Honestly I wish EverSweet less more focused on "making Shiki feel loved" and more "help Shiki solve his issues outside of the relationship". Like,
Yeah, that helps, it certainly helps that he gets it through his head that he's loved. But he also was fully ready to commit murder-suicide, I feel like that's not⦠that's not exactly fixed⦠I feel like the romance didn't fix that part⦠I feel like there's still something there that got swept under the rugā¦
And obviously, his Charming Book comes back with the same issue, but this time "it's the pipe's fault. magical pipe, not me!"
We see him use painting as an outlet in ES, which is a good start. Obviously I'm not expecting Rejet to send him to a therapist, but I feel like implementing different outlets for his pain obsession would've been a better direction than "I don't want to hurt you, I'm fixed! I lied! Okay, now I'm really fixed, I promise!"
An active choice to regulate his engagement in said pain obsession would've been a good sign that he's getting "more human", that he understands the consequences of his actions and wants to preserve this new human life.
That he might still like the idea of murder-suicide, but he understands that actually dying would make it impossible to have dinner with his girlfriend tomorrow. That, as appealing as breaking Ritsuka is in the moment, it'll stop being fun once she's a husk of a person. That, yes, getting beat up by angry random guys sounds appealing, but a broken bone doesn't heal as fast as it used to
Eh, maybe I'm expecting too much realism out of this. But I still feel that acknowledgment and an active choice on his part would've been a better direction than lying. And then not addressing that lying.
I don't know where I was going with this⦠EverSweet is decent for what it is, and it did its job, but there's still so much left to do when it comes to Shiki and the relationship












