| Overall |
7 |
| Story |
5 |
| Art |
9 |
| Character |
6 |
| Enjoyment |
8 |
Good Stuff.
I'm pretty surprised that I liked this work as much as I do. I normally find one-shots lacking, although I have been pleasantly surprised in the past. I have read stories like this before. These sort of stories are not uncommon. An alpha-male who is abusive, possessive, and self-destructive takes control of a young naive girl and manipulates her through blackmail and control.
In the case of this story there is a slight plot twist. Rather than the girl being ridiculously younger than the male, in this story the male is a few years younger than the
lead female. What is also interesting is the justification of his actions based on age and insecurity.
Most of these stories, even when the Alpha-male is so dominant, one can easily argue that the male is insecure. However, in light of this story the male grows versus so many of the others. He can actually be safely argued to have insecurity problems and when he surpassed them he was able to obtain the female. That was enough of an interesting perspective to save the story from fail to move into mediocrity.
As for the art, this artist is one of the best. Her Bishies are a special breed of gorgeous. I'm not into the whole Alpha-male thing, but I always think twice when I see her males.
Characterization as I stated wasn't that great, based on the storyline. We have a naive girl who tries to escape a life of abuse, which is commendable but proves weak in the face of it and goes back to said relationship which may move from abusive. The male is interesting, I liked the fact the mangaka took the time out to flesh him out and we get to understand his mental state and why he reacted in certain ways to the lead. It's those little things that help a story that is otherwise unoriginal.
Because of the the little nuggets that I praised, I found that my enjoyment moved into the very good section and overall worthy of some praise. read more
