I came in contact with this manga by watching the anime.
The story is interesting: a young witch, inspired by an adventure book written by another travelling witch, leaves her home for a journey that will lead her in many places and countries, meeting new peole and learning from her experiences.
These places and people will put her in many situations, ranging from light-hearted to desperate fights. Each situation is related to different aspects of humanity: fear, obsession, insanity, love, laugh, conflict, and so on. I want to keep the review spoiler free so I will not discuss the stories in detail. My only
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Jan 26, 2021
Domestic na Kanojo
(Manga)
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Not Recommended
I would write this without spoilers but it' simpossible for this title so be warned.
Art is gorgeous but the author is terrible at writing. While I believed nobody could beat Seo on his own terrain (useless drama and bullshit) this author reaches new highs in those departments. Let be straight: this can be liked only by people who have a fetish for older women with big tits (so strong it obscures their mental sanity), people with the emotional maturity of a 3 years old, or psychopaths. I tried to understand the sense of this ending, but there is literally none. While the author wants to ... say that the main character (Natsuo) chooses Hina over Rui because she is who he loved the most, this does not make any sense if you consider that the relationship between Hina and Natsuo is one of the most toxic and sick relationships ever seen in a manga and how it is built up. Not only they actively hurt each other, but all their foundation is based on fake premises. Natsuo wanted to "appear adult" (not being an adult) and "save" a sad woman because he is seemigly affected by rescue behavior. He risks his life more than once for "saving" others but without any respect for himsef. And almost dying in a blizzard or by knife does not change a thing in his way of thinking. Hina is a person who finds her self-worth only in being submissed to a man, with obsessive love attachment which was already clearly visible in her relationship with Shuu. They don't make each other grow, especially Hina never considers Natsuo as her equal, but only as a boy she has to protect and keep away from responsabilities. Protect from everything but herself, because the most danger for him comes exactly by Hina or by situations involving Hina. She is never honest with him. Which points to me this is not love - but unhealthy attachment. Consider that for all the manga we see arcs showing side characters pointing that being stuck in the past is bad, sticking to unhealthy relationships is bad and even a drug arc making a comparison between dependence by drugs and dependence by relationships. This is portrayed as very bad and has roots in the failing of ones's dreams. And who is perfectly compatible with the description of the "addicted to relationship"? Hina. But, the ending negates all these arcs (practically 80% of the manga) by putting the Uno reverse card and explaining that obsession and unhealthy attachment were "pure love", that you don't need to be responsible of your own happiness because your happiness depends on others that will freely give it to you if you are obsessed enough. Essentially, everyone has to be responsible for their actions except Hina. It is terrible to see characters like Kiriya and Marie going to Natsuo to push him back to Hina when they could and should have stopped her self-harming behaviors, and push responability on Rui for Hina's selfish and one-sided decisions, ending to be mere flying monkeys. Especially Marie, who tried to talk some sense to Hina before by criticizing her attitude but then - everything was OK and "pure love"? WTF? And Rui and Natsuo's friends? Everything is OK - Momo saying "we understand". Really? It is terrible to see Natsuo rationalizing his "choices" by saying he is what he is thanks to Hina (which is obviously false if one reads the whole manga, he even says he recovered his writing thanks to her when it's clearly shown it was because of his mentor's death) and one chapter later he says he learned about love and taking care of each other with Rui. WTF again? If he learned about love with Rui, what was the sense of his absolutely immature relationshipo with Hina? Why should he go after Hina? And that also means that he is not "what he is only thanks to Hina". And how exactly he learned to properly take care? He does not take care of Hina - yes, he assists her but he has no consideration for her emotional stability, he does not encourage her to grow or pursue personal interests (something he should have learned with Rui). He does not care for communicating about their needs until there is some action by Hina. Who continues to daydream, to stay submissive and does not express herself. Hina and Natsuo do not even love their true selves. Hina wants "the hero who would die for me" and Natsuo simply does not want to see the defects on Hina's side. This is not love, it's purest infatuation. Even Rui's daughter (a tool used as an object by the author, which clearly has no respects for child's rights) appears more mature than both of them. Their relationship stays toxic but in Sasuga's idea "it works because of true love" while once you validated Hina's attitude with the results she wanted, how could she change? Basically this is the kind of dangerous thinking leading to sure disaster (and in real life, to abuse). This ending is so badly written I still have headaches in trying to follow the pathetic excuses the author tries to make in her head. Sasuga transformed what was a somewhat "realistic" setting based on psychological description of the characters (even with all her limits as a writer) in a fairytale with magic rings, 5 years coma without any consequence, and santification of some of the worst relationship mechanics out there. Creating the false concept that love can be "low level" and "high level" (but it's funny to see that "low level love" was more mature and healthy for both sides involved as opposed to the "high level" one). In the afterword of last volume she confirmed Hina "could not live without Natsuo" and thus she did what she did even if Rui was the better fit. Well, I encourage you to give a look around at what psychologists say about who "cannot live without the object of his/her "love". Little spoiler: it is not a good thing. Quite the opposite. She probably did not consider this ending for what it is: sexist (the woman to be loved is the submissive one and not the one who is equal to the man), irresponsible (exhalting double suicide in a country in which more people die in one month by suiciding than for COVID since the start of the pandemic), giving horrible life goals (people who give up their dreams and annihilate their identity in a relationship are better than people who strive for their dreams while improving themselves in the relationship). Now there are people saying not every story is meant to have a message, but i disagree. Every story, being communication, has a message attached and this does not only has a negative message attached, but it tries to show toxicity as a positive value. The author wants to pass the concept that this is "forbidden love" because of the teacher/student relationship and the fact love goes over the rules. The problem here is that this student/teacher mechanic ended in chapter 65, after that it's only oder woman/younger boy (which is not forbidden at all). Another problem is that they don't fight at all "against the rules". Heck, all in all Natsuo fought to stay with Rui much, much more than he fought to stay with Hina. Even the last decision is not his (pathetic attempt to make one of the worst male character ever better than he is and instead, further lowering his status).They don't even end the manga with a decision they took together by discussing about it. The headaches continue. Now the most of problem is that if this was made to show how distorted love could ruin your life, that would be also good. But the author insists this is what true love is and that this is a good ending. If Sasuga is a sane person, I could only think she did what she did for making people speak about how absurd it is.
Reviewer’s Rating: 1
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