cassie3_3's manga / #Re-encounter(71)

I definitely wished they just chose to flesh out the first story to end up being the entire manga. It's be better to forget the other stories ever happened...

Timeline's weird. Drama became instantly invalid despite hyping it up and creating trust issues. Structure of going from present to past doesn't work for this manga. Reasoning doesn't make any sense because of the lack of background from these underdeveloped characters, which in turn makes their feelings seem shallow..

I honestly still don't even understand where Suzu went for a year, his excuses, and how they got to the point of hooking up ಠ_ಠ

Can't believe I haven't tried using Febreeze to chase out my demons. Comment: If it weren't for the two side stories, I would've given this a big, fat 0, if I could. The protagonist, Hime Makoto wishes to be the princely figure in Shoujo manga. Ouji ("Prince") Arata, a reunited unknown childhood crush, becomes his "rival." Despite knowing Hime's aspirations, he shuts them down and insists he be his princess. Right off the bat, let me make this straight: There's nothing harmful about what Hime likes, and while there is this overshadowed message that he should remember it's important to still be yourself and not be so conscious about what others think, it's not executed well -- like, at all. Yes, he should be aware of this message, but that should no way get in the way of him still strongly wanting to emanate princeliness. There's nothing wrong with that, as long as he remembers where he came from. Yet, rather than reassuring him, Ouij wants to take all that makes Hime unique -- all his aspirations -- all just so he, himself, can pose as something he clearly does not care about nor like, being a "prince," thereby diminishing his (,now, obviously) hypocritical talks of just being yourself. There was a point where I thought maybe he was going to stand up for Hime --when he kept being called "ex-Prince" since Ouji's arrival-- but no. He made it worse by selfishly proclaiming he's meant to be a "real Princess" due to Makoto's last name being 'Hime.' Just when I thought: Hime would get justice, Ouji would be much more than a callous bystander, and the titles of 'New Prince' and 'ex-Prince' would finally be diminished, this issue very much continues throughout, creating a toxic environment for Hime as he, again, has been working so strongly to be a Prince, hence lessening his confidence. Hime even mentions that he knows they don't mean harm by calling them by those terms, but that doesn't erase how much he fucking dislikes it and how Ouji knows he dislikes it. Instead of Ouji using his influence to erase these stupid titles and using the chance to emphasize princeliness can come in different forms, it's simply disregarded in favor of blatantly showing disrespect and disregard for what makes Hime happy in favor of his own selfish, vulgar desires. And, as if he couldn't be an even worse character, he fucking DRUGS Hime for their first time after Hime was nervously trying to prepare Ouji for penetration; but, instead of reassuring and encouraging him, he tosses him down to then proceed to drugging him to then prepare Hime for penetration. It wasn't impossible. It never is. Being a top doesn't require that you have to be confident and know what you're doing. I get that this was the mangaka's first series, but there's no way in hell any of that first story is okay. They even mention in the afterward that they can't even piece together what Ouji is thinking. For shame.