Technically I think this should be an 8, not a 9, but I'll make it a 9 to hopefully offset some other narrowminded people, or at the very least because it makes me slightly salty.
Now, as for the manga, I don't think I ever went from "Oww", to "Eww", to "Aww" that quick.
The further you go into it, it actually gets wholesome, and dramatic, something that wouldn't have been possible it they had slapped the "step" sticker onto it.
We all know that meme, the slapping the duct tape on the leak ad with the word "step" in the caption.
Well, I mean we all understand it's fiction right? So trying to be edgy and shocking while slapping the word step onto it in hindsight is cowardly to me, in this case the author did not, he fully committed, and it made the story that much more interesting and dramatic.
If only people would just step out of their comfortzones, separate fiction from reality, and keep reading even though the back of their minds is telling them "Eww", eventually they'd get to the "Aww".
Unfortunately it seems not everyone is able to do that..
I for one find it a very compelling story so far, one that is not afraid to commit, and doesn't feel the need to grasp for emergency ropes such as "step" or "adopted", out of fear for public opinion, and it makes for better storytelling in my opionion.
Do I think this would be okay in real life? No. Just like I don't with many other fictional topics, hence the word fiction.
Edit:
Soo, I finished the whole thing, and I gotta deduct at least a point, first there wasn't nearly enough outrage, it seemed weirdly unnatural, the friends were instantly over it and accepting, so was the mother, also there was one particular person (I won't spoil it) that knew, but didn't seem even slightly disturbed, not even surprised, and there was this weird thing about playing games or something that was just brought up every time as if he was some sort of casanova because he was good at videogames, which makes no sense but also was written in a way that just seemed very forced.
I think in the end I'd give it a 7.6 to 7.8, so rounding up it'd be an 8, which is still very good
