I picked this one off my shelf because it was raining. I guess there’s no better time to read it?
I was fooled by the cover and title of this one. I thought there would be sweetness and romance, but instead there was…rape and murder. Close enough?
I think this is mainly a love-it or hate-it title and I found both glowing reviews and flaming reviews in equal measure during my brief research on it. Both sides would likely agree it’s not boring though; it will definitely get some kind of reaction out of you.
There is a lot that goes on in this story but the jist is that there’s two brothers, the older Akira and then the younger – and blind – Nao. Upon the death of their mother they get whisked away to the estate of their estranged father, a wealthy businessman named Kasuga. The president of the Kasuga corporation is a tall, dark, and handsome alpha boss named Hyougami. I know what your’e thinking – oh noooo, not the handicapped boy! Don’t worry, there’s no shotacon with the blind kid.
Hyougami seeks to gain control over the estranged Kasuga boys for his own ends, and forces Akira into employment as his secretary. Then he proceeds to rapes him a bunch of times, with his ass literally bleeding down his back at one point, until – surprise! – Akira starts to fall for him, and then it’s not rape anymore. Sigh. Bet no one saw that coming. God, why was that trope so popular?
The rest of the story is following Hyoujima and Akira through a fast-paced maze of corporate machinations, family drama, murder, political scheming, power struggles, and other various theatrical melodrama straight out of a soap opera. The story has too much going on for the relatively smaller page count, and everything feels rushed, which hobbles the impact of the plot developments. It has a surprise, explosive climax (not a euphemism) which was sort of interesting, but then tries to sell you on an aftermath that the story doesn’t really earn. The more I think about the plot the more I think “Wait, what the..?,” it definitely doesn’t hold up to scrutiny.
There’s a second shorter story at the end, “Rhapsody of Youth,” that felt like a bit of palate cleanser from the first one – it’s a cute romance between two students, one of which has a serious illness, and the only thing it really has in common with the first one is a tragic element. She notes about this story that she had to cut it down due to page count and this makes me think the first story had a similar issue with too much story for too little pages, because it certainly seemed like it did.
Yuuya is super prolific mangaka who has been churning out yaoi and josei since the early 90s, but only has a few other English licenses – Family Complex from June, Family from Kitty, FreshMen from Deux Press. This is rather surprising as she has a pretty attractive art style, but this manga had the misfortune of coming out right in 2008 as the market was crashing and so it maybe didn’t do well and that kept June from licensing any more of her work. Precious little of her work has been scanlated but I have read a bit of one that didn’t feel as polished as this one, Choumaru, which is a short story collection that also had tragic elements iirc.
Overall, I did like it while at the same time acknowledging its flaws, so I wouldn’t say I love it, but my reasons for liking it are probably shallow and dumb – I’m sort of a total sucker for dark-haired alpha male antiheros like Hyoujima, so as a smutty indulgence it had some appeal to me. It’s also definitely possible I’ve become desensitized to the rape-turns-to-love thing from reading so much old yaoi, because – while I’m not a fan of it -unless it’s really hardcore and torturous I’m just like…whatever, they’ll probably become a happy couple by the end, lol. I’m not really proud of that but these are also just fictional drawings and shouldn’t be taken too seriously. Still, I wouldn’t recommend it to someone unless they feel the same way, as many fujos have a strong opinion about non-con.
TL;DR Lol, quite the soap opera here. Without a doubt this is a very polarizing title that most would either love or hate depending on your preferences, but it’s definitely not boring. Family drama, corporate scheming, murder, office sex – you could replace the MC with a girl and it’s one of those ‘my boss is a powerful rich alpha male who I cant resist’ josei smut titles with a side of the rape-until-they-want-it trope. Art is nice but the whole story is both too short and fast-moving for any of the dramatic reveals to have a lasting impact, and in hindsight the web of intrigue it builds doesn’t hold up to scrutiny. Everything good about it comes with a ‘but’ in some way – sex but it’s mostly rape, plot but it’s a surface-level speedrun, art but no peen (if that matters to you), character development but it’s unrealistic. It does have a rather explosive climax (!), but that’s also sort of absurd in hindsight.