Rae D.'s manga / #honorable mention(69)

I liked this so much more than I expected. The worst parts of it was, unfortunately the art and the translation. The best parts were the angst and the angst, lol. I know I can’t actually hold the poor translation I was reading against the story itself because I’m obvi reading illegally. So, as usually, I won’t actually factor it into the score at all. But the art? That’s fair game. The art style was very much giving “an artist who just got done being a beginner”. Like they aren’t a beginner, and you can tell by the amount of “polish”. But they can’t have been a beginner too long ago. What makes me say that? Such extremely noticeable disproportionate anatomy. It’s really actually so sad because the anatomy of the characters is like, this only problem! All of the rest of the art is just fine! And man, I wish I could say you stop noticing it at a certain point or that this is one of those where the artist’s skills grows during the publication of the story to the point where it isn’t a thing by the end, but…. neither of those is true here. *sigh* So yeah, the anatomy issues through me off and never really went away. While they didn’t go away or get less noticeable, I aa a reader began to notice how bad it was as thing went on because of how goooooood the story was getting! The angst was so yummy delicious in this one lol. I mean a really delightful concoction of toxic relationship and personality issues all throughout. Ohh, I was actually so into this. Something that sets this story apart from the majority of BL I read is that not only is the MC a bottom who holds more socio-economic and political power than the top love interest, but he’s also so completely and wholly a bad guy!!!! Like, I really am struggling to think of where else I’ve ever read that dynamic. I loved it. Jaehan was such a horrible person but he was CRAZY endearing so I couldn’t not root for him if I tried. He would keep doing bad things and I’d be like “

What the fuck, why was this so well-written?!? Like, damn. The quality of the writing was crazy fucking good for a manwha. Also, it’s got a horror tag but it’s not horror. It’s more so a psychological thriller. Less heavy on the thriller part and more heavy on the psychological part, this story gave the reader much to think about… I wasn’t exactly prepared for that going in so I’ll most likely have to read this a second to,e one day to fully digest it. Well, not “have to” but I’d like to. Aside from being really well-written, the plot very solid. Sak as a character was quite endearing to me. I felt for him a lot. Also, him being a sociopathic yandere of an MC? Yeah, y’all know that’s the kind of shit I like lol. His ML though the relationship between them? Look… this certainly wasn’t the kind of read I’d recommend to anyone looking for romance lol, because that’s not the kind of party it was really. All in all this was very well done and quite an enthralling binge. I want to give it a 9.5 because of how quality it was, but like, idk even though it was quality i can’t quite say I fully “enjoyed” that. More like I was temporarily captivated by it. I’ll give it a 9.49. P.S.: great fucking title!!!

I feel refreshed. I feel a release. That ate. It hit the spot. It was just what I needed right now. Yum. I sat down earlier this evening and said I was in the mood for something toxic. Last time I said that and a story delivered was “Exotic Love”. Today I found this story, and while it wasn’t as good as “Exotic Love”, it did indeed deliver! “Exotic Love” delivered and then went over the delivery point and kept giving more quite unexpectedly. This here? Delivered just as much as I was hoping it would and then a teeny tiny bit more. This story is a good toxic ride the way “Kiss Me, Liar” is and it reminded me of it sometimes. Just in the sense that it’s something that’s been done plenty of times in BL (nothing new about a wildly toxic/abusive BL love story lol) but done so well! “Well” doesn’t mean it’s objectively (and certainly not morally!) good lol. “Well” means if you came here looking for your fix and knew what you were in for, you got what you came for for real hahahaha. Lol, I’m over-explaining it. I’m the only one reading these reviews and I know what I mean haha. We love a good reincarnation “we were lovers in a past life”. We love some East-Asian historical era shit. We love a hilariously psychotically possessive main love interest. And more than that, we love seeing a man change his awful ways in the name of love! Here are a few simple highlights I loved: - The prince being tossed around like a rag doll (it had me rolling every time ) - The emperor being as pshcyotic as he was - the dogs - asking the prince to drink alcohol - eye balls in a bowl - etc… - The writing really just fucking ate sometimes Here are two actually big-enough-to-mention negative points: - hate nothing more than the trope of the incestuous raptor brother always being forever forgiven/not hated because he is family…… truly one of the worst BL tropes I’ve ever seen, but so incredibly pervasive! - normally people complain about things being too drawn out in a story like this, but I think we can all agree this should have been drawn out even more, lol. It was so good and everyone was having a good time so no one would have been upset. I could have done with a good 3-5more chapters added to the transition of MC slowly coming around to this idea that the LI has changed and getting over the traumatic past enough to be with him in this life time. If someone were to press me for specifics (lol) I’d tell them, those 3-5 chapters should be placed precisely between chapters 33 and 34. On the same vein as “not enough content” being the complaint, as follows is a list of loose ends that just never got tied up in the story (thus again proving that more chapters would have been ideal): - MC never truly does explain to LI that the shit with his brother was never at any single point consensual and that very much bothers me. - MC also doesn’t explain that he was trying to drink the poison to kill himself (not kill the LI!) originally in the past life way before LI killed his family and that it had nothing to do with that. - We don’t expand on this situation where the LI is the new manipulator of the goh parasite and what all that entails so far as consequences go…. - I can’t imagine the brother’s life was spared and after going as far as he’s gone hell just… behave normally now? No way bro, the shit is not over with him! Yeah, anyways a really nice time reading this. It gets a 9.4.

*siiiiiiigh* There is so much to say. Okay, so I must admit: binge-reading this was NOT the move. It honestly isn’t often that I regret waiting for a story to finish before binge-reading it. But this here is one of the few. I just feel like I would have had a more enjoyable time had I read it as it was coming out somehow. I feel this way because the story was so full and the emotional rollercoaster honestly overwhelmed me. I had to take a very Cher burr large hiatus for myself about ¾ of the way through reading it because it was too much. And yes, I am saying the cuteness was in absolute excess, but not enough to make me stop reading lol. It was the angst that was too much. I have a very large rant on the “angst” in this story. But here’s the thing: I don’t really want to do the rant! Honestly, I really don’t. I liked soooooooooo many things about this story, that having to rant about something very important in this review makes me sad. And yet at the same time, I know I won’t be able to cope if I can’t get this rant off of my chest. So here, we’ll start with the good parts and do the rant afterwards. Okay, good parts…. The best thing about this story hands down is the MC, my one and only cutest baby-head in the entire unreversed: Yeo Eiujoon aka Joonie aka JunBug!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Oh my goodness gracious, wow an adorable human being! God I loved him to bits and fucking pieces bro. His every move, every smile, every tear, every breath, brought me to strong emotions. I felt for him everywhere all over no matter what happened. I’m happy times and I’m sad ones. He’s my baby! Ahjussy….. gee wilikers bro.

I liked this a whole lot. It was a cross between BL and cultivation genre. Although, saying it was a cross implies it was something of a perfect mix to me. This was clearly first and foremost a BL that was just set in a cultivation setting and had many cultivation genre aspects all throughout it. I know for some of the girlies in the comments who aren’t into the cultivation genre they were a bit confused about why these elements were added in if they did t really contribute to the story. But for me who eats that cultivation shit up? Yeah I was super into it! It’s not often I see these genres I like cross. It’s like the excitement I feel when I see a BL otome isekai or an otome isekai cultivation manwha. I just love when two great things come together. Anyway, yeah I def loved this. It was simply good. Nothing too complex or complicated. Just a nice little entertaining story. I hope these two babies live happily together forever because they deserve it. It gets a 9.5.

9. …..49?

It was very good. Model story. Nothing crazy, just simple and good. Great little time. Refreshing even. Love that old school Yaoi art style and sentiment! Gets a 9.5

it was good and interesting but sad. a bit too sad for me. and sad in an unnecessary way. this is just one of those authors who doesn’t appear to be too concerned with giving closure and closing up emotional storylines in a way that comforts the reader.. it would be a lot different if it seemed like her intention was to do that, but it doesn’t. There’s no tragedy tag here yet it’s the sad. like people on the comments are saying, it leaves you feeling kind of empty… a kind of unecessary emptiness that I kind of cannot seem to forgive the author for…. therefore, despite how good this was, this will only get a 9.43