I like how Mizukami will take a short story from a one-shot & revisit it with a full book. It was my first Mizukami manga, & easily her best art. Kin-Ren & Rikara (different manga) are at a tie for her hottest Ikemen (bishounen/biseinen/bishota) in my book.
If you're wondering about the "tragedy," it has a happy ending that ends comically, but some important secondary characters die throughout the story. It's my 2ed favorite tragedy, next to John Woo's "Last Hurrah for Chivalry." (That movie is slashy as hell, you should totally watch it).
Technically, this is a gender-swap retelling of Jin Ping-Mei, but I can't help but make the Pinocchio comparison. This story is about a young man raised as a disposable sex doll who wants to become a real man, with hopes, dreams, happiness, & someone who genuinely loves him. He's constantly referred to as "toy" or "puppet."
Kinren is the unluckiest guy on earth. Sold into prostitution by his mother, separated from the man he loves, almost a victim of rape-murder, finds temporary peace only for it to be snatched away & dragged back to hell, gives up his dreams & accepts his fate, & develops sympathy for the Devil.
Saimon, a carry-over from a short story in a previous book, is a satyromaniac (insatiable lust for men) who takes great pleasure in destroying happy relationships & stealing or breaking things that belong to other people, spawning from his first love; a man whom he loved, despised, lusted after, & murdered.
You can tell it was scanlated by more than group; the translations are inconsistent with flashbacks & they can't seem to agree if it's Kinren or Kinnen. Owning a physical copy of the manga, I can confirm that Kinren is the correct name. Since one of the translators bothered to look up the actual Chinese equivalents of the names & it takes place in China, I would have preferred the translator have used the Chinese names instead.
This story makes use of different types of irony:
1)The protagonist from a previous manga is the main villain of this story.
2)Kinren is rescued from prostitution & death, healed, fed, sheltered, clothed, & treated kindly by Bu-Dai & his fellow villagers. Not wanting to look a gift horse in the mouth, he decides he's got it good & becomes Budai's lover. Budai turns out to be the older brother of his true love; Bushou.
3)In order to afford the money to feed, clothe, & medicate Kinren, Budai borrowed money from the very man he unwittingly rescued Kinren from. When Budai is unable to pay, Saimon goes to his house & finds Kinren.
4)Kinren owes Budai his life & it ends up costing Budai his own life.
5)Saimon is referred to as a "notorious womanizer," even though he only sleeps with young men. He vowed on his wedding day that he would never touch Lady Wu again.
6)Kinren wanted to escape life as a prostitute, only to end up being the top prostitute under his first owner & the top concubine of Saimon. If he had half-assed it, he would have been less desirable.
7)The Liangshan Bandits' plan was to kill everyone in Saimon's house. That plan went right out the window when they found the harem & the revenge mission turned into a rescue instead.
8)The biggest strongest butchest looking guy in Liangshan turns out to be a chick.