Opium

This is a vertical-scrolling web-comic drama (non)romance. Instead of romance it's mostly shallow toxic manipulators as a pretext for drama, and further instead of romantic coupling the (non)romance is a shallow excuse to objectify women through repetitive soft-pornography by depicting the female characters naked having sex with each other half the time. One might be interested in this for its historical-medical setting, however, despite the main characters being doctors there is barely any of that present until the second half. For the first half the characters may as well be standing in a void of a house chatting for all that actually happens. Worst of allis that this web-comic is so crammed full of filler that beyond the spoiler achronology bait-and-switch opening, the first (long) dozen+ chapters are almost entirely scene-setting/character-setting filler to convey barely a plot-point before eventually a little conflict finally starts bubbling up to (slowly) start the actual story halfway through. Even the web-comic paneling itself is so damn full of literal empty space filler on every single page that scrolling through it is painfully, frustratingly, inefficiently slow. I was constantly begging the authors to just get to the damn point of literally every scene in the first half. How tf am I half-way through this when barely anything has happened and the story's intro already spoiled stuff of its apparently 1-note plot that still hasn't even happened yet?! 1/10 (where 5/10 is average) The above was my review from the first 21 chapters when I decided to drop it. I decided to keep going and it got much better almost immediately since the plot, romance, medicine, opium, etc. actually starts around then. 𝗛𝗮𝘃𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗳𝗶𝗻𝗶𝘀𝗵𝗲𝗱 𝗶𝘁, 𝗮𝗹𝗹𝗼𝘄 𝗺𝗲 𝘁𝗼 𝗴𝗶𝘃𝗲 𝘆𝗼𝘂 𝗮 𝗯𝗿𝗶𝗲𝗳 𝗮𝗻𝘁𝗶-𝘀𝗽𝗼𝗶𝗹𝗲𝗿 𝗴𝘂𝗶𝗱𝗲 𝘁𝗼 𝘃𝗮𝘀𝘁𝗹𝘆 𝗶𝗺𝗽𝗿𝗼𝘃𝗲 𝗼𝗻𝗲'𝘀 𝗿𝗲𝗮𝗱𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗲𝘅𝗽𝗲𝗿𝗶𝗲𝗻𝗰𝗲 𝗯𝗲𝗰𝗮𝘂𝘀𝗲 𝘁𝗵𝗶𝘀 𝘄𝗲𝗯-𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗶𝗰 𝘄𝗶𝗹𝗹 𝘁𝗿𝘆 𝘁𝗼 𝘀𝗽𝗼𝗶𝗹 𝗶𝘁𝘀𝗲𝗹𝗳: The 𝗰𝗵.𝟬 𝗽𝗿𝗼𝗹𝗼𝗴𝘂𝗲 starts off as some background scene-setting worth reading, then it 𝘀𝗽𝗼𝗶𝗹𝘀 𝘆𝗼𝘂 𝗮𝘀 𝗶𝘁 𝗿𝗮𝗽𝗶𝗱𝗹𝘆 𝘀𝘂𝗺𝗺𝗮𝗿𝗶𝘇𝗲𝘀 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝘀𝘂𝗯𝘀𝗲𝗾𝘂𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝗰𝗵𝗮𝗽𝘁𝗲𝗿𝘀' main character introductions and them coupling. If you don't want to waste your time reading through a dozen filler chapters just read that summary of it, but you should 𝗗𝗘𝗙𝗜𝗡𝗜𝗧𝗘𝗟𝗬 𝘀𝗸𝗶𝗽 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗹𝗮𝘀𝘁 𝗳𝗲𝘄 𝗽𝗮𝗻𝗲𝗹𝘀, 𝗱𝗼 𝗻𝗼𝘁 𝗿𝗲𝗮𝗱 𝗽𝗮𝘀𝘁 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗹𝗼𝗻𝗲 𝘁𝗲𝘅𝘁 "𝗕𝗨𝗧" 𝗯𝗼𝗹𝗱 𝗶𝗻 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗰𝗲𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗿 𝗮𝘀 𝗶𝘁'𝘀 𝗮 𝗺𝗮𝘀𝘀𝗶𝘃𝗲 𝘀𝗽𝗼𝗶𝗹𝗲𝗿 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝗮𝗹𝗺𝗼𝘀𝘁 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗲𝗻𝘁𝗶𝗿𝗲 𝘀𝘁𝗼𝗿𝘆. (If you've read the prologue minus the spoiler end, value your time, and don't need to be spoonfed everything, you could safely skip to ch.8 or ch.13 to avoid filler and make the story more interesting with only minor difficulty playing catch up). 𝗰𝗵.𝟭 𝗽𝗼𝗶𝗻𝘁𝗹𝗲𝘀𝘀𝗹𝘆 𝘀𝘁𝗮𝗿𝘁𝘀 𝗼𝗳𝗳 𝘄𝗶𝘁𝗵 𝗮𝗻𝗼𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗿 𝘀𝗶𝗴𝗻𝗶𝗳𝗶𝗰𝗮𝗻𝘁 𝗮𝗰𝗵𝗿𝗼𝗻𝗼𝗹𝗼𝗴𝗶𝗰𝗮𝗹 𝘀𝗽𝗼𝗶𝗹𝗲𝗿; 𝘀𝗸𝗶𝗽 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗳𝗶𝗿𝘀𝘁 𝘀𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗿𝗮𝗹 𝗽𝗮𝗻𝗲𝗹𝘀 𝘁𝗼 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗮𝗰𝘁𝘂𝗮𝗹 𝘁𝗶𝘁𝗹𝗲 𝗰𝗮𝗿𝗱 𝘀𝘁𝗮𝗿𝘁 𝗼𝗳 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗰𝗵𝗮𝗽𝘁𝗲𝗿 to read what has already been part of the summary of ch.0. At least it starts off here somewhat interesting with more effort in both writing and art and it has ground to cover introducing everything, but feel free to skim/skip through these dozen chapters as much as you want whenever it gets boring because almost all of this is irrelevant (barely anything of these scenes nor any of these side characters being introduced will have any relevance to the story) and reduces to barely anything (easily summarized in ch.0) and the main characters as established become a bit inconsistent compared to how they are in the latter half of the story. Even when something does happen (such as ch.8) it's almost completely irrelevant to the story, and any apparent consequences are almost immediately brushed aside. Any time someone gets injured nothing changes, they get treatment and then are completely fine running around afterwards despite any superficial complaints. You'd think this story must take place over huge stretches of time but then someone'll point out that barely any time has passed at all for them. I wish I could point to a further mid-story starting point for people to skip the filler, but there are many little things/characters/events/interactions amid all that filler that are frequently referenced back to that make it difficult to jump into this story in the middle, and there is so much filler mixed in with any actual developments being dripped in across stretched out chapters that it is difficult to point to anywhere in this 1-note plot to begin. But if you're bored and skimming, see the following list of important chapters. Chapters you can to skip to: 4-5, 8, 11, 13, 15, 17, 19, 21-22, 26, 27, 31-47(end) As you can see, there's a ton of filler in the first half and much less in the second. It improves so much that if you were to take my advice to try to skip through the first half this could easily be an average or better experience. Unfortunately for me, I had to endure spoilers and filler, so it was not good. Also the ending was a bit dumb/rushed since all the antagonistic elements just cease to be taken seriously by the author so they can immediately wrap it all up. 3/10 (where 5/10 is average)