Minoru Furuya

This series has weird shifts as it swerves back and forth between sweet young love and cheap thrills and exploitation.

Just as the romantic leads start developing their relationship things are interrupted by a kidnapping thriller that ends ambiguously. Before the repercussions of that are fully dealt with it takes an abrupt turn into misogyny as a main character is raped and then sexually harassed in ways that seem intended more for audience pandering than organic growth of the story or character.

Where the hell is this going? I'll probably pick up the final volume to find out, but I'm still reeling from a sense of betrayal right now.… (altro)

The weird tone of this seinen manga makes it compelling despite the thin and slow story. Yusuke Ogino and his classmate Takao Takai are being severely bullied by a guy named Taniwaki. They keep their spirits up by dreaming of the motorcycles they hope to one day own. At the driver's license school, Ogino crushes on cute girl he occasionally sees. Despite his best efforts to remain a loser, somehow things start breaking Ogino's way, and romance and an end to bullying may be in sight.

Suddenly, Ogino is a horndog and Takai is plotting revenge, and there's a sense of dread hanging over what seems like a giddy romance. Sweetness is offset with bitterness, chasteness with perversion, and positivity with brutal reality. I'm getting whiplash.

I've put a hold on the second volume at my library, but it's not scheduled to come out for a couple more months.… (altro)