Mimi's manga / #slice of life(131)

I'm actually kinda mad they did that to me at the end. It's such a mid 3/5 stars type of manga, straight up took me from june to august to force myself to finish it. I didn't think this was bad or anything it just didn't get me to care that much about the two main characters but I also didn't want to dnf or put on hold another manga so I just sat on it... There are 2 moments in the last chapter along with the final 2 pages that fucking did me in, I couldn't stop cry laughing.

I need to stop getting excited about things. Ch 1-2, 5.1: Didn't like this story that much. It had an off-putting start and weird visual jumps that felt like I was skipping pages. I know this book has 2 stories in it but keeping pace with the writing got confusing sometimes. This couple I ended up not giving a shit about by the time ch. 2 ended. Would've loved to have seen more of them getting to know each other so that the end of ch.2 could hit harder. I also didn't like that they did nothing with the main mc's philophobia be a topic of discussion. I thought maybe their extra chapter might go into more but, no, they just decided that the conversation at the end of ch.2 just didn't happen. Like, HADA WHAT DO YOU MEAN??? HE STRAIGHT UP TOLD YOU WHAT HAPPENED WHEN HE WAS A KID AND YOU'RE JUST GONNA FORGET THAT?! Ch 3-4, 5.2: A a better story but not by much. I liked the characters a little more, they were more interesting to read about. It still had the weird visual jumps and too fast a pacing for me to completely keep track of what's going on, but I actually felt another emotion that wasn't "anger with a side of what?" and that made reading this story a better experience... Slightly. Seeing how this was the story on the cover, I kind of wish this would've been the 1st story we read so I wouldn't've felt like dropping the book 10 times before chapter 2.

Whatever I said for the main story still applies here.

Update: Dropping the series as a whole but I did read all of this 2 vol combo. I also don't know the date I read this other than it being 2016 but I wrote as little of what I could remember down for it in 2023. So this is old but I don't really want to update it because I don't want to reread this shit book. Maybe it's because I'm 20, maybe it's because I'm not 15 years old anymore, maybe I'm not much more aware of how horrible everything in this book is, but the way how this relationship started bothered me to hell and back. The fact that Nemu just took the harassment (then rape) that Maya was forcing on him just angered me so much. Only the last 7 was actually something good. But throughout the book I was very disgusted by the "rape and blackmail is ok because they love you" narrative this game me.

Update: Looking back, I still don't know if I actually want to drop this series. I finished this vol but thought about dropping the series because I didn't like it... but apparently it's still on my mind and I'm thinking about reading vol 2 so idk. - Another book that took me WAY too long to finish. Started reading this in August and didn't finish it til right now (December). It was so boring, there were these weird jump cuts(?) that had me thinking I might have skipped a page or something so it felt confusing at times, and to top that off with some less than stellar translation. I do feel like, if the translation was better, this would be a 3.5 for me. Yeah this was boring, but there were times I would've found this "boring but sweet" here and there. Besides the typos, the way they spoke felt so robotic. Not in a stiff robot way but in a "real people don't talk like this" robotic kind of way and that had a hand in why it took me forever to finish this. I'm not actually sure if I want to continue to the 2nd vol because of that main reason. And then there's chapter 7 which had a character who was defiantly 18 and the other person defiantly over 20 and I was defiantly not here for that so I skipped it.

Feel kind of bad giving this a 3½ because it wasn't bad, per se, just kind of emotionless. I had four problems with this story that 3 of them can be summed up as: I couldn't feel what the author wanted me to feel from how it was being shown to me. This might be the problem of the scan, but the scan was only translating what was given and what was given felt lacking in substance. There were moments that you know you're supposed to feel sad or distressed or excited for them because you're seeing it happen. I felt like I was supposed to feel something during Suguru’s dream, during the conversation about Yuuma, the kiss, and how Kengo handled it afterwards because the art showed me these moments were impactful but the dialogue didn't help me feel anything. It felt more like a the lack of communication and low emotional weight created a disconnect for me. Like this one part, I really wanted Kengo to say more after kissing Suguru. A sorry is fine and all but I wanted something like how he understood that probably wasn't the best move knowing that Suguru still holds very strong feelings for Yuuma. I just wanted more talking that felt like something. Suguru bringing up Yuuma was probably the best “emotional weight" this story had but because the dialogue was lacking, it didn't match the strengths of the art leaving me feeling nothing.

The most amount of emotions I've felt was when Subaru cut his hair because I really like his little bun. I know when I was reading chapter 1 and 2 a month back I got this feeling that this story was too sweet for the sake of being sweet and it hurt. Like eating cake with deep red or light blue icing and now that one tooth in the back is stinging. Well, it went from that to “this is kinda stupid" when dealing with the conflicts as well as it feeling like everything moved really fast after chapter 2. I do plan on getting this but many as an ebook instead of physical. I'll also give vol 2 a try, like, I didn't hate it I just thought it was mid.

I went into this fully knowing this was tagged with “lack of communication” and “misunderstanding”, yet I still wanted to give it a chance because I've read some ok books with those tags. I feel like what pissed me off the most was the level of dodging Kaname was so adamant in doing that he literally felt he wasn’t in the wrong????? My guy, what do you mean "what happened?" this is all literally your fucking fault! This could've been a completely different story about how Kaname felt their relationship was only built on sex, communicates that to Shima so he wouldn’t feel like his boyfriend is sick of being with him, and then that the rest of the story is just them finding their footing in what they both want in this relationship realizing that what they both want is sex. And that’s ok! Kaname could've said something in chapter three leaving room for the rest of the chapters for them to be on that “sex break” and learn about each other more since that seems to be what Kaname was worried about. Earning the reader that sex scene AFTER the Christmas tree kiss. Instead, we got a scene where Shima was frustrated enough to force himself on Kaname until he cries that it hurt because rape was more important to the author, I guess. I feel like the author really wanted me to see that Christmas tree scene, gasp, and go "awww" and think it's cute. I’m supposed to just forget and forgive the frustration because the Christmas tree kiss was adorable?! But you know what, I am sad. Sad for Shima that he had to deal with that shit and sad for me that I have to buy this because it's getting officially translated.

I honestly wish this got a physical release because, after that other manga I just read, this was just so much nicer to chill to. It wasn't perfect but I really like how forward Masato was with everything with how he felt and how he recognized the situation. Even though I love slow burns I might’ve been reading too much of them lately or the ones I am reading have felt like four chapters of frustration and one chapter of them actually being a couple. Reading this was kind of freeing, though there were still moments where I didn’t agree with Atsushi’s childish actions. It gave me slight Usagi from Junjou Romantica vibes and, let me tell you, those are horrid vibes. Still, I was really here for the straightforwardness that I rarely see in BL and I just thought the overall main story was kind of cute. What wasn't cute was the amount of jealousy they both showed, however. I’ll always and forever hate whenever I find myself saying "People are allowed to have friends! Let people have friends". Again, so tiring to see this level of jealousy. Btw, the extra story: Sexual harassment? Rape to lovers? Skipped.