Apr 27, 2022
Like many people, I was intrigued by the premise having seen an ad for the anime on Youtube, and wound up reading the manga followed by all eight (8) volumes of the Light Novel (thanks Hellping) because I grew invested in the story.
If I was to sum up the pith of the narrative, it is about two people finding their place with each other as sibilings / potential lovers, despite carrying the baggage of having broken up with each other some two weeks before the main narrative begins. The key questions are: what does it mean to be a lover, where does the line
...
between former lovers / family get blurred, and the inbetween.
I will admit, while I was initially thrilled by the direction taken by the author for the first 6 - 7 volumes, I slowly came to realise what a train-wreck of a story it started to grow into by the final and most recent volume (8).
Being primarily a romance story, I will focus on that aspect in this review to see if it holds water as a "romance" story.
In terms of the romance between the titular main couple,
[spoiler]
my humble opinion is that the author has either totally lost the plot, or has decided, rather disingenuously, to string readers along with a patently meaningless love triangle, particularly WRT Isana, whom the author has expressly said in various of his afterwords for the earlier volumes, that she wasn't even in the race to begin with.
Having read all of the author's afterwords in from Vol. 1 - 7, and then finally reading Volume 8, I cannot help but feel that the author has totally betrayed his characterisation of the Mizuto in a complete volte face by causing him to suddenly develop feelings for Isana, when at least up to to the end of Vol 7, Mizuto states in no uncertain terms that he is interested / loves Yume.
I can appreciate that "love" is a complex things. Sometimes "side-baes" or love triangles in anime / manga / LNs receive characterisation so that they are not built as flat characters. And to that end, it is true that Mizuto condoning Isana's flirtations towards him ARE the source of his own destruction / the destruction of the Mizuto / Yume ship... but what I cannot accept is that the author has simply written Mizuto as a character that repeats again and again that he has no feelings for Isana, and that he has eyes only for Yume, and yet that catastrophe that was Vol. 8 could happen.
This coupled by the fact that the author's afterwords from Vol. 6 onwards seem to imply (to me at least) that he is extending the story for the sake of it. Money? Unclear... but this feels like a sus callback to what is happening with feaking Oregairu and its money-eyed author.
Call it "realistic" writing, but I feel cheated. [/spoiler]
*edited to make spoiler section clear - don't know how to blank out the spoiler portions.
Reviewer’s Rating: 4
What did you think of this review?
Nice
0
Love it
0
Funny
0
Confusing
0
Well-written
0
Creative
0Show all