I wonder: when will I ever stop falling on the trap of incestuous plot? When will it stop waiting for me in the bushes and then sneak attack when I'm least expecting it? Do I have to just NOT read anything with siblings or what????
sigh
So. Akatsuki ni Tatsu Lion is about an orphaned sister whose brother left her to do some activism on Turkey. Cool. Except one of the guys from his group is murdered and the police highly suspect of him. Not cool.
So there his sister goes, to Turkey, to figure out a way to acquit his brother from such a crime and to, well, figure out where he is ('cause he's missing). Sounds interesting enough but then the manga does everything possible in its power to screw it up.
1) The plot
Fast forward through some action/thriller scenes, someone's trying to kill her, there's an actual mystery in place here and this COULD have been an excellent manga just from that alone. It didn't need a romantic subplot, but well, this is a shoujo, afterall.
The problem is: it's a really short story. When the plot starts to pick up, it's already over. We find out who's the killer, what happened to the brother, what was going on, etc etc.
Almost as if the mangaka wanted it to be over already, so she rushed everything into 3 (!) chapters.
2) The romance
The romance subplot wasn't even necessary, in the first place. And in the second place: it's barely even developed!!!
She meets a guy from her brother's group and he helps her around. He's a native, he's handsome, he's kind to her and he's kind of mysterious. That's... all, really.
Their entire time together is spent trying to solve the "mystery" of the brother and trying to get a clue as to where he is. And then, out of NOWHERE, in the end they kind of get together because the guy had a crush on her.
Uhmmmm???? He doesn't even know her???? His knowledge of her comes from the brother (who never shuts up about her) and then from the short (really short!) time they were together scooby doo'ing around. That's honestly not enough of a reason for me to buy that "crush" thing.
And now, I saved the worst for last:
3) The incest
She talks WAY too much about her brother. Like, way more than siblings should. There's even a flashback of her as a kid and him as a teenager, and she says "big brother, I want to marry you when I grow up!"
...
Well, okay. Maybe I'm just being paranoid, maybe this is just harmless sisterly love because her parents died and her brother is her only family and she really holds him dear. Maybe at that age, she didn't know what she was saying. Okay.
Except the brother's girlfriend comes up in the end and tells her about how jealous she was of her, because the dude also wouldn't shut up about his dear little sister.
Well, okay. Maybe the girlfriend is just as paranoid as I am, maybe the dude is just really overprotective of his sister since, AGAIN, they only had each other. That's not enough of a reas--
"He was IN LOVE with you, Erina!! His own sister!!! That's disgusting!"
It really is revealed that he had romantic feelings for his sister. It's not just something spit out in anger, it's truthfully a part of the story. And then after everything else is said and done, the sister goes and says:
"Yeah, I was in love with him too. But it's okay, we weren't """"""""real""""""" siblings, we were children of separate marriages."
How-- how is that okay? How is that even REMOTELY okay? What? So just because you're only HALF related to blood, it's cool? Or just because you're not related to blood at all, it's also cool?
Bitch, no lol nothing about this is okay. I was right all along, this smelled of surprise incest since the beginning and yet I still thought I was just being silly.
The only good thing about this manga (and the only reason why I don't give it a lower score) is the art. The mangaka is VERY talented, the art is very beautiful to look at. But this specific manga isn't worth your time. It could've been better developed and it definitely didn't need the incestual tones.