WARNING this is R15 ボーイズラブ "boys love" a.k.a shounen ai D8
I read this without knowing that the author actually tagged this as R15 boys love since in NU someone put shoujo tag instead D8 (I'm the one added the tag+description straight from the author's title page just now...) Also the author is hiding the fact trough some sly means that I didn't realize it untill I read all the chapter and see the author's tag...

The author never used gender noun (男子・弟・兄・男・彼 /妹・ 姉・彼女・女--- he/she) for one of the character in the series while having ambiguous female/male name (フォルナ: which can be transliterated as Foruna/Folna/Forna/Vorna/Volna, take your pick) for god f*cking sake D8 In the raws the MC ALWAYS mentions the character with ONLY name, Folna this Folna that D8 After rereading again I realized that the MC never mentioned breast when fawning about Foruna's appearance...

Though it seems the translator choose to reveal his gender clearly with adding gender noun "him" to replace every "Foruna" the MC used. Well reading Foruna this Foruna that every single sentence without replacing it with simpler gender noun in English seems like a drag indeed, unlike in Japanese it's a little bit more natural to use name.

I have nothing against boys love, I'm not hating the genre or something, if guys can have yuri then girls can have shounen ai, it's just I feel tricked both by the author and the lack of tag in NU... I've added the proper tag now and I hope nobody got tricked again.

And also the MC is a mentally ill mature woman turned into a boy. It's grating seeing the MC self-hate and negativity. If in Forrest Gump it's about a mentally ill man that's striving with positivity we can put our emphathy and cheer for him, but with the MC in this series I feel that anything bad happening to her/him is none other than the consequences of her/his own inactivity, how can we cheer for the MC if the MC doesn't want to do anything? Well, there's a room for character growth/improvement indeed, but with the rate the series going there's not much hope...

Ah and that abrupt setting change. I don't know where to start with... He claim that he doesn't want to hurt his family but then he choose the best option on hurting their feeling by abandoning them.

I gave up at chapter 16, perhaps it gets better. My problem with this LN's first arc,

1. All of the characters sound the same when they speak and think. It's painfully monotone.

2. The characters feel quite one-dimensional at times. And this gets emphasized more by the author's style of telling instead of showing. It feels like a character is introduced, "Character-A is the one who talks a lot" Then Character-A barely talks thereafter... But we know that Character-A is the rowdy one since we were just told so. And... more>> that's it, that's the only defining trait. As all of the characters sound the same, there's really no other defining characteristics to go by, hence why the characters feel one-dimensional.

3. The MC is un-relatable and unbelievable. If they said in her past life she had PTSD, Paranoia, Anxiety, Depression, Autism, and more then it would be slightly more believable as there is no way that the MC is just your average "boring" 24 year-old. The MC can't look at anyone in the eyes, has trouble speaking, is paranoid 24/7, acts as if she is 6 years old mentally despite being 24-30 years old at the time, etc. This becomes very easy to see when one looks at her 'problem solving' capabilities, which are non-existent. There are some basic things that a 24 year-old should be able to contemplate unless something is severely wrong.

Spoiler

The MC extremely selfish, but thinks that her selfishness is selflessness. This hypocritical and ignorant thinking leaves a sour taste in the reader's mouth.

The only thing the MC has going for her is extreme calmness under all situations, which seems to be linked to her maturity as a 24 year-old. But this is extremely wrong. Being 24 does not make you calm under all situations... rather her extreme calmness under all situations seems very disturbing, so probably add another mental disability to the list.

[collapse]

4. In relation to point 3, the MC's thoughts are honestly exhausting

Spoiler

In the MC's thoughts every other line is about how she thinks everyone hates her. If not that, then about how she suppresses her emotions for like no reason. She thinks if she smiles when someone does something that makes her happy, they will stop doing it. Like wth? Her logic makes zero sense and it isn't explained that deeply so we really can't figure out if there is a deeper cause.

[collapse]

<<less

This is a slow but well thought out novel. POV does change within one chapter, but that just gives even more perspective and development. I don't want to put any spoilers b/c that would ruin the story but it does get a little heavy and explores serious issues and conflicts. Unfortunately, the author is slow to update and translations aren't much faster. I hope that the translation continues and the writer finishes the story.

I love this story so much personally because of the close feeling of family, but if you dislike when the MC has a sad childhood while being bullied I advice you to be prepared. Both touching and sad, can't wait for there to be more chapters hopefully.

I adore this. This novel has so much heart in every chapter, from the light hearted fluff to a darker, heavier issue. My only complaint is the slow updates both in the original and the english translation. I even went to read a bit of the original, but could only understand about 60% of it. It's not often where I would go out of my way to attempt to read the Japanese version, so it really says something about how this story interests me.

I like the personality of the main character and the premise of the story so far (a little sad but sweet at the same time). So far there's been no real shounen ai elements and although the MC doesn't exactly know it, he/she is loved very much by almost all the people in the story (except one, though that one person made all the difference for Altis's perception of how much he/she is loved which suck). The reason I gave it 3 stars though is similar to what Cryarc said... more>> about the abrupt change in plot (I think it's in chapter 19). I understand the author was trying to transition from one stage of Altis's life to the next but it wasn't smooth at all and left you having a "wtf Altis!" kind of feeling. Still it's one of my favorite stories so far because again I like the MC and what is translated already. Just wished the author went into things more in depth or took a little more time planning out how Altis gets from one situation to another. <<less