Mimi's manga / #emotional abuse(14)

I really liked the art style but the main couple were probably the least interesting characters out of the 3 stories. It wasn't a bad story to read and the characters weren't unlikable, but I felt the story that had the other two getting engaged was the best out of the 3. I also really wish the two delivery guys got either another chapter or more of a story in their chapter mainly because they were also likable but their story ended too quickly.

You ever felt like crying and throwing up at the same time? Honestly, even if dude wasn't blood related, it's still incest. Fuck the scan team and anyone else for saying it's not. I'm not mad at them for translating it only at the notes and the beginning note at the start of chapter 2.

"This is sooo stuuupid..." I can't tell you how many times I mutter that while reading this. It is definitely a product of 2010, that's much for sure. The only story I kind of liked was the 1st one since that couple didn't seem to disgust or worry me. Other than that you have two incest stories (what the fuck) and 2 stories about manipulative and abusive boyfriends (what the fuck).

I had very small high hopes for this manga. It has to be because of the weird translation but at the same time I'm sure some of the writing in Japanese would have been questionable still. All the stories, other than the one about the two who work in the game industry, were boring or weird (ch 2) and while I was able to understand the homophobic nature in chapter 4 having a queer character call himself the f slur, everything in chapter 5 was just as uncomfortable. Going back to ch 4, I want more stories that touch on the harassment queer people face and then overcoming that. I can do without the slurs, thanks, but I did feel for that couple and the struggling relationship that was getting abusive to a point that they were in. I wish they had their own book.

When the misunderstandings are so prominent that manga updates the lack of communication tag… I don't normally comment until I'm completely done with the series or book, but I gotta talk about things in this 1st vol. I'll update this once I'm done with this series. I think the story is really cute and it touched on one of my biggest problems with BL and that's communication. So many problems can be solved if they just talked and not making them talk just to amp up the conflict really pisses me off. They did this a little bit. It would be misunderstanding followed by making up followed by misunderstanding followed by making up... That might actually be more annoying with how many times this happens. I also feel like this story didn't need as many sex scenes as it had and I hope the later vol 2 tones that down (but after reading ch 2 of vol 2 eeehhhhh). As for translation, which is its biggest downfall for me, it felt poor. There were a lot of words that didn't need to be there, a lot of weirdly said sentences. Often times I felt like other words could have been said when translating this that would be a better fit for the flow of the story. I'm glad that I do get to read this in English but I do hope this gets officially picked up for mainly this reason. Update: I don’t remember if I ever came back to give my 50 cents on vol 2… I’ll do that whenever I get around to rereading this. There’s a lot of older books I read that I need to just re again…

… Bruh. I’m so happy about this getting a physical release really soon because this just became one of my favorite manga. I’m gonna start with the only problem I had about this story and that’s the amount of affection Yutaka had towards Tane. You can kind of understand why Yutaka was at peace around Tane because of his backstory but the author didn’t give Tane much of a similar connection to kid!Yutaka to justify why he’s happy to see Tane happy and it comes off as a little creepy. I know the author wasn’t trying to write him that way, but without Yutaka talking about how he wished he was as happy as Tane as a kid and/or showing that Yutaka is really good with kids in general to make a good father figure is a missed opportunity to me. Yutaka’s childhood was a lot for him, so much that even eating in front of people was uncomfortable. But after meeting Tane and Minoru and having that “found family” moment was he really able to be happy and feel like he was part of a family. In that sense, I can also see why he cared for Tane like a son/little brother. It just wasn’t written well enough to 100% convey that affection. Other than that, I loved this story. I love the characters and how it focused on their development. I also love Tane’s crush on Yutaka as it’s very clear from the start to see it and made me laugh. The time skip was very adorable and I thank them for writing that bit in.

…. Listen… Overall, Kaji and Yura are my favorite couple over Maki and Hagiwara mainly because I think Maki is an asshole. I understand that he super loves his son and Hagiwara but his over-possessiveness and the way that he treated Yura and Kana pissed me off. I like how Kaji and Yura were written a lot more and it seems like the author does too seeing how much care they gave these characters. There were bits and pieces that I thought were dumb. Stuff like Kaji putting up that “I’m not interested in men” wall, and not speaking up every time Yura cuts him off. That’s also a bs move on Yura for jumping the gun too quickly… But it’s also understandable why he does this. I just wish that was something they worked on in the 2 books rather than letting him keep doing that. But fuck all that because the only thing that REALLY matters is Kana and Ritsu! AGAIN! They are the power couple, the fucking MVP out of all 3 of these mangas, and deserves a super cute, completely fluff one-shot manga about them trying to be together in high school and everyone else just fucking accepting it! No sex, just a super cute teen romance is all I need. Update 5/26: Just found out there's a vol 3..

If I could scream to convey how much I loved this "main" story, I fucking would... But I don't think that would get my point across very well in text. Firstly, I love the main story. I cared a lot about both Itou and Kyousuke to the point where I could feel myself almost about to cry at some points. I have yet to read the prologue story (as of writing this) but, from what I read from one comment, both Itou and Kyousuke had hellish upbringings that (at least for Kyousuke) made me really want to see them be together. I was also ready to drop this title because I thought the problems I have with most bl manga were gonna be in this, but they wrote Ito to love Kyousuke so GOD DAMN MUCH and it made me really love him as a character. It made me love their relationship and how they showed that they needed each other. I was afraid that the rape and murder would be glorified like 90% of this landscape, but it is shown in a horrible light, being a story about how two people are trying to get out of these situations together. Fucking thank you! I also want to talk about the last 2 chapters a little. I think they were very important to the main story and I did actually cry during both of them with how they both completed and complimented the story to show you how they were living during them being "on the run" and after all the bullshit was over. God bless. Personally, I did not like the parallel story chapter. It is the reason I put pedophilia-ish as a tag. I am not here for older people "waiting" on an underage person to be of age because it means that they have feelings for this child even though they know they shouldn't. I don't care if you're 13 or 19, you are still a child until 20. And even then it doesn't really feel like you hit "adult" until 25+, but at least you're not a fucking teen. After falling in love with these characters, showing that Ito had feelings for the underage teenager but waiting until he was 18 is still really disgusting to me. There was even a comment he made about Kyousuke in freshman year that just fucked me up in the most disgusting of ways. Even though he waited till the bare minimum it still didn't feel ok to me and it was horrible no matter how sweet Ito was. Still horrible. Chap 7's review in 5 seconds or less: What the fuck? No.

Now that I read this prologue, I definitely recommend reading the first book first even though this comes before it in the story. Having read the first book put in so much context that having all that backstory and foreshadowing made me feel even more for everything that happened in this backstory. ... You ever just want to scream because you feel so emotionally attached to some fucking fictional characters? A part of me feels like I should have read this first before getting into Itou-san because it would have made it easier to read through kid!Itou and kid!Kyosuke's abuse. BUT the 1st book feels like an easier read compared to this that I think reading this in order of release gets you more invested in these characters. Like, by now, I found myself really emotional about the both of them... I wanted to die. What got me the most was reading through Kyosuke as a baby-baby, 5 YEARS OLD, having to go through what happened. It really reminded me of chapter 4 of Ore, Higaisha and, um... Yeah. I really just want to scream right now. Sorry, this one was a lot shorter than my feelings on the 1st book. Everything I felt there I still felt here.

Maybe it was because the last 5 books pissed me off to various degrees with the most recent one being ok at best... But oh my god, what happened to the storytelling chapter 2 onwards?! Chapter 1 was fine. I was fine with it doing the recap thing and it really got me interested in this couple and seeing how a very shy person who's gone years isolating themself to now dealing with being in a relationship and living with said person. And while I got that, chapter 2 gave me the worst idea of that tone this story was gonna have... and I was right. I've read a lot of BL with some of the stupidest plot points to use as a conflict in my lifetime, but I've nearly dropped this when they tried to make coming out to their boyfriend a problem AFTER the BOYFRIEND confessed FIRST?????? Why did they think that worrying about telling the guy who asked you out first that you're gay would be a valid or even funny bit to sit through? It only lasted that one chapter but it stuck with me, it was SO stupid that it set the tone for everything else after and immediately made a 3-star story. Chapters 3 and 4's "problems" were just as bad. I hate miscommunication but no communication is worst. I'm disappointed because I saw that the author wanted to write something cute and I can see that! But all of the "conflicts" felt like poor writing and it wasn't even the translation's fault this time. The only reason I didn't drop it was because I thought it would get better and then I realized I was on chapter 4 so I just said: fuck it let's get this over with.