Bullied

nathandouglasdavis Feb 15, 2022

1

I don't like the way this story was framed. It starts out with Kuriko recounting feir past to Yutaro, specifically saying "I can't marry you when I'm still hiding the past." But that sentence implies that Kuriko might be okay with the idea of marrying Yutaro in some circumstances. Kuriko should've just said, "No." And from a narrative point of view, the author could've just not included Yutaro within this story at all, but instead the author chose to mislead the readers in the beginning to then allow for a plot twist later on. But this type of plot twist--one that comes about because of forced misdirection and unrealistic characterizations and dialogue--is the most pathetic type of plot twist. And then everything after that twist felt pretty predictable and not particularly interesting. Like, obviously Naoya and Kuriko are both assholes and horrible people. But the ending doesn't create any sense of terror or discomfort in me. It's just like, "yea, okay, sure." It's not completely off the wall, cause mental instability does exist, but it also deals with it in an extremely shallow and simplistic way (part of the problem with being a one shot). The earlier, childhood bullying is portrayed pretty well though, especially how it shows that people can get a taste for cruelty and power trips. It's just that everything after the plot twist--and the framing which allowed for the plot twist to occur--is crap and kinda ruins the story as a whole.