hanasan's manga / #Psychological(20)

Really great psychological romance. It took me a second read to fully understand it, but I feel that's really the proper way to experience it. First run through without knowing it was hypnosis from the start, and then the second. During the first, you can really feel how others see Kakine as a monster for using his hypnosis on Keidai-- and then in the second, you can start to understand it properly from both Keidai and Kakine's perspectives. I think after my second read through, Keidai had a fascination with Kakine from the start, so Kakine wasn't implanting false feelings into him; he had no reason to in the first place, since even he had no idea it was love, especially for himself. Kakine started hypnotizing Keidai to help him, ended up becoming interested in him in an almost therapist-like perspective, then fully became interested in him romantically (despite not being aware since he's so emotionally disconnected to the world) after Keidai himself in a state of pure honesty says he likes Kakine. While yes, Kakine then proceeds to "train" Keidai without his knowledge, that's the pure fiction part of the story. The rest of it, I think they're a lovely couple.

Threw me in for a bit of a surprise, I thought it was gonna be one to two volumes at most, I don't see a lot of male yandere-based manga going on for a while, but I was pleasantly surprised with the length of the story. The pacing was good, and it actually felt like everyone had a relatively good amount of time to be fleshed out and grow. Initially, I really liked it for the "villain-of-the-week" feeling each of the antagonists had with the suspicious Haruma sweeping in to save the day each time. But as the story went on, I was very curious on how they would resolve the established ongoing mystery of Yoh's lost memories and what really happened when Haruma's mom died. The resolution of it all was wrapped up with a nice book end too. All in all, a pleasant read, and a big recommendation for a long yandere story.