Mimi's manga / #sex worker(3)

If I could scream to convey how much I loved this "main" story, I fucking would... But I don't think that would get my point across very well in text. Firstly, I love the main story. I cared a lot about both Itou and Kyousuke to the point where I could feel myself almost about to cry at some points. I have yet to read the prologue story (as of writing this) but, from what I read from one comment, both Itou and Kyousuke had hellish upbringings that (at least for Kyousuke) made me really want to see them be together. I was also ready to drop this title because I thought the problems I have with most bl manga were gonna be in this, but they wrote Ito to love Kyousuke so GOD DAMN MUCH and it made me really love him as a character. It made me love their relationship and how they showed that they needed each other. I was afraid that the rape and murder would be glorified like 90% of this landscape, but it is shown in a horrible light, being a story about how two people are trying to get out of these situations together. Fucking thank you! I also want to talk about the last 2 chapters a little. I think they were very important to the main story and I did actually cry during both of them with how they both completed and complimented the story to show you how they were living during them being "on the run" and after all the bullshit was over. God bless. Personally, I did not like the parallel story chapter. It is the reason I put pedophilia-ish as a tag. I am not here for older people "waiting" on an underage person to be of age because it means that they have feelings for this child even though they know they shouldn't. I don't care if you're 13 or 19, you are still a child until 20. And even then it doesn't really feel like you hit "adult" until 25+, but at least you're not a fucking teen. After falling in love with these characters, showing that Ito had feelings for the underage teenager but waiting until he was 18 is still really disgusting to me. There was even a comment he made about Kyousuke in freshman year that just fucked me up in the most disgusting of ways. Even though he waited till the bare minimum it still didn't feel ok to me and it was horrible no matter how sweet Ito was. Still horrible. Chap 7's review in 5 seconds or less: What the fuck? No.

Now that I read this prologue, I definitely recommend reading the first book first even though this comes before it in the story. Having read the first book put in so much context that having all that backstory and foreshadowing made me feel even more for everything that happened in this backstory. ... You ever just want to scream because you feel so emotionally attached to some fucking fictional characters? A part of me feels like I should have read this first before getting into Itou-san because it would have made it easier to read through kid!Itou and kid!Kyosuke's abuse. BUT the 1st book feels like an easier read compared to this that I think reading this in order of release gets you more invested in these characters. Like, by now, I found myself really emotional about the both of them... I wanted to die. What got me the most was reading through Kyosuke as a baby-baby, 5 YEARS OLD, having to go through what happened. It really reminded me of chapter 4 of Ore, Higaisha and, um... Yeah. I really just want to scream right now. Sorry, this one was a lot shorter than my feelings on the 1st book. Everything I felt there I still felt here.

I hyped myself up too high with this one, lads. I don't regret reading this, I just went into this wanting more... tragedy. More angst, more hurt to balance the comfort. And the comfort wasn't that strong either but was more present than the hurt. I think the main characters are fine, them as a couple are cute, I love re-encounters, and the story was interesting to me. However, doing the timeskip thing where the first 3 chapters are their senior year and the last 3 (+ extra, so 4) is them meeting up again after a couple of years I felt made both halves feel rushed. There's also the weird way they do scene cutting that didn't feel smooth, so it was really weird to follow like an odd video editing cut back and fourth. I really wanted to see more communication between Koru and Shiraki during those 3 days. I wanted more slow, quiet moments that would've made the sex scene in chapter 3 worth it. Before, you only really saw Shiraki grow a fondness for Kuro, who was in a "he's my friend, I want to protect him" kind of mode. When the first kiss happened, I was hoping for them to talk after that, but instead, it did a cut away. I felt the same way in the second half when Shiraki confessed because now we know that Kuro still had feelings but was scared to pursue that. And when we do get a perfect "pause and talk" moment, they cut away again to a flashback. We eventually got to sit the fuck down and talk through some stuff but even that I felt like it could've been delved deeper, but I was happy we got it. I did leave this liking this couple. I left this liking this book. I felt myself about to cry during chapters 6 and the extra. But I think I went into this hoping for something like CUT and then being let down because it was close to being as emotional as CUT was.