matmat's manga / #sad(7)

Singer-songwriter, Tetsuta, became unable to sing because of throat surgery, a step before his major debut. After turning down his friend who asked him to compose a song, he goes to the sea and meets Nagi, a young man who runs a restaurant with his father. This mysterious youth invites Tetsuta to their restaurant and listens to his troubles, which ended with him staying the night. Tetsuta hears Nagi’s singing voice and receives an electrifying impact from within his body. For the first time in his life, he wants someone else to sing the songs he composed. It's sad as fuck. He truly will never know the truth while he sacrificed all that shit to protect his sister.

I reincarnated in a novel inside the body of a villainess named Elise who poisoned herself when her fiancé, the prince, married her childhood friend, the maid Helena. From the moment I realized this, I had only one goal. Escape from the world in this novel. Even after death, I tried to get out of this world but the ‘world’ did not allow it. However, after rejecting the path of “Elise” in the original novel, the men who had persecuted and ignored Eris began to beg for her interest and affection. “Who are you?” the priest who revived Helena asked. “You… are you really Elise?” even the warrior who pledged eternal loyalty to Helena asked. “You have changed,” said the prince who rejected Elise in order to marry Helena. It was strange. No one was interested in Elise before. “I don’t want to get affectionate even as time passes.” She has no confidence in loving this world. It’s good. I like how it’s going and I like the MC. She actully has a personality.

Guy adopted and raised an orphaned red head named James. James is the literal definition of Anne of Green Gables and it’s hella hilarious. Even with the comedy there are points in the story where you genuinely cry and question the morals of the main characters. Still, I liked the twists and turns. This story could have gone very wrong cause the dude literally raised this child and ended up becoming lovers with him, but who am I to judge? There were moments where James fantasizes Henry and it made me very uncomfortable, but ehhhhh I got passed that once James was of age.

Zankoku na Kami ga Shihaisuru portrays the tale of two step-brothers - Jeremy and Ian, as they strive to discover their separate paths towards redemption. Jeremy, a sensitive but outgoing 17 year old, is delighted to hear the news of his neurotic and excitable mother's remarriage to a wealthy British man. However, much to his horror, his sweet-talking new step-father Greg, soon begins to exhibit a disturbing trait...he is a sadistic pedophile and loses no time in making Jeremy his target. Months of horrific, systematic abuse drives Jeremy to desperation; and he sabotages his step-father's car with the hope of eliminating him. The resulting accident, however, kills his mother along with Greg. Jeremy's shocked and guilt-stricken behaviour arouses the suspicions of Greg's free-spirited son, Ian. He unearths enough evidence to tie his step-brother to the crime; but in doing so, also discovers the details of Greg's sexual abuse of Jeremy. Caught in a moral dilemma -- between punishing the criminal and atoning for his father's sins, Ian soon finds himself haunted by lust for Jeremy. Is it lust...or love? He wonders whether he shares his father's proclivities, but finds himself helpless to resist being drawn into a passionate and painful relationship with his step-brother. It’s very disturbing, but a very well-written story. Even though the summary displays this morbid information, going in sort of blind would be a better experience. The pacing is slow but we get to see many character arcs and the changes Jermey has to go through. I have seen yaoi and BL with r*pe, but they usually romantize it and overall never get to display the full trama of this abusive relationship. There are many sex scenes but it’s not really explicit. Instead, sex is sort of drawn in this artistic visual and it sort of visualizes the trama and the moments of each characters emotions. If that truly makes sense. Each character in the story isn’t one dimensional and it is sort of beautiful in that sense. We get to see the whole story with Jeremy meeting that stupid idiot to him experiencing the trama and grief he is put through by his actions. It’s painful and beautiful. Still, it’s exahasting to read because of the length but it fully gets across a story of pain and disgust. It doesn’t romantasize rape, and instead shows the whole picture of how it feels and changes someone. The 1st half is painful but it gets better once Greg is dead. Well sorta. There is a cycle of pain and understanding with the situation. Trama never truly goes away and I liked how this manga portrayed it.