farron's Book Journey

CW: Discussion of kink and subversive/transgressive sexual material that dives into my personal feelings about how people react to fetish content and what it feels like as a person who enjoys it

You know how sometimes reviewers who don't engage much with their own disgust or kinks will simply say of anything that shows the least bit of non-vanilla transgression, "This was just an excuse for the author to do a bunch of fetishes" or make gesture toward that "the author's barely disguised fetish" meme?

Cannot do that MADK Vol 1 by Ryo Suzuri, because it's ALLLLL fetishes, baybeeey! Look at that cover art! This shit has its foot on the gas, and disgust and inappropriate desire are riding in the front seat picking the playlist. A guy summons a demon in order to eat him alive bit by bit!! But what does the demon want in return from him??! BIG UH-OH.

Makoto is ashamed, and he hates himself, but he cannot resist who he is, either. If one chooses to read Makoto's struggles as allegorical aside from only a vehicle for BDSM, vore, cannibalism, various flavors of coercion and consent play and of course, obviously, teratophilia, somehow I feel he is more relatable than a lot of BL protags. And hey, if you're into those things as well (I honestly don't recommend this if you're not unless you think you might spontaneously develop an interest), he's doubly relatable.

When you tear back the skin to look into the (lovingly, softly delicately and erotically rendered) guts and skeleton of this thing, there is an interesting narrative forming about self-hatred, kink, self-determination, and the desire to be loved conflicting with the desire to sink down into the animalistic depravity others accuse you of. blah blah blah cannibalism as a symbol for queer love blah blah etc. Honestly, the time I spent reflecting on that was minimal because I was immediately onto the next eye-popping sexual setpiece. There's less sex and gore than I initially thought there would be as it sets up its premise, but every single instance of it that appeared I wanted to instant message my freaky friends and say look at THIIIIIS.

So I had a lot of fun with it.

The character designs are deceptively simple, communicating a great deal about each character. You can tell Ryo Suzuri has a ton of artistic experience in that department - they mentioned working on video games and I definitely see the sensibilities when it comes to conveying character beats visually. Their design sensibility is gothic and cartoonish and above all, just horny and beautiful. I daresay it's appetizing. I want to bite and hug and sink into this art.

I came for the kink but the cunty little poets shirts and gothic manors are the reason I feel like this was made in a lab specifically for me, even though it engages in things that aren't my immediate go-to, it just felt like it was indulging in absolutely everything it wanted to, which is a treat to read. I don't know how to explain this for people outside the know, but this is Don Bluth animating characters getting eaten level of artistry and love of the kink. Honestly, given the breezy design sensibilities and the wicked grin and goat feet of Count J, I would not be surprised if Suzuri is a fan.

My one mild critique is that it does suffer a bit from the BL 'blank space' syndrome at time, although the paneling and pacing are generally lovely, and I think it lends the art an air of simplicity that it needs to give the art focus. I think the art having a slightly bizarre, abstract feeling to its sequences helps at times. However, occasionally it felt a little difficult to track action in sequence.

The plot, thus far, is fairly simple, and given this is only a three-volume series, it's laying its tracks and intentions down pretty clearly. This is probably not going to go the depths and places that say, The Summer Hikaru Died does when it comes to the philosophical side of feeling monstrous or loving monsters.

But like, all of this weird shit? It's what Yoshiki Summer Died would be getting up to if he weren't a coward. (joking)

Writing this review has brought a lot of thoughts and feelings to the surface for me, because I always try to not be too self-deprecating regardless of the material I review. Some people like to look at fucked-up things, some people choose to make it, and the euphoria of feeling understood about that impossible for me to estimate, when others understand that you try really, really, REALLY hard to never punish anyone with your existence, but you just can't fucking change, it's not a phase, Mom. This struggle is something that I rarely see so openly discussed in the blunt manner it is in MADK Vol 1. A lot of coming out stories don't feel like they reach the proper emotional scale. This is why I'm attracted to things that are extreme, because someone just saying "I had a tough time and felt alienated because of prejudice, being in the closet was hell to me" doesn't feel like it's the right size of the beast for me. It needs more oxygen. It grows like a fire and a storm. It feels like a constant fight just to live and be okay.

I think one of the things that gets missed a lot when we simply accuse creators of fetishism, as if that is a shallow, uncomplicated, and most of all predatory thing - like it's a fetish in itself to simply get people to inadvertently interact or even simply acknowledge fetishes, is the amount that kinksters and queer folks - the ones whose identities and desires are never, ever seen as default - are well fucking aware that they make other people uncomfortable. It's probably the earliest lesson some of us learn. And I hate the internet, and the society at large, where I fear the judgement of anonymous strangers, where my existence as an intellectual, an educated person and a human being to be squashed in the favor of the title of 'pervert' because I'll openly admit, hey, this stuff exists. I like it.

The assumption that my interest make me a bad person, a corrupt person, or that I've got some kind of sickness, is frankly, so weird and dehumanizing. It feels like a fundamental misunderstanding of the power dynamics at play that lead to a majority of the abuse in our world, a world that prioritizes keeping quiet, keeping the peace, keeping men and powerful people and systems in charge, and most of all, not rocking the boat. Why, then, are so many of the burdens for the understandable trauma and fears regarding sexual crimes placed upon people like me simply for being visible? Am I not the opposite of the problem because I speak up and rock the boat? Why am I in charge of protecting other people from their feelings of trauma that were not created by me, as if I, myself, must be a creature incapable of feeling or understanding that pain, as if I'm not also a victim of it? As if I'm not more statistically likely to be a victim of sexual crimes and violence, and if my interest in these subjects couldn't potentially serve to undermine the narrative that I didn't deserve it?

I feel like the message I've received is that I have to spend my life being careful and apologizing for being weird in case I upset people who can't manage that information. I have to pretend that because I like all of this dark and violent stuff that my heart is harder, and I was put on this earth to suffer and interpret the pain and to walk around the eggshells of other people's feelings.

Makoto wants to eat flesh and fuck, but he also wants to be hugged. He wants to make friends. We can assume this means he wants to be accepted. He also wants to be in charge of what happens to him next. Yet it seems the only way he can survive is to become even more of the thing that everyone fears he is, and find his way in that, despite the way he's being torn apart and compromised to do so. The only person who seems to see him is a demon. I think that's a fear a lot of people have.

It's my desire to post this kind of thing alongside my more in-depth or even playful and mainstream reviews because I don't want to pretend the person who likes this is somehow different than the person who can perform an in-depth analysis of obscure poetry texts.

BUT YEAH ANYWAY THIS IS MAD HORNY CANNIBAL PORN THE DEMON GUY HAS GOAT LEGS THERE'S LIKE PREHENSILE DICKS AND RIBCAGE STUFF IYKYK