Rape & Trauma

Stepbrother pseudo-incest with an age gap. The art style is odd but the story was very striking for me, felt particularly raw and realistic to watch the main character struggle in secret with his brother's assaults, his own familial love for him, and the creeping despair of keeping up with his daily life while carrying his trauma and shame.

The ML rapes the protag, and it does eventually develop into true romance, but this story isn't your typical rape-to-love, since the ML is a survivor of prolonged childhood sexual abuse and his dissociation, trauma and recovery are tackled in a really compelling, emotional way. He has a very interesting inner world.

Light Novel spoilers ahead! So while in a lot of ways this is your typical "amnesiac rapist bully is revenge-raped by his former victim to make him remember" story, the psychological writing in the novel and visual translation in the comic are masterfully done. Everyone is twisted and fucked up, nobody is blameless, and yet none of them deserve what they did to each other. It's a tragic mess of a situation, but by god is it a hot mess.

Same creator as Reverse Thinking, and the writing isn't quite as strong but it's still a good, tragic story about a proud asshole being broken down by confinement, beating, rape and manipulation. Works as a standalone, but the OG story this spins off of adds context. The protag is entirely unlikable, but his story is such a tragedy it makes you say "damn, even HE doesn't deserve this." Shows how toxic masculinity can set someone up to be vulnerable to abuse.

A good long story about a guy who was kidnapped, confined and raped by someone he trusted and the majority of it covers his struggle to recover from the experience. There's a lot to it, and it isn't pretty all the time, and that makes it feel all the more realistic. The protag is not okay and usually is not coping well with his trauma, and I like that about it.

Long series with forced stepson/stepfather incest & complicated stepbrother romance later when both are adults. Explores how an entire family is screwed up by the father's abuse. Really interesting portrayal of the victim protag gaslighting himself about his childhood abuse, which the audience just witnessed from his perspective.