Reviews

Nov 1, 2020
"Oni to Tengoku" is, on the face of it, rather disturbing. I did originally believe that it was going to take a darker route, given the story appeared to be setting up sexual extortion (twice in fact), but it was played rather lightly. This is endemic to this story. Students are seduced by someone who can only really read as a chronic sexual offending psychopath and the other MC has been abused thoroughly by his mother. But these aspects of the story are played in a rather soft way. Of course, this situation in real life would be totally morally bankrupt - as the reviewer "kenzokun" pointed out, our non-psychopathic MC becomes quickly complicit in the nurses chronic sexual abuse. This would not fly in reality, so I can understand why it turned them off the story.

For me personally, the fantasy situation shown to us does not demonstrate the amorality of the author, nor make me enjoy the story less. Mainly because this is one of the most thematically bountiful yaoi I’ve read - nihilism, abuse and love vs sex being but a few. Both characters feel they have been ignored by the world around them, and compressed into the shapes that their families (primarily) expected of them. As we move through the story, the drama and comedy are all conveyed through expressive and well constructed art, panelling and character dialogue (this is most certainly not poorly written as kenzokun claims). It was refreshing to have a story where the characters are drawn with notes of realism and were a bit closer to expiring than a high school student. I was thoroughly hooked from the first time the MCs spoke to each other -the weirdly off-kilter psychoticism of the nurse being shown as a reptile eyeing up the archetypical sufferer of an oedipus complex. It’s great and I’m glad the author gave the story some time to breathe with 10 chapters. Thoroughly recommended if you don’t mind the aforementioned issues surrounding a character, who if existed in IRL, would be completely indefensible (I would like to note for any readers that this is arguably true for many enjoyed characters in popular media e.g. yanderes, the spiders from HxH, and I could go on endlessly). Fiction exists for a reason people.
Reviewer’s Rating: 9
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