I Noticed That I’ve Become A BL Game Protagonist’s Younger Brother! Chapter 83 Discussion

(Currently on the New Year 2024 short story. Unsure of which story the translator is on.)

The writing itself is a 3, at least for the main story. The love and fun I get out of it is a 5. I read the original (non-translated) stories & the additional short stories on the author's social media.

What follows is a very biased, incredibly messy, and spoiler-filled flood of thoughts.

Starting off with two clarifications & a reminder:

• • The webnovel itself is properly tagged as "NL" (M/F) & BL, and the manga is tagged as BL. I've seen people consider this as queerbait; that's understandable, but please know that the descriptions on the official websites accurately reflect the content of the story. It just seems that the translator hasn't included those notes (possibly they weren't there at the time it was translated?).The light novel doesn't have a genre. The first volume is a cliffhanger and is more similar to the manga than the webnovel, but I found out recently there is a second volume coming out March 2024.

• • Akira identifies as male. He explicitly states that his "sense of self is stronger as Amachi Akira", which happens to include the fact he's thought himself as male his whole life. I think you can debate what a soul consists of, but it makes sense to me that gender identity wouldn't necessarily carry over to each life... the human experience is extremely varied, after all.Also, Akira refers to himself as having a "fujoshi soul" and not as a fudanshi in part because he wants to be "normal" (you can debate that notion if you want - the novel reflects some norms I don't believe aligns with modern [+Western] ideals, which I do occasionally cringe at. I'm not sure if this case is an example of that, though, not necessarily - to me, it's Akira reflecting the society he grew up in. Whether or not the author intended that is a different story. Spoiler

    I do like that Akira is unexpectedly down-to-earth about considering the confessions he receives from Kaede and Natsuhi despite all that, though, and also educates Natsuhi that queer couples do live the same lives as every other couple - and I think that somehow adds to the charm, that this is a fun story that speaks to those who like BL ((consider how funny the one side character, usually a fujoshi, who ships the main couple is in plenty of other stories)), which yes, includes listening in on his brother f*ck LMAO

    but Akira is genuinely a good person who tries to be considerate of people's feelings. IDK. It's a comedy, basically. I can't explain this actually, I'm not an articulate person.

    [collapse]
  • It's fine to have squicks about the dubious routes, Spoiler

    like Makoto's, or maybe Hiiragi's -

    [collapse] I just want to remind that the contents are fictional and are also not meant to be a meaningful message. But I understand that it's debatable.

Random thoughts:

• • I love Akira's internal dialogue (hilarious, but compassionate at key moments), and in general one of the highlights of this writing is the character voices. (Shirousa-san's & Natsuhi's inner monologues are, how to say... the writing is simple, but their conflicts are still conveyed at the proper depth to me.)

• • The main story itself, while fun, lacks a lot of development for most characters. Since I am a character-focused person, this was initially a let-down, although I had plenty of happiness reading this for other reasons (character interactions, voice, general premise, etc). The various short stories do make up for it for most characters.

• • I found recently from going through the author's social media that the characters likely have a lot more to them than what has been written (this is also hinted at in short stories after the main story), and the author just wanted to keep it light-hearted. I kinda wish that it had more depth, but simultaneously am pretty grateful as to how easy and fun it was to read as it is - so again, some of the "quality" is actually dependent on what type of story you wanted vs expected.

• • The formatting has some people mentioning that you might as well play a dating sim Spoiler

    (e.g., Miyuki doesn't show up often in the main story because in the game, he's a hidden route)

    [collapse]; that's a valid opinion, I also just happen to believe novels don't have to be strictly one type of story.

• • Hats off to the translator, they clearly hated the first ending but they're still going.For the most part, I think their translations are accurate. Some of the chapters of the versions they used might be outdated (like ch20), as the webnovel does occasionally go through edits. The translator isn't always clear on the subject of who is talking - Spoiler

    the biggest one that stood out to me was in Natsuhi's ending, where President mentions it was President and Akira who hung out together, causing Natsuhi to start researching places to go with Akira (so, not Natsuhi and Akira who hung out together previously)

    [collapse].

I'm not a person with a big brain, and I don't want to go into too many spoilery details about each route, so I ran out of thoughts for now. If you somehow read all of this, the takeaway is hopefully that I, as an individual, have a lot of fun reading this. I think others' criticisms are fair, although part of me wishes the novel could be taken a little more lightheartedly in certain complaints. I hope the translator does all of the short stories even after the routes of they're up for it, maybe even the shorter stories on the author's social media - they're very cute character interactions, and I love them.

I feel like typing still, so here's a random & incoherent stream of thoughts about my favorite capture target.

Spoiler

• • Natsuhi-senpai... good. I honestly like that he's homophobic as a result of putting his brother on a pedestal LOLLLL. There's a lot to unpack there when you find out how attached he was to his brother when he was younger (mentioned in President's route + on SNS)
  • My enjoyment of him didn't hit me until I was reading more and more of the short stories, as he was very quiet throughout the main story - but man, he really looks after Akira. (When I read the manga after the webnovel, though... wow, chapter 14. You can really tell how well Natsuhi understands Akira ((and how touched he is that Akira cared about him))). I wish his POV in one of the first short stories was included in his ending, since it follows what he was thinking after his brother took Akira to the aquarium.
  • THE INFERIORITY COMPLEX MIXED WITH IDOLIZATION IS SO!!! THE WAY HE LEARNED TO TAKE WHAT HE WANTS AFTER BEING PASSIVE IN HIS BROTHER'S SHADOW FOR SO LONG IS ALSO SO...!!!!!! The fact that it mirrors/complements Akira's feelings about his own brother is also so..!!
  • I will stop here. My brain is nonexistent.

• • Shoutout to Natsuki while I'm at it. Strong character, love him being secretly lonely. I wish I felt more justification as to why he likes Akira in his route.

• • Shoutout to Kaede while I'm at it LOL. Also a nicely crafted character. I would've loved to see a little more about why exactly he falls for Akira after Makoto, similar to Natsuki.
  • Maybe the only legit review-like thought I'm gonna write out, I liked Shirousa and while I appreciated her unique struggle within the fictional situation she was in, I think this route is also the most telling where the author is trying to mix in modern & traditional values in a strange way, especially since Akira doesn't actually care about what Shirousa looks like, but bothers her about it for Miyuki's (and apparently, secretly, Shirousa's) sake.
    [collapse]

Thank you. Bye.