an art style and design choices that only a mother will praise
if you consider picking this up, like, if you really badly want to read this for whatever reason, do yourself a favor and skip chapter 1 & 5.5. don't look back. don't give in to curiosity. if you treat chapter 2 like it was the start of the story and chapter 5.5 like it doesn't exist (and don't read my rant at the end), you might even have a decent time reading this manga
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after the mess that was chapter 1, i kept scrolling just to see how bad it would get only to be left speechless at how the author sabotaged a generally engaging story within the first chapter. if only this ma guy hadn't established himself as a bona fide rapist from the get go, i maybe wouldn't have looked at him like someone deserving to be stabbed for the remaining chapters. he could be so nice and considerate, just not that first time? for whatever reason? at the point he "invaded" his home this already had enough elements to give it a controversial twist but then you also make him a rapist? ah, come on... this could have worked so well without the assault. and i'll say it how it is, ma and that pierced guy had way more chemistry. sue me
the only horror in yaoi nowadays is the blatant display of rape but this did it entirely without it while still giving us a sex scene BLESS. the “middle aged guy with ulterior motives who doesn’t act on his desires until invitation but the other person is kinda eerily ambiguous about it” gives the whole thing just the perfect touch of creepiness
bro he could have had the inner monologue about assaulting him BEFORE he assaulted him and that would have saved it
my bad i didn’t know i was at the virtual kindergarten
couldn’t even draw two normal panels before presenting the rape uh huh
idk but the way the top always got unnecessarily close to the bottom felt so off especially in the beginning, almost as if the author wanted them to be close just for the sake of being close because this is, yk, yaoi. he’s aloof yet always gets up in the dude’s space which doesn’t match up and what reason is there to figuratively be up a stranger’s ass in the first place? other than that, the bath scene felt intrusive but somewhat on the line to being tolerable. if i had to describe it… it gave “man one misstep away from turning into a rapist” and “men having a slightly too homoerotic banter in the bath” at the same time, if anyone gets what i mean. the fact that the bottom gave him the go ahead in the end did save it imo… but that was definitely not the best case scenario
idk if this is hinting at the redhead being the second ml but if that’s the case then i’m sorry… cause if it’s between him and the glasses guy, i’ll choose the redhead without second thought lmao
whoever thought it’d be a good idea to split a single chapter into several parts should be stoned ngl
as good as this has been up until this point, i’ll have to let it marinate cause i can’t stand the wait in between the chapters see y’all in two years or so
im so fucking mad. when they showed dooris body covered in red spots i was sure the implication that it wasn’t bug bites but bite marks that noah gave him while he was asleep (as in, sexually assaulted him) was true. i had a smile on my face the entire time up until that point but like… it dropped so fucking fast. feeling upset i skipped through the next few chapters just to get the final confirmation that it was sa… only to find out it actually was bug bites. i’ll go back and re-read but that really killed the vibe ngl
the art is inconsistent and flawed in a way that is subtle yet very noticeable in a negative way if you’re someone like me who prefers things to look aesthetically pleasing and thus naturally pays attention to details. the proportions and perspectives are objectively wonky. the hands sometimes look okay and then two panels later not; one time they’re bigger than the characters’ faces, other times uncannily small, the fingers look like undefined tubes, or the fingers are aligned in a way that seems unnatural or simply “not right”. there’s something that feels “off” about the faces too (not always but often enough that it becomes notable) and i think it’s the eyes - the seem too small in comparison to the structure of the face/the rest of the facial features. it’s also apparent that drawing faces from the side isn’t exactly this artist’s forte; at times they’re too wide and boxy or too slanted and the perspective/protrusion of the mouths/lips is bizarre iykwim. another funny detail about the side profiles is that in some instances, the parting of the hair of the black haired (which normally sits on the left side of his forehead) is placed so far to the side that it literally sits on his temple lmao. i could go on. when they’re watching the swans and the scar dude whispers in black haired’s ear, he should be bending down cause black haired is sitting on the stone, but the way he’s drawn makes it look like he’s still standing but like… on ear level with the dude who is basically sitting on the ground. and so on. all that to say, this is obviously not the worst art job ever because a lot of it is okay (and i’m sure it can improve even more with time) but it provides enough weak points for someone like me to nitpick haha
great art but i’ll leave this one to the degenerates
bonding on a playground at night for an entire chapter >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> immediately fucking in the first chapter
found the whole appreciating his feet thing weird until i realized the author was trying to liken them to a cat’s toe beans. i almost want to say from that point it became cringe but the entire setup with a grown man taking another grown man’s shoes and socks off in a store for no apparent reason was already cringe
first i was like “omg this is haribo???” and then i remembered and was like “oh… this is haribo…”