Virgin Alpha Meets Badass Omega
About:
Warning:
This review will contain spoilers for the manga and anime series How to Deal When Your Intimidating Neighbor is Actually an Omega. While the manga may vary slightly from all other forms of media, it may have similar story elements and could be considered spoilers.
Content Warning: There may be references to prejudice, sexism (specifically secondary sex), gossiping, blood, harassment, self-deprecation, slut-shaming, and mentions of rape, as they appear in the manga.
Synopsis:
Kouta Enatsu is an alpha, but he’s far from the average, sex-crazed alphas he’s surrounded by day to day. Unlike his alpha peers, Kouta doesn’t react or even pick up on omega pheromones, leaving him unable to identify even the most apparent omegas around him. This lack of awareness has also left him completely uninterested in sex, which makes the neverending discussions of omegas and bedroom activities painfully annoying. To make matters worse, it turns out his neighbor, who he thought was a dangerous alpha, is actually an omega. How did he find this out? His neighbor is in heat.
Thankfully, Kouta’s willpower is strong, and he withstands the pheromones emanating from his neighbor, Ryunosuke. But Ryunosuke doesn’t want a controlled alpha. He wants everything Kouta is willing to give him. And thankfully, when given permission, Kouta is ready to let go and finally indulge in everything he has been avoiding. However, when all is said and done, Kouta wants more than a physical relationship, but Ryunosuke couldn’t be more disinterested.
Can these two find common ground? Or is Kouta destined for the friends-with-benefits zone forever?
Review:
The art style for this can be very pretty, but it is also very inconsistent. Honestly, though, with this title, I really don’t care. Ryunosuke’s design is everything. I’m a sucker for long hair. I adore tattoos and piercings, and Ryunosuke has all of that. Add in that he is a power bottom, and I am sold. I will say that while I like piercings, in this art style, Ryunosuke’s piercing looks a bit weird in some panels. It’s a lip piercing with a ball and occasionally looks like a growth to me. It’s not the worst thing in the world, but it’s not my favorite. As for Kouta, he’s cute, but next to Ryunosuke, he’s pretty plain.
Now, on to the story. I love it when the alpha is the inexperienced one in the pairing. Kouta is a precious virgin that gets swept away by Ryunosuke, and I’m so here for it. But the reason Kouta gives him over to Ryunosuke specifically is because of the type of alpha he is. This is an underexplored element of omegaverse that I love to see, which is the additional hierarchy or types within each secondary sex. Specifically, we’re dealing with something called an idiosyncratic alpha. This is wholly unique to this particular omegaverse story, as far as I’m aware, and it’s a type of alpha that cannot pick up on any other omega’s pheromones unless they have a mutual attraction to one another.
There is a suggestion that he can sense powerful pheromones, I suppose as a way to explain why he picked up on Ryunosuke’s pheromones before they initially met, but I feel like it actually suggests that Kouta and Ryunosuke were attracted to each other before they met. I love this. Why? Because both of them admit to seeing each other around, and each had different perceptions of the other. Ryunosuke assumed Kouta was the standard sex-crazed alpha, and Kouta actually thought Ryunosuke was an alpha. Yet, despite Kouta being an idiosyncratic alpha, he could smell Ryunosuke’s pheromones. That means Ryunosuke was attracted to Kouta, even assuming he was a sex-crazed alpha, and Kouta was attracted to Ryunosuke even though he assumed he was an alpha. It’s giving fated mates even though it isn’t necessarily fated, and I am so about it.
Now, as much as I love all of this, this all falls into the unfortunate problem of being too short to be a well-developed narrative. This is the textbook definition of a whirlwind romance. I do like it overall, but it does feel rushed. That’s to be expected with these single-volume titles, and I admittedly don’t mind this all that much, but I think it’s important to note since there’s not going to be a ton of depth here. We get very little insight into who these characters are outside of how they are together – specifically on Ryunosuke’s side of things. We get hints of things, and Ryunosuke does tell us that he feels most alphas are unfaithful, indicating that there might be a history of cheating in his past, but we just don’t see it. I would love for there to be a sequel to this where we explore these characters more, but it is what it is.
Results:
This was fun. I’m a sucker for omegaverse, and I especially love when omegas aren’t your standard omega. This takes it a step further and gives us an alpha that is also unlike other alphas, which is just a cherry on a delicious cake. It’s not perfect, of course, but these single-volume titles rarely are. Still, if you go in knowing it won’t be a super deep story, and you’re just looking for fun omegaverse with yummy smut, this is a win.
Have you read How to Deal When Your Intimidating Neighbor is Actually an Omega? If so, what do you think? Do you agree with my assessment? Do you not? Let me know, and comment below!