Enmity's Media Page (Late 2025)

Visual Novels

Narcissu (Side 1)

A short, poignant story that allows its narrative to stand on its own without leaning into dramatics, heavy-handed messaging or shoehorned romance. It may have been due to my poor reading comprehension/grasp of the Japanese language, so I will probably need to reread it in some years, but despite all its strengths and not feeling like it particularly lacked anything I also came away feeling simply... content. If I were to make a specific complaint, it would be that I felt like the narrator's backstory, however ordinary it most likely had been, was a bit too sparse. I understand it might be part of the point, the sense of disconnect at hearing such a diagnosis and simply having to accept it that he processes it almost as if from the perspective of a third person -- this was said in the narration itself after all. So I'm willing to concede on that point, and nevertheless, it's a worthwile story to spend a sitting to read. I'm not very interested in the other entries, but I will get to them sometime.

eden* They were only two, on the planet

A decent love story with some worldbuilding put into the background for its scifi/alternate future Earth setting. Don't look too hard at the background details and lore and expect the plot to be anything more or less than a love story, though; everything about the story leans on its two leads and their relationhip. The male protagonist's character development is very telegraphed and generally the story doesn't do anything you wouldn't expect it to, but the execution is quite sincere and backed up with strong production values that to me make up for its relative brevity and lack of choices. Reading this helped me familiarize myself with a lot of beginner-level grammar, I'll consider rereading in a few years so I can purely enjoy the story. Has a bunch of sex scenes added in a DLC that I haven't read yet.

Manga

Section Chief Shima Kousaku ~ Division Chief Shima Kousaku

I marathoned the fuck out of this series. As of 2026 I'm currently 5 volumes deep into the President arc and I've finished reading all the prequels btw. It's "mature", "grounded", messy, dramatic, human, trashy, and despite the premise, endlessly readable. There's a lot of technical terminology and discussions during board meetings, and a lot of social posturing that I'm definitely missing out on the fine details and implied nuances of - and I'm not just saying that in a thinly-veiled Orientalist way, but because the series literally is written by a boomer who started it in the 1983 so a hefty chunk of the storylines have been left by time already even if not accounting for any culture shock (the main character experiences this in the story too whenever he goes overseas for a job) - but the characters are mostly good, the story is mostly entertaining, and then-contemporary concepts and societal/market trends are constantly brought up to be commentated on and frequently actively incorporated into the story, so it is actually surprisingly engaging and entertaining, especially because I LOVE doing the fictional equivalent of opening a time capsule. I really get the sense of how the tides of the time were like in how they're reflected in the story and it definitely gets me curious about wanting to know more context (even if that often isn't easy or outright impossible without literally being a boomer). Also, if you're into naked women, the fanservice scenes are well-drawn and despite the amount of nudity and sex in the story women rarely breast boobily and have realistic adult porportions.

Some negatives - and there are some big ones: VERY dated views of gender roles and work culture that, it goes without saying, by now no longer flies even in Japan. The author's views on politics and economics also sometimes bleeds into the writing, which for the most part doesn't get in the way of a nuanced story but sometimes is the furthest thing from subtle, which something to keep in mind in case that gets in the way of enjoying the story. The story 90% of the time doesn't stray from the protagonist's point of view, which in a good sense means that other characters come off "real" in that they have their own private lives the reader nor the protagonist get to directly see and so preserves their air of ambiguity and intrigue, but in the bad sense means that many characters who are very interesting rarely get to shine to the fullest just because the protagonist isn't there to see or hear about it. There are some reuse of plot points (you'll know the further you read). Doesn't pass the Bechdel test in the 70+ volumes I've read so far. In fact, often times when two women do interact a man (usually Shima himself) is directly the motivation instead of just being a topic of the conversation.

Despite all the flaws, I think the fact it got me invested enough to read it for almost 4 months straight is worth something. If there's one thing I can't get over, it's the story's later and extremely poor treatment of a character I really, REALLY liked and genuinely hoped to be treated with nuance or at least a bare minimum amount of respect. It's just horrible how she ended up, it's like the author was after me personally. That's my opinion though.