4 stars // It's really a shame, if the first and last story didn't exist, if it was just the "God is at Town Hall" omnibus story, i would've given it five complete stars. That's my problem when rating mangas with multiple stories, like, what happens when i super fucking hate one of them and then super fucking love another?
Anyway, first story. To be honest it was fine, it felt a bit rushed but that's only because it's just a short story, but i felt like this kind of story shouldn't only be one chapter as there are a lot of things to unpack, with only one chapter it's just too overwhelming to grasp it all together. And i am not a fan of voyeurism and extreme exhibitionism, that's for sure a major turn-off for me, no hate to the people who do, i respect fetishes people have as i have weird fetishes myself, but to me sex is something only the two of you should share to bond your relationship. So eh, at least it was mutual and they ended up talking it out and actually getting together in the end.
Second story through to the fourth, it was perfect! I genuinely thought Akaishi was a gag character made to actually be a "god" coming down to earth to help the spirit of the dude cross to the other side, i did not expect him to actually be a really important character for the next chapters and to even have his own story with Arashima. The second story was sad, but it was weirdly realistic and hit something in me, a friend of mine passed away when i was little because he was run over by a car while trying to cross the street, he was supposed to come over to my house because our moms arranged a play date but i got sick so it was cancelled, i thought to myself had i not gotten sick, he would be at my house and not get hit by the car, i blamed myself a lot, until his mother hugged me and told me, "he tried to catch a butterfly for you to make you feel better, so try and feel better for him so he could smile and be proud of himself up in the heavens," thinking back on it, that was probably a lie she made up because how would she know he was trying to catch a butterfly, but it did make me feel a lot better. The third story was really sweet, to have someone love you because you are you, for who you are unconditionally, you should always treasure people like that and i cried on the inside when Sensei finally confessed.
Fourth story! Initially i thought to myself, "then Araishi just likes Arashima because he can cleanse the bad spirits around him, if Arashima couldn't do that then Arashima's crush would totally be one-sided and unrequited", but then i thought to myself, well okay, no. Arashima wouldn't even know Araishi existed if he didn't introduced himself to him, and Araishi met Arashima way before Arashima realized so if you put it into his perspective, Araishi's probably have been eyeing on Arashima since forever and could have possibly developed feelings. Well, even if he didn't I'm sure he's going to love Araishi anyway as they're almost always together and he's his sanctuary.
Fifth story-- oh my god what, what the fuck. You know you could still make a perfectly fine or even BETTER story without having to add the uncle/nephew relationship? You could've just make the uncle the store guy dude who's always yelling at them and start a relationship from there, or if you insist on the whole "I'm like this because of you" thing at LEAST you could've make him some kind of tutor or a family friend, not his UNCLE, people have different perceptions for this because he's good-looking but i bet if it's your stereotypical ugly fat hairy uncle people would be having different opinions, the whole uncle/nephew thing threw me off and it wasted the potential for it to become a good story, sigh. How could someone make something as good as the second to fourth story and then fuck up so bad for the fifth? it was not even good in the concept, it's certainly worse in the execution. The only reason I'm giving this four stars, such a shame, honestly it could've been three, but i loved the second through fourth too much to give it three. I get for people maybe it's a fetish but for me, i don't want them in my fiction, and well people with incest fetishes in fiction better NOT fucking execute it in real life i will slit someone's throat.
Awa ni mo Narenai Koi Nara ba