MANGA: Susumu x Minoru

Susumu x Minoru – Mochino Kome

Unsuccessful in getting his work serialized in a shounen magazine, struggling manga artist Susumu is advised by his editor to try drawing BL instead. He feels disheartened, thinking he is finally being ”designated for assignment,” when his junior Minoru comes forward with a suggestion to start dating for the sake of research. What starts as purely research becomes something more, as Susumu finds himself captivated by Minoru’s sincerity…

Susumu x Minoru is a BL manga about a mangaka creating BL while slowly falling into a BL relationship himself. How meta can you get?

Susumu is the mangaka about to venture into BL. He was going to give up when his friend Minoru encouraged him to give it a try by making him read BL. Since most BL mangaka are female, Minoru also boldly proposed that Susumu do what only he can do, being a male BL mangaka, gain a first-hand experience of his stories, a.k.a. date him.

The first time I read this, I couldn’t finish. Second time’s the charm because this time, the pairing clicked!

Before, I was bored with Susumu’s denseness, but now I find his cluelessness and internal dialogues amusing. Some people needed a push in the right direction, and bless Minoru’s soul, the boy knows his friend occasionally needed an extra shove or two.

Minoru loves cooking for his food-loving, kitchen-useless friend. While he enjoys doing things for Susumu and is clearly in love with him, I’m glad that he’s not a doormat, and it’s a relationship of equals. He gets justifiably angry when Susumu is being an idiot, and the dork had to grovel a bit, especially when he realized he’s in love with Minoru.

It wouldn’t be a manga about BL without the fujoshi. One was a coworker, the other was the editor in charge of Susumu, who would both have derpy expressions when discussing their favorite topic. His description of the “mad dog” look was hilarious! We fujin can all relate to the urge to rave about our ships, but we had to keep our mouths shut when in the presence of the uninitiated.

Overall, the romance is cute, and the transition from friends to lovers is fun and well-executed. It’s not anything groundbreaking, but it’s a cheeky take on life imitating art imitating life.

---

If you like my content, please consider supporting me on Ko-fi or PayPal. Your donations will help keep this website going. Thank you so much!