I remember passing on this manga years ago because I was a little put off by the art. I finally gave it a shot, and I really enjoyed it. The art was beautiful and complimented the serious nature of the story. It was nice to have realistic male characters like Ryuuji and Den-san. I'm personally not too fond of the yuri trope that all men are human garbage that exist solely to traumatize women. In my opinion, a well written male character can add a lot of depth to a yuri story. Unless there's a het ending. That filth is the worst crime imaginable in yuri.
Rutsu really got on my nerves the longer she strung along Ryuuji and Tamaki. My heart ached for both of them as the deception continued. However, I could see why Rutsu felt the need to keep lying. Rutsu knew that Ryuuji was madly in love with her and couldn't bring herself to hurt him. Even though she didn't love him, she still cared deeply about his feelings. Of course this meant that Rutsu had to lie about breaking up to Tamaki. Tamaki was right when she said Rutsu wanted to have her cake and eat it too.
It seemed like the author was really pushing for the fated, happy ending. Normally, I would prefer the "happily ever after", but this is one of the only manga where I would have liked to see a tragic ending. Even though Rutsu's actions were understandable, she didn't think about the consequences of those actions. Rutsu couldn't even manage to give Ryuuji a proper apology. The best he got was, "by the way, I liked the sex". Also, if Tamaki was the protagonist instead, then the dramatic twist would be that Rutsu was cheating on her with a man. Ryuuji and Tamaki were the real heroes of this manga for me. Rutsu didn't deserve their love, patience, and forgiveness.
That said, the flaws were why the characters seemed so real. Confusion, love, happiness, heartbreak, regret... Ebine perfectly captured these emotions and more in this manga.
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