Manga Review – Living with a Sadistic Beast

Living with a Sadistic Beast
ケダモノ暴君お義兄さんと禁断ドS暮らし (Kedamono Boukun no Onii-san to Kindan Do-S Gurashi)
YUKI Ao
Josei – Mature, romance, smut
3 Chapters (complete)
Manga Reborn

Summary:

At a meeting on her first day on the job, Hina suddenly finds herself being groped by the client company’s CEO. Even worse, her company has given him permission to do with Hina as he likes! She manages to leave with her chastity in tact, but Hina is about to meet Masaomi again… as her stepbrother!

Warning: this review is of a series that is recommended for ages 18+ and is not safe for work!

Review:

Ok, while Hina is just begging for the nickname Miss Boobs, I still have to a double-take at the guy on the cover. When I first saw this, I thought it looked like a teacher x student story with them being neighbors or something. Read the synopsis, okay, perverted little brother story. But Masaomi is actually four years older than Hina.

*stares*

Nope, he still looks like a high schooler to me. He even looks like he’s in a school uniform rather than a business suit. I think its his hair. On the cover, it looks like it’s layered, a bit spiky, but the black-and-white art of the manga makes it look flatter. He appears closer to his age in the actual story.

… Why the heck am I babbling about some pervert character’s hair?

Anyway, Miss Boobs… uh, I mean Hina wants to help support her overworked mother, so she puts up with being essentially prostituted on her first day of her new job. Now, in the U.S., she could easily win a large lawsuit and support her mother on her damages, but this is AMJ (Awful Manga Japan), so she gets fired. No worries, her mother announces she’s engaged! (Seriously, do single parents ever introduce their kids to their new amour before announcing marriage in manga? Or even real life Japan?) Anyway, of course Hina and her mother move into the rich stepfather’s home with the perverted, should-be-arrested Masaomi who continues to ambush his stepsister night and day.

Really, this is a what-you-see-is-what-you-get series. Boobs, sexual assaults, and an all-too-familiar “I’m going to sacrifice myself so his career doesn’t tank” conflict. What’s really weird, strange, dumb, or whatever is how Hina puts up with her first day of work. I mean, usually in these kind of awful job stories, there’s someone in the hospital, a bunch of younger, innocent siblings, a house about to be foreclosed on, or some kind of heart-tugging sympathy. Hina just wants her mom to work less. It’s an admirable goal, but mom is hardly on her deathbed. Plus, she obviously has time to date, and I don’t think this caring mother would want her daughter to work at a place where they agree to let a client do anything to their employee. Most of Hina’s resistance is based on the fact that they’re stepsiblings, less so because of the actual harassment.

Plus, Masaomi comes across as really unlikable. We do see his father (and Masaomi talks about him as well), and I don’t know how a gentle man raised a son who abuses his position. Surprisingly, even though a lot of times insults like, “You’re such a slut!” are based on mommy issues, Masaomi’s mother died when he was very young. So it’s not a situation of a mother walking out to be with another man. I guess other family members helped corrupt the young Masaomi, but this isn’t elaborated on. Anyway, to balance out his jerkiness, the author adds another guy (a sort-of-but-not-really love rival) that is made to be even more despicable that Masaomi. I don’t know if the author really succeeded on that front. I mean, even in one of Masaomi’s “he’s actually a good guy deep inside” moments, he nurses her… but he still finds excuses for some sexy time even though Hina isn’t feeling well. The first chapter made it seem like there would be a competition for Hina between Masaomi and his secretary, but instead there’s only the usual jealousy of when Masaomi is doing another woman.

I’ve already discussed Masaomi’s age vs appearance (and a part of me still thinks the cover looks like a teacher x student high school story). Otherwise, while a lot of these type of manga look like a doujin or first professional work, the character designs are quite nice. Masaomi’s sex drive is incredibly high, so the smut scenes are a-plenty here. Of course, with “sadistic beast” right in the title, expect some alpha male/Do-S behaviors. In other words, anytime, anywhere, including early morning before Hina even wakes up.

Final Comments:

Living with a Sadistic Beast is pretty much what you would expect from  one of those paperback romance novels with an all-too-accurate title. Yuki has previously published yaoi manga, so that certainly explains a lot.