Read through all the spoilers and ngl this is so much heavier than I thought. There will be war and bloodshed and finding out some of my favs from the webtoon is going to die made me so sad, ML being an asshole is the least of my concerns tbh.
People dropping it just cause they think they are gonna hate the ML from the spoilers feels like they are missing out a whole chunk of the story. 38 chapters in the webtoon and the only romance we see is a one-sided love from a 11 yo girl so this series is obviously NOT focused on the development of romance. Rather, romance really takes a backseat and it's more about politics and the growth of MC.
For people concerned, yes ML groped her chest to confirm her gender, no he did not rape her, he stopped when he realise MC didn't want him. To give context, ML did not know MC's gender at that point and was super angry at MC. He confused the hate and love he felt for MC and the assualt turned into sexual assault after he blew up from finding out MC's real gender. The FL stepped in to beg ML to turn that violence on her instead. In turn, MC tries to diverge the ML's attention back to her because bro was crazy with anger, but thankfully he cooled down after seeing MC cry and left. Im in no way defending him, but MC ends up using ML's love for her as a leverage over him in exchange for a promise to be with him. So yes he's an asshole, but he is a useful asshole with a tight leesh on his neck. And no, he's not the only end game so thank god for that.
A lot of MC's relationships are planned and discarded for survival and her relationship with her lovers are a reflection of that. She and the FL had a emotional connection while she and the ML mainly had a physical connection. FL acts as her emotional support despite not being able to accompany her out for fights, while ML is MC's main chesspiece with the fighting and warfare despite being a huge pain in the ass for her mental health. ( He had loads of red flags and I was hoping another dude would be the ML but it is what it is. Someone had to match MC's ruthlessness and it was not FL. MC had a harem of admirers but most of them died before anything could happen ╥﹏╥ ) FL and ML's rs is also pretty interesting to read because they went from hating, to tolerating, to actively protecting each other for the MC's sake (Fyi their first meeting happened because FL was sent to seduce the ML, but they ended up realising they were both in love with the MC lol. Baraou(Richard III) anyone?).
Wouldn't say the writing is amazingly jawdropping but it is interesting enough. There is A LOT of deaths and MC will cause thousands to die with a command. It's brutal and scary but needed for her growth to power. Like, my love for a powerful MC outweighted my dislike for the ML, and it's so rare to see this kind of triangle ending with both genders so yea I'll continue following the webtoon cause the art is so good. (Also wanna know how the ML will look like with this art) I knew 3 kingdoms was brutal but damn is it brutal. Hope the webtoon don't censor anything because I love myself an unconventional series...
I kinda put it off because of the extreme hate but it's not that bad?
It's been a while since I've read a horror manga more on character psychology than jumpscares. There is a sick romanticism of fetishes from the MC's views because we are mainly reading it from his pov, but it is NOT romaticised for the audiences. It's portrayed as a bad thing and some people need to stop trying to cancel every protagonists that doesn't fit their ideal Hero archtype. Not all fiction needs to comform to social norms, even less when it's a supernatural horror manga.
*spoilers below*
The guy everyone's calling sick is literally a devil that eats people when he's hungry. The women he killed are also (cheating scumbags) tricked into making a contract with him. Eitherways, these women are rightfully portrayed as innocent victims while the MCs are villainized. It reminded me of Jigoku shoujo where some people gets killed in grusome ways for hella petty reasons, while the hell girl essentially just grant wishes and watches them die(like what this MC is doing). They aren't directly involved in their deaths, but they can also be seen as antagonists despite being the protagonists. The author don't shy aware from having two extreme sides of how MC is sexualising others' deaths while also depicting how crazy it is by making the MC scared of his own sexual fantasies.
Btw, hating on this just cause Fujimoto recommended it is wild. I thought it was cool that he was supporting his assistant's mangaka debut. (Also none of them claimed this was a BL. People just saw the cover and made assumptions.) At least till chapter 10, I don't see either MCs being gay. Rather, MC has relationships with female characters, while the devil also prefer eating women. MC is sexually aware of the devil because of his fetish, not because he likes him romantically. It's like how some guys prefer bottoming with female partners, it's a sexual preference/fetish not a romantic preference.
Anything revolving death, violence and fetishes defo touches upon controversial topics and everyone have their own preferences but imo it's actually pretty interesting in it's own way.
(Tbh it would be a crazy plot twist if the devil was all in his head and he's the one going crazy from all this. I'm placing bets on the split personality theory, MC kinda craycray I wouldn't put it past him.)
Highly agree. MC isn't meant to be seen as likeable, much less sane. Ig so many are used to seeing MCs as heroes and the "right" ones. Well. What if in some instances they're not? They're the main characters, not monks or saints. Who says the MC can't be a villain? Closest comparison would be Death Note and Killing Stalking. Do either of them fit into the usual MC? No.
As a Psych student, there's a lot of people who aren't in the best mental capacity. Of such, some are relatively much worse. If they exist irl, why not in works of fiction?
There's a trend of people trying to fit everyone into the same social mold and they can't stand it when something is different. I think it's great that we have a variety of fictional protagonists and like what you said, these kind of people exists irl too and reading about depictions of personalities and moral compasses different from the norm also encourages more discussions about it.
I don't mind myself a well-written harem but it's kinda been on a downhill cause *spoilers* wdym his ex is also here as a loli and the one other guy in this webtoon is a crossdressing girl. Went to novelupdates for spoilers and seems like the author tends to shift focus halfway but can someone tell me if it's just gonna follow this trend for this too .#－.－)
Yeah it really sucks cause in the novel as well theres so many wasted chapters dedicated to just prioritizing dialogue of how the female characters are alll soo inn loveee falling on their knees with ML. And not one major character has in the novel he interacted with is a man. Σ( ￣□￣||)
maybe i should just drop it now and get the disappointment over early
This ain't slow burn this is the author straight up teasing all of us like GET TOGETHER ALREADY YALLS CLOSETED GAYS(╯°Д °)╯╧╧
Every time they animate something new I’ll come back to revisit so I hope they’ll continue feeding us for ages to come
I've been putting reading/watching the last game off since it came out, and avoided spoilers like mad. I never wanted it to end. I was the same age as the characters when I first read it, still schooling and passionate. This series is the first sports manga I own and it's still on my shelf, occassionally being flipped open. Now, after about 10 years, I'm an adult and decided to finally close this chapter. It's bittersweet, I cried a lot. Didn't expect the movie ending to be like that and I just want to say thank you for growing up with me, it was a superb experience following all of their journeys, and I'll definitely revisit this in the future as I always do.
This comment made me emotional fr bruh fr
Singapore mentioned? That's rare. Idk if anyone noticed but each chapter is really long and doesn't lose quality compared to most other webtoons. Though some contents might've been skimmed, super grateful to the team for delivering long chapters every update.
Me waiting for Chihiro to break all dem swords his dad made. Also would really like to see him create a sword instead of just fighting with his dad’s. What are the chances that Entei was actually made/completed by Chihiro with the goldfish motifs and all.
A hero will sacrifice 1 beloved to save the lives of a hundred.
A villain will sacrifice a hundred lives to save the life of 1 beloved.
MC is a villain for sure, but you can't help but sympathize with him. If there wasn't a time loop curse, he wouldn't have became like that. This manga really showed how desperate someone can become to save a loved one. The adults were especially useless in this one. Hate that the ending is an open one though.