Mimi

I knew this wasn't gonna be for me when I saw it was about someone who was sent to be sacrificed. I tend to not like that kind of storyline... But I did not know that the lovey-dovey feeling between the two started while Taro was so young. On top of the fact that the Uru is basically his adopted father had me questioning if I should just leave right now. I got halfway and then just started skimming pages to understand the whole picture better.

I don't see how this has such high ratings. I think because on the surface the romantic feelings look very one-sided and the art's pretty. Uru is caring for this kid as his adopted child. Taro, however, has loved him for years. Uru trying to play up how dangerous he is as a beast while also making sure Taro is safe which is cute. It's very fatherly and that's adorable but his affection is growing for Taro while he's still a kid. Nothing really happened until he's an adult but everything leading up to that is completely uncomfortable.

Funny enough, my final straw was the fact that the wolfman doesn't stay a werewolf by the end of the story. That sucks and is not a plotline I want to read about beast people.

I knew this wasn't gonna be for me when I saw it was about someone who was sent to be sacrificed. I tend to not like that kind of storyline... But I did not know that the lovey-dovey feeling between the two started while Taro was so young. On top of the fact that the Uru is basically his adopted father had me questioning if I should just leave right now. I got halfway and then just started skimming pages to understand the whole picture better.

I don't see how this has such high ratings. I think because on the surface the romantic feelings look very one-sided and the art's pretty. Uru is caring for this kid as his adopted child. Taro, however, has loved him for years. Uru trying to play up how dangerous he is as a beast while also making sure Taro is safe which is cute. It's very fatherly and that's adorable but his affection is growing for Taro while he's still a kid. Nothing really happened until he's an adult but everything leading up to that is completely uncomfortable.

Funny enough, my final straw was the fact that the wolfman doesn't stay a werewolf by the end of the story. That sucks and is not a plotline I want to read about beast people.

Ugh, it's a weird feeling right off the bat for me. The romance and plot moved too quickly to the point where I didn't really care about either of them enough for any of the emotional moments to hit me. There's also the looming uncomfortableness for me of Tsugumo being a kit when he died. Him retaining that personality, behavior, and knowledge as a deity made all the sexual stuff just hard to read for me even after the time skip.

Really gave me Kingyo no Ubugoe vibes which was an absolutely horrible feeling.

I don't know why I'm determined to like a Nagabe manga. I want to love his work but the last 2 haven't been very favorable to me and I'm still aiming to read EAT knowing I really shouldn't. I love this world he's building and some of the stories in this book are great, but there's themes and dialogue choices he chooses that bother me so much that it impacts my enjoyment.

What I did love about this was its world and having each story connect since it's taking place in the same academy. You see the same characters in other's stories and it gives it this anime feel. This whole manga reads like season 1 of an anime, I can see this working well as an anime. I liked that by the time Cromwell got his own story we got to get to his personality well enough to perfectly play off Benjamin.

Out of the 8 stories, I ended up liking stories 4, 7, and 8 the most.

My very basic thoughts I was having while reading.

Story 1:

I don't know, man. I don't tend to like love potions and stuff like that because of the whole “removing of one's free will" and all that jazz... I think Alan should've thrown him out the window, but that's just me.

Sad, I really like both of these characters visually.

Story 2:

Honestly liked this story better than the first one but didn't like how that chapter ended. Loved Nicol's kink awakening. Good for him.

Story 3:

Skipped it. Student/Teacher relationship. Also, because there weren't any ages being said or signs of whether this was a “high school" academy or a “college" academy I just felt very uncomfortable reading this story.

Story 4:

Cute. Cute. Cute. Cute. This one's my favorite so far. It was super sweet and very warm, I'd love to read more of them.

Story 5:

Doug sucks and I gave Huey Mandark's voice in my head so I ended up hating them both by the end. I am suffering.

Story 6:

... This one was kind of just weird. For starters, Nagabe, I did not need to see that. But the kissing bit after that felt... weird. The way it was written was like when two 10 year olds find out what kissing is and try it together. It. Felt. Weird.

Update after reading ch7 - WAIT, THEY ARE KIDS?! LIKE “KIDS" KIDS!? LIKE “THEY PROBABLY ACTUALLY ARE THE EQUIVALENT OF 10 YEARS OLD" KIDS???!!

Story 7:

It started out kind of “what the fuck? why would you say that?" But it's ending with me asking for a full spin-off manga for these two in particular. Go figure that the story featuring two older men got the least amount of screen time...

Story 8:

Yo? OOOOOHH?! OHMYGOD!! A HUMAN!! AAAAAHH!??? SO THEY ARE STILL HERE!? I mean, I guess I didn't think they were gone completely but was I right about the World of Darkness analogy? Are there really still humans who live in the city parts of the world?? Nagabe!?

The LOOOORE!!! I want to know more about how divided human and beast folk are! What do they think of each other? Either way, favorite story out of the 3 I liked. Super cute, audibly made me “awe", I love both of these characters so much.

3.5 for the "Escalate" oneshot

3 for the "Monotone Blue" manga

The fact that I'm still going to try and find a physical copy so I can this on my shelf kind of pisses me off because I don't think I like this as much as I wanted to. More importantly, I don't like Hachi.

The oneshot was kind of nothing but I liked how both of them were on mutual grounds about the whole thing. Now it felt like Hachi was being pushy and selfish while Aoi was much more timid compared to his oneshot self. I don't mind Aoi as much but Hachi's change turned him into a character I personally hate. Possessive, aggressive, and selfish. I get that he's a cat and the way Nagabe writes anthro characters seems to have more animalistic traits and behaviors, but I just really don't like him for most of the story.

There are also times when I felt like things could've easily been explained, dodged, or dealt with more calmly. But you either had Hachi overreacting and Aoi sounding suspicious.

Yeah, by the end it was pretty sweet and I'm here for Aoi's backstory, but there were just mostly Hachi-related things that embodied things I don't like in a character.

Will update later but this 4/5 is solely for the first (cover) story and the last story. The 3 in-between were nothing and felt like they worsened this book.