otakulys's manga / #dark(196)

I want to like this, and it's interesting and different, but why, why, WHY do they always have to "become pretty?" Can't it ever be that they find happiness and confidence without having to physically change? I hate this sort of thing so much. Whenever there's an "ugly" girl as the main character, generally people are just cruel constantly, then she gets super hot and everyone is nice, and no one ever gets their comeuppance for being crappy. It's just reinforcing the idea that women are only worth how attractive they can be to others. I say that assuming that's what happens. I will be shocked if she doesn't suddenly become beautiful because of the doctor. I'll change my rating if she doesn't, but since she probably will, I'll tentatively keep reading.

The bad guy is hot. I'm automatically rooting for him. Interesting so far, but I'm not sure what to think. There's not enough here. I guess we'll see! Also, I highly doubt this is BL, but I find the tag usage amusing. Talk about sexual tension!

I'm really intrigued so far. It has that dark grit that I love in BL, and crime families, etc. are my guilty pleasure. It isn't perfect, and I could see it getting annoying in a way, but I have high hopes, so five stars for now.

I'm intrigued. It could go either way. Poor baby uke. And it seems like this won't be a rape-to-love situation, which is great. But I could be wrong, so I guess we'll see... I hate rape-to-love, so hopefully not. I just figure the other guy is who he gets with. I'm definitely invested, and the art is lovely. I could have done without the child rape joke that the scanlators added not once, but twice. I don't know why they thought that was funny. But I'm glad someone is scanlating this, so hey.

Lol, what? I feel like this was trying too hard to be edgy. I don't hate it, but... I don't know, it just seemed rather heavy handed. Someone in the comments said "Why didn't he just start with himself," which made me laugh, so I'll give it three stars for leading me to that.

...Lol. I felt bad for the boy and was bummed because I knew it wouldn't ever get happy for him, but that ending was kind of funny. Shitty mom, though. She needs to get hit by a bus.

That was... very odd. I guess it's open to interpretation, though I'm not really sure what the second chapter was meant to inspire. I mean, obviously there had been that longing from the time he was a child, but I don't really understand what it was meant to symbolize for him to go back later. I don't know, the first one certainly could be an allegory for suicide. Especially criticizing the person who's in the bed, kind of reflecting someone falling apart and falling into despair. There's more to read into, I guess, but it didn't grip me enough to make me want to extend the effort.

Weird, but not as bad as I thought it would be based on some of the earlier elements. Sometimes I love this mangaka's art, and sometimes it's kinda meh. This one shifts back and forth, but it's kind of on the meh side. The plot could have been better. The ending is kind of weird and ambiguous. But at least they tried to include some intrigue. If it had been polished, I would have liked it more, but I'll give it a 3.5 for effort.

The ending card with the name of the manga sounds like it's messing with us. "Haha, you're all gonna die eventually. Have a nice weekend!" Lol, that aside, this is a sad-ish but also kind of poignant story. Very short, but the concept is there. I'm glad he was happy at the end. I've always found stories where the world ends abruptly to be kind of peaceful. We'd all go out together, and there's a since of calm that comes from that. But, obviously, it'd be nice if we could just live freely without the world ending, lol.

Huh. That was a very strange, very convoluted manga. There were things I actually liked about it, despite all of the weirdness inserted here and there. I think the ending confused some people because it's so abrupt, then it's followed by a bunch of "afterwards" type stuff. The story ends with both of the original couple realizing they were both in love, and the asshole one deciding to leave everything behind. It also means the new couple stays together. Everything after that is snippets of things in the past, or personal introspection. I actually kind of love "second love" stories with all the heartbreak that comes from the loss of a first love, then the healing that comes after with a person who actually treats you right. This is such a weird story, and it's all over the place, so I can't say that it was as satisfying as it could be, but I did appreciate seeing those themes. They're rare in yaoi. Most of the time the unhealthy relationship wins in a love triangle. The art was strange and the visuals were seriously disgusting at times, but I don't know, I think this was worth the read. I can see why a lot of people wouldn't like it, but I give it a solid B. I hope someone translates the sequel, though I worry about what might be revealed then, given how damaged everyone is in this one.