For some reason, i have always enjoyed reading mangas about domestic violence and sadistic charecters. I feel it offers a real insight into these peoples emotions even though most of the time they are artificial.
Here, i felt it was a little more realistic in some aspects as it followed on from the prequal and we can see that this sadist had been emotionally scarred to cause him to commit such things against his lover. It shows the emotional struggle as a child followed on by the sturggle he faces now. I feel the end was rather abrupt and too simple. I think the mangaka should have followed onto this with chapters on tatsuyuki overcoming his violence and learning to love. It would have made a great finishing to show that domestic violence could be overcome because in reality, that never really happens so it would have added a bit of sunshine to this dark manga.
The uke was your typical abusee and was a real portrayal of a person who cannot escape domestic violence because of this thing called 'love'. Though it was portrayed that tatsuyuki did fall for him, there didn't seem to be any justification to it apart from the uke kind of being timid and putting up with him which is not real love. I felt that tatsuyuki was in love with the idea of being loved and the first person to put up with his abuse that had gone from emotional with his brother to sever physical with his lovers was too shallow and should have been expressed differently to show that tatsuyuki loved oher parts of hiroki that didnt include just his submissive personality.

The ratio of trauma vs healing is completely off in this manga, where it is about 80% trauma and 20% semi-healing. For a good trauma/healing story, those numbers should be reversed or at least 50-50. As it stands, it is just a lot of bloody violence with very little character growth and a forced "happy ending" that reads more like battered wife syndrome than actual love.

I do find the characters themselves interesting, but the author needed to portray a lot more of the post-make-up reconciliation and difficulties. Watakabe should have had more struggles and inner turmoil leading to an obvious (aka show it to the readers!) paradigm shift followed by an equally painful and much longer time reforming himself and apologizing/making it up to Hazuki. I mean, what's going to happen if Hazuki gets a job in another city post graduation? I don't feel like at any point in the manga Watakabe resolved his issues of control, so they're going to be a miserable couple in the future if Hazuki ever gets a life independent of Watakabe. (Well, I guess in the author's mind, Hazuki will make a cute housewife or something...)

If you get past all the rape and abuse... who are you kidding? There's no getting past the rape and abuse here, and I don't know how some people can. This story's core is rape and abuse. Without it, it'd be a happy story of love, sure, but that would be a whole other story with whole other characters--not this story. This isn't your typical BL "forced love" or dub-con--it's 100% violence and abuse and should be read as such.

The only way to redeem this story is to rewrite it. If you want this sort of plot but done infinitely better, go read Sayounara, to Kimi wa Te o Futta, which is an incredible manga.

To be honest I was a bit apprehensive of starting this manga. I wasn't entirely sure if I should spend my time on it after looking at the ratings and comments but decided to read it anyway. I won't say I'm thoroughly pleased to not have skipped this because I'm neutral about it, but I think the story is more than meets the eye.

Sure it's not your everyday BL where the "happy" kind of love floats in the air like every 3 pages or so, and the characters weren't that appealing -- personality wise (especially Watakabe, jeez he deserves a punch or two from someone). However, if you get passed the rape aspect of the story you'd truly see what it's worth; the author has shown a different kind of love about accepting someone wholeheartedly no matter what their circumstance is. Hatsuki saw something in Watakabe that made him stick to the latter 'til the very end despite the cruelties done to him. And in Watakabe I see a very lonely person who is in desperate need of someone to understand and love him.

So after all that deep thinking in my part (seriously, it's starting to verge on the philosophical), I still gave the series a 6.5 simply because it was too short. I would've truly appreciated it if there was more characterization to effectively portray what the mangaka is trying to tell us readers. The resolution wasn't that good either; Watakabe seeing a psychiatrist or something for the sake of himself and his partner would've definitely tugged my heart strings because, truthfully, even with how the story is wrapped up, there's no saying what might happen or what he might do -- he ever remains the broken person we see from the beginning albeit the savior in the form of Watakabe.

... Last updated on August 8th, 2011, 10:24pm

it's really sad to see that yamakami riyu is not growing out this ridiculous idea that somehow severe abuse and violence is excusable if the person only ends up in love with the one they abuse. there is slightly more depth in this work than there is in "deep flower", but she still completely fails to give watakabe any motivation that might make us understand exactly why he acts as he does. i hated his guts in "mitasereru" because he mistreated his brother (whom he was also allegedly in love with), and we never found out exactly what was behind his twistedness. we don't find out here either. and i cannot stand the sacrificial lamb uke who continues to suffer so the abusive lover can be redeemed. yamakami doesn't seem to understand that this is not actually redemptive at all; that the suffering and atonement need to be turned onto the abuser himself for it to work.

The uke needs therapy and the seme belongs in jail. I'm all for dark and cruel characters, but this guy doesn't have anything at all to redeem him (not that anything could redeem him for the horrible things that he does) and there is no real explanation as to why he's so abusive and why his personality changes so quickly. The story and characters don't make much sense either. For the record, this is not BDSM. It's flat out abuse and criminal behavior.



Obviously love is not always kittens and rainbows and love like this does happen, but at the end of the manga the "love story" between the two isn't portrayed as unhealthy. The seme is magically rehabilitated for some reason and we are just supposed to accept it all. I gave it two stars because I like the mangaka's art. Don't read it otherwise.

... Last updated on January 23rd, 2012, 6:00pm