Let me just start off by saying that this whole "the leading male is abusive" thing is a huge exaggeration if not a flat-out lie. If you don't believe me, flip through the entire series. You will not find a single abusive encounter between Kaya and Kyohei; I stand by my word on that. Not once in this manga is the leading lady hit, cursed at, talked down to, raped, forced to take drugs or coerced into doing anything that she does not want to do. She chose to be with Kyohei. Yes, "CHOSE" being the operative word (right there in big bold letters). That is what adults do: make choices. Therefore, Kaya is not a victim of any kind. She sat there and deliberated on the pros and cons of taking this man as a lover (over the span of several chapters) and, despite knowing that it could come back to bite her in the ass at some point, still chose to be with him. She LITERALLY said she was prepared to deal with the fallout from the consequences of her actions, so what is all the hate even about?
Sure, the leading male is possessive and stand-offish. I'm not saying that he isn't. And no, he doesn't treat Kaya like a special snowflake, but here's the kicker, folks: of course he's going to treat her as "less than" in the beginning because
DUDE'S...NOT...EVEN...HUMAN PEOPLE! HE'S A FREAKING VAMPIRE THAT WAS RAISED TO VIEW HUMANS AS SOURCES OF FOOD AND PLEASURE AND ON OCCASION AS BABY FACTORIES. He was raised to look down on ALL humans. It's a pretty simple concept to understand (human woman prompts human feelings from a non-human being in the end), yet people seem to miss the point time and again, and I just don't understand it... And all those other good guys that Kaya had to choose from? Yeah...there was a grand total of one guy that expressed romantic interest in her aside from Kyohei--one. Also, yes, he fools around with lots of women but again, he's a vampire. Sensuality and feeding kind of goes hand-in-hand with their kind. Why is that still surprising to anyone at this point? O__o?? And did you see the types he went for? I can assure you that their virtues were long gone prior to their encounters with Kyohei. :/ He also stopped seeing other women waaaaay before Kaya even realized. She didn't even bring up the issue of fidelity; he decided to do so because he couldn't accept being with any other woman but her, opting to drink "fake" blood--that he hated but took like a champ--instead. I know! What a selfish bastard. Right?
Kyohei wasn't even raised with the same moral standards as others, so how do you expect him to act like prince charming? And for those who are saying the leading female is weak, do you know how many Japanese women can relate to this woman? Do you understand that generally, demeanor and moral values in Japan differ from those of Western countries? Many Japanese women are not out-spoken or assertive or demanding; not just the women, a lot of men do not behave that way either. Generally, they are very conscientious of their behavior and try not to stick out or be a bother to anyone. This manga was written from a completely Japanese point-of-view . Which brings me to my next point. I don't know how many times I've read interviews where manga/doujin artists say that they're either hesitant or flat-out do not want their works being translated in western countries for two main reasons (there are more, but...):
1)Because everything from nuances to important chunks of info get lost in translation
2)Because people won't be able to understand a story that's being told from a Japanese perspective. In other words, they'll miss the point...
And after reading all the reviews about the Kyohei being abusive--when he's actually nothing more than a spoiled brat--and Kaya being weak--when she's actually quite ballsy for making her bed and sleeping in it--well, I think I can actually see where those artists were coming from. And I agree with them. It's one thing to review a manga for its flaws, but it's another thing when you start bringing in all the misplaced social commentary. It's silly...
All that being said, I liked this series. The dark shading of the art really compliments the overall tone of the manga. Also, I think the pacing was great considering its volume span, and I appreciated the extra follow-up story about the female...I can't remember her name. That was a pretty good little bonus. What I liked most was the fact that Kaya didn't feel the need to "change" Kyohei and simply "accept" him instead. Kyohei isn't my type. He was selfish but not detestable and no where near the worst that I've seen thus far. Apparently, Kaya felt like he was worth fighting for though, so hats off to her on that one. There were many questions that this series left me with, which is why it gets a 7.5, so I was a little irked about that. I enjoyed this series overall though.
'Midnight Secretary' is not a generic love-love, romcom manga, and the conflict was legit (differences in culture and race, etc.), so I was actually pretty impressed. It did have plenty of romance clichés, and some of the romantic dialogue was a little corny, but I still liked this series overall. It wasn't just silliness everywhere I turned, which is percisely why I prefer Josei and Seinen.
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