Thursday, May 20, 2021

REVIEW: Blooming Doll (e-manga) by Seika Kisaragi

Blooming Doll is a one-shot yaoi manga. I got it as part of a Humble Bundle.

This includes slight spoilers.

Review:

Alex Bulford is a rich businessman who recently had to hire a bodyguard, Yuki, due to threats he's been receiving. Alex is initially frustrated with the constraints that Yuki's constant presence puts on him, as well as with Yuki's stiff and emotionless manner, but he starts to warm up to Yuki after learning more about him.

Oh man, this was pretty bad. Characters that didn't make much sense, a "serious" storyline that was made unintentionally amusing due to how badly it was executed, a weak attempt at romance, and three pages of badly drawn sex.

The character anatomy defied logic, and I'm not talking about the sex. There was a panel where the angle made Yuki look like a weird quadraped, and I think a person would either have to be a dancer or have several bones broken for their feet to do what Yuki's did when Alex carried him. Also, the seriousness of the scene in which Yuki's past was revealed was ruined by the ridiculousness of a child holding what appeared to be a gun made for an adult (could he even have pulled the trigger?).

Alex was annoying, and his stupidity really should have gotten him killed. Why would you hire a bodyguard and then ditch them or send them away whenever possible? And then when he finally unbent and allowed Yuki to be in a position to do his job, he still wouldn't allow him to actually do his job and ended up taking a bullet in his place. To make things worse, the story managed to work in some stupid gender stereotyping - Yuki dressed as a woman and pretended to be Alex's date at a party where bodyguards weren't allowed (who'd go to something like that if they needed a bodyguard??), which, visually, made Alex the "strong man protecting his girlfriend" when the action started, instead of "the idiot who wouldn't let his bodyguard do his job."

This was just weak overall, and I can't think of any reasons I'd ever recommend it.

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