Guilty: Nakanu Hotaru ga Mi wo Kogasu
Guilty

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Absolutely brutal, gritty, dark romance/drama. This is a supposed josei series, but it crosses over into seinen territory sometimes. I wish it could keep up its quality in the later volumes, as the first 5-6 volumes are 8.5/10.

Here's why my overall feel for this series is 7/10:

It becomes overly convoluted without any need to be like this!

That's just about it. The arcs drag on, the 'twists' become too much, and honestly, too much of the plot later on is either sluggish, repetitive or throws any logic out of the window when it comes to character behavior.

'Guilty' should have been a maximum 8-volume series. By keeping ... it shorter, it would have kept a very unique gloomy take on dysfunctional families, severely flawed characters (or batshit insane ones in some cases), and trauma that can remain in your consciousness for months.

Literally all characters are dysfunctional in their own way and in general, the author showcases this pretty well.

This series hit the spot in so many aspects for me, including in terms of art style. It's edgy without overdoing the edgy, the drama is top-tier, the adults do adult things instead of re-enacting their high school brains etc.

As the volumes pile up, this luster is lost and the mangaka slowly resorts to illogical, cheesy, and sometimes baffling plot devices to keep things going. The series becomes TOO melodramatic and forced at some plot points. There's still a lot of nailbiting/fun to be found in latter volumes, but it's a bit too much.

7/10 and I fully recommend it to those of you who want something disturbing and intense. A shame nobody has picked this up in English for bigger exposure to the overseas fans. It's somewhat popular in Japan, and it also got adapted into a drama in 2020. It surely deserves some scanlator love!

I took me several years to finish reading this manga. The main reason I was attracted to it and kept going was the connection between the female and male leads. However nasty the story got, every time they were together there was such a soft and light atmosphere around them, I find it exceptional that the mangaka could create this distinct chemistry between her characters.

As a josei manga, this work explores two clear and mature topics: cheating and motherhood. The story itself is unapologetically sordid and overly dramatic especially towards the end. I think overall the mangaka does a good job in character development and ... in tying up everyone's story, but I personally felt things became too complicated in the last three volumes and I would have preferred more restraint.

All in all I would recommend this to people who are comfortable with these topics, not because I enjoyed the revenge aspect of it, but more for the character development. I think reflecting on the consequences of their decisions comes like an afterthought in this story but to me this should have been the main appeal, not the drama and scandal.