ari's Topics (152)

Kindof agree since it just released like yesterday. But ugh I've been searching and even got a notification about it being released and for some reason it doesn't even pop up for me..

Omggg yesssss

I guess readers nowadays don't really explore much of BL and other manga genre other than the usual fluffy flowery pretty stuffs. I wish they weren't the loudest tho lol

lmao yeah...they only read manhwas (webtoon) and thought that that cover the whole entire genre of yaoi...bruh if only they knew old manhwa look like manga lol..

I don't really think it's because new readers like fluffy or flowery stuff. Harada is still massively popular and a lot of the popular BL (both manga and manhwa) nowadays have plenty of problematic aspects. But I do agree that a lot of the new readers don't know about older BL names that used to be familiar in BL fandom circles like Natsume Ono, Nakamura Asumiko, Fumi Yoshinaga, Yamashita Tomoko, etc.... Definitely makes me feel my age lmao

I don't know what the no.1 webtoon is from last year, but I do think there are great webtoons out there and lumping them all as forgettable is doing artists a disservice. I reread "All About Lust" by Tirano Kim all the time, and "For Your Love" by Park Nodeok. "Down and Dirty" by John scratches that itch of an interesting and realistically characterized story with dark/problematic elements for me.

You got to remember that for every Fumi Yoshinaga there was also a bunch of forgettable authors who churned out only jerkoff material in Japanese BL too. There are gems in every genre and even though we may perceive new fans as annoying now, I bet back on our days there were people who would go "new BL fans are annoying, nobody remembers A Cruel God Reigns or Heart of Thomas anymore.... Banana Fish (before the anime now lmao) is so much deeper than all these mainstream BL"

Back in our day too though, the BL topping the charts and discussion boards were also problematic and rapey. The Viewfinder series, Gravitation, Koisuru Boukun, Okane ga Nai, Loveless, etc.... Those were the big BL series back in our days. The likes of Natsume Ono's works were also considered "niche" in BL circles even back then.

What I'm trying to say is: I actually don't think the BL community changed all that much, just that the market has expanded to global levels and so there's more content now than ever. However, good authors will always shine through in the sea of popular garbage and stand the test of time. And just like with Japanese BL authors, I've found Korean BL authors that I trust within the BL webtoon industry who are much better than the big and popular names right now.

I get your point, I just don’t think it’s something that’s been happening only now and BL have always kind of been like this.

This is the legitimate truth BL/yaoi has always been like this and it will never change. You said nothing but truth I'll like to add an honorable mention Under Grand Hotel its has a dash of everything and I like how they didn't stereotype the pocs. The author did a great job I wish there were more like it!

I actually read the author's Q&A they based off of the prison hit series OZ on HBO even though I was a child I would watch that show with my parents So I absolutely understand the the writing and it was cliche at all especially if your clued in about the show OZ. But ehh to each their own what you saw and what I/most people saw was a good story that for its time was good. Also let tell you prison romance are possible in the way it was fashioned in the manga. Also prison are run in real life that way

nipple twist (๑•ㅂ•)و✧

Meanwhile other yaoi start often with attempted r**e and ends with long last relationship. ╮(￣▽￣)╭
I do agree and like what the author did here. I guess people who never experience it doesn't see how heavy the psychological impact of being forced to something's for dome people.
Like example my friend once tried to force me kiss to him... I felt horrible since when words aren't heard at all and you can't cry for help its a horrible thing feeling helpless.
Mine is just a small experience and an attempted r**e is much more damaging.... people saying "just get over it like other uke" and criticized the uke reactions of not forgiving. It's just not right since not everyone react the same way. In fact to some it's even seen as something unforgivable while others may see it as something that couldn't be helped so excuse the author of such actions.

Right. I appreciate the author a lot for actually making it clear — Chiwoo will never forgive Jihyun. He might not hate Jihyun any more, but he’ll never forgive him, and he’ll never be friends with him again. The author actually had Jihyun experience real consequences for his actions.

Thats what I thought during reading the first chapter

I disagree. I believe Ooji being an alpha was central to his character development and he wouldn't have gotten close to Yasumi in the first place if he weren't. But to each our own. :)

While I disagree with you for the same reason as the comment above mine, I'm glad that you commented what you did, shows that the author was able to show that apart from the heat and rut part of alphas and omegas, their secondary gender would have little to no bearing on who they are as a person, evident by the 'interesting add-on...it would still be essentially the same"part of your comment.

I disagree because Ooji being an alpha is addressed multiple times and it has affected him in many ways, for one, they met because ooji was having troubles because of the pressure put on him for being an alpha and he seeked Yasumi for counselling. From the first chapter he's shown comforting a little boy who's also an alpha for not being perfect as their society expects them to be. People are surprised he's a teacher since he's an alpha. Chapter 4 shows how his alpha status could affect his teaching career, and the guilt he felt for reacting to his omega student's heat, and realising that he would be facing such situations in the future too. The ending chapter he expresses his insecurities surrounding him being an alpha and being in a relationship with the beta Yasumi when he says he could bite an omega and betray him because he's an alpha, showing how much his secondary gender has impacted him, I'm glad Yasumi comforts him the way he does in this part.

I think the reason Ooji being an alpha feels unnecessary to some might be because omegaverses mostly revolve around heats and ruts, marking bites or the blatant discrimination between the genders rather than the subtle but deep impact such a thing can have on an individual. Omegaverses mostly focus on the sexual aspect of a relationship, but this being a shounen-ai mostly revolves around intrapersonal and interpersonal relationships without focusing on sex much.

This is just my opinion, and it’s also my personal issue with omegaverse as a whole, but I find it frustrating when the real world issues like gender discrimination in the workplace is explored through a fictional gender system, where men in the story basically stand in as replacements for women in real life.

This manga would have played out the same if ABO was replaced with class systems and gender roles in real life. Ooji was already an elite/prestigious family — people who knew sees his family name would be surprised that he’s working as a teacher instead. The insecure alpha kid could’ve been a gifted child that’s struggling now that curriculum is getting harder and their parents have been disappointed at him. The omega who went into heat could be a girl going through their period for the first time instead to talk about if it’s inappropriate or not for an adult male school teacher to assist a little girl when something like that happens.

In my opinion, the omegaverse is a copout to avoid talking about the real issues we face. It’s interesting world building to the trope beyond just being porn, but it feels like a convenient way to dodge actual topics.

My qualms with omegaverses is the same as yours to be honest, I think it's a cop out to not talk about actual things people face too. Some authors tend to just replace women with omega men without thinking much. This whole 'alphas are biologically superior' also just reminds me of eugenics and 'race realists' so much at times that it puts a bad taste in my mouth, but I still read them because they are kinda interesting. All omegaverses can be replaced by something that mirrors the issues in the real world(except for uncontrollable heats and ruts and marking in human beings) but at the end of the day it's just a fictional world made as a form of escape. But again, that's not what I disagreed on, how omegaverses dodge actual issues isn't what I talked about, I've only insisted that Ooji being an alpha has a bearing on the plot and his character, that is all.

I disagree with the 'replace the omega kid with a girl on period' part. Heats are inherently sexual in nature, periods aren't the same-a girl's period doesn't have the same effect on a man as an omega's heat does on an alpha. Ooji tries his best to keep his cool while faced with strong(and described as uncontrollable) biological urges, but he doesn't do everything right since it's the first time he's encountered such a situation, letting others to question whether it was the right thing for him to keep being a teacher. He posed a significant threat to the omega because he's an alpha, and it is addressed. A male teacher teaching you about feminine hygiene when you first get your period can be embarrassing, I've been on the receiving end of it, but being in proximity to an alpha teacher when you're an omega in heat, going by the rule of biology in an omegaverse world, could lead to situations much much worse than that. Comparing the two is like comparing the destructive power of a molotov cocktail to an atomic bomb. But you're right, class systems would have been able to replace the high expectations put on him for being an alpha. Heat/rut/marking is the defining aspect of omegaverses and it has impacted Ooji and his relationships with other people, including Yasumi when he says there's still the possibility that he could bite an omega in the future. It's a unique feature of omegaverses which would not have the same effect had the world not been an omegaverse. Him being an alpha isn't as in-your-face as it is in other works, but it still is an omegaverse, albeit a muted one. Replacing such parts with something else would change certain important elements of it.

Omegaverses are an interesting world to think of, when I first started reading it I just thought of it as a world where human beings have to go through what cats have to go through during heats, which is not the greatest thing to go through. It would be a much worse world to live in, seeing as even when our sexual urges can be mostly kept under control, there are a lot of rapes and sexual misconducts occurring in the real world. Such problems would occur exponentially more in such a world, not to mention the general apathy towards those issues would increase too.

I agree with this. Though I do disagree that omegaverse is used as a cop out to not talk about actual things, at least for most people.

your disagreement is understandable, it's just that I've noticed that omegaverses often reflect real life discriminatory behaviour, but sometimes neither the author nor the readers address it. At the end of the day, I don't expect them to cater to my tastes and I just take them as an interesting thing in fiction while hoping people, even if it's not the author, do address said issues.

Couldn’t have said it any better! :’) Amazing reply!

Actually the reason why I bring up the part about replacing the boy in heat is because to me, it’s incredibly fucked up to even think about a dimension where an adult male raping a child can have both be the victims because of fictional biology and I would rather read a story that didn’t have that. While in the end Sensei no Sensei discussed things realistically, I was still incredibly put off at the concept that rapes can probably be forgiven in their society on the clause of “the heats/ruts made them do it”.

God, I wish we have the option to like replies. ;-; Bless you for this!