blueberry's manga / #Drama llama(6)

4.5-5

Objectively 3-4* for (sorta) plot, art style, paneling, and good smut but personal dislike so 2* Feel strange disconnect from story; characters are not the most likeable. Story pacing and characters’ actions are strange, and the story runs like a gag manga (cuz of how ridiculous some actions, thoughts, and events are) but it’s drawn in such an aesthetic and serious style that it confuses the fk out of me. Some characters and events (Emoto the rapist & stalker, group orgy) pop outta nowhere and you’re just like “wait wtf” cuz it lowkey interferes with the story’s vibes and flow Uke seems intent on drawing out the angst out of immaturity, tbh. Lots of wallowing in self-hate which leads to treating seme like a total piece of sht. Not even tactful rejection, it’s straight up “you’re just a sex object ok bye get out of my face” while his thoughts are all “waaaah I wanna date him but I’m scared of straight dudes rejecting me waaaaaah” like wtf? I get self-esteem is hard but at least treat others with more respect than that. Seme was a forceful racpist so not a great dude either, his character was weird too Weird puts in story (could be translations’ fault); - uke is so sexually frustrated he fingers himself in the ocean 10m away from the shore. Now, let’s say he was actually quite far out and his deeds were out of sight to bypassers. Was he treading the water while fingering himself? How tf did he stay afloat for a proper masturbation? - seme jumps in and drowns himself trying to save uke from perceived suicide, and after uke saves him they’re both suddenly at an outdoor shower that previous panels didn’t show. That teleportation threw me off...was the shower nearby, or did the uke drag an unconscious dude all the way to the showers? Also...apparently seme needed CPR?? Uke was casually like “ah, gotta find someone to resuscitate him after I take my shower.” Like dude, NO. GO GET SOMEONE NOW, HE’S DYING WTF?

Wonderful story! Strong MC, fleshed out side characters, perfect pacing, super engaging storyline, compelling conflicts, heart-racing moments, NOICE ANGST, etc etc MC’s habit of shutting down emotionally and talking robotically to those she hates strikes a strong chord lol This is an awesome tense read (with some alleviating comfort and fluff, but it’s more angst than fluff)

Ch. 10 - the author introduces too many characters at once and crams too much dialogue. Not only is it hella “busy” to read, a lot of the characters are bubbly, extroverted, unempathetic assholes. Seeing them bulldoze through conversations regardless of the other party’s obvious discomfort and/or refusals pisses me off so fkn much. Why are there so many annoying characters? And the ones that aren’t being actively annoying are passive pussy-ass bystanders that can’t speak up on behalf of their friend. Also, why tf are they making such huge deals out of bumping into each other…it’s obviously accidents, no malice was intended, and it healed fairly quick. Not like the MC or ML lost their limbs, why are they so endlessly guilty about the most trivial things? They worry about social situations like teenagers, like get over yourselves. Jimmy’s friends also gotta rot in hell, fuck those friendships that completely disregard his boundaries (though Jimmy’s also a massive pussy for being a doormat.) I pray the characters become better over time…ugh Ch 23 - MY FKN GOD EVERYONE EXCEPT FOR MAIN LEADS ARE RUDE OR SPINELESS DOORMATS IT PISSES ME OFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF the cast of annoying characters is getting so dense I’m starting to wonder if the author is just as annoying IRL…no sane person can come up with this many annoying dialogues. The author condenses so many narration into dialogues that the whole story sounds “noisy”. There can be so many dialogues converted into monologues or thought bubbles, but noooooooo everyone in the room just HAS to hear what everyone’s thinking… Ch 31 - MORE CHARACTERS?????? Does the author not fucking know how to work with the current cast??? Why do they need to add on more and more to keep the plot moving??? It’s such a cheap, amateurish and confusing way of storytelling

The drama did oscillate back and forth a little too much lol but a great read nonetheless. The novel seems like it was written well, too bad it’s not fully translated. The few fan-translated excerpts were really nice. Considering what they did to sabotage each other (mostly uke’s actions) it’s hard to believe a blooming love would arise from that,,,Their “first love” and feelings of lingering crush sure was…strong.

DNF’d at Side story 6. It’s technically all cute and fluffy side stories with a 1/100th of the drama we were subjected to in the main story, but I’m tired. I’ve lost patience with this couple. I can’t even be happy reading all the good fluff about them cuz man. I’m tired. —- Ok so it technically had brands of angst I should’ve liked..but reading this sht was painful and frustrating. The over-consideration for each other leading into miscommunications exhausted me to no end, and there were too many moments when they should’ve just. FUCKING. TALKED. SPEAK MOTHERFUCKERS, Y’ALL GOT A FUNCTION BRAIN AND MOUTH!?!!? They kept on losing trust in each other and I’m not about that life man… Uke had his badass and funny moments (more initially) but his chronic condition of “running away at first sign of doubt” in Season 2 pissed me off to no end. Sure seme had his flaws, but seme was literally carrying the relationship with how he expertly chased after the skittish uke, COMMUNICATED (or attempted to anyways), and got his own life together (ok sure uke did many things himself too, but I digress). My fucking god reading this was a headache. Uke’s character development went backwards. So ok, fine, I can let go of the frustrating angst cuz author developed lots of rationale for them. Ngl author was excessively putting them through life’s trials, but…sigh. Fine. It’s fine. But what annoys me is that they just get their career fully in order and all their childhood traumas or chronic hormone condition just vanish into thin air? And they magically became expert parents without any research from their part and they’re now giving the baby full care WHILE training and winning Olympic gold medals? Author took the easy way out and really forced this by making the baby’s nature “easy to work with”. Such lazy fucking writing. What a forced HEA. Literally a princess fairytale, gross. The ending is a nice way to wrap up the story and was drawn really well with all its symbolism. Too bad the excess and dramatic miscommunications pissed me off too much to enjoy it, even if they had good rationale. I almost dropped this story too many times… Oh yeah and smut is boring. Well drawn but boring.