- #1
Translation is amazing, all the hats off to the translator, just A+++ work. I would've stopped reading ages ago if not for how good they are (to be honest, I'm only scoring this high because it's so well-written.) I loved this, 5 stars--at least until ch50-ish. I was super invested in the slow burn, thought the ML was socially awkward but still pretty green flag, and was cool with the cliche coerciveness of the beginning because it mostly seemed harmless and ended up being pretty sweet. It led me to believe we were getting a love story.But this takes a sharp right turn. I'm keeping it vague to avoid spoilers, but the relationship ends up being extremely coercive and manipulative. Normally I love a ML's POV showing how in love he is, but this one was scarily obsessive. It honestly felt like I was reading about the origins of a serial killer in a horror novel. And once the relationship... "develops" (with emotional blackmail)... ML becomes disgustingly childish. Truly an insufferably petulant brat. It's completely devolved into your cliche yandere setup, where we're just romanticizing an incredibly abusive relationship and you're supposed to find the codependent one "falling in love" (i.e. accepting forever being trapped with their ab*ser) sweet, only the ML is not a master manipulator, he's a screaming toddler with a hair trigger that MC is constantly trying to pacify. I was trying to power through, thinking it would get better, but it just gets worse...I like yandere normally, but I feel kind of blind-sighted by it in this since it doesn't match the initial tone of the series. And I like a charming yandere, not one acting like a spoiled child. It even has side characters commenting on how MC acts more doting to him than a mother would. Yikes. And MC's "falling in love" seems to largely stem from him finding it cute how child-like ML is (ew? The age gap between 21 and 27 can be okay, but not like this...) And I guess this is personal taste, but a lot of the s*x scenes are uncomfortably rough imo, and not in a hot way. So many adjectives and verbs that I associate with violence. A lot of the graphic descriptions make me queasy enough that I have to skim through the scene as quickly as possible (and I read plenty of ABO and guideverse so I think I have a fairly high tolerance for graphic smut.)