Title literal meaning: "Vacation at the End Of the Wilderness"
CH1 "Our Ever After": 3 stars
A beautiful long black haired man is sitting at his lover's death bed. The lover promises to love him forever. "This curse is to keep you here."
Next, the beautiful man, Magnolia tells a story to a blond child. The story is about a fiend, a protector of a dark forest encountered a human baby who grew so attached to him that the fiend coudn't eat the baby like he originally planned to. The baby grew up and fell in love with the fiend. Magnolia ends the story and makes the child go to bed. The child is awakened later with sleep paralysis. He sees a man having sex with Magnolia next to him & wonders who the man is. He awakens and Magnolia is KOed but fully clothed. He realizes it was a dream but remembering the dream gives him his first boner lol. Magnolia wakes up and sees. He's about to give the kid a BJ (seriously WTF) until he realizes, oh yeah, it's a fucking kid (double WTF).
The kid is understandably upset and goes outside. Magnolia talks to him through the window, warning him to stay away from the forest. He mentions that a defense squad has been assembled to take care of the children eating fiend, that the kid should probably head to the village for safety. The kid is suspicious since how can Magnolia know that since he never leaves. Magnolia replies that the big tree told him (even more sus). The kid notes that it seems Magnolia often gazes into the forest, as if waiting for someone. We see the kid mirroring the kid in the story who falls in love with the fiend as he grows up. As an adult, Emille continues to have sleep paralysis nightmares about another man fucking Magnolia. His biggest gripe is that he wants Magnolia to look at him instead. He wakes up from another nightmare and confronts Magnolia, confessing his love and anguish. Magnolia welcomes him. They fuck and Emille cries that Magnolia is (finally) looking at him.
When Emil wakes up the next day, he sees Magnolia walking into the black forest. He follows him and finds Magnolia in an area that has a whole bunch of coffins all around. Magnolia reaches into one and takes out what looks like human bones. Emil realizes that Magnolia is the fiend in the story and runs away. Magnolia looks sad and then remembers when he first encountered Emille as a baby - but it's not this Emille it's the original one.
Emil runs into the village and meets a woman who he realizes is his birth mother. He remembers that when he was a child, he heard a voice calling him and he follow that voice which led him to Magnolia, who said welcome back. Emil finally remembers that he is the human in the story who cursed himself to reincarnate so that he would always, eventually, come back to Magnolia whom he loved so much.
And he cries over the fact that Magnolia has continued to love him and all the reincarnation of him so much. He runs back into the forest but his birth mother stops him saying that the fiend events defense quad has burned down the forest. He remembers Magnolias comments from before and continues to run back. In the forest, their house is been burned. Magnolia feels his power is fading. He remembers baby Emille and closes his eyes, ready to die. Emille comes back. Magnolia tells him that the forest is burning and with it, his powers will be gone meaning that the curse is broken and Emille is free to leave. Emil refuses, saying that they share the same life until they will live together and die together he wants to see Magnolia grow old and die that's why he came back so many times. I guess without Magnolia's powers, they are essentially the same. The story continues that the man and the fiend disappeared and no one knows where they went. The end.
An interesting story tale. But that part where he was about to give the child a few Jay was really fucked up even though I don't think he went all the way - He did realize that this was just the child version of his lover. It's sad but I do like that it played out in a very fairytale-like way.
CH2 "The Frog Prince": 3 stars
Pretty boy with pretty people problems (not being facetious, they're real problems; from adult strangers perving over a child him, to people chasing him for his face only to grow tired of him being prettier lol to people not taking him seriously). The attention he gets for his face gives him anxiety so bad that he barfs whenever someone confesses to him. He ends up becoming friends with his outcast deskmate who's obsessed with bugs & dinosaurs and doesn't find his face as pretty as the bugs/dinosaurs he loves lol. One day, buy boy confesses, "Lately...you've been looing as beautiful as the wings of that actias aliena." (FUCK ME IF THAT AIN'T SOME ROMANTIC-ASS SHIT RIGHT THERE!) and pretty boy gets nauseous and runs away. He reveals that things were so bad at one point that he tried to cut his face with a razor. His mother stopped him, got cut but only expressed her relief that "You didn't ruin your face." (da fuck, now that's how you give your kid a complex ughhhh). Pretty boy's anxiety probably snowballed from there and more than his face, he hates everything about himself. Bug boy chases him down and tells him to go ahead and puke since he doesn't care if pretty boy is pretty or beastly like the Beauty and the Beast he's obssed with. He just likes him. He kisses pretty boy and stuns him to silence. It's a bit of an awakening for pretty boy who's stunned and cries in relief as his nausea had vanished.
I love the part where bug boy lists all the creatures that he thinks are prettier than pretty boy and then pretty boy actually goes to see those creatures in the science museum where he works.
3 stars cuz it's not as fully fleshed out as the other stories and idk, maybe I'm just an insensitive ugly ho but pretty boy's problems were so first world issues so I didn't feel much for him? lol. I feel like a more expanded ending would have raised the score. Bug boy's confession and kiss did seem to come out of nowhere and I don't think it would resolve pretty boy's psychological hang-ups so succinctly like it does in the story.
CH3 "The World's End": 4.5 stars
Astronaut researching terraforming on the moon secretly has the ship AI turn into the man he loves, Rukiya, a scientist who is his contact/communications officer with Earth. On the day he's supposed to return to earth, he finds out that Rukiya had kept secret the fact that Earth was destroyed long ago and deliberately kept him in the dark. Rukiya built an AI that was modeled after himself to take care of astronaut.
I like the conversations they had about his return to earth. Astronaut is basically saying "I can't wait to spend time with you" without explicitly stating it while Rukiya is knowingly/unknowingly does not get the message.
I like the philosophy the story touched on. Astronaut is devastated. "You don't...exist anymore..." he cries, to which Rukiya asks, "Is my soul not enough for you?" Astronaut remembers all the (non-sexual) good times he enjoyed with Rukiya and thinks to himself, "Of course it is." If our loved ones lose an arm or a leg, they are not less of their being. If they lose their body and all they have left is a brain and consciousness, I also believe they are not any less of their entire being too. My only concern would be the AI Rukiya's capacity to grow (emotionally, intellectually) as people do but since it's fiction, I'm sure human Rukiya created amazing Ai that could do that.
Only negatives was astronaut having sex with (what he believed to be) Rukiya's likeness without Rukiya's knowledge/consent but it was Rukiya all along so I guess consent was a non-issue and things turned out well in the end.
CH3 "Credits Roll": 3.5 stars
A prequel (?) to CH2 from Rukiya's POV. While eating out after a movie, astronaut reveals that he's been chosen to go to the moon. He was actually the second pick. The first pick's wife got pregnant/had a baby so astronaut was chosen since he had no other family. In his office, Rukiya regrets not proposing to astronaut. Next, he gives astronaut the AI cube and tells astronaut to consider the AI as him. Later, a coworker notes that he still hasn't updated astronaut about the situation yet. The coworker knows Rukiya's in love with astronaut. "My soul is no longer here." he tells the coworker, then thinks to himself, "After this planet burns out...I'll become faster...than light itself. I'll then be by your side."
The chapter ends with astronaut, newly arrived on the moon, asking the AI to take a video of him on the moon's surface with the sun (?) behind him to send to Rukiya later. He asks if Rukiya can see everything around him. The AI responds, "I can." Astronaut laughs, "Not you, silly." He wasn't asking the AI, he was asking Rukiya through the video. The AI/Rukiya says to itself, "I can see them...Shin." The end and cue me crying TT__TT
3.5 stars cuz it's too short and only serves to make me cry lol.
There's a short extra at the end where astronaut talks about how he's actually never seen Rukiya naked as they had only kissed before. TT__TT
Hate no Kouya de Vacances wo