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i don’t usually leave reviews on this website, mostly because in general i don’t tend to feel the need to state ‘this was good’ or ‘this was bad’ after watching something, but after reading other people’s positive reviews i felt it necessary to leave my negative one.
frankly, this felt like a waste of my 100 minutes. to be fair, my friend and i weren’t taking the idea of watching it entirely seriously, but once i was strapped into the rollercoaster ride of the story, i was hooked, except… not in a good way.
when i say i found this endlessly frustrating to watch, i mean ... it. it’s not that i’m not willing to engage with media that delves into darker topics, or that sympathizes with bad people. but this just… wow. i’m honestly incredibly confused by how people are giving this such good reviews. to be fair! the backgrounds are quite nice, great coloring, and decent small bits of animation throughout, even if the version i watched had very low quality.
but even then the story itself just… it’s not that it’s hard to follow. it’s actually very easy to follow. and it’s not that i don’t get what it’s *trying* to do, it’s that i literally just can’t agree with what it’s trying to do.
i cannot take it seriously at the end when it tries to frame this as some tragic yet beautiful love story. maybe *i’m* the idiot, but if there’s some nuance from the manga here im missing, or maybe i just “watched this wrong” but im just not seeing whatever everyone else is.
lots of yaoi is toxic and, frankly, compared to others, this isn’t even technically the worst that exists, morally. but just because the OVA itself likes to justify it by comparisons, i’m not going to excuse unethical romance just because there’s worse options out there.
ultimately, i cannot take it seriously. it tries to paint the slaveowner, as the one who’s just misunderstood and while possessive, he’s just a guy in love, he only treats riki like shit and not a human being cause he’s so in LOVE with him. god, i could vomit.
i know plenty of yaoi has the whole rapey thing going on, but christ, it never gets more comfortable to watch a character get treated the way riki does throughout this entire thing. i was so incredibly miserable for him the entire 100 minutes, and was frankly incredibly annoyed with the author clearly trying to get me to sympathize with his abuser and dislike the guy who’s trying to save him- it feels EXTREMELY obvious as they try to go ‘see, the guy making riki his slave isn’t SO bad!’ and ‘see, the guy who wants to save him is ACTUALLY not as good of a person’ as if this is some kind of deep nuance when it felt silly to watch. not even that i couldn’t believe the characters were realistic, but rather i couldn’t buy what the OVA was clearly trying to peddle me.
all in all, the world these characters live in is a miserable and unethical one, in which the story is trying to convince me the “”love”” between a master and slave is *ACTUALLY* something tragic, beautiful, heartbreaking, etc. i just could not buy it. and nothing about the characterization of the slave owner was making me go ‘oh wow, he’s not so bad AFTER ALL!’ honestly, i doubt anything could have, but certainly not hearing the other characters talk about his allegedly good personality traits. like sorry no, i’m not going to take you waxing poetic about how it lowers his standing in society to have a ‘mongrel pet’ is actually a ‘risk’ for him, and use that as some ridiculous reason as to the way he treats riki is actually BEAUTIFUL in a way. like give me a break lol!
maybe one day i’ll understand why people like this. it’s not that i’m against the idea of complex, nuanced, dark topics but this just felt like 100 minutes of an unethical, frankly miserable-to-watch experience. i don’t even my media to be ethical, or even good. but something about it has to work for me, and other than the music and some of the visuals, nothing here was working for me.
to round off this, frankly too long review, if you like it because you’re seeing something in the story i’m not, that’s fine. even if you like it just cause it’s what you’re ‘into’ (if you get what i mean) that’s also fine. but for me, i just could not find anything to enjoy about this story and honestly, feel like i was going insane reading all the positive reviews. this is just my personal experience that i wanted to share. thanks and have a good day, if you somehow read a review THIS long.