chlorine's Manga

A relatively inoffensive story that I just didn't really find myself engaged by.

To be entirely honest, this story didn't really hold my attention. It's something I ended up skimming and I really don't think I missed anything of value by reading it in the half-assed way I did. The story is simple, direct, and easy to follow. This story taught me that those things aren't necessarily positive.

Junseok is a voice actor, having taken that profession & undergone a physical transformation to try and get the attention of his (old) coworker & crush, Jaehyun. After a chance encounter with him after two years, in which Jaehyun doesn't remember him from his past, they find out they are actually neighbors. From there, a silly and lighthearted love story unfolds.

Straight from the get-go, the story did something that I found kind of odd. I don't mean to get preachy, but it kind of just didn't sit right with me; when Junseok and Jaehyun were coworkers, Junseok was overweight. He knew he wasn't Jaehyun's type and he was okay with merely admiring from afar . . . Until a certain point, when Jaehyun complimented his voice. This ignited a fire within him and so he got plastic surgery to specifically become Jaehyun's type. And I mean, aside from the obvious stupidity of plastic surgery somehow making him lose weight, I thought the overall way that topic was handled was pretty poor. I'm trying to be mindful of the fact that this is a pretty silly comedy, but I don't know, I just didn't like that. It opened the story so it made me start with a bitter taste in my mouth.

Another thing I didn't like was the main—and really only—conflict. Throughout the whole story, Junseok kept his past a secret and is trying desperately to keep it as a secret. There's nothing about this that put me off of the story the way the plastic surgery aspect did, I just thought it was kind of stupid. It got to a certain point where, while I understood this character's anxiety, it's still just fucking annoying. Like you're a grown man. It's not like you're fat anymore so just be open with it, especially since you two are supposedly head-over-heels in love. Jaehyung wouldn't care.

When it comes to the characters, meh. Didn't hate them, didn't love them.

I did like Junseok's character for the most part. He has one really annoying character trait that's rather perfectly captured by the scene where after he suspects Jaehyun found out about his past, he immediately starts seriously packing up his apartment to move out instead of just talking to him. He's the type of man who always flights in fight or flight. Honestly, "fight or flight" doesn't even need to be triggered for him to still flight half the time. But aside from that, he's pretty cute. He's a really innocent character, both in terms of personality but also in experience—when he and Jaehyung hook up for the first time, Jaehyung has to guide him through it all. It's really cute, kind of attractive. He's the type of man who's easy to fluster and easy to read.

Jaehyung on the other hand is much more composed and level-headed. I actually really liked that about him; while the conflict is out of his hands for most of it, he tries his best to put an end to it. As soon as he suspects something is going on or that there's something wrong, he asks. When he learns Junseok is packing his house, he immediately goes over to his instead of just moping. He's the type of man who fights for what he wants. Another thing is that he's very sexually confident and I found that pretty attractive.

I have never, in my life, seen a story somehow shit the bed the way this story did. I had an issue with all three volumes and somehow each volume just got progressively worse. It went from mid, to bad, to terrible. Genuinely would not recommend this stupid fucking story to quite literally anyone, there's nothing salvageable about it. There's stuff I liked that ultimately meant nothing since it was overshadowed by the towering pile of shit that this story otherwise is.

The first volume was alright; it had a few things I liked, mainly being the dynamic between Cole & Alex and how it was just an unapologetically toxic relationship, but it still did have a few issues that nagged at me. I think the biggest issue it had was that it was simply overstuffed. There are two main conflicts in the first volume—the first is that Cole ends up blurting out that if he's not enough for Alex, Alex is allowed to go out and have sex with other women, since Cole is the first man Alex had dated and Cole's a bit insecure about it. It only lasts a chapter or two but it's still super annoying. The fact that Cole somehow wasn't able to see why that had upset Alex is mindboggling to me. That goes beyond emotional ignorance, he's just retarded. The second source of conflict comes from a woman named Lily. She meets Cole and Alex on the beach, and she very directly tells Cole that she's going to try to sleep with Alex, regardless of the fact that he's a taken man. There is a plot twist where you find out she was actually after Cole, which I thought was funny enough, but in general, I just hate the trope of a woman coming in and trying to destroy the relationship—especially since the volumes are only six chapters.

The second volume broke this story for me; after Alex goes away for a month due to a business trip, getting the chance to be the character model for a video game, Cole gets lonely . . . And cheats. He ends up fucking one of Alex's friends, Brad. The entire volume is just about that; it's about him getting lonely, cheating, and then having to deal with the intense, paranoia-like guilt afterward. And I fucking hated it. It quite literally instantly ruined this story for me. Cheating is the only hard line I draw. I'm also struggling to decide whether I think it's OOC or not, as I feel like Cole is the type of character who gets very . . . Attached. I don't think him missing someone he's dating would cause him to go out and fuck someone else, even with his admittedly insanely self-destructive behaviors. Another thing is that Brad ends up pointing out to Cole that he doesn't even like being around Alex . . . That he has no trust in him, isn't relaxed in his company, and doesn't really feel like he can be himself around him . . . And it's just never addressed. That left a really bitter taste in my mouth regarding their relationship and it never washed away. This whole volume felt like it was dedicated to just desecrating their relationship. I have no idea how anyone can finish volume two and still like them together, genuinely.

Volume three just further cemented my frustration with these characters; Three years later, Alex ends up being asked—by a close friend—to be a sperm donor, and the conflict of this volume is Cole trying to grapple with it. He doesn't want Alex to go through with it, he isn't comfortable with Alex having a child that not just isn't theirs, but would be an active part of their life, no matter how small that part may be. It's not like he's just donating his sperm to a random person. And Alex just refuses to see where Cole is coming from and actually just fully demonizes him for his discomfort. Even when Alex asked Cole if he'd be okay with it, it was much less of a genuine question and more of a statement dressed as a question. It was a prerequisite just to make sure Cole knew. He outright says he doesn't actually need Cole's permission and he's going to do it regardless. So they break up, and for six months don't see each other even once. This whole volume is so insanely frustrating to me because Cole is treated so insanely shitty by Alex, he's understandably uncomfortable with Alex donating and yet Alex refuses to see his point of view and I just fucking hated it. The final chapter does have Alex admitting he was being unfair, but it's too little too late. The damage was done. As a reader, this relationship was cracked beyond repair. What little I liked had been washed away by the wave of everything I hated.

For what it's worth, I did like the dynamic between Cole and Alex during the first volume. The second volume quickly derailed it and made Cole—who could have possibly been one of my favorite characters of all time otherwise—an unlovable desperate whore, but the first volume, judged as standing on its own, is quite nice. Cole is very . . . Intense. He has a penchant for guns, having threatened to kill Alex once due to the intensity of his feelings. He's a character that doesn't have a broad appeal, but initially, is at least very appealing to me. He's also quite vindictive and bitter, his internal monologue is very spiteful to the people around him, and he constantly threatens to kill himself & others. It's quite attractive. Speaking of attractive, he's a cutter! It's mainly in the past but we do see a scene where he ends up cutting again due to the whole sperm donor thing and it made me so erect I almost passed out.

Not rating because I only read one volume out of four—dropped.

I dropped this mainly because of its translation, honestly. I finished volume one and I was kind of just lost at what had happened, it kind of makes no sense.

Another thing is that this is clearly leaning heavily on the psychological side, the relationship between the brothers is pretty explicitly toxic. It's romanticized, at least not in the first five chapters, but I thought it was done pretty poorly. The older brother is the victim, and there's a ten-year age gap between the two. A thirteen-year-old and twenty-three-year-old. What's poor about it is that it's just fucking stupid. Like, dude. He's a teenager. Just push him off. He basically lays limp and just lets his brother do whatever he wants, too scared he'll end up pushing his brother away emotionally. And then when he starts victim blaming himself, it's like . . . Yeah. You're fucking retarded.

I saw people in the comments complaining about the ending, being that the brothers end up being a couple again when the story ends. With the serious way it had treated the abuse from the small excerpt of the overall story I read, the fact that it ends like that does vaguely intrigue me, so maybe I'll end up giving this another try in the future. IDK.

This is a story that's incredibly promising in its potential but quite lacking in its execution. It's something that is somehow both too short and too long. I'm conflicted on whether I feel like its fifteen chapters simply aren't enough to tell the story it had wanted, or if instead I feel like there is fat that should have been cut off to create something more tight and streamlined.

The first scene of the story is of Yeonwoo being fucked by a man we don't know the identity of—though we end up understanding it to be Jungwoo—before he thinks 'How did it get to this.' We then get a flashback that sets up this story's fantasy setting concurrently with showing his childhood & establishing certain dynamics.

In the world of this story, one in ten people are born as "Hunters," people with heightened senses that are good in combat and seemingly have limited regenerative abilities. Though born as a Hunter, they don't actually come into being one until a puberty-esque transition, so they usually don't actually know they are one until the age of roughly fourteen, though you can typically safely assume they will or won't be one through hormone tests. The existence of Hunters seems to be a reaction to "dungeons" popping up, which are portals to small pocket dimensions that hold monsters.

During Yeonwoo's early childhood, he went from foster parents to foster parents, with rich people trying to sweep him up due to his potential to be a Hunter. When he ends up being adopted for the third & final time, we meet Jungwoo, the blood child of Yeonwoo's new parents. As Yeonwoo grows up, he and Jungwoo have a very hot-and-cold type of relationship, with Jungwoo typically being a kind of archetypal tsundere. Their dynamic has a pretty strong undercurrent of deeper feelings, which comes to a head the night before Yeonwoo needs to leave for military training (since all Hunters have mandatory service), in which he ties Jungwoo up and forcefully rides him. He then drugs him and leaves for the military while he's still unconscious.

The rest of the story details Yeonwoo's time in the military, briefly exploring the trauma and emotional turmoil of it, while showing him getting letters like twice a month from Jungwoo, before reaching the climax in which his squad enters a time-hole dungeon—a dungeon split off from the natural flow of time. The story ends with Jungwoo entering the dungeon and saving Yeonwoo, revealing he had been in the dungeon for ten years, and in the meantime, Jungwoo became one of the top hunters.

I didn't really like the story.

At first, when the story finished, I wasn't really sure what the point of the beginning scene was as the story doesn't directly tie back to it. I think it's meant to show what the dynamic between the two main characters ends up being, and the beginning scene is actually something that happens in the future after the story is finished . . . Which is just needlessly confusing. I think in hindsight it was completely unnecessary and borderline bad writing. The fact that I didn't fully understand the point of it when I was done, and even now when I'm still stretching in making assumptions, shows its poor quality, which said quality is also reflected in the ending.

I didn't like the ending. Like, at all. It's straight-up just bad. The biggest issue I have with it is that Jungwoo had a complete change of personality, and the change was something that simply just doesn't make sense, even when considering the ten-year timejump.

The issue lies in the fact that Jungwoo is just completely and utterly fucking insane now, in a very cruel and sadistic way. Look, I like crazy men. I love them, even. But Jungwoo didn't start the story crazy and he really had no reason to end it crazy. At least, not crazy in the way he did. I could totally understand how him being obsessed over Yeonwoo for ten years and having to wait for him to die just to save him would fuck him up big time, who wouldn't have their mind completely slip in a situation like that, but I feel like that then should have pushed him into something much more obsessive but affectionate. He dedicated his life towards Yeonwoo for ten years yet when they finally reunite, he's brutally raping him and not caring about whether or not Yeonwoo actually likes it. It makes no sense. It almost seems vindictive.

Because, yeah, the ending isn't much of an ending at all. We don't actually see Yeonwoo be properly rescued from the dungeon, instead, we get a rape scene that goes on for four or five chapters.

It's a shame because up until the ending, I thought the story was actually pretty strong, and I really loved the dynamic between Yeonwoo and Jungwoo.

Growing up, Jungwoo hated when Yeonwoo would call himself Jungwoo's "Hyung," and it was really clear he was so upset by it because he liked him in a way that went deeper than just familial. He didn't like the fact that the man he loved was his brother and was constantly fighting it, especially since all Yeonwoo wanted—initially—was to be a good brother to him. It's a great dynamic and a great source of potential angst. It's made even more complex when you realize the overall family dynamic and how Yeonwoo isn't really seen as family even by his "parents," he's merely a device to be used so that their biological son can skip out on military service (since if you have a Hunter in your family, no other child needs to join the military), but Yeonwoo's still trying his absolute best to be a good son because a family is all he wanted. There were layers to their dynamic that I absolutely love, that I also feel are criminally underutilized.

I can admit though, and to end this on a positive, the art here is phenomenal. I really cannot sing enough praise for the art, I think it's fucking great

. . . I don't really know why, but I just didn't care about this. It never really clicked with me. I finished it quite literally just a minute ago and yet I can't remember half the story.

There were a few small things in the story that I really didn't like. They were small but they brought my enjoyment down significantly. So Tokura is a—formerly—straight man, and his love for women never really ceased. That itself I don't mind, I like the "I'm straight but you're special" trope so I obviously know what I'm getting into, but the thing is that his love for women drove him to go to brothels and stuff like that. And there's a part of the story where he ends up going to a gentlemen's club due to contrived work reasons, and when his boyfriend finds out, he ends up saying he probably would end up continuing going out to brothels if we was asked to go by a client. Like, he's in a relationship but he's saying that he'd continue going and seeing women . . . Is that not insane? And it's basically brushed aside. I really disliked it. It left a bitter taste in my mouth that never really washed away.

When it comes to Tokura, I will say at the very least his storyline with his sexuality was pretty nice. I vaguely alluded to it being the "I'm straight but you're special trope," but honestly it felt more like a story of a man merely realizing he also likes guys a little later than most. It didn't feel like the story was treating him as a straight man, but rather a bisexual who might just have a strong lean towards women. Him going through these familiar yet so foreign feelings for the first time was really cute, and the small part of the end of how him being the bottom had briefly negatively affected his view of his masculinity was done pretty well.

I personally don't rate or write thought-out reviews of porn stories . . . Since it's porn. If it exists merely to get you off then I hold it to a different standard. However, I feel like it's a bit hard to judge this story as while it is full of porn, I'm not sure really I'd go as far as saying it's just porn. It really toes the line between being purely just hentai and being a story that has some resemblance of plot and an interesting dynamic.

Ultimately I won't rate it, and the standards I'm holding it to are a little lower than usual, but I do think this story has enough to it through the dynamics of the characters that gives it reason for people to read beyond just getting off. Just know what you're getting into—a ton of porn.

While it is pretty focused on sex, I did really like the relationship between Takuya and Yuto. It was a little rushed—having Takuya become an insatiable slut who's basically fallen in love after fucking / being assaulted once was a little silly—but it's not that bad considering it is so porn heavy. I'm pretty sure the plot exists to excuse the porn and the writer just so happened to create something I enjoyed. What I really liked about their relationship was just how . . . Casual the absolutely insane things were. Like, it turns out Yuto had been stalking Takuya for months if not years and when Takuya finds out about that, instead of being freaked out, he's instead jealous and kind of insecure that Yuto knows so much about him while he knows nothing about Yuto. He's otherwise fine with the stalking. And, like . . . I FUCK WITH THAT! I fw that heavy. If anything, I wish the author pushed it further and made Takuya actively like it.

OK I'll admit, the reveal of the cult kinda gagged me bad. I expected this to merely be Christian religious eroticism, and while that was still pretty central to the plot, it's much more occult-focused than I expected.

But I didn't really like this story.

It's not bad, it's just . . . Not good. I feel like it being so short really fucked it over; this is a plot that would have benefitted from a slow burn, something more psychological rather than shocking. It tried to have blindsighting moments of subversion but the issue is that the story didn't really build towards those, so they just came and went. You can't really go in-depth with a story like this when it's so short, so you also can't really have plot twists . . . Seem all that much like twists. It's just another story beat, moving from point A to B. It's not a twist.

Beyond the way it affected the plot, the poor pacing also obviously impacted the character development Noah and Agatho went through.

Agatho suffered the brunt of this as he's honestly the only one out of the two that actually changed as a person, or had any noticeable type of . . . "Growth," but the issue lies in the fact that it's such a sharp jump from how he was initially to how he ended the story. It happened in between chapters. It felt like there were chapters or scenes missing that bridged his quiet, reserved, docile personality to the newfound insecure, needy, obsessed kicked-puppy type that he became. It's very simple in concept, being that of Stockholm Syndrome, but knowing what the author intends does not mean the author actually executed it well. Because she didn't. It's bad. I also thought his feelings towards Noah were too vague for my liking—being that I don't know if he ever actually liked Noah or if him liking Noah was just the Stockholm Syndrome—but that's much more of a personal opinion thing.

When it comes to Noah, I kind of just don't care about him. I feel like a longer story would have made him really interesting, as the base of his character is definitely there and could be something really good. I really liked just how obsessed with Agatho he was; I feel like a longer story could have really leaned in on the psychological aspect and played with the question of whether he has more loyalty and love for Agatho or if he was more devoted to the cult, or at least that's how I'd do it. But his relationship to the cult as it was in the finished story was a bit confusing, I'm just not entirely sure where he stood with them. He just was incredibly quick to turn his back on them and kill them all, and I don't know if that's because he never actually cared about the cult or if it was meant to show just how devoted to Agatho he is. I just found it strange that he was so ready and eager to kill a cult he had been with since he was a child

. . . Meh.

I didn't hate this, and this is by no means bad, but for whatever reason it just didn't really stick with me. I think the biggest issue the story had was the translation; it's not egregiously bad, but it is noticeable, and I think the fact that it is noticeable brought this down pretty significantly. It just felt very clunky, the dialogue didn't flow well, and you could tell it was a translation issue rather than an issue of the writing itself.

The plot was alright. A bit frustrating at a certain point, but overall not bad. It just wasn't anything special. I did quite like the setting, I definitely have a soft spot for farms & farm boys. The general premise is that Hae Eun ends up moving to a small farm village, and quickly finds himself drawn to the farmboy Kitae. He ends up revealing to Kitae that he is millions in debt and he's come to the village to escape the debt collectors and in the meantime try and collect money to pay it off. So Kitae hires him to work on the farm. This is all the backdrop of a sexual relationship, and I thought it was pretty good.

Usually, I feel like shorter stories like this struggle pretty badly with building chemistry with the two leads, and even further really, really struggle to lay a foundation for their relationship. Most of the time I don't feel like they actually love each other. When it comes to this story, it doesn't struggle with that even remotely.

I felt like the chemistry between the two main characters was off the charts, and it's actually quite surprising to me because the story goes the route of instalove-adjacent. They're just naturally pulled towards each other at the beginning of the story, and personally, I bought it. I really felt the sexual tension between the two, and this curiosity they both had about each other.

It also had a lot of cute moments; the scene where Hae Eun gives Kitae a ring made of daisies was so, so fucking cute. It was fucking adorable. It also was a great moment in terms of their relationship, it really built it up further and made me believe the two liked each other beyond just surface-level sexual attraction. The story has a lot of little moments like that. Also, if anyone made a ring out of daisies for me I'd marry them on the spot. FR.

However, I did briefly mention there's a part of the plot that was frustrating. So as it turns out, Hae Eun has no debt. He's actually rich as fuck . . . Like he's a millionaire. He ran to the countryside to escape his parents, I think. I didn't really get it. Anyways, Kitae ends up getting told by one of the village elders very directly, in a way that cannot be misconstrued unless you're retarded, that Hae Eun is rich. And somehow that just goes over Kitae's head. So then until like the ending chapter, we're watching him bumbling around trying to cover for Hae Eun from "debt collectors" (his dad) while also trying to unsuccessfully try more into his life, and it's just . . . It's frustrating. I didn't like it, I didn't think it was that good of a read, and I was just so fucking annoyed that he got directly told something and he somehow misconstrued it. Like. Ugh.

One thing is that after he got revealed as being rich, Hae Eun told Kitae that he lied about being in debt because he knew if Kitae thought he had that baggage, he would sympathize and let Hae Eun lean on him. Basically, he was trying to manipulate him so he could get close to him since he thought Kitae was cute. It's both toxic but also kind of cute in a unique way. But I also kinda don't buy it. I totally felt like he was lying about the debt simply to fuck with him, since he was bored and wanted to entertain himself, and in doing that ended up—really quickly—falling in love. I don't really know which version I prefer, but I thought it was worth noting that I didn't really buy what he said. I already had a pretty strong notion in my head why he was doing what he was.

Another thing I really liked though was that there were a few times Hae Eun looked very . . . Intense. Blushing cheeks, darkened eyes. He looked hungry. I saw one commenter say that if this was a different seme or a different story, that'd be a "red flag moment" look, which . . . Yeah, is pretty apt lmao. But I loved it. I thought it was really sexy.

One last thing is that these characters are, like . . . Very surprisingly vulgar. Admittedly it was a sex scene, but there was a scene where Kitsae & Hae Eun are fucking in a full house in the middle of the night, and Kitsae is very half-heartedly asking him to stop, because, and pretty much verbatim, "You're devouring my ass from behind and it feels too good not to moan." LIKE? OMFGGG? WHY SO VULGARRRRR like it was hot but it took me by surprise sometimes

This was shit. Like, it was actually, genuinely just straight ass. And it's so disappointing because the premise had a lot of potential, but it's ultimately just not met even halfway.

I think one of the biggest issues this story had was probably the fact that it's so short; the general plot is that Joo-Hae gets his debt paid off randomly by an anonymous man. He expects that the weight of it now being off his shoulders would relieve him of his suicide idealization, but it doesn't, so he tries to kill himself. As he's about to jump off the roof, a stranger pulls him back, but then drugs him & brings him back to his apartment. I think that's a really good premise, but something that is so inherently rich in complexities like that simply can't be done justice in merely eight chapters.

With it being so short, the development between the characters & development of the plot moves way too fast. Joo-Hae gets kidnapped and then by the end of it, which is like after only six chapters, accepts the situation and is completely fine with it—and it's done in a way that makes it pretty obvious it's not Stockholm Syndrome. You go from point 'A' to point 'B' so quickly that you get whiplash.

The translation is also pretty poor. It could be a lot worse, by no means does it ruin the story, but it is pretty noticeable. The translator seems to think "you're" is "your."

Also . . . Meh art. It's not bad, it just seems very inspired by Jinx and Painter of The Night. The uke looks borderline off-putting at times due to the weird, overly feminine way he appears. He looks like he's gone under the knife if you know what I mean.

At the very least, I liked that the MC had balls. He tried to kill himself at any chance he got. He was a bit annoying while he tried to do it, but it's the fact that he tried at all that matters. I read this hoping his suicidal thoughts & behaviors would be sexualized, which they're not, so that's kind of a shame, but whatever. Good enough

Obsessive, forbidden love like this always works for me. The way these two brothers are so utterly and completely obsessed with each other was great, their messed up, toxic dynamic is like actually peak. Of course, however, this isn't without its flaws.

OK, "flaws" as in plural is a bit much, I only had one issue—the epilogue chapter. Revealing that Motoharu was obsessed with his brother in the same way his brother was obsessed with him was a gaggy plot twist, but I do wish it was incorporated more into the actual story rather than merely being a last-minute twist as it does ultimately feel a little . . . Not confusing, just sloppy. Because it wasn't an actual aspect of the story until the very end, it recontextualizes his behavior in a way that makes it seem a bit illogical, as if the author didn't think it through fully. Like him running away after Akio forced himself on him doesn't make sense to me now; he said he ran away because he thought Akio acting like that was influenced by being exposed to Motoharu's prostitution, which itself doesn't make much sense to me, but then with the reveal that he knew of Akio's feelings the whole time and kind of egged him on . . . What was the point of running away?

Everything else though I absolutely adored.

The story mainly follows Akio's POV, of him trying to wrestle his forbidden feelings for his brother as he watches his brother live the life of a whore. It's very fucked up, his love is incredibly perverse and twisted—he likes the fact that his brother was pushed into prostitution and lives a rather dejected life, as that pushes him more into Akio's arms. Throughout the story Akio struggles with his feelings ripping through the surface, but once they begin to claw, he's overcome with this want of bringing his brother down even further. He wants him at rock bottom. He wants to dirty him. He wants to soil him. He wants to make him revolting to other men so that the only man by his brother's side is him. And I fucking loved that. It's a very intense, obsessive love, and I always enjoy when incestuous stories like this take a more toxic, unhealthy route with their dynamic.

For Motoharu, everything he does is for his brother. Even before the plot twist in the epilogue, he still has a relatively unhealthy attachment to him; they live together, alone after their parents die, so Motoharu falls onto prostitution to support the two of them. He pushes for his brother to live a normal life, to get into college and get a job, while he slaves away to a risky profession just so his brother doesn't have to make the same sacrifices.