4 stars // Okay, whew. This is going to be a LONG roller coaster of a review because my friends and myself honestly, are shook that I gave this really controversial read a four out of five stars, and I have my reasons everybody please lower your pitchforks and don’t burn me just yet.
First of all I would like to defend myself with the saying that— liking something or someone problematic does not mean condoning the actions of it, and this is fiction, hold your horses. Story-wise, we follow the life of an older brother who’s a shut-in, doesn’t go to school and just goes to his part-time job at a convenience store, oh news flash, he’s gay and he’s in love with his step-brother so bad he wants to fuck him. Stand down, we’re not done yet. Not going to lie I don’t know what possessed me to just keep going through the pages and eventually finishing it because usually the mere mention of sibling and romance in the same sentence would’ve usually turned me off. But I guess there’s away of “legalizing” this trope and make it somewhat not as problematic as it seems; it’s making the two step-brothers not related, like, at all.
The older and younger have different parents altogether, the parents that raised them fell in love and married each other, bringing a kid each into the new family, and the number one problem that’s always talked about regarding incest is the fact that it is— incest. But with this concept, it’s technically not incest as they’re not blood-related, but it still does fuck with your morals, but to be honest with you here, I blame both of the brothers.
There’s no “true” victim in this story as the two of them are both as twisted and weird. We’ve talked about the older brother briefly but to continue, the reason he’s not in school was because he was severely bullied after he was outed as gay, by whom? His own step-brother, the brother he loves so much he masturbates thinking about him, ugh, my god help give me strength defending this manga. If being bullied to the point you quit school isn’t enough, you have to know, that this older brother has no sense of self-love whatsoever, this motherfucker blames *himself* for his demise, that it’s his fault his younger brother’s idea of him is completely ruined because the younger brother saw him giving another guy a blowjob, that he’s sorry his younger brother had to see such a disgusting thing and he deserved to be bullied into quitting school. Really, what a thoughtful older brother, you should’ve also thought that uh, falling in love with him and taking advantage of him are also as bad? Or is your brain a selective moral compass? His younger brother isn’t even that pitiful or pure to begin with.
Let me introduce you to the younger brother; an asshole fuckboy who is in denial that the brother he idolizes so much is gay for *someone else* and not for *him*,, that’s the vibe I’m getting from him. My running theory I discussed with my girlfriend is that the younger brother didn’t have enough time to process his thoughts because he’s in his teenage years, his muddled feelings for his brother he thought was idolization (which were not) were bitchslapped when he saw his brother sucking off some other dude, and his mind goes straight to hatred, disgust, misguided disgust. Because of society, and the fact that he himself haven’t realized his own feelings, he went the homophobe route and called his brother disgusting and told him to fuck off, classic!
And then, he felt the need to tell people that his brother is gay (because he’s an edgy teenager going through a weird phase in his life) to get other people to also shame him, when deep in his twisted heart he did it so that his brother would be left alone, and since they live under the same roof he’s going to be the only person who’s going to be in close contact with him at all times, this is his intention, hidden in between homophobic slurs and hurtful insults.
God give me strength— okay. Continuing on, personally what made me intrigued is the psychological aspect of it all, it made me make deep discussions with my girlfriend too about the boundaries you could try to skip over lightly and be fine, and the ones that the moment you cross it you become the worst thing to come out of society. Like how normally in stories like this the younger brother would usually look the most victimized but in this case people are almost rooting for the older brother more, rooting for him to wake the fuck up and settle the feelings he have for his step-brother. And it introduces a girl character to get us an outside perspective to this relationship, which to be honest doesn’t really help because the girl had a crush for the older brother so of course no matter what she’s going to see him in a positive light.
The way it all unfolds is interesting, is it a slow and romantic journey of redemption and atonement? Or is it just fucking manipulation between the two of them manipulating the other into becoming what they want out of each other.
Oh and just to clarify, I hate the ending. It’s the only downside of this pyschological mindfuck of morals (and they’re not even related, it’s not as bad as people make it seem), they shouldn’t have ended up together, I think an open ending would actually be better with stories like this, because with them being together, when you look at them you just see a couple now, they have different genes altogether so they don’t look alike and the only things they have in common are their twisted minds and their family names, but if they stayed in that limbo of brothers-but-there’s-something-more-to-it, especially in college where they’re steps away into actual adulthood, I feel like it’ll be an interesting thing to imagine how it’s going to *actually* end, after the book is closed.
Personally an acceptable ending for me is for them to DRIFT APART during college because they’re in two different majors, older brother is actually mentally strong and stable so he wouldn’t be easily broken by new environments, he would meet someone new in college and date him, wow his life isn’t sucky? Not going to lie, the older brother would be fine without the younger brother I feel, it’s just something he’s obsessing with because of his raging hormones, once he grows up idk why but I feel like it’ll fade. For the younger brother however, he would grow more and more broken because of his unsettled feelings he buried underneath homophobia instead of trying to accept it, now he reaps what he sow because his older brother is no longer close to him and he’d probably go to addiction, tabacco, alcohol, drugs, anything really, and just lives like useless citizen and would probably die young, it’d be so interesting to get a glimpse into their adult life where they drift apart, but eh fine yeah get together and date, if it makes you happy in the moment, I don’t see a bright future with that but f I n e.
Okay, I’m done defending this manga, I liked it, it was really interesting, it made me use my brain to fart out a more professional reviewer vibe for once, I’m,, definitely going to stray away from this kind of manga because there’s only so much psychoanalyzing I could do in a month lol, but it was enjoyable, the younger brother is an asshole, the older brother is a degenerate, and both of them need therapy, thank you for coming, now burn me.
First Thing I Do When I Wake Up.