beta
I like all sorts of nasty things, but the MC is so skinny that I'm scared a gust of wind will blow him away
I'm surprised this has 8.2 rating. Plot was flimsy, and the art was struggling. I can get over MC turning pink, but in some panels, the proportions were so off I could not unsee it (giraffe necks, tiny tootsies, etc.)
The characters were also really shallow, with one dimensional Y/N MC and CEO/President ML.
There is better fetish stuff out there.... Mr.A's Farm, The secret life of the demon king, Snake Hole etc.
Snake hole is the same level as this imo but I agree with mr A farm being superior yaoi pxrn slop
I politely disagree. I’m not sure if you’ve read the whole thing. It’s not Shakespeare, but from a storytelling perspective, Snake Hole is stronger than this one. I could compare them and break it down, but it feels like that’s not really how I should apply what I learned from my creative writing units at university Glad we can agree on Mr.A's superiority!
I loathe this ending! Several volumes are spent building Azusa up as someone who refuses to yield and fights back, but for what? In the end, no one tears down the system; the game merely fizzles out, only to resurface a decade later, while the rapists, abusers, and people responsible face no consequences. No one gets justice, and nothing really changes outside some character's personal growth.
The lack of accountability is astonishing.
Taisho stabs Eno, only for the story to turn around and have him visit Eno in the hospital. Atsumu even gives a speech about how anyone can become a victim or a victimiser. The ending acts as though everything can simply be pushed aside, forgotten, and forgiven. This makes the resolution feel emotionally incomplete.
I feel as though the initial societal commentary the author was going for was about how arbitrary hierarchies can distort human behaviour. When people are ranked and rewarded for dominance, they quickly turn on one another. In a society where status and social hierarchy are everything, and people have to fight for safety, everyone ends up becoming either a victim, an opportunist, an enforcer, or a silent bystander.
But, the problem is that the ending makes everything seem hollow. After all the brutality, psychological damage, and abuse we sat through, the story simply wants everyone to move on and forgive. Atsumu even talks about the castes as something that tore them apart but also brought them back together (excuse me?!)
Consequences matter. Without them, actions become empty spectacles with no real substance. If the ending had committed to some kind of fallout, shown psychological damage, real accountability, or even an emotional cost and healing process, then perhaps it wouldn't have felt so flat and forced. As it stands, the disconnect between what happened and how the story ended muffles any meaningful message that this could have made. It almost feels like the mangaka wanted to use the emotional weight of trauma without having to deal with any of its consequences.
I’m trying to find meaning in the ending, but I’m left with this: love and control remain forever tangled, and instead of changing the system, the best you can do is hope to survive it, forgive and forget. What in the Jesus is this “turn the other cheek” ending!?
its funny that you expect consequences in yaoi
How so, there are quite a few BLs that show consequences, even to the extent of having the antagonist punished or the victim struggle emotionally. I don’t necessarily need the whole nine yards or criminal trials, but when you jump from “this is the worst thing happening to us” to “well, I guess we all learned something from this and it brought us together,” there’s a massive disconnect.
if there is real meaningful consequences, it usually wouldn't be a bl because then there wouldn't be a happy couple romance ending which is what bl generally pushes for as a genre. consequences threatened the narrative integrity of the romance.
most "consequences" in bl is rapist being sorry and ultimately ending up with the victim in a romance lol. To me there is typically a massive disconnect that you need to gloss over with "toxic/dark romance" for it to even work as a story.
example: killing stalking has meaningful consequences and it isnt considered bl.
It's true that a lot of BLs follow the “victim becomes the lover” route. Which is not suprising from a market perspective: rape-fantasy/CNC remains as one of the most common kinks, and many readers are willing to accept a level of disconnect if the story centres around one perpetrator who shows remorse, regret, or makes some attempt to change. Which is something we see more and more these days.
But, Caste Heaven is not merely a story about one toxic relationship or one perpetrator receiving a chasing arc / redemption. It depicts an organised system in which sexual violence, abuse, and humiliation are normalised, sanctioned, and carried out by numerous people. It spends volumes establishing how horrible and psychologically damaging that system is, only to turn around and end with the implication that the system “brought them together” and that “anyone could become a victimiser.” That is a far larger moral and emotional leap than a standard dark-romance reconciliation.
Also, even if much of the genre favours romantic reconciliation, that doesn't mean BL is incapable of showing consequences, or that a story stops being BL when it depicts them. There are recognised BL works in which rapists and antagonists (whether external perpetrators or male leads), are imprisoned or killed off in the end.
Examples: Hwang Young’s Misery, Max Mojave’s Case, Dear Teddy Bear, Broken Boy, A Room Without a Window, Enka: Zetsurin Ou to Yokubou Ouji.
I do understand the genre convention you mean. I just don't think “it’s BL lol” is a sufficient enough answer to criticism of an ending that treats systemic abuse as devastating for most of the story, only to change its tune at the very end. The manga could have had it's romantic endings, while still holding external perpetrators accountable, and addressing the system.