It just occurred to me that I hadn’t read this story until I saw the sequel and mistakenly thought it was a sequel to “Her Trap.”
So having read the “1 year later” update to their story first, the experience reading this was quite different in that it made it look a bit less dark than it would’ve been if I read this first/as a stand-alone.
Cause, obviously, the crap Akari pulled was just a foot past Red Flag territory. But seeing Misaki turn down her crap fast, just blatantly show she wasn’t going to take that bullshit makes me think that while she’s shy, she isn’t a doormat.
And, of course, seeing the sequel just makes me think that while Akari has the potential to be a creepy assed character, that it’s more likely she’s just a tad socially inept, has poor communication skills, and is dealing with trauma.
(But, I say that about Akari as a character and after seeing Secret of Secret. Cause if that happened in real life just fucking run.)
This story is a weird one, and doubly so after reading the sequel.
It would have been incredibly easy for the script to make it clear that Akari only meant, "I feel like locking you in because I'm so desperate not to lose you." But in fact the story presents her as a bona-fide insane kidnapper who is saved from a major felony charge only by Misaki's "I love you too, you big dummy" reversal.
And then in the sequel they revert to being cute useless lesbians as if none of that "You'll find those doors only work one way, so now I have you at my mercy, my pretty-pretty" stuff ever happened.
