Aiyaaaa 😭
Literally all I can say after finishing these because gooooood lord. Starting from when he lead her to the back and she starting mentally preparing herself to "get it over with and go home" I was already getting nauseous and had to stop. Then I had to stop again when it looked like she was really about to disassociate and get raped while Aki's busted body was right next to her.
Couldn't even feel good that his melon got busted because of how much trauma it put Marie through to make sure she nor Aki could be victimized by him again. There's no catharsis, just a sense of "that's one danger down, where's the next?"
This is just so miserable rn. I'm used to this site tagging sexual violence for stuff as "light" as a nonconsensual kiss so I may have dropped my guard. Idk, I get they want to contrast the veneer of bubbly perfection in Marie's daily life with darkness...as hesitant as I was to believe it to be misery porn, Aki was literally being filmed for torture porn. They couldn't be more on the nose.
That said, it's interesting that Marie says that Aki is so unlike the "present day" her. Obviously her cornered prey moment in the end explained that but I do believe it was the first time Marie acknowledged that she used to be like Aki.
Also the art looks like the love child of Dorothy (Aizawa-san) and whoever does Guy She's Interested in Isn't a Guy at All. Really interesting and visually appealing!
Just...aiya 😭 With all the ways to give someone a dark and miserable background, I just wish when women were involved it wasn't almost always the sexual abuse that authors reach for. Even done well, it's just so rarely necessary, and there's plenty of others ways to set the same tone