While the premises are nice and their emotions are well portrayed, the whole ending is unsatisfactory. There's rape, the rapist acknowledged it was rape, the victim acknowledged it was rape, but everyone is fine after all? It's really off by the end, maybe it was rushed I don't know. In the trope "the groom's ex-boyfriend / the best friend in love with the groom", there's better published works to read.
What I liked: the 1st chapter had genuinely interesting characters. Tomohiro has unresolved feelings, Ren is a drama queen and possessive as hell. Good premise!
...and that's enough of that, because it gets worse. There's a dubcon bathroom scene (I thought we'd left the "straight guy agrees to do smutty things with gay guy he just met" plots in the 2000s, but.../shrug); then a chapter for Tomohiro and Ren hanging out (fine, they get to know each other, but it's not that interesting); then a chapter on...baseball? with Tomohiro's friends? (why are we wasting time on this?!); then a chapter with literal rape in which...Ren has sex with Tomohiro while the latter is crying and begging him to stop...until he starts feeling good?!
What am I reading. Seriously, where did the characters from the 1st chapter go?!
The dialogue's weird too, and when they reconcile, Tomohiro acknowledges that it was rape (bare minimum, gg mangaka), then basically says that he's OK with having been raped but NOT OK with Ren leaving in a hurry and not contacting him. Here, have some actual quotes: [Ren:] "I'm the man who fucked you against your will. And that also means I like you." [Tomohiro:] "The issue for me is not getting bitten by a dog, but that dog turning tail and fleeing."
The art also...got increasingly worse? Heads were too large, upper arms were too short, shoulders were too narrow. It's like the mangaka and assistants stepped out for a smoke after two chapters, and the rest was picked up by newbies. I'm not kidding—look at chapter 1, then look at chapter 3. What's going on here?
This is the most headscratchingly bizarre manga I've read in awhile, mostly because I can't figure out how it went from a decent start to such an absolutely abysmal ending. If it weren't so shitty, I'd almost recommend it for fun, but it's too bad to be even unintentionally funny.
I love this mangaka, I’ve read almost all her works, I love her art style (especially how she draws eyes and how expressive her characters are) and I vibe with her feminine / twink seme. Yet this Hello to Happiness was underwhelming.
It started with an unlikable character that I quickly warmed up to and got to like (even though he was still shitty), the middle of the story was wholesome and interesting and then in the last two chapters, the mangaka came up with a conflict that didn’t make sense and it got resolved so quickly. Very underwhelming and lackluster.
Popular Reviews
While the premises are nice and their emotions are well portrayed, the whole ending is unsatisfactory. There's rape, the rapist acknowledged it was rape, the victim acknowledged it was rape, but everyone is fine after all? It's really off by the end, maybe it was rushed I don't know.
In the trope "the groom's ex-boyfriend / the best friend in love with the groom", there's better published works to read.
What I liked: the 1st chapter had genuinely interesting characters. Tomohiro has unresolved feelings, Ren is a drama queen and possessive as hell. Good premise!
...and that's enough of that, because it gets worse. There's a dubcon bathroom scene (I thought we'd left the "straight guy agrees to do smutty things with gay guy he just met" plots in the 2000s, but.../shrug); then a chapter for Tomohiro and Ren hanging out (fine, they get to know each other, but it's not that interesting); then a chapter on...baseball? with Tomohiro's friends? (why are we wasting time on this?!); then a chapter with literal rape in which...Ren has sex with Tomohiro while the latter is crying and begging him to stop...until he starts feeling good?!
What am I reading. Seriously, where did the characters from the 1st chapter go?!
The dialogue's weird too, and when they reconcile, Tomohiro acknowledges that it was rape (bare minimum, gg mangaka), then basically says that he's OK with having been raped but NOT OK with Ren leaving in a hurry and not contacting him. Here, have some actual quotes:
[Ren:] "I'm the man who fucked you against your will. And that also means I like you."
[Tomohiro:] "The issue for me is not getting bitten by a dog, but that dog turning tail and fleeing."
The art also...got increasingly worse? Heads were too large, upper arms were too short, shoulders were too narrow. It's like the mangaka and assistants stepped out for a smoke after two chapters, and the rest was picked up by newbies. I'm not kidding—look at chapter 1, then look at chapter 3. What's going on here?
This is the most headscratchingly bizarre manga I've read in awhile, mostly because I can't figure out how it went from a decent start to such an absolutely abysmal ending. If it weren't so shitty, I'd almost recommend it for fun, but it's too bad to be even unintentionally funny.
I love this mangaka, I’ve read almost all her works, I love her art style (especially how she draws eyes and how expressive her characters are) and I vibe with her feminine / twink seme.
Yet this Hello to Happiness was underwhelming.
It started with an unlikable character that I quickly warmed up to and got to like (even though he was still shitty), the middle of the story was wholesome and interesting and then in the last two chapters, the mangaka came up with a conflict that didn’t make sense and it got resolved so quickly. Very underwhelming and lackluster.