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MANGA: Contradict
Contradict – Oshima Kamome
A cocky and confident Yajima harbors dislike for Torikai, a cool and talented fellow trainee in the Rescue Team. The two constantly quarrel, but one day they cross the line while squabbling and end up sleeping together. Yajima regrets it, but at the same time he cannot get Torikai’s pleading expression out of his head. However, because they have been rivals until now, he just can’t bring himself to be honest with Torikai.
Ooh, finally got a good one!
Contradict is a bitter rivalry between two overachieving firefighters training to be in the elite squad. It reminded me a lot like the Top Gun homage MM romance, The Elite.
Yajima is cocky and loud, has little tact and is super annoyed at how his rival gets under his skin all the time. Torikai plays his cards close to his chest but could be surprisingly careless about personal details. Both men are well-liked among their peers even though their uber competitiveness tends to land them and the rest of their team penalties whenever things get out of hand.
However, one drunken night shook Yajima’s world, and now the rivalry might just end his dream.
Things were set in motion through coincidences where the MCs often found themselves in the same training class or liking the same things. It happened so frequently as to be ridiculous, and every time it happened, Yajima gets a jolt and even pondered, “what has fate in store for us?” It was so funny!
All in all, the plot is well-executed, the humor actually amusing, and the chemistry between characters has that extra zing that great enemies to lovers stories always have. Also, both MCs are likable, handsy but with consent. Because it turns out, someone has been secretly pining. The romance wasn’t the grand gesture type but the more swoony little things, big squees moments, which I always find more precious.
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MANGA: Junketsu Naito no Granz Reise
Junketsu Naito no Granz Reise – Seika
While other knights might pour their time into drinks and brothels, Gael Faris does not. He does not drink. He does not sleep around, all for the grand plan of becoming a paladin. Though Gael has failed the paladin examination, he continues to perform his knightly duties for the town Fastes. While on his rounds, Gael accidentally recuses Elcielas, an elf, from thieves. Elcielas recruits Gael to escort him on his mission to the capital to save the king. But, will Gael be able to stay pure on their journey?
The Pure Knight’s Shining Journey is a fantasy romance about a pure knight who dreams of becoming a paladin and an elf on a mission to save the king.
Gael is pure as in kind-hearted, naive, and virginal. He was roped in by a shining woodland elf, Elcielas, to escort him to the capital. This has the megane trick, where the elf looks ordinary when he wears eyeglasses, then reverts to his sparkling self when he takes them off.
I loved the premise but didn’t find the humor funny. The gags, which were blah, hindered the pacing of the plot. It was mostly Las going on and on about how attractive he is because he’s an elf. The story could also use more action that could have showcased how strong Gael is in a fight, instead of the big to-do of the dub con-ish connecting of souls.
This was a kind of elf magic to keep Gael safe in the woods. I say this is dub con-ish because Gael wasn’t fully informed of what’s happening. Las tends to obfuscate some facts especially knowing how clueless Gael is. The spell was done with them in the nude, which had Gael conflicted, having vowed to keep his virginity because of his paladin dreams.
Mostly, Las is tiresome and not as attractive as he thinks he is.
Very, very sad that this is another manga ruin by an unsuitable love interest. And Gael was a total sweetheart too, poor boy!
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MANGA: Mujaki na Wanko to Nekokaburi
Mujaki na Wanko to Nekokaburi – Niyama
Yagi Naohito has a fear of being hated, so he always acts according to everyone?s ideals.With that mindset, he was half-jokingly labeled ?A coward? by Akasaka Tooru – a guy whom he met at a mixer that his friend half forcefully brought him along.After being overwhelmed by the young man on their way home, Yagi didn?t think that they?d end up meeting again a few days later. As a help to Akasaka who?d just lost his home and was at his wit?s end, they started living together. The man was supposed to be nothing but a burden but without noticing, he gradually become someone who Yagi could rely on..?
An Innocent Puppy Meets a Two-Faced Cat is an age-gap, salarymen romance with cat/dog dynamics. The dog personality in the relationship is Tooru, a young engineer whom 39-year-old cat personality Naohito met at a mixer.
Tooru’s habit of cheerfully blurting out whatever he thinks made him memorable to Naohito, who has a tendency to put on his people-pleasing face because he wants to be liked. He refers to this as his mask and one of the reasons why his relationships always fail. He feels his true personality leaves much to be desired.
Tooru is the younger seme, an interesting combination of pushy and endearing. He does not sekuhara his way into Naohito’s pants, but innocently pushes his way into the man’s life through candid praises and powering through Naohito’s protests. Tooru is straight but soon had his bisexual awakening because forced proximity with Naohito revealed the older man’s true personality which Tooru found adorable.
This manga has great potential but the execution could have been tighter. There were parts where I skimmed because they weren’t interesting or particularly relevant to the plot. Their romance was cute but lacked the oomph to generate squees. Still, this is good enough for a go.
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MANGA: Mamotte Agetai Sawatari-san
Mamotte Agetai Sawatari-san – Nanatsuno Wataru
Having lost his protection charm given by his Grandmother, Sawatari must now rely on his super lucky junor, Akutsu to ward off his unluck. Will their relationship turn into love?
I Want To Protect You, Sawatari-san is about a very unlucky guy, the superstitious Sawatari, taken under the wing of the super lucky kohai, Akutsu, who proceeds to protect him from mishaps. Sawatary proclaims he’s his lucky charm.
I loved the premise, but the manga left me conflicted. Older uke Sawatari is kinda adorable in that helpless klutzy dorky way. He’s straight, so he’s pretty much oblivious that much of his interactions with Akutsu were very couple-y. The two shacked up, and Akutsu does everything for him, goes everywhere with him. They even shared beds platonically. And then the dork blithely goes his merry straight way.
Akutsu, well, this guy feels off. He gave me Stalking Killing MC vibes, kinda looked like him too. A few characters even called him creepy. Thing with Akutsu is that his feelings seem to be only skin-deep. He’s attracted to Sawatari because who wouldn’t after all of Sawatari’s unwitting flirting. But the manga failed to effectively deliver his depth of feelings despite the shift to his POV. He was basically bored and found Sawatari interesting, and that’s about how far it goes.
However, this manga is still fun especially the side characters. These guys were a riot, blurting out ridiculous comments and making derpy faces. The characters are salarymen, but they come across as college kids.
Overall, entertaining, and steamy but could use a better seme.
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MANGA: Koko wa YES to Ittekure
Koko wa YES to Ittekure – Yoshii Haruaki
Am I a man? No.” “…? Sexual harassment.”
A love paradox between a boss and his subordinates who have a habit♥Motokawa, a non-ceremony man who can work but has no delicacy, I’m concerned about my subordinate Okumura.I usually have a bad mouth and play tinkering. I can appreciate his serious work attitude, and above all, he is cute when he laughs.
On the other hand, Okumura, who had been isolated after being exposed to gaiety in the company, remained completely unchanged even after learning the truth. Moreover, Motokawa, who nominated me as the person in charge of the large contract, moved me.
Okumura turns red even with casual physical contact.
Motokawa almost kissed Okumura…!!?I am not a fan of the age-gap trope due to real-world examples of predatory older men preying on much younger, barely legal women. I don’t know how they do it in MF, but in MM romance, writers try to make the trope more balanced by having the younger man as the pursuer.
Please Say Yes boldly takes the opposite approach by having the older man, and the boss at that, do the pursuing. I felt residual iffyness due to my dislike of the trope, but this manga not only completely won me over, it’s one of the most enjoyable I’ve read this year!
This is a funny and utterly adorable story of a middle-aged man’s bisexual awakening. Motokawa is pretty laidback, easy-going, and amicably divorced. Suddenly finding his subordinate Okumura’s face cute, he became curious about why the young man is always alone and avoided by his co-workers. Then, they were tasked to handle a client together, and soon the older man found himself falling for his subordinate.
Motokawa made me laugh. He had such derpy expressions. The manga’s charm lies in those moments that make Motokawa pause and realize things about Okumura he finds attractive. Then he blurts it out loud to Okumura’s embarrassment. And the thing with Motokawa he does it casually like he doesn’t realized he just slayed poor Okumura who goes why the hell is my straight boss saying this to me. It was both a courtship and an awakening, and it was endearing as hell!
Our sweet, blushy boy, Okumura, has trust issues after a scandal from his previous company. He’s the type of character you’ll want to build blanket forts for. He’s knows his falling for Motokawa but couldn’t trust himself or his boss.
The story touches upon homophobia in the workplace. Okumura lets himself be the scapegoat in that scandal to help his co-worker save face. Motokawa treating him like he does the rest of the staff, like normal, during their first meeting was memorable to him. Also, the bonus megane moe at the end!
This manga takes a refreshing approach to age-gap workplace romance, and it was a riot!
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MANGA: Hajime No Koi
Hajime no Koi – Nishimoto Rou
Hajime Mamiya decides to quit the yakuza business after the death of his boss. When riding on a bus, he meets Sho Kosaka, a college student who is close to his boyfriend. One day when Mamiya couldn’t forget Kosaka’s longing face towards his boyfriend, he reunites with him, who apparently works part-time at ‘Deriheru’. Mamiya doesn’t know how it feels to love someone, but he learns of Kosaka’s devotion to selling his body, and decides to buy all his time so that he doesn’t have to take other customers. A pure story of a slowly falling in love with a former yakuza who doesn’t know love and a college student who wants to love and be loved!
Yakuza BL is my jam, and here we have one bad boy turned first time gay with THE MOST GORGEOUS TATTOOS!!! Superbly rendered by the mangaka and showcased to fabulous effect!
Hajime no Koi is a play on the MC’s name, and falling in love for the first time. Hajime Mamiya started his life as a normal citizen when his boss died. On the bus, he contemplates love and what people sacrifice for it while staring at a lovesick young man, Sho Kosaka. Later, he meets him again and learns he’s a college student. Then much later, while looking at a sex working site he saw the familiar form and hired him.
The plot runs on the interplay of pure and criminal, starting with Hajime’s sincere attempts to live a normal life vs. how regular people see him. There’s his kind treatment of the naive sex worker Kosaka vs. how bad Kosaka’s supposed boyfriend treated him. There’s also focus on how pure and sweet Kosaka is, which leads me to my main gripe about this manga.
The characterization of Kosaka wasn’t done convincingly. The boy should have been adorable with his pretty face, blushy gazes and fluffy smiles. Instead, he pinged my yandere radar. And here I was expecting him to drop the sweet act any second and come at Hajime with an axe.
Things got a little better by Chapter 3, when Kosaka stopped peddling himself and became roommates with Hajime. And they adopted a cat. At this point, things were still very much platonic between the two, which is very endearing because they were rooting hard for each other to succeed. Kosaka is a vet student, and Hajime just landed his first legit job. It also helped we get glimpses of Kosaka’s thoughts, and ok, so he’s as sweet as he looks. Still, I didn’t warm up to him much.
Then, more complications arrived that only made me wish Hajime was paired with a different character, like his hella attractive former yakuza boss who’s now a law-abiding single dad or his food truck boss, which would make for an intriguing older men romance. My interest petered out, and I ended up skimming.
Tsk! I’m not having much luck with my BL manga lately.
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MANGA: Bokura no Micro na Shuumatsu
Bokura no Micro na Shuumatsu – Marukido Maki
In 10 days, the world will be destroyed by a meteor. To spend his remaining time as comfortably as possible, bad-luck magnet Masumi decides to visit the library of his alma mater and read as much as he wants until the end comes. But in this hellish world, he meets a devil there: the one man from his past that he never wanted to see again, Ritsu. And if things weren’t bad enough, Ritsu has a favor to ask, a favor that Masumi could never have expected—-
Marukido Maki weaves an eccentric tale of human connection in a world on the brink of destruction in this emotional journey that will take its readers on a wild ride.
The End of the World, With You blurb grabbed me. It’s an apocalyptic second-chance romance, and we don’t see a lot of that around.
The story opens with the abysmally down-on-his-luck Masumi, deciding to spend his last remaining days until a meteor hits the earth in the library. There he bumps into his infamous ex, Ritsu.
Seriously, worst seme ever! Second only to the one in Boyfriend 17. Ritsu is a lying, cheating scum, an unrepentant fuckboy who sleeps with anything that catches his fancy. He did this while seducing the naive and insecure Masumi, who, later learned about the misdeeds the hard way. To top it off, he threatened to out poor Masumi to everyone when confronted. The bastard broke Masumi’s mind and spirit so badly that he ruined the rest of his life.
Ten years later, Masumi the dork, despite recalling the bad memories, let himself get roped into another shady activity by Ritsu. I couldn’t give any fucks about the couple at first, but the story’s hidden charm snuck up on me in the form of a quest, two lost students, and strange coincidences.
Suddenly, I understood why this was good enough to warrant a live-action movie. It’s a poignant story of reconnections and new friendships unfolding through an eventful trip across Japan. Not only do the twists come out of nowhere, but Masumi’s hurts are also so bone-deep and palpable that my chest hurts for the guy. It didn’t help Ritsu was a douche through most of the story. I was rooting hard for Masumi!
Ritsu had his redemption arc but it was almost too little too late. That it took an actual apocalypse for him to make it up to Masumi didn’t commend him to anyone. Yet, the mangaka skillfully salvaged what is salvageable about Ritsu, and I could believe he kept his promise in the end.
Don’t let my rants about Ritsu put you off this manga. It’s twisty, emotional and will make you believe in miracles.
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MANGA: Himekoi
Himekoi – Mitsuya Bond
A long time ago, a divine fox saved Mikazuki village from famine. In return, the fox took one of the villagers as his bride. To this day, the villagers hold a marital ceremony every year at the summer festival. The descendant of the fox and the descendant of the bride marry, and then they spend one night together. The villagers believe that this ceremony continues to protect them from disaster. It just so turns out that, this year, those two descendants are Kanata and Kuro, and, this summer, it is their turn to marry and have sex. There’s one problem — unlike Kanata, who believes in their village’s customs, Kuro does not seem too keen on his fate. Kuro’s apathy hurts Kanata, who always felt that he didn’t quite mind, as long as he was with Kuro…
Fox brides of the BL variety is catnip to me. Masked Love is an adorable childhood friends-to-lovers story about two boys destined to be married because of town tradition.
Villagers believe the well-being of their town was due to fox protection in exchange for a bride. Kanata is the descendant of the bride, and Kuro is the descendant of the fox. They were to be married during the festival. The ritual culminates in the consummation of their marriage. But Kuro’s lack of interest had Kanata mired in doubts, and soon they noticed a series of unfortunate events around town.
Everything was very cute and sweet. It’s all the squee-tastic things we love about friends to lovers. Then by Chapter 3, things became messy when it shifted to the dads’ POVs. These two were the chosen couple from the last generation, but they were also each engaged to women to continue the lines.
The plot did something more convoluted by throwing a third boy between Kuro and Kanata. Also something something blah blah about Kuro and Kanata not having to be engaged with women just to force a happy ending.
I didn’t know what was happening anymore. I skimmed and gave up. What a waste of fox brides!
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MANGA: Uso Ka Makoto Ka
Uso Ka Makoto Ka – Tobi Washio
One day, Taiyou, a popular guy because of his good looks, was asked by a senior student at his part-time job to take care of his cousin, Tsukihiko, who is attending the same university as Taiyou.
However, Tsukihiko is rude to him from the beginning to the end, Taiyou still tries to be lenient towards him, but on the inside, he’s on the verge of exploding because of him!
Suddenly, Tsukihiko confessed his feelings to Taiyou and took him to an empty classroom where he made his move…!
Lie or Truth is a senpai/kohai, childhood connection romance between two university students.
This is an older uke, younger seme romance where the seme, Tsukihiko, is cold, blunt, and dub cons his way into the uke, Taiyou’s pants. I was initially meh about Tsukihiko, but as the story progressed, he somehow won me over.
The two MCs initially got off the wrong foot. Taiyou, known to be popular and cheerful, approached Tsukihiko as a favor to his work colleague, requesting he looks after his cousin. But the younger man bluntly told him his smile was fake and gave him the cold shoulder. Then out of the blue, Tsukihiko confessed, and Taiyou rejected him as revenge. It began a little game of notice me kohai/senpai.
The key aspect here is the childhood connection that began a lifelong devotion to one’s crush. I love this trope, and the execution was perfectly balanced between hot/cold, humorous, fluffy, light angst, and steam.
And dub-conning Tsukihiko, I forgave because he acknowledged going too far and apologized for putting Taiyou in that spot. The forehead kiss was everything!
The guy on the cover is Taiyou. Tsukihiko’s character is drawn with overlong bangs covering his face. And you can bet it hides an uber-cool seme face! Check out bonus chapters.
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MANGA: Kachou, Kekkon Shimashou!!
Kachou, Kekkon Shimashou!! – Seika
Aoki, who lives with his only daughter after his wife died, has a special hobby of making sweets! One day while handing out his baked goods at work, Mizuno, an unfriendly subordinate, unexpectedly enjoyed the desserts. As a result, Aoki invited Mizuno to his house to deepen his friendship, but as soon as Aoki gave Mizuno a colorful handmade sweet, he proposed saying, “Chief, please marry me!”
Chief, Please Marry Me is an age gap, workplace romance, and a perfect example of the adage, “The way to a man’s heart is through his stomach.”
Single dad and mid-level manager Aoki loves baking sweets and bakes so many treats, he takes them to his office to share with his co-workers. Mizuno is his bitch-faced subordinate, known to be as unfriendly as his face. Secretly, he LOVES sweets. So much so that upon tasting the best dessert he had ever eaten, baked by Aoki, he was so overwhelmed he proposed right then and there!
The best parts of this wonderful story are the character and romantic developments of Aoki and Mizuno. Aoki is a mild-mannered man whose temperament is as sweet as his baked goods. He found someone who could appreciate his baking, promised to take care of him and his daughter, and held true to that promise through the years. Through Mizuno, he learns how to better handle the moment when his young daughter, Chie, finally leaves the nest.
Mizuno found someone who loves his love for sweets. As a scary-looking man, he was outright rejected by a chocolate company because no one believed someone like him could like such delicate girly things. He was even mocked for it. This is why Mizuno is fiercely protective of the little family who brought him happiness.
This is a dual bi-awakening romance which lead to hilarious couple moments. As salarymen, they researched gay sex and presented them to each other as if about to conduct a meeting. Mizuno’s formal marriage proposal was in PowerPoint and presented in the most convincing sales pitch ever. I had a good laugh!
The ending was an endearing scene of Chie’s wedding, which Mizuno, probably a CEO now, took time to attend. I loved that he and Aoki were together throughout the decades.
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