dude-watching with the brontes

Holy fuck. I remembered HOT GIMMICK as being basically a series about how ~~~romantic~~~ an intensely abusive relationship is, but I completely forgot exactly how abusive Ryoki is. I am just like WHAT every third chapter. At least. WHAT. WHAT.

Which is sad, because there are certain aspects that are kind of endearing/interesting to me (by which I mean "Incredibly spoiled boy is bad at feelings. Attempts to have relationship. Continues to be terrible at feelings and also at interacting with other human beings in any sort of meaningful way"). So I'm like, wow, this would be awesome if it weren't for all the coercion, and controlling behavior. I'm sure "faily dickbag in love" is possible to write without it turning into, well, this nonsense.

(Although weirdly, I am more pissed off about the fact that Azusa and Hatsumi end up being friendly again after that fucked up crap he pulled on her early in the series. WHO EVEN DOES THAT.)

Also, also, I remain immensely irritated by that tendency of stories to be like "Oh, well, this one sibling is conveniently adopted so it's not like it's ~really~ incest if he's in love with his sister." Dude. He grew up thinking of her as a sibling. I don't care if they're not actually blood relatives, that's some incest right there is what that is.

(On the plus side, Akane and Subaru are kind of great?)