I’m sorry to anyone who loved this manhwa, please don’t read my opinion if you are easily triggered by others hating on a book you loved.
I hated it. The first 10-20 chapters felt like an introduction, or rather a « chapter 0 », then chapters 10-20 to about 115 were a vicious and repetitive cycle of sex obsessed people in toxic relationships with others and themselves, and then the ~3 last chapters are a quick resolution with sudden character development, happy endings and people finally straightening their lives out. Those last 3 chapters should’ve taken up a much bigger part of the story, with relationship development that wasn’t rushed and one-sided for the larger part, and the whole sex and fan-service part should’ve taken up maximum 15 chapters. This story could’ve easily been over in like 40-50 chapters, but there is useless and endless sex scenes with pretty much every possible combo of characters with absolutely no pertinent plot development at all.
In the end, it really is only a matter of preference when it comes to the storyline, characters, plot etc., but what I particularly hated about this story is how bdsm is depicted. This story portrays the worst possible doms to exist and subs who just have to take it cause they don’t understand anything anyways and they’re ‘subs’ so they have to obey. Bdsm has very dangerous practices, and consent is literally the most important thing in it, yet there is a serious lack of it in this story. Not only do the doms not respect their partners’ limits, they don’t even think to ask or communicate about what’s okay or not with them, what they like or dislike, and, for crying out loud, none of them even have a safe word. There is absolutely no aftercare, which is also extremely important, one dom thinks he can do whatever he likes cause ‘he’s the master and masters can do what they want’, going as far as raping, the other dom has a serious lack of communication with her subs, and although she’s a softer dom, that’s not supposed to be what makes her a more decent person than the other rougher dom. Whether it’s rough or soft, there’s supposed to be a clear line between real life and bdsm sessions, whereas in the story they are mixed. As a story in which bdsm is supposed to be one of the most central and important aspects, I think it is poorly researched and developed. Also, for the ‘rougher’ dom, you don’t turn your sub into a masochist, you build a relationship based on mutual trust and respect (of which there is near to none in this story), and discuss limits over time. You don’t force it on someone to make them like it, and you don’t ‘train it into them’. Like even his previous masochist sub didn’t like him as a person, and obviously didn’t feel like his preferences were respected in bed.
There are a few other things I don’t like about this story, like unexplained and pretty intense misogyny from a certain character??? And the lack of character development for certain characters, but all that is less important and not worth writing in a comment.
Also, for those who pity Minho, I really can’t relate. He did not deserve to be raped and mistreated under the pretext that it’s sadomasochism, or just because some douchebag couldn’t keep it in his pants, but the rest of what happened to him, he had it coming. He had every opportunity to straighten his life and relationships out, yet he spent his money on useless material things and ruined his relationships with everyone by being such an a**hole to those who cared about him. I genuinely tried to empathize with the character, but I really can’t, he’s rotten through and through. I hope he gets some positive development in the side story.
My final rating of this book : 2/10
Please remember, this is just my opinion on the book, I respect the author and have nothing against them, I’m sure they put a lot of work into this manhwa, and I of course understand that some loved this story. I just wanted to leave this comment for any future person thinking about reading but feeling unsure for whatever reason, I think it’s important to have both positive and negative opinions on a story to really get the bigger picture.
Have a nice day :)
