa at the end of ch1? This is firmly entrenched in BL-crazyworld where everyone's gay and are sooo very attracted to the uke that they rape him all the timeeeee. At the end of ch1, we even got a scene transition where Yukihisa's pants and undies were teleported off and the mc was already balls deep in him already gettin' busy. Howabout some foreplay and prep, mister "love at first sight" ?! Just what.

Normally this author writes better than this; there's usually at least some connection between the leads that pulls them together and makes you want to root for them. But here, there's just nothing but a declaration that mc fell in love with someone half his age at first sight with no context, and that person half his age wants nothing to do with him. Laaaaame. I'm gonna have to drop this one here.

This story is almost entirely tropes/stereotypes. The only way it really deviates (in a good way at least) is that the seme doesn't immediately sex-up the uke after rescuing the uke from sexual assault. But otherwise, this doesn't really deviate from the BL-HSers-loaner-uke-is-prostitute script.

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More care should've been put into the uke's backstory, his personality given his situation, context to how he met Maze-san specifically (as opposed to anyone else), what specifically Maze-san does, how the uke feels about Maze-san and the situation, what threat Maze-san really, actually poses. I feel like the leads got out of the situation with Maze-san (whatever it was) way too easily with little-to-no repercussions, and Maze-san let him go with barely a fight.

Also, provide some backstory/context to the seme to explain why he would reach out over and over to someone who clearly wants to be left alone. Normally kids in HS stick with their social groups and don't really talk to anyone outside of them. This is weird and reality-breaking. The author should've had some incident spark seme's interest in the uke, not just randomly sitting near each other in class.

Furthermore, just because the seme feels bad for the uke's lack of friends and the situation he's stuck in doesn't mean he's suddenly in love with him. Maybe it's because he saw the uke's sexy face and body (eyeroll if so)? Reality doesn't work like this. The author needs to provide a reason, an incident (or set of incidents), or something like this that bring the two closer after the seme becomes aware of the uke's existence.

Also, at the end, did uke move in with seme? How is the uke otherwise going to continue paying for his apartment now that he's no longer a prostitute? How does he pay for high school? Why was he even going to HS if he was being used by ne'er-do-wells as a prostitute? Who will take care of him? These questions need to be addressed for the story to be grounded in the real world. I mean the seme could do these things I guess, but show it. Show him talking to his mom about it and introducing them, etc.

In the end, this story is too paint-by-numbers to really be compelling. Try Yatamomo by Harada for a more interesting read along these lines.

Now available on lezhin in english!
https://www.lezhin.com/en/comic/tatsuyuki

I was so excited to read this, as authors seem to struggle to write good, compelling stories in the omegaverse, and this one was rated well. But man, there are so many issues here...

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First off, no 2 conspires with a customer to rape no 1 one, which is like extra bad compared to just the typical stockholm-syndrome rape-to-love stories that happen on a whim/spur-of-the-moment. There is no reason for no 1 to like no 2, especially after what he did. No 1 is allowed to not want to get violated.

One of my most hated tropes appears here in spades -- the two leads arguing about who gets to top, and the role of the bottom being treated like some kind of lesser role. Because it's the "woman's" role.

You can tell this what they're thinking because now there's apparently ass-hymen. The freaking retarded omega being able to tell that no 1 was not an ass-virgin just by looking or sticking a finger in? Come on. Ugh.

When no 2 rapes no 1, it's considered okay because no 2 "loves" no 1. Later, when omega customer attempts to rape no 1, it's considered not-ok because said omega hates no 1 because no 1's an alpha? I guess? Mmmm hmmm. Okayyyy.

Omega also treats the role of the bottom as lesser, saying he's going to shame no 1 by butt raping him. Can we please get over this idea that the bottom is somehow a lesser role?

No 2 doesn't really seem to care that much about someone he claims to "love" when, even by the end of the story, no 1 continues to say that he wants to top, and no 2 continues to refuse him and doesn't even consider accommodating him. Such a wonderful guy.

It was set up that no 1 was a nice guy, and seemingly nicer than the other alphas at the host club at the beginning of the story, but it is not explained that this is an unusual point of view until later, when it's too late to provide backstory context on why he's this way. This is a problem, because when no 1 busts out his "purity of heart" finishing move on the omega by acting all protective of the omega after the omega is about to violate him, it just falls flat because this "pure of heart" crap is so overused in shoujo that people have been sick of it for decades. To have a character with a personality like this in your story nowadays, you have to put in some work explaining why this character is this way, what makes them more pure of heart than others, and show them suffering hardships to maintain this purity ideal. This, of course, was never done in this comic.

Moving along.

Omegas, a typically disadvantaged class in omegaverse settings, being used as the bad guy is pretty low/cheap. Especially with absolutely no set-up for this character or for why he would be so particularly salty compared to other omegas. I'd find it more reasonable that an omega this inexplicably wealthy would relish in having alphas wait on him hand and foot, and would be swimming in elite alpha ass or dick, rather than trying to exact some retarded-ass revenge plot with all of the fortune and prestige he busted his ass gaining. If you're gonna give a rich person a poor person's motivation, you have to explain it to where it makes sense why this is all happening (but no explaining happened here, though).

Speaking of, the omega's retarded-ass revenge plot would only hurt himself. An alpha who bites an omega is under no specific obligation besides moral to have anything to do with the omega he bit. Meanwhile, a bitten omega is compelled by physiology to only have sex with his bonded alpha. All this means that if no 1 bit the omega, no 1 could just go off and screw around however he wants, while the omega would be stuck in a sexless life due to physiological restrictions of the bite bond. What a dumb plan. But ofc this manga tosses in some bs one-off line about "canceling" the bond when the author realizes too late that her bad guy had an idiotic plan. So much for tension.

Also, if you're gonna go with anything different than the standard set of omegaverse setting details in your story, then you have to explain the difference. Here, omegas seem to be both rich and disadvantaged, and no effort is made to clarify what is going on with this. It's important to understand the social dynamics of a setting if you're gonna be writing a character-oriented "romance" story in it.

Also, the end where the omega is trying to rape no 1, and no 2 breaks the door open because he's such a alpha's alpha! And no 1 being all, "I'm staying to help you, mr omega, even though you're trying to hurt me because I'm so great and nice and wonderful," and the omega being moved by this.... wow this whole sequence was so cringy and masturbatory that it grosses me out just typing this summary of it.

And of course, as with most omegaverse stories I rag on, this one didn't need to be set in the omegaverse. The whole "canceling" of the bond thing that they discuss in a one-off line makes the whole threat of the bond irrelevant, plus the omega getting his plan completely backwards without realizing it, just makes the whole alpha/omega dynamic pointless. This could just as easily be two hosts competing to be top of the host club roster, and one rich guy/customer pissed at hosts because they're a leech on society, or mommy issues, or rival territory clubs, etc. Don't write omegaverse if you're not going to tell a story that could only be told in omegaverse. This should be chiseled into a monolith somewhere.

Go read Shounen no Kyoukai instead; an omegaverse story that's a billion times better.

This is now on lezhin! Support the author! Yay Scarlet Beriko!!!
https://www.lezhin.com/en/comic/minorishand

This story is so loaded with tropes and cliches I couldn't finish it. I was annoyed already in the first chapter, and could only make it to part-way through chapter four before I was done. Well, at least the art is nice.

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It bugs me that right at the beginning of the story, novelist guy has exactly one thought about neighbor kid being underage (which he rightly ought to) and then throws that thought completely out the window and dives straight into the pervy sex stuff. This whole thing was horribly rushed, and felt really uncomfortably predatory.

I'm fine with HSer thinking he's in love with novelist. But novelist doesn't announce that he's gay when confessed to by a boy, so I'm gonna assume he wasn't gay prior to this. I don't think that's unreasonable. But then he has zero amounts of reservations about sexing a guy, doesn't ponder his sexuality at all, and doesn't have like any kind of growth about this. In a place like Japan where homosexuality is treated with a lot of derision, you can't tell me he wouldn't have thought about it AT ALL before going straight into the dick-grabbing an underage kid. (note: older manga have no qualms about middle schoolers having sex, but these days most R-18 comics tend to view sub-20-years as being underage, and you can see this in plenty of manga)

Taking HSer to the publisher meet-n-greet where he doesn't know anyone at all, and not escorting him around the whole time and not introducing him to anyone while he's there is just really crappy of novelist guy. Don't take him if you're mostly just going to ditch him and hide him. It's fine that HSer is interested in the publishing industry and I think that's good development for him, but I think it would've been better if this had been setup/foreshadowed in an earlier chapter so it wouldn't feel like it came out of nowhere for the purpose of generating drama.

The cultural festival.

When the HSer goes to hide around the side of some remote building to take a break then gets attacked by the sexpervert, I was done. Why was that guy there? Does he just hang around at schools looking to grab the dicks of cross-dressing HS boys? At a busy cultural festival in broad daylight where you would increase your chances of getting caught like a million percent (compared to jumping someone alone at night in a non-populated area). Was he following HSer around? Is every guy in this comic gay for the convenience of the author? If this was going to happen to HSer, the sexpervert should've been shown talking to HSer earlier at the cafe and following him around the cultural festival. It would still have been lame, but it would've at least been a properly set-up cliche. Also I couldn't help but think that Japanese people just aren't that forward to be randomly forcibly groping someone in a non-anonymous way in broad daylight with tons of people around just because they're horny for HSer dick. It's just a different mindset they have over there. It really breaks me out of immersion.

Also, why is novelist guy suddenly there in such a remote spot? He just appears, with no context and no set-up, so he can swoop in to save HSer in the most cliche of ways. He hadn't even been shown to have even gotten to the cafe yet at the cultural festival; why would HSer yell for someone who wasn't even there (that he knew of).

It also irked me that HSer would do absolutely nothing to defend himself. It certainly is not his fault he's being groped (** see below for a more in-depth explanation of this), but I take issue with the uke being forced to be a doormat by the author when there's no indication that his character actually acts this way. The uke has been shown a few times to be a man of action. He saved the cat. He confessed to the novelist. He picked up the cigs and carried them around on his own. He asked to go to the publisher party even though he wasn't even invited and the seme didn't want to go. This doormat behavior is incongruent with his character, and is forced upon him for the purpose of showcasing the novelist to be a valiant person in the laziest, most character-inconsistent way possible. This harkens back to an older time in the BL genre where the ukes are basically girl stand-ins from shoujo manga, and they're useless, dumb, poor, and inept, with a perfect boyfriend/love-interest who does absolutely everything for them. When even stupid Twilight features this cliche, you know you've screwed up.

Anyway, the sexpervert wasn't actually even a threat anyway beyond being slightly pushy. He didn't have a weapon. All it took was one punch from novelist guy to make him run away. And then he was completely forgotten. If you're gonna have something like this happen in a story, make him more of a threat. Have the seme actually get his ass beaten in order to defend the uke. Have the seme drag him to the cops afterwards. Have him reassure the uke that he's ok, he's loved, and etc etc. Have him actually DOOOO something substantial at all. Instead, a disgusting moment (sexual assault) is treated like a joke, with a doormat uke and a seme that teleports in and exerts barely any effort at all to get rid of something that isn't even really much of a threat. Ugh, it's soooooooooo bad.

But that isn't even the worst of it. After one-punch-man novelist gets to pop in from absolutely nowhere to gallantly save our poor damsel uke who won't even lift a finger on his own behalf, the novelist guy decides that now is a good time to sex up his uke, in broad daylight, in public, right after he'd just been groped by a sexpervert. TAKE HIM TO THE POLICE STATION TO REPORT IT, GEEZ. Why would anyone think that sex is the correct course of action to take after their partner was just assaulted one minute before?

At this point I was done. This is just too stupid and cliche even for me. My tolerance for this sort of stupidity is pretty high, but this author isn't even trying here. So I'm not going to bother either.

**As a final comment: I just want to say I do not blame the uke for getting groped. It's not his fault at all. This is more a comment on the author forcing the uke to take no action on his own behalf even though he's not been characterized like this previously in order to put him in a damsel situation in order to try and make seme look good in a lame, over-used, and problematic way. Not everyone reacts to situations like this the same. Some people get violent, some people freeze, and some people screech their heads off. It's not his fault, it's the author's fault. This is some lazy, lowest-common-denominator stuff right here.

I enjoyed this one overall, but there were some writing issues that can't help but bug me after the fact. At least one of them could be solved in an extra chapter, if there's gonna be one.

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This was set up at the beginning to be a love triangle that never materializes. It was supposed to be Aki - Hinata - Haruta, but Haruta was never in the running, and is completely forgotten about halfway through the story. Also, something felt off about introducing Aki first, if he was going to be the eventual love-interest. I feel like there should've been an air of mystery built around him, like he was at soccer camp and didn't show up for a few days while Hinata continued to wonder about him as he looked at family photos of Aki around the house while Haruta gets his claws into Hinata early (even though Haruta'll eventually lose). I don't know, it's hard to explain why this is off/doesn't-work.

Younger bro Haruta was introduced WAY too late. He's in middle school and lives there too. He should've shown up in the first chapter right at the same time Hinata first sees Aki. Maybe while Hinata is standing in the front yard "having a moment" and pushes zombified-Hinata into the house while rolling his eyes. But instead, days pass before we see hide nor hair of Haruta, with no explanation for why he hasn't been seen yet. It's not like kids that age have reasons to be gone from home for days at a time with no comment. It's REALLY WEIRD.

Also, Haruta's (aka younger bro) presence in the story was kind of a waste. It wasn't clear if he actually liked Hinata or not, or if he was just jealous of his brother. This was never cleared up. The whole "slave" thing didn't really add anything and just wasted panels, since no one ever saw this going on but the two of them. Either remove lil bro from the story or add at least a few more panels to wrap up his jealousy and whether or not he likes Hinata. Drop the "slave" angle since it adds nothing. I was actually hoping Ryu would show up at their house to study with Hinata and would find Haru treating Hinata like a slave, and Ryu lays the smack down on Haruta, causing Haruta to instantly fall in love with Ryu. But we get nothing, boo hoo.

The development of Hinata's friend "Ryu the delinquent" went nowhere. A character like Ryu's presence in a story is typically a set up for misunderstandings later, but this never happened in any respect. What this should've lead to was that 1) Aki sees Hinata with Ryu and gets completely the wrong idea, leading to his wet dream the next night, giving Aki the push he needs to decide if he likes Hinata or not, and 2) Aki or Haruta thinking that Ryu's gonna be a bad influence on Hinata because he's a delinquent complicates the situation and relationships. Again, Ryu was a setup with no pay-off.

I don't get the point of the non-con jerk-off at the beginning of the story, plus the full-frontal fresh-from-the-shower Aki later, if the story isn't going to go as far as showing Hinata and Aki having sex. Either you're gonna have smut in your comic or you're not. Leave that stuff out and just focus on almost-kisses instead, if you're not gonna show the sex. This sort of stuff (the chapt 1 jerk-off) is essentially a standard BL setup for sex later, and when the sex never happens, it ends up making the story feel incomplete.

No wrap-up for the "I'm moving out to go to college" angle. As far as I can tell, Aki is two years older than Hinata, and while the comic does acknowledge that Aki is going to college after HS, there is no discussion of what's going to happen with Aki and Hinata after Aki leaves. It's just dropped. It was mentioned as late in the story as a couple of panels before the confession at the very end, so this should've had at least a couple of panels afterwards to lay out some kind of plan for them going forward. It's just two more seasons before Aki leaves (after winter). Not to mention that Hinata is only supposed to be staying with them for a year anyway, so it should show him calling his parents and asking to stay for all of HS, or asking for his parents to pay for an apartment equidistant to Hinata's school and Aki's apartment or letting Hinata room with Aki in Aki's apartment if it's not too far from Hinata's HS.... just SOMETHING.

All this aside, it was still a pretty enjoyable read, with a lot of good comedic moments.