無人島に持っていくなら | Mujintou ni Motte Iku Nara

Mangaka: Yamada Nichoume (山田２丁目)

Status: Completed

Volume: 1

I’ve had this book on my Kobo for the longest time that I can no longer remember what made me pick this up. I think it was the Datte Maou-sama wa Kare ga Kirai series that sparked my Yamada Nichoume phase? At the time, I was fairly new with their writing and wanted to know more. Sadly, this phase ended prematurely with Mujintou. God knows how many times I’ve tried to read this, put down, wait, restart again.

You know, it’s hard to talk about this book because I had a rough time wrapping my head around this most of the time. With each restart, I hoped that things would get a little clearer to me. But to no avail. Even after finishing it now, I’m still quite lost and confused at some parts of this one. Maybe because I wanted to like this book so much and have liked some of Yamada Nichoume’s works before that I couldn’t let myself think that this book somehow disappointed me?

Twisted Love

Akagi and Ichimori have been best friends since high school. When an accident happens to Ichimori, Akagi tells him that his best friend could make him do anything to him. That’s why, even years later, when Ichimori shows up again, Akagi allows himself to be used again.

Now, I don’t know about you, but I think this setup is just problematic.

There is something off with the pairing dynamics of Akagi and Ichimori. Under the guise of paying off the guilt, Akagi allows Ichimori to do everything to him, including sex. But that seems okay if you also have feelings with your best friend. Yet, there’s always that twinge of guilt that comes after feeling happy. If that doesn’t make it worse, Ichimori sort of planned it so Akagi would do his bidding. That kind of manipulation is a turn off for me. But it’s not like Ichimori takes all the blame because Akagi is just as guilty for using the situation to his advantage.

When Ichimori shows up again, all happy, imposing himself to Akagi, his best friend is attacked with guilt once more. Then we learn the reason he comes back, and at that point, I’m just confused. Not because I changed my mind and thought that he was a good person, but it is that I finally understood that they are twisted individuals with their equally twisted sense of loving each other. It makes their ending palatable because their kind of love works for them. Though I’m not sure if this ever works for me when they could have sat down and actually talked, not just plotting their emotional manipulating moves.

One thing that the story fails to show or what I would have wanted to see is Akagi fails to stand up for himself. He relies, yet again, on Ichimori to sort out his problem which is another debt to Ichimori, another reason to make him knight in shining armor when he’s more of the dark knight.

The second pairing is just as problematic

There is another pairing in this book, and just like the first couple, this pair have their own twisted way of loving one another… if you can call it love. Because I didn’t feel the chemistry, and they feel like they just randomly fall in love with each other. This should be lighter than the first and funnier, but I was just hella confused. Hisakuni is the respectable CEO to his colleagues but totally childish to his bodyguard-slash-childhood-friend. Like it is his way of getting his crush’s attention? Anyway, he isn’t able to get my attention with that. I wish I liked this more, but I did my best.

I love the art, I really really do. It’s such a shame that the story doesn’t live up to that.

This is for… (✯◡✯)

☑️ NOT FOR EVERYONE

☑️ Friends-to-lovers

☑️ Office romance

☑️ Smut