“Before I left for Hong Kong, I told you you were free. But I take that back now. Stay with me forever.”
I’ve heard quite a bit about KBTBB over the last few months, so imagine my delight when Voltage made Soryu’s route free on their Love365 app (until 11:59 6/30 JST, no less)! So did this guy live up to his hype? Absolutely yes.
…The truth is, this story and I definitely got off on the wrong foot. The premise of KBTBB is pretty stupid, and super problematic for a love story. TL;DR MC works as a maid at a fancy hotel. One day, a series of unfortunate events leads MC to accidentally break a vase that’s sitting in a storage room. She’s subsequently captured and sold off in a black market auction (!!) to a bunch of rich people at the hotel. And who “buys” her, you ask? The main love interests of this story, for a cool $20M. They literally run this freaking auction. And therefore didn’t actually lose out on any money buying MC…but that doesn’t stop them from making MC pick which guy “owns” her from now on! Yikes.
So MC picks Soryu, a scary-looking, grumpy Cantonese mobster whose first act is to shirtlessly threaten MC into compliance (“If you’re good, I won’t do anything bad to you”). His preferred form of communication is taking out his gun–not a euphemism–and waving it in people’s face, lmao. And like IkeSen Kenshin, he’s none too fond of women, and weirdly sexist all at once (“Wipe that stupid look off your face. I’d never point a gun at a little girl”).
The meat of the plot features MC masquerading as Mei Ling, an ally mob boss’ friendly daughter, as bait to draw out Soryu’s enemies. ML’s in town to find a husband, so guess who has the dubious pleasure of attending endless marriage meetings on her behalf? As MC fumbles her way through chaperoned dates with high profile criminals and various kidnappings/murder attempts, she gets to know Soryu better. Turns out the guy has a obsessive fondness for MC’s omelettes (not innuendo. again), and a fairly strong sense of honor for a mafia dude – tl;dr he doesn’t like harming innocents. He’s also hilariously unused to normal civilian things, like vegetables sitting out in the open at grocery stores (so poisonable! he says).
And perhaps most importantly, it becomes clear that despite his gruffness, Soryu cares about MC a lot. He gives her a piggyback ride when she injures her ankle. He relinquishes his bed when MC has to stay over at this apartment due to shenanigans. And he willing to take a literal bullet and beating – and ultimately, face execution – all for MC.
The climax of Soryu’s plot is exactly what one would expect and want from a cheesy mafia-based route, with all the arranged marriages and shifting alliances and threatened murder and whatnot. And it is glorious. Despite – or perhaps, because of – the extremely bumpy start MC and Soryu had to their relationship, the route’s ending definitely felt earned, and had me grinning like an idiot.
At the end of the day, I still think MC’s an idiot for getting involved with a mobster. And I cannot in good consciousness recommend Soryu’s route to just anyone. Dude sets off more red flags than IkeSen Kenshin (whom I also adore…oops), and it feels a bit weird to romanticize this level of crazy. But tbh, that’s also probably why this route never failed to entertain, from beginning to end. It reminded me of the crappy, unrealistic Cantonese gangster B-movies that I used to love watching as a kid. The side characters (especially Mei Ling and Ryosuke!) were fantastic. In short, Soryu’s evolution from scary mobster to only-slightly-less-intimidating mobster-in-love was truly a delight to witness!
Choice quotes “Do you know the best way to overcome fear? You have to overcome something even more frightening than the thing you fear.” “You’re still a mafia princess to me, MC! And I promise to serve you forever!” – Ryosuke “…No. I don’t hate how you smell, MC.”
Personality: 10/10 in terms of otome entertainment value. Perfect combination of cool/stoic, and secretly kind. But would he be good IRL boyfriend material? Oh hell no. Mafia shenanigans aside, it’s probably not a good idea to date a dude who calls you nothing but “woman” for over a month?? 2/10 irl.
Appearance: 10/10. 11/10?? This guy is sex on legs. Total physical perfection.
MC: 7/10. MC was pretty all right. One could argue she was too passive, but what’s a girl to do when she’s thrown into the criminal underworld?
Plot/Payoff: 9/10. After the initial super questionable beginning, this route was a giant (extremely inaccurate) mobster cliche, and I absolutely loved it.
Personal enjoyment: 9/10. A very memorable route!
Just learned that Soryu’s route is free to read again on Love365 until 10/4 JST! If you haven’t gotten the chance to read his story yet, do it!! I gave his route a 9/10 back in the day but with my nostalgia lenses on, it’s a solid 10. 😍
“I’ll let you stay with me. You’re the only woman who’s ever stuck with me this long.”
Hello! If you like Eisuke, I recommend you stop reading now. Rant incoming. 🙂
Quick recap: Kissed by the Baddest Bidder is basically the edgy adult otome version of Ouran High School Host Club. In this universe, MC, a hotel maid, finds herself sold at a black market auction to a group of shady dudes who happen to run said black market auction, after she accidentally breaks an expensive vase. And in this particular route, Eisuke, the main dude in charge and asshole extraordinaire, decides that he’ll be the one to “own” MC: “I bought you, got it? So I can do whatever I want with you.” Charming.
After forcefully undressing and taking a look at MC’s chest like the classy and respectful man he is (he has some stupid excuse for it later in the route), Eisuke decides that MC will serve as his fake girlfriend. The goal: to ward off a mafia boss’ daughter politely, while simultaneously trying to forge an alliance with her father. Turns out all the women love Eisuke for some bizarre reason, even though he’s a total bastard with no redeeming qualities whatsoever (actually, it’s even scarier when the dude pretends to be nice in this route, not gonna lie…).
(that is the smile of a monster)
Eisuke insults the hell out of MC while giving her the obligatory makeover to become his fake girlfriend (“The worse something looks, the more fun it is to dress it up”). He also gives her a pager, and expects her to run when called within five minutes – one of his favorite hobbies is calling MC over when a text would’ve sufficed. Oh, and he kisses MC twice without her permission, under completely unromantic pretexts, to boot. Real winner, this guy.
One interesting thing we learn in Eisuke’s route is that the boys have a policy not to sell any woman who’s unwilling to be sold at the fancy black market auctions (in the route, a woman sells herself to escape her yakuza boyfriend and get “bought” by another love interest – I wonder what could possibly go wrong with that plan…). In any case, the whole thing really begs the question: why the fuck did Eisuke let MC get put up for auction in the first place?! Is it just because he’s a total douche canoe with too much time on his hands?? As the route goes on, we learn that Eisuke has some stupid tragic backstory about losing his parents and getting taken in by a rich zaibatsu family, and MC develops sympathy for the guy. Oh boo hoo…MC’s an idiot.
And here’s the absolute worst part of this route. Eisuke breaks his non-relationship with MC off abruptly towards the end of the route to protect her from an external threat (not that he tells her the reason, or anything, because communication is for plebes). And MC has this TOTAL FREAKING SWEETHEART of a coworker/manager?? who’s been steadily wooing MC for the entire route, who’s all willing to sweep in and is amazing, but nooo. MC’s developed Stockholm Syndrome in looove with Eisuke. Ughhh.
So when the external threat resolves itself, Eisuke returns to charm MC with his sweet nothings: “I can’t promise anything. I’m going to keep doing what I want to do. And if MC ends up being hurt because of it… Well, she’s the one who wants to be with me.” …Fuck this guy. And not in the sexy way, either. He doesn’t even confess to MC in the end like a proper otome boyfriend (“Let’s get to the point. Tell me how you feel”)! Asdkfjqofjqfidfs >(
Look. I’m not necessarily always against “problematic” otome boys. They can be fun. Case in point, Soryu, who freaking kills people for a living. Or IkeSen Kenshin, who’s so crazy he makes Jumin Han look sane, but is also kinda my favorite guy at the moment… <3. But besides being really really ridiculously good looking, there’s basically nothing positive about Eisuke. Maybe once in a blue moon he’s only mostly an asshole as opposed to totally 100% an asshole…? In short, imho Eisuke is one of the most infuriating characters I’ve ever encountered and I def. do not ship him and MC.
But if you’re still interested in his route and you haven’t read it yet, it’s free on Love365 until 7/9 11:59PM JST. Enjoy…? 😬
Choice quotes: “All you have to do is be quiet and attend to me.” “Will you be freed after the deal with Bucci succeeds, or will you disappear from the face of the earth? I can’t wait to find out.” “If you go out with him, he’ll keep pushing you around. Are you okay with that?“ "Yes. I want to be with him.”
Personality: 0/10. I hate this guy. HATE.
Appearance: 9/10. Can’t fault Eisuke on his looks…
MC: 2/10. MC NO. …Why didn’t you run away when you had the chance 😦
Plot/Payoff: 6/10. A flaw: the side characters felt like cartoons – the mafia boss daughter in particular was super annoying. That said, the route was snappy and interesting in its own way, and I can understand why so many people love Eisuke. Things certainly aren’t boring around him.
Personal enjoyment: 5/10. You’d think I’d give this a 1 due to how horrible I think Eisuke is, wouldn’t you? Truth is, I at least enjoyed the process of hate reading this story. Haha.
“Before I left for Hong Kong, I told you you were free. But I take that back now. Stay with me forever.”
I’ve heard quite a bit about KBTBB over the last few months, so imagine my delight when Voltage made Soryu’s route free on their Love365 app (until 11:59 6/30 JST, no less)! So did this guy live up to his hype? Absolutely yes.
…The truth is, this story and I definitely got off on the wrong foot. The premise of KBTBB is pretty stupid, and super problematic for a love story. TL;DR MC works as a maid at a fancy hotel. One day, a series of unfortunate events leads MC to accidentally break a vase that’s sitting in a storage room. She’s subsequently captured and sold off in a black market auction (!!) to a bunch of rich people at the hotel. And who “buys” her, you ask? The main love interests of this story, for a cool $20M. They literally run this freaking auction. And therefore didn’t actually lose out on any money buying MC…but that doesn’t stop them from making MC pick which guy “owns” her from now on! Yikes.
So MC picks Soryu, a scary-looking, grumpy Cantonese mobster whose first act is to shirtlessly threaten MC into compliance (“If you’re good, I won’t do anything bad to you”). His preferred form of communication is taking out his gun–not a euphemism–and waving it in people’s face, lmao. And like IkeSen Kenshin, he’s none too fond of women, and weirdly sexist all at once (“Wipe that stupid look off your face. I’d never point a gun at a little girl”).
The meat of the plot features MC masquerading as Mei Ling, an ally mob boss’ friendly daughter, as bait to draw out Soryu’s enemies. ML’s in town to find a husband, so guess who has the dubious pleasure of attending endless marriage meetings on her behalf? As MC fumbles her way through chaperoned dates with high profile criminals and various kidnappings/murder attempts, she gets to know Soryu better. Turns out the guy has a obsessive fondness for MC’s omelettes (not innuendo. again), and a fairly strong sense of honor for a mafia dude – tl;dr he doesn’t like harming innocents. He’s also hilariously unused to normal civilian things, like vegetables sitting out in the open at grocery stores (so poisonable! he says).
And perhaps most importantly, it becomes clear that despite his gruffness, Soryu cares about MC a lot. He gives her a piggyback ride when she injures her ankle. He relinquishes his bed when MC has to stay over at this apartment due to shenanigans. And he willing to take a literal bullet and beating – and ultimately, face execution – all for MC.
The climax of Soryu’s plot is exactly what one would expect and want from a cheesy mafia-based route, with all the arranged marriages and shifting alliances and threatened murder and whatnot. And it is glorious. Despite – or perhaps, because of – the extremely bumpy start MC and Soryu had to their relationship, the route’s ending definitely felt earned, and had me grinning like an idiot.
At the end of the day, I still think MC’s an idiot for getting involved with a mobster. And I cannot in good consciousness recommend Soryu’s route to just anyone. Dude sets off more red flags than IkeSen Kenshin (whom I also adore…oops), and it feels a bit weird to romanticize this level of crazy. But tbh, that’s also probably why this route never failed to entertain, from beginning to end. It reminded me of the crappy, unrealistic Cantonese gangster B-movies that I used to love watching as a kid. The side characters (especially Mei Ling and Ryosuke!) were fantastic. In short, Soryu’s evolution from scary mobster to only-slightly-less-intimidating mobster-in-love was truly a delight to witness!
Choice quotes “Do you know the best way to overcome fear? You have to overcome something even more frightening than the thing you fear.” “You’re still a mafia princess to me, MC! And I promise to serve you forever!” – Ryosuke “…No. I don’t hate how you smell, MC.”
Personality: 10/10 in terms of otome entertainment value. Perfect combination of cool/stoic, and secretly kind. But would he be good IRL boyfriend material? Oh hell no. Mafia shenanigans aside, it’s probably not a good idea to date a dude who calls you nothing but “woman” for over a month?? 2/10 irl.
Appearance: 10/10. 11/10?? This guy is sex on legs. Total physical perfection.
MC: 7/10. MC was pretty all right. One could argue she was too passive, but what’s a girl to do when she’s thrown into the criminal underworld?
Plot/Payoff: 9/10. After the initial super questionable beginning, this route was a giant (extremely inaccurate) mobster cliche, and I absolutely loved it.
Otome Reviews 