Morthos

Update 2: Old review that might not read well or make since. I will be updating my thoughts on a reread but the star rating stays the same.

Update: So I completely forgot that I read this and now I'm planning on reading the official English version. The 2nd story I might still feel the same way about, but let's see if the official translation makes this a better read for me.

The first story is really cute, honestly. Kinda reminded me of Our Dining Table a bit in a way. I actually really liked the small little rivalry Mori had with Takamura. Personally, I wish the story expanded on them as a family more, but since there's another story here, it feels a little short.

As for the second story, I don't know. It gave me second-hand awkwardness and I'm not too keen on Kuma's character. I'm also not liking how close he got the college student, close enough to go all the way with him, since he himself was a highschooler who's around 17-16... No.

Last story, it was alright. I feel like the 1st and 3rd one had interesting stories but not interesting characters to back it up enough for me to care. Maybe if the 2nd one wasn't there and both of these stories got some more character development then I probably would've liked it more. They both just seem a little too short for me to feel anything for these characters.

I thought that was pretty cute. Was a little unsure because I saw that "misunderstanding" tag and I really hate dumb stuff like that where the conflict is caused by just not talking and jumping to things. But I guess this was fine, if not very predictable. I wasn't really attached to the characters themselves but they didn't completely make me mad. The only thing I kinda was like "ugh" about was Hifumi's possessive lover personality. Thank God it wasn't as bad as I've seen almost every BL do, but the way he acted about Mike's hair bring up and how friendly he was with his FRIEND... Please stop this.

Eh, it's ok. It's a little too simple and slow for me on top of how big the age gap was (one dude was at the tail end of 19 while the other was 33 I think) was kind of weird to me. There was nothing too creepy or straight up fetish-y about it like some other age gap stories I've unfortunately read. It's just kind of slow and sweet and absolutely nothing at the same time. That being said, I'll still buy this. At the end of the day, it was a cute 3 star read and that's enough to take myself over to cdjapan.

Honestly, the main story was pretty cute as a whole. But the way the relationship started was kind of weird, the part in the bathroom was basically harassment... So that was a sour spot in otherwise a cute story with a cute couple and cute child living a cute family life together.

As for the short story, I'm not too sure how I feel about that. Despite it being a short story it tried to drag out it's plot as if it was gearing up for another chapter or sequel spin-off... that never happened. The characters were fine, but it ended too abruptly for that ending they were trying to do to make me care about either of them.

In general, it's a cute story with characters that are fine but no one I cared to get too invested into except for Riku. I do like that this book only talked about 1 story instead of 3+ like most bl manga, it gives you more room to flesh out the characters and story... Room the author clearly didn't take, I feel. While I liked it to the point of wanting to buy it and seeing this be turned into a two-part OVA, I feel we moved too fast to let Iori and Goura characters develop. They just felt flat as people with the only thing moving them being Riku. Maybe I just didn't really care for Iori and the way he thought about Beast Folk. A thought he clearly got from his grandmother that I don't completely agree with. There were some nice moments especially at the end I would've love to see more of through out the story.

However, can I just yell about a part of the story I didn't understand and I'm not even sure if this was the author's or translator's fault? There's a part where Iori begins to think about adopting Riku for a second but then says something like "I'm gay, I can't do that". The story up until now has not talked about queer people adopting nor did it ever come back up. What came up instead, some 3 or 4 pages later, was Iori talking to Goura about how humans can't adopt Beast Folk because they were abused or treated as pets by some humans in the past so they don't allow that anymore. While that's a good bit of backstory that would be interesting to know more about, WHY was that not his first thought as to why he couldn't adopt Riku instead of him being gay? It should've been "I'm human, I can't" and not "I'm gay, I can't" if you're never going to bring up why queer people can't adopt in your modern fantasy/slice of life story. That moment was just left there hanging and because it never came back up again it felt even more out of place and weird. Maybe there's something in Japan that makes is difficult or impossible for queer people to adopt at the time of writing the story but we wouldn't that and there's no in-book segment explaining it..... ?????

I'm realizing now that this story has a problem with explaining things. It can't even hide behind having more sex scenes over plot since there were only 2½ total sex scenes. It just felt like they went in circles talking about the same thing that they could've moved on from or worked off of by explaining some other things, but they never did. They would just bring up the same topics as if they're bringing it up first the first time while also stopping at the same pots, never explaining it further. Again, while I like this story, my main problem with it was the lack of story explanation and that adoption dilemma really got to me.

This has some cute moments. Nothing super important other than one of the main dudes getting sick, but it was handled more comedic than anything. It is one of the books from Junko that I hope gets a physical release in English. While I did like the main couple and their struggle to say how they felt, I was way more interested in the other two who got that small bit of story at the end. I would love to see them get a whole book because they seem like they're carrying baggage and I wanted some angst in this book.

This has some cute moments. Nothing super important other than one of the main dudes getting sick, but it was handled more comedic than anything. It is one of the books from Junko that I hope gets a physical release in English. While I did like the main couple and their struggle to say how they felt, I was way more interested in the other two who got that small bit of story at the end. I would love to see them get a whole book because they seem like they're carrying baggage and I wanted some angst in this book.

It was alright. Really adorable if a little boring. I wish there was a bit more involving the yo-kai and the fact that they kept recapping the beginning of chapter 1 for the next 3 chapters was really annoying. I would have loved to have seen them go to see his parents, introducing Rin, and trying to rekindle a relationship with his family. Even his brother was on board with helping to make the family whole again. Maybe even a newer family photo with Rin in it? That would have been cute.

Speaking of cute, that chapter 5 oneshot was not. Guilt tripping, manipulation, and rape? In a chill story like this, that oneshot was out of pocket and disgusting.

Update: Old review that might not read well or make since. I will be updating my thoughts on a reread but the star rating stays the same.

I really hope this gets an official translation (update: it got an official english translation) because this was such a cute story to read, I'm definitely buying the physical Japanese soon.

I did have a problem with how the apology went down with one of them (don't remember who, this is an old review) trying to force the other to do something sexual that the other person wasn't fully comfortable with. I mean, I'm glad they showed how pissed off the other was about being forced, but the way the apology was written felt so dead as if the author wanted to get straight to a sex scene. They could have spent more time making that apology much more emotional and believable especially when he got what he wanted in the end. That sort of bothered me.

I had so much interest in the beginning but by the middle of chapter 3 I kinda just lost any interest. Maybe it was because of the bullshit vampire stuff or maybe I couldn't keep going after I found myself hating the writing of both chapters 1 and 2.

Chapter 1 was, like fine but a lower grade kind of fine. But ch.2 literally took me more than 2 days to even want to finish. Not sure if the stories are any good. I was promised something "sad" but the only thing sad was how long it took me to drop this manga.

… Bruh. I’m so happy about this getting a physical release really soon because this just became one of my favorite manga. I’m gonna start with the only problem I had about this story and that’s the amount of affection Yutaka had towards Tane. You can kind of understand why Yutaka was at peace around Tane because of his backstory but the author didn’t give Tane much of a similar connection to kid!Yutaka to justify why he’s happy to see Tane happy and it comes off as a little creepy.

I know the author wasn’t trying to write him that way, but without Yutaka talking about how he wished he was as happy as Tane is as a kid and/or showing that Yutaka is really good with kids in general to make a good father figure is a missed opportunity to me. Yutaka’s childhood was a lot for him, so much that even eating in front of people was uncomfortable. But after meeting Tane and Minoru and having that “found family” moment was he really able to be happy and feel like he was part of a family. In that sense, I can also see why he cared for Tane like a son/little brother. It just wasn’t written well enough to 100% convey that affection.

Other than that, I loved this story. I love the characters and how it focused on their development. I also love Tane’s crush on Yutaka as it’s very clear from the start to see it and made me laugh. The time skip was very adorable and I thank them for writing that bit in.

Update: Old review that might not read well or make since. I will be updating my thoughts on a reread but the star rating stays the same.

Eh... I don't think these stories were all that great but they weren't boring or a pain to read through. I personally did not like Wataru (the idol that was dating his manager) as his character was the "possessive" or "manipulative" boyfriend. I'm not here for that. Also, chapter 10 meant nothing and didn't need to be there.