A manga like this could have been accepted as the norm in 2006, but its real year of release is actually 2016, when there's absolutely no possible excuse that can justify how ignorant and problematic it is, and I am not here for it at all.
I don't know what's worst, the repugnant power imbalance between the main characters, the dreadfully awful story full of cheesiness and clichés, the terribly written archetypes of characters completely void of any personality, or the very fact that this is a f*CKING TEACHER abusing authority to (sexually) harass an underaged student and grooming him into becoming infatuated with his own predator? Uhh, I don't know about you but that's the exact type of manipulation I've seen countless times in public-known abuse cases.
All of this horrendous stuff is thinly covered by a disguise so seemingly normal that is the art and the tone of the manga. It's like a shortened version of Katekyo! and all of its atrocious sexual abuse glorification under the pretence of BL all over again. Except that one was written a decade ago and should have been negatively received by now too.
Urgh, I'm so mad just thinking about the fact that the seme even had the audacity to place punishment on the other predator in this manga who's a student with no authority, even though this predator's 1-time offence is not even a fraction of the plethora of criminal actions the seme committed multiple times. Oh but the seme did it in the power of love, therefore it's totally understandable and not creepy or morally wrong or punishable by law at all!
*edit in reponse to Sakura_Hikizaki:
Lol I call BS. Just because a negative trope is heavily overused doesn't mean that it should be normalised and accepted and that readers have to "prepare for" the atrocity that's coming up. It's a terrible trope, and if it doesn't get called out now then when will it?? Claiming that BL is normally full of sh*t like this and that I need to suck it up and live with it is so disrespectful and degrading to the genre. I refuse to see a genre I like littered with rubbish, and I will use every chance I have to speak out against what I deem wrong and unacceptable.
When I said that a manga like this would've been fine in 2006, I meant that there was too much sh*t similar to this back in the day, so much so that not many questions were raised and there wasn't much opposition to the trope. But I like to think that there has been progress made since then and awareness a decade later should've been higher.
I'm not saying that a teacher x student pairing is automatically wrong, it's how it's treated that I have gripes with. What you have here is a teacher roaming about, sexually harassing a teenager, manipulating him into submission, having the nerves to punishment another predator whose crime pale in comparison to his own, and succeeding all of that without any consequences in the end. There are dozens of ways to make a teacher x student relationship work in the moral sense; this is not one of them. If most manga with this type of dynamic that you've read turns out to be the same as this, you're clearly not exposed enough and should broaden what you read (because there are many titles I could think of that dealt with this issue much better) before making such ignorant comments as "this is seen as a fairly normal plot in most manga/novels in Japan".
Also, why are responses from Japanese readers taken as gospel here? I don't even take credible critics seriously most of the time, why should I care for the opinions of some measly BL readers, many of whom honestly have such sh*t taste that it's laughable? I have my own judgement over whether something is good or bad, and I will speak out my views as I see fit. I'm not saying that my preference is more correct than other people's, or that every viewpoint different from mine is wrong. Everyone is entitled to their opinion. But other people's opinions are also no more correct than mine, so just because there are some Japanese fans who like this manga, I'm under no inclination to do the same.
Speaking of, immorality is not the only reason I loathed this manga so much. Look at the second paragraph in my original comment, there's much to complain about. Even if the seme wasn't a teacher and a predator, he's still obnoxious as a character and so terribly conceived. Did the uke even have a personality at all, or is the sole purpose to his existence to be molested by and distressed over the seme? If you wanna talk about the story, what story? Did it really have a plot aside from another run-of-the-mil cliché? Take away the sexual predator issue, and all you have left is a bland, boring, unfunny and unromantic 'love story' that I'll gladly pass. Unless if that's your thing, of course, then go for it.
(-24)
