I would have rated this a 10, had I not reminded myself that as spectacular as the ending and beginning was, the middle was a bit so-so. True and tested for this artist, we have ourselves an “erotic psychological thriller” on our hands with unique, complex characters, explicit and very good sex scenes, and introspective thoughts set out against cityscape backgrounds.
The initial concept is quite unusual. The protagonist is at his lowest with no friends and a failed education and about to commit murder suicide when he spots someone out of the corner of his eyes and instinctively walks up to the latter who, after casually asking whether it's a pickup attempt says that it's fine and they proceed to have sex in which the protagonist loses his virginity to someone clearly far more experienced. This chance encounter brightens up the protagonist who improves his life in every way and enters university half a year later, there to only meet this same person again. Having since remembered this person, the protagonist asks want to start a relationship, only to be met with a strange condition. The object of his love says that though it's somewhat mutual, the protagonist lacks the experience to truly compare, and thus must first have sex with 100 different girls and if he still feels this love then, then they will start a relationship. Thus begins the protagonist's training into the skills of pick up artistry. — This leads to a very interesting situation that it's a “harem” where the “main girl” is a rarely seen recurring character that only appears at the start, the end, and sporadically to keep reminding the reader why the protagonist does what he does.
Obviously there are plenty of sex scenes with many different characters, and tried and tested for this artist this mostly involves cute, weak-willed shorter, younger males, paired up with dominant, taller, older females. Something I found quite imporrtant about the soul of this artist is the dynamic between them and the language the latter use. Almost all of them address the protagonist with “kimi” for instance and speak in somewhat babying manner. The dynamic is definitely that they see the protagonist as someone younger and less experienced at the start, young enough to be cute and to be treated as a child, old enough to take seriously as an object of sexual desire. — This artist has always been very good at this dynamic.
Also true to this artist's habit is that all the characters featured, some recurring characters that keep resurfacing, some occurring in only one chapter feel as though they be the protagonist of their own story, which this artist is a master of. They somehow feel very fleshed out; they feel as though they have more in their lives outside the protagonist, as though an entire live goes by for them that we simply do not get to see as readers. I have no idea how this artist does this, but probably simply by imagining and thinking of these lives while writing the lines which reflects how they are spoken and what they talk of. It's a “harem” but the protagonist does not “own" these characters. They are either implied, or outright confirmed to have sex with others for the most part, and the come in varying degrees of sexual experience of their own.
There are of course also many flashbacks to more prominent characters, time skips, and their thoughts and motivations that lead them to be what they are, and explain why they live their lives.
The middle, however, is somewhat uneventful, the protagonist simply has sex with many different characters, interesting, fleshed-out characters, but it does no seem to advance the plot much for the most part aside from the protagonist learning the skills of pick up artistry, and increasing his counter.
Then, the end it picks up again with many new plot twists and showing great growth for the protagonist and many of the other characters to a very good conclusion that left me with a deep emotional feeling about it, which also ties into many of the events in the centre which seemed uneventful back then but tied into the greater plot after all.
Comparing this to Uwa-Koi and Aki-Sora, the big difference is that though they are often called pornography, they actually did not feature sex scenes in most of the chapters. This title features sex scenes in almost every chapter except near the end when the plot concludes and it becomes a pure character drama.
If not for the middle, it would be on par with Uwa-Koi, but many of the middle chapters do feel forgettable.
(-35)
