Apr 7, 2024
My life started to spiral into a constant stress just from reading this. Recommended.
The love triangle. A trope I'm very familiar with, and everybody is familiar with. The stress of dealing with two people you wanna date at once, how it impacts every choice you have, and both people involved have a unique dynamic between them. It's extremely stressful, interesting, and it reveals the reality of people. When love is at the end of the tunnel, the rest is merely an obstacle. However, this story started to feel… a little strange.
The story itself is about Watari-kun, who takes care of his selfish sister that basically
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considers him a dad. Alone with their aunt, no time to develop friendships, no time for a job, no time for good grades, no future ahead, nothing to save him from that, until a girl sees this as a unique quality. Of course, another one from his past has come to torment him.
It's simple, cliché, typical, you name it. Boring to an extreme, nothing stuck out, and my enjoyment was minimal, but there was something there that kept me. I couldn't tell what it was, be it the humanity in the characters, the stress Watari goes through, the selfishness from the characters. After some chapters, it was finally clear. There were no “good” people in this manga, at least in the typical way. Everybody has a selfishness to themselves that's amazingly portrayed in the manga. Everybody affects everybody, they all lie, they all scheme, they all try to get an upper hand, and it's the job of our main character to BE selfish. To do what he wants to do, and not care about being hated by one or two people. You can't please everybody, and that's just, so hard to accomplish while being who the protagonist is. People will call that a terrible protagonist, but the development was there, for the whole time.
Challenged with the constant stress of being human for once, I was pulling my hair at how much tension I was feeling for this character, for everybody. But then, they never rob him of choices, they pull misunderstandings, but they add consequences to them being there. It isn't a matter of everything going back to normal. Once something happens, the story runs with it, and changes the entire dynamic. It changes as a manga, because of what each character does. There's no base to stand on, no safety net. Hence, the shortness of the manga. It doesn't do the eternal love triangle. When something fails, it stays failed, and nobody can ever fix it.
I was reminded of that time in high school, the stress of dealing with romance, organizing time, grades, people, friends, the lies, the deceit, the weird immaturity that's displayed through all of us. It was hell for my brain, like a moment of retrospective that brought with it a spiral of things I never dealt with from that time. The hatred and the friendships that came about in those times. I could ramble about how this relates to my life, but I can tell this'll relate to many people's lives. Not in the romantic way, but in how hard it is to deal with family, with crushes, with friends, and everybody's egocentric lives.
It's a lesson on selfish people, and how that's just the most human people can be. We all want something out of the world, and when we don't, there's only suffering waiting for us. Not saviors, or martyrs. We're humans, and the winner takes it all.
Of course, it's an incredibly interesting story, which people diminish by calling it: “Oh my god, every character's a yandere”. It's a romantic, character study that shows a person that isn't something, surrounded by people that ARE that something. Accompanied by art that's pretty good, all things considered.
I wouldn't call it masterful. It's an art style that fits, that gets the job done. No moments that truly stick out. The dialogue and writing ARE the winners in this department. Every character is well-written, at least for biased me, since I've met others like it. Heard a criticism once, about how nobody acts like this, and my brothers and sisters, go outside. I'd say they could've gone the extra mile.
All in all. A manga that affected me deeply, not from a disturbing standpoint, but because I lived through many of these moments, choices, and people. It wasn't fun, and the manga isn't entirely fun. Addicting to read, and even more addicting to know what would the ending be. Yes, it's got stupid moments that shouldn't have happened, even in a real-life setting. I still, deeply recommend it.
8.4/10. I need a break from romance drama just from reading this.
Reviewer’s Rating: 8
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