That's how I would describe this story when it's doing well, because it often shows and tells two different things: it shows the main character having gotten over his trauma. It tells the opposite in internal monologues because the author has a plan and must not change it, even if the character's natural development should change it. As a result, progression doesn't feel entirely natural.
The premise is interesting, which is why I bothered to try reading it, and I'm a bit disappointed, to be honest. To start with, the reader is missing a massive key to understanding what happened and why, so it comes across as both generic and cringy until then. But even once you learn what happened, more questions are raised.
I will try not to spoil things, and the rest of this review can be explained without it, but here it is in case anyone wants to be spoiled:
The main character's fiancée is the demon lord. The demon lord's goal is to make the hero complacent so that he never becomes strong enough to defeat her.
Now, why that meant becoming the hero's friend's lover and turning the hero into an NTR villain... I don't get it.
Quite frankly, the cause behind the inciting incident of this story is a plot hole due to how roundabout and reliant on outliers the villain's plan is.
- It required the hero to develop a twisted personality.
- It required both girls to fall for the other guy.
- It required the hero's friend to be enough of a pacifist to not slit the hero's throat in his sleep after what he did.
Do you think any villain would plan based on those above factors? It's just hard to believe.
And another thing: the story is willing to go into graphic detail about the negative sexual experiences the victims experience, but comes short when giving the main character positive ones. Not that I want graphic sex scenes, but if you're going to do it, why do the negative ones get all the care and not the positive ones? That's just depressing to read.
And according to LN readers I've read comments from, there are two other issues with this story: they found out, later in the story, the main character apparently ignored some major flags and as a result is partially to blame for what happened to his childhood friends who loved him. But instead of doing a thorough job and making their recoveries take a while, the author just kind of hand-waves it away by
making the main character better at sex.
And seeing as how quickly one of the childhood friends has recovered from her trauma (not fully, but she went from suicidal to not suicidal after one event) in the manga... I'm inclined to believe that will be the case with the rest of the manga, too.
Now, whether the mangaka decides to fix the LN's preference for negative sex scenes and evens it out or not, I don't know. Again, I'd prefer no sex scenes. But since they've already shown the negative ones, if they don't show the positive ones in equal or greater detail, it'll just be more disappointment.
All in all, the action and art are great, and the plot outside of the sex is very interesting. Shame about everything else.
(-5)
