vignette00's manga / #abuse(3)

Aijin wa Korosareru is, I think, less about love than it is about rejection and abandonment and the pure instinctual fear people have of not being wanted. That's what makes this story so strong. Hikari is deeply, deeply traumatized by his father's departure and his mother's insanity/emotional issues, and it makes him desperate for acceptance and love, so much so that when Kizaki reaches out even that little bit, Hikari grabs on. Which makes Haizawa and Hikari's relationship all that more painful, because Haizawa is one of those amazing characters that I think can only be found in sad, heartrending yaoi manga. Haizawa is sarcastic, and caustic, and manipulative, and mysterious from the beginning, and he probably has abandonment issues the length of his arm, but he thinks he's survived. He thinks he's over them, living his life, being a new man, and Hikari frightens him because Hikari hasn't. Hikari is a pure boy with pure emotions and he is at once drawn and repulsed by Haizawa, but Haizawa is scared and now I'm just psycho-analyzing this manga too much. Umetaro makes deeply flawed characters who are alive and emotional and filled with dimension, especially with Haizawa and Kizaki. I love how at first you think Kizaki is just going to be a minor character but then Umetarou draws Kizaki closer and closer to the heart of the story. Umetarou always gives Haizawa this subtly adult and mocking smile, which will become important later of course, and Haizawa is a man with so many faces and so many sides but the story makes them all believable. And this is a story about change, about growing up, about dealing with abandonment, about wanting just one person in the world to be happy that you were born, and I love it because even though there are not serious plot twists, what you think is going to happen doesn't. There is room for so many cliches, but the story doesn't go there. It takes middle ground, and takes you with it.

Mindreader is torn between his childhood best friend and his sympathies for his abused cousin. Features a twist you saw coming miles away, a classic Weepy and Woobie Uke, and completely undeveloped and sudden Family Drama, and tolerable if only because the right man ends up the victor for the main character's nascent understanding of romantic relationships. One day we'll get a manga that tries to guide its main character healthily and sympathetically through a road of separating sympathy, empathy, pity, and love. Until then I guess we have I Can't Even Breath Without You http://www.mangago.me/read-manga/i_cant_even_breeth_without_you/.