Immoral Darkness by Miyu Matsuda
Title: Immoral Darkness
Author: Miyu Matsuda
Illustrator: Yukariko Jissohji
English Publisher: June Manga
Original Publisher: Taiyou Tosho
ISBN: 978-1-56970-713-5
Translator: Christina Chesterfield
Available At: Amazon
Summary from back of book
Beautiful. Cool. Shiina Jun has always been admired by the women around him. But he would give up their admiration for just one ounce of affection from his family, or a chance at true love from anyone who could save him from the dark loneliness he's lived in for so long.
His teacher, Sasagawa Tetsuya, wants to be his savior. But is Sasagawa offering a way out, or pushing Shinna deeper into darkness? Can Shiina trust his heart to a man who forces himself on him?
Masterfully crafted by Miyu Matsuda, this story of a forbidden, passionate love between a student and his teacher is a definite must-read! Are the two willing to overcome all obstacles to get what they truly want in life?
My Thoughts
I actually had quite a difficult time motivating myself to begin reading this book. The reason for that would be because it was a teacher/student relationship type of story, one of the types I disliked most. However, toward the end of the novel, I found myself liking it more than I had initially anticipated.
Now then, the translation of this novel was decent, but there were quite a few grammatical errors that were somewhat annoyingly noticeable. Though, that could simply be because I tend to read and pay close attention to the grammar and English in each novel. To others, these errors may not be all that noticeable.
The story itself is decent, but kind of loopy in some areas, as it generally is with most yaoi novels apparently. I also became attached to the meek Shiina Jun but found it difficult to really give a care in the world for Sasagawa Tetsuya. By the end of the series, I was simply irritated and a bit confused.
Shiina Jun is the eldest of two sons in the Shiina family. At home, Jun is treated as if he doesn't exist, having to fix his own meals and everything. At school, every girl yearns for Jun's affection. However, to protect his fragile heart, Jun acts like a cold, arrogant, bastard, keeping everyone at bay. For years, the only thing he's ever yearned for was acceptance from his family or someone who would accept him wholeheartedly and not just for his physical appearance.
In comes Sasagawa Tetsuya, Shiina Jun's mathematics teacher, swooping in to the rescue...or something like that. With their first actual private conversation, Sasagawa Tetsuya proclaims that he'll save Jun from his current lifestyle and proceeds to rape Jun in the train station's bathroom stall. Yeah, what a hero, no?
So, after all that was where I started getting more and more confused. More or less, Sasagawa came off as an egotistical jerk who apparently hung out with yankees in his youth, thus was quite well built and a pretty good fighter. After raping poor Jun and continuously harassing the poor boy, Sasagawa somehow or another had gotten Jun to fall in love with him. I was kind of at a loss when that happened, as it was more sudden to me than anything else. Then, to make things even more sudden, even with all of the outward professing of love from Sasagawa to Jun, who, by this point, still hadn't yet said he loved Sasagawa, you find out Sasagawa was actually sleeping with other people as well, more specifically, a fourteen year old junior high female that so happened to be a neighbor of his (highlight to read spoiler). All that crossed my mind at that point was, "what the fuck?" And it ended with something along the lines of how both Jun and Tetsuya ended up saving each other from something or another, which I had no idea Sasagawa Tetsuya required any kind of saving whatsoever. Though, apparently he was suffering from some kind of problematic history as well, which was never delved into, not to my knowledge anyway.
All in all, Immoral Darkness was kind of a cute fluff filled novel. I liked it, but it's not one that I would highly recommend. I also don't feel as though the ending to it was very well written, as it left quite a large problem undone still. Sure, they both ended up professing their love for one another at the end, but what happened to all of the other obstacles they were supposed to overcome together (Nakahara-sensei finding out and/or coming out to the Shiina family, which actually never happened)? However, if you like your teacher/student relationships with the teacher being mostly egotistical and possessive, to the point of openly exclaiming how hot and passionate their sex life is, then this really may be the novel for you.
Story Snippet
Chapter Five; Pages 104-106
Sasagawa took a deep breath and concentrated a sharp gaze on Shiina. He leaned back in his chair and glared at Shiina arrogantly. "I don't have a lot of chances to talk to you outside of class. No matter how foolish it was, I wanted to be close to you so I followed you. But when I saw you meeting some strange woman, I got pissed off, you know? The person I wanted so badly was right in front of me but I couldn't have him for many reasons. And I couldn't stop him from sleeping with someone else. As I watched you leaving, I became depressed. I thought that I should have raped you or done something earlier, and I regretted thinking that, but I couldn't stop myself."
"So you ambushed me. What kind of..." As he saw the corner of Sasagawa's mouth twitch, Shiina decided to stop. he could tell the man was just going to be arrogant as always.
"But aren't you glad I did? Because even though you just had sex with that lady, you came pretty good, didn't you?" Sasagawa sneered.
Shiina's face twisted with humiliation. "I'm not going home with you."
"I'll make you."
Shiina hated Sasagawa for his confident reply. His gaze showed his loathing. "I won't go."
"I just said you will!"
Why was Sasagawa so domineering? His voice was even more overbearing than Shiina's. Shiina stopped this futile exchange and fell silent.
Illustration Samples
