White Cup

STORY: 3 There isn’t really time for any story here, since it’s a nine paged one shot. Everything and everyone is mysterious, which is kind of cool, but pretty eerie in a spine-chilling way. Conveniently, the main character boy is walking around with a bottle of sake in the middle of nowhere for no apparent reason other than to be BL fodder. The story seems pretentious, with vague allusions to drinking sake and the memory of what takes place. ART: 9 The art style is good-looking and has beautiful toning. I liked the pacing and how the panels were composed, though they rarely varied from its usual rectangularframes. The bad thing is that the setting is a forest at night, but the backgrounds frequently turn into white abyss, taking away from the feeling of the unknown. CHARACTERS: 5 The characters have strange, extremely creepy personalities. As soon as the fox-masked guy comes, you can tell that he has a disturbing ulterior motive. The little boy keeps switching between naïve and quiet to angrily yelling. ENJOYMENT: 3 This manga made me uncomfortable. It felt dirty to read how the boy was taken advantage of, but it didn’t even affect him negatively at all. The plot basically seemed like an adult messing with a kid is an okay thing to happen, since the fox-masked guy paid for the act with a sake cup and it was a “prank.” OVERALL: 6 I wouldn’t recommend this to anyone. I’ve read many BL’s, but this one hit a nerve and made me feel like a bad human being to have read this. I guess if you’re fine with stories about underage boys with men, then the story serves that purpose. The only good thing I can say is I’m glad it wasn’t worse.