Ive got a soft spot for melodrama. Specifically the Jun Maeda variety where impossibly unlucky characters have mundane horrors thrust upon them in a soap operatic fashion. I blame this entirely on Clannad being one of my first anime and probably my first serious anime. The animanga stye lends well to this particular kind of melodrama especially when the characters are moe. The huge emotive eyes and expectations that there will be an aside at least once an episode/chapter captures something that live action soap operas often fail to. The dramatic flourishes the authors imbue these works with also add to the magic of it all. There really is nothing like cherry blossoms falling at the exact moment a character learns something lifealtering. The stupidity of these characters is also another charming feature at least to me. Ive seen arguments that it takes some people out of the narrative because its distracting to see characters constantly make illogical decisions. That just adds to the vibes for me. Theres something cathartic about watching characters have full on meltdowns about these kinds of mundane horrors that the majority of us face and have to carry on with our lives regardless. At least you can suffer vicariously even if you have to get up to go to school or work in the morning. All of this is to say that Bitter Virgin while fitting into this niche also offers something different. At first glance I was ready to drop this one on principle alone. When our main character learns about his love interests trauma very real as in relevant to the real world and pertinent trauma through a goddamn confessional booth I was ready to close this story and never open it back up again. Im not a prude and I dont believe theres a certain way sexual traumas need to be presented in media. A staggeringly large amount of people experience sexual trauma at least once in their life and there is no one correct way to process that trauma so by virtue there is no one right way to portray it but this was just a little much for me. Something about this title kept me around though and I ended up blazing through the whole series in a day or two. Im not here to say that Bitter Virgin is necessarily good. The art style is the worst kind of ugly midaught shit that is just the worst to look at nothing interesting going on to justify the ugliness. The plotting made me laugh out loud at some parts with how transparently convenient events fell into place. That first big scene where the main character conveniently overhears every horrible thing that has ever happened to this poor girl during her life just because she decides to confess it to a booth in a Catholic church when he just so happens to be hiding in there is the level of contrivance were going for with this whole series. The dialogue is charming in its own way but it is certainly not realistic and is not stupid enough to be campy. I will say that I do like the characters aside from one whose presence I felt was unnecessary but I guess needed to be around for the final contrivance of the manga even the annoying gyaru bully character although whew she is rough to look at. At times they can feel more like mouthpieces than characters but theres enough depth to them to carry the series through its short 4volume run. Im particularly fond of the main character. Its nice to see a nice guy who isnt a nice guy and I like that he genuinely reflects on new information he learns and uses it to better himself as a person. And on that note its time to talk about the crux of this series. There is no beating around the bush that this manga is about a girl who undergoes horrific real sexual violence and is now dealing with the residual trauma surrounding this time in her life. Everything about this series orbits Hinakos trauma so if the way this trauma is explored does not jive with you this story will not be for you. The reason I stuck with this story despite the frankly juvenile way it portrays sexual trauma is because I felt something genuine in it from the author. I wanted to give her the benefit of the doubt and see her art all the way through and I found some valuable gems hidden in there. This work reads like escapist fantasy for rape victims. A girl is not seen as broken because of her trauma well maybe she is but first and foremost she is seen as beautiful and worthy of love because of her trauma. Daisuke loves Hinako because she was abused. Is this toxic romanticization of sexual abuse? Maybe. I think that is ultimately going to come down to an individual readers judgement. When I take on the lens of reading this manga through an escapist fantasy I feel that romanticization is inherent to that fantasy. I do not believe that it is toxic in this work however. Though Daisuke a man is our main character the manga always firmly holds a female gaze. The things that Daisuke says and the things that Daisuke thinks are things that I can see a female victim wishing a man would say and think about them. Daisuke never expresses sexual desire towards Hinako which is a good thing because I really dont think Kei Kusunoki wouldve been able to pull that off successfully. Most of Daisukes eternal monologues focus on him empathizing not sympathizing with Hinako and understanding why she is the way that she is and through that conversation he has with himself he comes to care for her because he understands her better as a person. Hinakos trauma is beautiful to Daisuke but not in a way a broken bird in a cage would be beautiful to some sick freak. Daisuke doesnt get off on Hinakos trauma in fact hes horrified by it. He cant believe that someone his own age could go through something like that and remain a relatively normal person. He then takes this knowledge and uses it to metamorphose himself into a better person someone who is mature enough to be worthy of Hinako and theres something beautiful about that. He also spoilers Though I know disclosure on the internet is never required I do feel at this point that its important to disclose that I have experienced sexual trauma in the past. Its important to me that I do this because I dont want to seem like Im talking over survivors. Though Ive never been through what Hinako has been through I find myself empathizing with her through Daisuke and find myself coming to love her as well...because it helps me come to love myself. Hinako is far from a perfect portrayal of a survivor. In fact Id argue that she is too perfect of a victim. In reality victims are never perfect. Victims always have something that someone can say about them that would to some indict them of their punishment. Hinako is absent from any of those. She is truly a pure innocent victim with no impure thoughts or feelings about what has happened to her. In this way she is virginal as the title suggests. This presents some issues that I feel is beyond the scope of a simple review but I did want to point that out. Bitter Virgin is far from a perfect piece of media and I honestly have no idea who I would recommend this to but if you made it this far into the review and it sounds like any of this could be interesting to you then I would suggest checking it out. Just be sure to do your research beforehand as to not potentially trigger yourself. While most of the melodrama in this series is simply that: intense levels of melodrama there are also moments where the melodrama crosses over into the real territory and I can see some imagery being extremely triggering to some. There are no rape scenes that are especially violent and I cant remember any nudity but there is the mundanity to it and as a survivor myself that mundanity is oftentimes the most triggering aspect. Borrowing from an articlehttps://jennshellzone.com/2021/08/26/traumamoviesraperevengeptsd/ by the wonderful spookycoochiehttps://twitter.com/spookycoochie on Twitter for some survivors assault in media that is overthetop is not necessarily always triggering. Sometimes insane acts of violence in media can be cathartic and help survivors work through their trauma in a safe removed environment. I see this kind of melodrama in the same light as Jenn sees horror media. But as I was saying earlier Bitter Virgin does stray out of that territory so please do whats necessary to protect yourself. My DMs are open if you need specific events or circumstances listed for you to know if this would be okay for you to read. And to wrap things up I would not call Bitter Virgin a good manga but I would call it a heartfelt manga. After reading I learned that the mangaka wrote this story largely to work through the trauma she had experienced by giving birth to a stillbirth baby. I believe you can feel that desire to work through trauma throughout this whole work and thats what gives the series strength to me. Because of that I can look past the many many flaws of this work and find something beautiful in it to love.