호구 하경수

HOGU HAGYEONGSU

MANGA

STATUS
COMPLETE
VOLUMES
Not Available
RELEASE
Invalid Date
CHAPTERS
74

DESCRIPTION

Kyung-soo's spent the past three years trying to forget about one traumatic night. It isn't until he meets Dong-hyuk that he gets a full night's sleep. One night without the nightmare of being tied down by a room full of men under the watchful eyes of Yule.

(Source: Lezhin)

CHAPTERS

REVIEWS

lovexyou
1/100
Mediocre at best, disgusting at worst.
When I first picked up this story, all I knew about it was the appealing About section that Lezhin gave it. Based on that, I had concluded that this was a story about trauma and a victim being able to work through it and heal. I knew based on the Anilist tags that the trauma was a gangrape, and the yandere tag also let me know that the rapist character would probably re-appear during Kyungsoo's recovery. I was prepared for drama, for the victim to perhaps not have the happiest of recoveries but to still have that recovery. I thought the boys' love aspect would simply be Kyungsoo's budding friendship with Donghyuk (and whatever that leads to,) and in general navigating the life of a gay man. I wanted that story, and based on the story's description and the first few chapters, that was the story I was getting.

An Easy Target, also known as Ha Kyungsoo's Gentle Touch, is not that story.

Which is fine, honestly. There's a lot of hentai where the lack of consent is the whole point. Normally, the moment I realize what it is then I'll drop it, as I know for a fact that I was going to have a bad time reading it. But I was having a particularly bad day and couldn't really stop myself from reading. To explain, it was like watching someone cut themselves and bleed out, and all I could do was watch and feel their phantom pain. I also feel like if someone warned me, like maybe if I saw a review on this site explaining that this is not the story it seems to be based on the description, that I would've looked for something else to read.

All this to say, this review will not focus too much on the quality of the art, the structure of the story, or even the cohesiveness of it all. It will focus on the dissonance of a story that condones rape in word only, but quite enjoys depicting it as if it's beautiful. The way it fails at its own themes. Spoiler review ahead.

For a story that tried damn hard to portray realistic gay relationships and the unredeemable quality of a rapist character, they sure do romanticize the fuck out of each rape that happens in it. While the content works off it as more of a character study for the victim, the panels paint it out as some sort of passionate moment between the two. It doesn't matter if Kyungsoo is having a metal breakdown during it. It doesn't matter that Yule is disgustingly evil to an almost cartoonish sense outside of the sex scenes. All the pain and trauma is somehow an aesthetic for the art.

I don't understand the decision to show Kyungsoo's path to recovery in the first place. Why start the story in the middle of his rehabilitation, finding happiness and friendship and maybe even love, finally able to move on from his trauma? Why write that if the rest of the story is meant to show a hopeless situation? Well, I guess I do understand why. It's a hentai. The context for his recovery somehow makes it juicier and more exciting knowing that he was okay before the cycle started once more. Breaking him, showing his recovery, and then breaking him once more.

The ending is unsurprisingly bad. It ends with a clunky plot twist that makes almost no sense even within the story, with a showdown where pretty much everyone acts out-of-character, with no build-up to its conclusion. Kyungsoo decides, of his own volition, that he likes his rapist actually and he would rather die than have Yule face consequences for his actions. All the chapters before it do not frame it as a case of Stockholm Syndrome, by the way. Kyungsoo is seen to hate Yule, with Yule never doing anything even remotely nice or appealing. Yule starts the story as a shitty person and he ends the story the exact same way, to the point where he is almost cartoonishly villainous. Yet somehow, by not showing even the capacity to feel remorse, Kyungsoo now loves him.

This was an element of the story that was clumsily thrown in the last few chapters, with no reason given as to why Kyungsoo had a change of heart. The canon explanation is that Stockholm Syndrome thing, but that would require Kyungsoo to believe Yule is not that bad and can change, but he doesn't. He loves Yule, because Yule is a terrible person and has broken Kyungsoo to the point where Kyungsoo feels like he deserves it. Actually, no, not even that he deserves it. He believes specifically that Yule shouldn't face the consequences of the pain he's caused Kyungsoo and the implied previous victims of his. We are not shown Kyungsoo's mentality breaking to the point where he believes this. We are just told all of a sudden that he loves Yule, and that he doesn't care for his own life so long as Yule is not hurt. It makes no sense and it's not even justified in the narrative as to why he suddenly believes that.

An Easy Target frequently runs into the problem of justifying why the victim is a victim. It is written into the narrative that Kyungsoo deserved this and wasn't careful enough, should've been careful enough the second time, that if he hadn't been the perfect little victim then none of this would've happened to him. This is another part about how the art and framing tries to justify the story into making sense. While the framing of Yule is dishonest, the framing of Kyungsoo is despicable.

This story makes Killing Stalking seem like it was written with proper morals. Not only does it romanticize the fuck out of rape, it fails it's own themes and have so many convoluted plot moments that the story is flat-out bad even ignoring the romanticization. This is a mediocre work through and through.

Oh, and if you want to read it for the hentai, just know the art is bland and there's literally dozens, if not hundreds, of works that are way better made and nicer to look at.
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