I watched + read Dorei-ku years ago when it first released. Honestly for some reason I rated it higher than I ever would, maybe because I was in my edgy phase and I liked everything dark and edgy. Decided to give it a read because I was bored hoping it'd be my guilty pleasure or at least be in the ''so bad it's good'' category but ugh not even close. First of all, this show has horrible pacing, it's always going too fast, and it's impossible to keep up. There's going to be spoilers of stuff that happened but I won't say names, so proceed with care. It startsdecent enough, they introduce the SCM, the premise of having someone as a slave after you win them to a game is solid enough and the possibilities with that idea were endless but holy what a disappointment. The main problem this manga has is that first of all you introduce the main character Eiya but she's literally absent for most of the first half and deadass only shows in less than half the chapters it's crazy how irrelevant she is despite being a main character because the author thinks introducing a damn character every 3 episodes is somehow a great idea.

BUT THEN DOES NOTHING WITH THEM. A woman who was sexually assaulted several times manages to become the master of the asshole that r4ped her... And what do they do with these characters? Literally nothing, a few chapters later they're both slaves to another character and they both proceed to be irrelevant for the entirety of the story, literally not doing ANYTHING.

A host club client obsessed with the #1 host manages to make this host her slave. I wonder how their relationship will develop??? You guessed it, next chapter they're both slaves to a third party and become irrelevant for the entirety of the manga.

And that's literally dorei-ku. Introduce interesting character dynamic, does nothing with them, introduce new characters and back to square one. Getting attached to any character is literally a waste of effort because their character arcs literally last 2 chapters at most and then become irrelevant.

You might be thinking that they're setting up something big with so many characters but literally no, the finale could've been the same with 90% of the characters out of the picture and I'm not even joking. The point would've been the same.

They introduce the first ''villain'' which ends up being a fraud anyway, then they introduce the actual ''true'' villain with a broken SCM that makes you think of how they're outsmarting them... But then a fucking random twist villain appears, beats the crap out of the ''true'' villain and then.... Starts a slave hunt or whatfuckingever? It literally happens in half a chapter and the twist villain literally had half a chapter of screentime prior to that and I'm supposed to be hyped or excited about this garbage.

They bait you with a villain, bigger villain with no aura appears and then it happens a third time.

I genuinely think the author was writing the story by vibes and didn't really think things through. And then in the finale the ''main character'' who has less screentime than Julia (a woman in love with a child which is implied they did the deed btw kinda uncalled for if you ask me) pairs up with a literal fucking background character that somehow is actually super important and ties all the loose ends.

Then there's supernatural stuff, DID character that literally goes nowhere. A femme fatale that becomes lobotomized after losing once, a dog that somehow is in this shit too... The list goes on.

Also the author is literally obsessed with Jamaica I swear to god it's mentioned more times than the MC's name yeah we get it bro you know a lot about it, what does this have to do with a story of slaves in japan. Also a lot of christian allegories and stuff that's kinda irrelevant anyway.

Only reason this is rated higher than it should is because I love the art. It's hard to put into words but I really vibe with it, and also I love Julia's design and it's a shame she's such a weirdo.

People say that the ending is rushed but I think everything is. Unironically I think the anime is better paced, too bad it's incomplete and they kinda mix stuff so it's a bit incoherent but yeah.

If you want to see bdsm dynamics (specially femdom) go watch Prison School. If you like dark and edgy stories go read Tomodachi Game.

There's also a sequel that no one has translated but can you blame them? I consider myself one of the only dorei-ku apologists because I think it has good ideas but I won't sugarcoat it: it's garbage.

Only give it a shot if you've literally run out of similar things in the genre and/or you like the art. I genuinely like the art.