Suspenseful Romance / Dark temptation

orig chapter 22 -> *edit chapter 62

!!Minor or Major spoiler!!
A man and his daughter’s friend… (shhhhh)… you imagine…

Have you wished or ever wish that you can commit an action without thinking about the consequence?
For this, the answer should be yes.
But… why didn’t you or most of you follow through? And why not?
Perhaps, due to social norms and expectations, you decide that committing something risky isn’t worth breaking your tranquility or reputation.

Yet, for this manga, something is different, unusual, and even unsettling. The age gap and violation of social consensus are the elements that create the ambiance of dark temptation.

Story: 7.5
I love the plot of the story. Even though the story itself is relatively simple (-1)(since there is no need for innovative background setup), it is so dark, yet mesmerizing. No law prohibits a man from loving his own daughter’s friend or his own daughter’s friend from loving him; however, as a result of the norms and expectations, this love isn’t right and shouldn’t occur in the first place.

The story flows well, and almost every chapter ends with suspense. Nevertheless, because it is relatively new, -1.5 on potential error (huge deviation on this one as the man’s daughter can cause a huge fluctuation on the story rating). But as for now, the story is actually decent.


Art: 8
Not the best as the background can be bland, and the art style can be a little more detailed and clean. But, it is better than normal for sure and won’t hinder my enjoyment of reading this manga piece.


Characters: 8 or 10
There are three main characters in this story + a huge side character
1. [Dad]
Not-so-perfect dad who didn’t know how to deal with his familial situations, and a workaholic who turned out to be extremely stressed about his job
2. [Daughter]
Had to endure with her mother’s death and deal with dad’s “seemingly apathetic” attitude.
3. [Daughter’s friend]
Forced to be her mother’s version of a “perfect” daughter. A caged bird that want to be free.
4. THE side character -> [Daughter’s friend’s mom]
Basically a near-exact replica of the mom from “Chi no Wadachi”…

The characters do have backgrounds and motives that cause them to act a certain way. As the story goes on, the mangaka is able to add on more layers on top of the characters. Yet, there can still be fluctuations as there will be more side characters come into play so I will give it a conservative 8 for this category.


Enjoyment: 10 -> 6
I finished 22 chapters immediately without hesitation. Literally felt goosebumps and wanted to shout “Holy S**T” at the end of every chapter.

*Unsatisfied ending drops the score by a lot


Overall: 8.5 -> 7
Personally, this is a must-follow on my manga list. Period. However, I understand that this manga is not suitable for all the manga readers since it is completely going to fend off the readers who are conservative.

This will not be a mainstream manga, and it is impossible to get an animation adaptation out of this due to its theme.

HOWEVER, this manga is special for readers who love this particular niche or category (the scandalous or the dark side of society).

________________________________________________________
*
Having followed this manga since the very beginning, it is sad that middle-to-end story line and the ending didn't match up with the hype of the beginning. Perhaps, due to controversies coming from the Japanese society's perception toward this manga (as expected), I personally feel that the mangaka just couldn't dish out the story that he originally wanted. Everything in the end feel a bit too predictable, which is drastically different from the original reading experience. Also, the open-ended finish of this manga definitely shows that it is up to us to decide what will happen to them, which means that it will generate less controversies since one sided conclusion will garner polarized opinions (extremely uncharacteristic of how I feel when I started reading this manga due to the fact that this manga is trying to show the society of what if things don't go as planned)

Fantastic start. Great Beginning to mid. Predictable and dull mid to end. Unsatisfied and disappointing ending. I will give it a 7