pidgeonreads's manga / #kinky(23)

Kieran deserved better

Despite an utter lack of relationship build up, there’s truly something about these two. Kaoru is a student well known for being a delinquent to most … and a big softie to his best friend. He comes equipped with a history of ‘breaking up’ fights by beating up everyone involved and a rival (cough - childhood bestie) who occasionally shows up at his school just to have a good spar. He hears word of a new delinquent transfer student and immediately high tails his way to the scene of the fight only to be struck by something entirely unexpected upon witnessing the new student in action: love. And, as any rational person does, he immediately confesses his love. Or - I should clarify, he first gets his ass handed to him by a confused Shun, then confesses his love and then experiences his first several kisses AND enters his first relationship all in a handful of very confusing moments. None of the characters have a ton of backstory introduced, saved the slight history between Karou and his rival as well as the concerning information that Shun comes from an abusive home. The couple makes quick work though and in the course of four chapters go from strangers who started dating before knowing each other’s names to fucking. And that short timeline even left room for Karou being taught how to kiss, Shun nearly ruining it all by admitting that he doesn’t particularly feel anything like love for Karou (only to immediately change his mind after he witnessed Karou beating up some ruffians), and plenty of comedic content of Karou sparing his friends absolutely zero details of his newly found sex life. Including an entire arc where he has his rival go to a sex shop with him and give him advice on how to take it. Overall, these two tick off so many of my favorite tropes. There’s a plentiful selection of horny heart eyes, Karou is a very enthusiastic bottom despite Shun being a full head shorter than him, Shun himself is stupidely hot. The entire sucker and candy scenes had me blushing. There’s also a delicious contrast between Karou constant expressiveness and Shun’s lack of expression that makes it so *chefs kiss* when you catch that slight blush on Shun’s cheeks. They’ve both got a few screws loose and it makes for some hilarious little scenes of the best friend and rival going :0 ??? The both of them are also hilariously shameless be it that they constantly screw around at school, can’t stop themselves from telling the others all of the details or even Shun with his dedication to making both of Karou’s friends his friends … even if he doesn’t quite understand the how.

This is one of those stories where you look at the leads and just sigh because truly … they’re made for each other in the most embarrassing way. Seisei is the student council vice-president, straight-laced student and widely known as the most eligible top in the entire all-boys boarding school. Except he’s not a top. At all. And he’s really tired of being confessed to by bottoms because if there’s one thing this boy wants - it’s to get laid. Unexpectedly, he gets just that when his roommate turned straight best friend turned ‘gay for you’ lover suddenly becomes irrational and jealous after a new transfer student propositions Seisei to be friends with benefits. Overall this proved to be an amusing story with fun, simple antics from the main and side characters. Seisei is so unabashedly horny and there’s definitely something wrong with his roomy too because I wouldn’t be able to keep a straight face is someone said the raunchy things that come out of Seisei’s mouth to me.

The comedic timing in this comic was absolute perfection and weirdly the story managed to uplift and see through on some lofty ideas about humanity, love, and worth. A wonderfully strange experience.

Absolutely none of the popular tags on this prepared me for the absolute emotional roller coaster of a read this was. Though I give it three stars, most of my faults lie with the way you can tell the artist was running out of steam entirely at the end. The art began to slack off as well as the story pacing. And on top of that this is even a story where I wished the main couple didn’t end up together. So it’s a little insane that I still found myself with so much to say about it. This is a story with deeply faulted characters. Absolutely none of the main or side cast is free of series character defects. And reading their story often filled me with rage. I got mad at the stupid choices they made and how awfully they treated each other. Even now I’m pissed that the main couple stayed together after everything. But I feel like that was, in a way, the point. You’re supposed to get mad. You’re supposed to hate the actions of CW and TS. You’re supposed to want to scream at the breakdown of the friendship between the lead and his bestfriend. This was a story about how painful and messy and hurtful loving someone can be. TS was so afraid of becoming like his father yet he woke up one day and realized that’s exact what he was. CW spent the better part of his life suffering only to find out that he could be just bad as TS. Worse, even. The protag of the story is supposed to be this crowd pleaser who no one can dislike yet he spends almost the entire story setting himself up to get hurt and then wallowing in exactly what he knew would happen while dealing with the one person who really doesn’t like him. It’s very human. I would still say that it’s solidly a 3 star read. There’s a ton of problems. Like I don’t really see a need for the bully to have so much time dedicated to him. He didn’t even seem to serve as any sort of parallel, just an easy way out of setting up scenes. And though I felt that the slow deterioration of the protag was executed very well, I found CW’s arc to be the opposite. His actions felt extremely out of character and basically reversed his personality for the beginning half of the story. Like for someone who’s supposed to be so in love with and obsessed to TS he literally just dropped the dude and then basically he ceased to exist for him until he was needed again in the story. Not great.