otakulys's manga / #first love(19)

Ume, how many straight boys you gonna fuck? Anyway, I liked this at first, but now I don't know how to feel, because I'm not sure how this will go. They're probably going to end up together (and I'd seriously rather Hara had his heart broken while Ume went off with Mori or something), but how are they going to reach that point with everything Hara is doing or has done? They keep playing Ume's legitimate pain for comedy. I don't really get how it's funny to be jerked around like that. Hara calls all the shots, and Ume just goes with it. But the story seems to have this air of self-awareness, so I want to keep going, but I'm really worried it's gonna be one of those weird, yaoiland solutions, where they suddenly at the last minute work it out, and they never really address what a selfish dick Hara is. The thing about that, though, is Hara isn't even really a dick, is he? It seems like he's legitimately mentally challenged. Like, is he mentally delayed, maybe? He literally always has the same expression, no matter what's happening, and he acts entirely on impulse without being considerate of other people's emotions, and he's not coming from a malicious place. It seems like he's either mentally challenged or on the autism spectrum. Either way, they portray him in such an odd way, I feel like it can't be accidental, but who knows. As of chapter three, I'm not sure what to expect. Bring more Mori, though! I'm sick of Ume dancing around this crap.

Awwwwww. I'm with everyone else: this needs to be longer! You can't leave it like that! It's so sweet and touching, and I want to see these two happy and growing together. I want to see more BL and such actually tackle the family and society issues. So much of it either glosses over it or resolves it way too easily. I want to see people learning and changing, discussions about why they're scared to be openly gay, etc. I feel like 99% of the time that's even addressed, the story has a sad or bittersweet ending. I just don't get why we can't see more of the hard stuff without a character choosing to just give up who they are to make their families happy or whatever. But yes, I love this, and I wish there was more. Alas.

Aw, that made me cry! Noooo! I hope they get married someday.

Eh. I'm always a little weirded out when shota is treated as cute or something. But to each their own. It's fiction, and the people freaking out about it need to calm the fuck down and walk away.

Definitely heartbreaking but not hopeless. He's always with him, and one day he'll die too, and maybe they'll be together. There must be a special ending for a person made exclusively for that god, so I imagine they'll be with each other after death. It definitely made me cry, though. Loving someone who you know will be gone soon is a painful thing. The comments made it sound like the story was way more dark and depressing than it was, though. It was sad and hurt, but I think eventually he'll go on to have a normal life and know that his best friend and first love is watching out for him.

The art is GORGEOUS. And it took her years to finish, so it only gets better as it goes. By the end of the main story, it blew me away. This is such a sad and beautiful story. I absolutely loved it. It's so rare for people to explore the psychological aspects of sexual assault and the way that people can internalize these things. The connection he made to his past mistake was a way for him to cope with what happened to him, but it only hurt him further. This is actually much more common in sexual abuse survivors than people probably realize. The love between them is so tender and so genuine. I love them so much and could read all about them forever. I can't wait for this mangaka to release more stuff. It really clicks with my crying fetish, too. I kinda feel like the mangaka has a crying fetish herself, because there's crying in almost every chapter, lol.

Aw, a very sweet little story. I'm really happy about the secondary couple, too. I was hoping from the start, as I'm sure many others were. But I almost feel like this needs a sequel to expand more on everything. Regardless, I enjoy that it doesn't do what her other work does with the misunderstandings and all that crap. It was... a little like that, but not really. It worked well enough for me. Not a perfect manga, but sweet and light with a happy ending all around.

Aww, what a beautiful, touching story. I'm so glad they were both able to break through their emotional barriers. I'm surprised so many people consider this a sad ending. I think it's very happy and very hopeful. Facing that pain, they could have given up, but they persevered. What happens after that is ambiguous in some ways, but we do know for sure that they're happy, and someday Ren gets his smile back. The bullying and teacher reactions and such were hard to sit through, and I hate that those shits got away with it. But a lot of awful people get away with awful things, and smaller towns can still be very homophobic and xenophobic (hence how they mocked Wayne for being a foreigner). I'm relieved it didn't fall to pieces when everyone kept calling it "realistic." Sometimes that's code for "they die or break up." Which is really annoying, because it might be realistic on some level, but it's not like it's the standard. EDIT: Holy crap, that additional information. This almost had a brutal ending. O_O Glad they changed it, honestly. It would have been powerful, but it would have been so miserable. Similar to a beautiful Korean short film about homophobia and bullying, only it goes through with the sad ending. :(

With all of the rinse-and-repeat, boring, rapey webtoon crap that's been saturating the market, this is a refreshing little taste of simple and sweet high school romance. I actually was super over it for a long time because ALL yaoi/shounen ai was high school romance, and it was all the freaking same. Lately I've been craving it again, but a very specific kind, and it's been tricky. I'm just a little over the excessive smut in everything else. I want a good story, not two minutes of an awful, pushy top, then 3000 pages of a dick stretching out an asshole while the other person whimpers and says "stop" over and over, then they live happily ever after. Like wtf. Anyway, that has nothing to do with this, I'm just annoyed. I hope this ends up being as sweet as it started. Just a simple story, back to the basics.