A review by seriouslybookedup
Midnight Rain by CTK, Chongtak

2.0

Great concept, art and character design that's completely undermined by rape (stop calling these depictions dubious consent, Mike clearly says "wait", "quit" and "stop"). I also found both characters to be way more antagonistic toward each other than seems reasonable for a one-shot story. I would have appreciated more volumes for Mike to work through his anger issues. Let's pretend Ethan wasn't portrayed as a rapist, Mike straight up physically assaults Ethan for the crime of being too concerned about his well-being. Vulnerability can be an interesting topic to explore but here, we don't get a lot of context about why these characters struggle so much to be vulnerable in front of each other - so they just came across as nasty and toxic.

When Mike makes an effort to demonstrate how he feels for Ethan through acts of service (fixing the mold in the apartment), I was so annoyed that we weren't treated to the payoff of seeing Ethan's reaction. It was probably the only moment that Mike appeared to genuinely give a damn about Ethan.

I didn't think the grumpy/sunshine trope could go so wrong but it did here.
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