Ok so, I recently started reading this manga called "run away with me, girl" and it's really good but it's also A Lot
This has spoilers for the story so you've been warned, there is also mentions of abuse so just don't read if that makes u uncomfortable
So, at one point, this manga portrays an abusive relationship, which is something that I mostly try to avoid in media, but this just felt so well writren? Like I didn't Suffer while reading it, the way they just expressed the whole thing, it was sort of a relief for me, because I really was thinking about just completely dropping the story if I saw it started centering too much around it
But it didn't, while there was a scene where the guy straight up hit one of the protagonists, it wasn't a lot more other than that, plus some other slightly more shitty situations but those were a bit more subtle, like not showing any interest in the fact that they were getting married and just telling the girl to "do whatever she wanted" for the wedding preparations
But that was it, what I value is that the characters acknowledged it, they didn't need to say it, but It came across very clearly that It was Not ok
I was relived to, for once, see a character getting out of a bad relationship without them or any of their closed loved ones getting awfully hurt in the process
I'm used to seeing media where one character is clearly being Not A Good Person to someone but then they get a sad backstory and suddenly all they did was right and everyone loves them
They didn't drag off the issue and they didn't wait until something worse happened in order to act (which is what I'm usually afraid of seeing in these kind of scenarios) When they got back, I was really scared that, at any moment, the guy would attack them, but it didn't happen, it wasn't Necessary and they were able to show how bad that relationship had become without needing to make the protagonist suffer any more than what she already had
The way they showcased the guy's actions was also really good, it was weird, but it was good to see that his "backstory" didn't absolutely dismiss his actions in the present
Well this story didn't do that, in all honestly, I didn't completely understand What was it that traumatized him so much, but, whatever it was, it would never serve as an excuse to hit someone for it, when the guy briefly mentioned his childhood trauma, it changed absolutely nothing of what he had done, whatever happened to him never changed the fact that she didn't want to be in that relationship. So she made that clear and she walked away
I could keep rambling about this forever, like how the way they wrote the character didn't appear as straight up evil and just someone that was fucked up, how it felt like they dodged a bullet because there clearly was potential for the guy to keep making her life worse or possibly keep becoming more manipulative, how if I imagined a reality where she went back with him it would have surely ended in something horrible, not only for her but also for her child- and on and on and on
All I have to say is that "run away with me, girl" is good, and if you like more grounded wlw stories with moderated amounts of realistic drama, you should give it a read
