Jan 16, 2026
I read this instead of working or writing 
idk I don't have much to say that I haven't said already. I really liked Ryuji as a main character. He nails the "strong yet vulnerable" vibe to a T. The one thing I didn't like is how anticlimactic the Grace/Miyabi thread feels. It was the thing I was most interested about, and it just kind of... fizzled out? I get that the main plot quickly pivoted to something more "physical", but it still would've been nice to see proper closure on the subject if nothing else.
As usual, I find that the story itself is competent and it shows that you have a lot of experience by this point, so certain beats might come naturally. I'll admit that when I started this, I wasn't expecting to see mind control magical girl yakuza dances, but I never really felt like it got too "out there". The foundation was always there.
I think the thing that bothers me the most in general about the Grace saga is that Grace herself feels like such a non-character. No joke, she went from a manic pixie dream girl lite in the first part to a literal global one for the second part. Sure, it's by design, I suppose, but her becoming this almighty borderline omniscient goddess makes her feel like even less of a person than before. If her childish detachment coming off as sociopathic was intentional, that's pretty cool, but if she's supposed to be a character that I should root for then, well... yeah, no, sorry. She had a TON of potential at the beginning with the Grace/Miyabi thing for me and I was really interested in that, but you know how I feel about how that ended. I'm going to be that person and say that she feels like a MacGuffin for men to have character development, and that's a charitable reading for me.
Ironically I think Haru was a noticeably stronger this time around. Him not acting like his Grace 1 self was for the better. It still grated me to see him get the big rescue scene when in a vacuum he's "some doctor" for this story's purposes, but I think that, generally speaking, he had the strongest writing next to Ryuji.
And like... yeah, Ryuji carried this so hard that his back would break if he wasn't stupid OP. I've never been a fan of fight scenes in literature and find myself skimming more often than I'd like to admit, but I found these ones entertaining, and I think him constantly being at a disadvantage highlighted how strong he is instead of him curbstomping everything. He felt like more of a product of his environment rather than yet another rough around the edges MC with a heart of gold, so that was also pretty cool. I have no idea how yakuza works, but I think I could follow along for the most part. I'm still not a fan of the random tell don't show bits, but either there's less of that here, or I just didn't notice.
I'd probably read Grace 3 if it ever happened depending on what it's about, but it probably wouldn't be because of Grace herself. I do see how there "can't" be another one, because where even do you get from here? in b4 Grace Conquers The Local Cluster
Generally speaking, I'd say that it feels like you have fun in everything you write, but this one especially feels geeky, and to me that made it pretty enjoyable despite Gr*ce. I like how the story could oscillate between mature and silly goofy without one overshadowing the other. Do I, as a reader, think that this could stand out on its own? Honestly, no. Right to the end I felt like I would've lost a lot out of the experience without Grace 1, but that's just a me thing.
tl;dr Ryuji x reader fanfic incoming
