Smells Like Green Spirit

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Smells Like Green Spirit (named for the Nirvana song, which is appropriate for a coming of age story, although I don't know where 'green' comes from) is something most BL manga cannot ever aspire to be: real. SLGS accurately represents what it is like to be queer in a small town as recent as even ten years ago, where everyone has their eyes on you and expects you to be what they want you to be.

The main character is one of those kids who, while never having "come out," is obviously gay and everyone knows it. By the time the story starts, he has resigned ... himself to taking the bullying and harassment because that's just how it goes—a sad truth represented right on the page. Things start to change, however, when he realizes that one of his main bullies might not be so different from here is.

From there is a very honest look into what it is like to come of age as a queer person—especially a young gay man—in an unsafe place, finding love and happiness and themselves amidst all of the pain and struggling.

This manga is a romance, but it makes the really interesting choice of having the main couple not consist of the leads. Rather, they remain just friends throughout, and the main character's love interest is someone else entirely (who is also going through many of the same struggles in his own way). This is an unconventional choice, but it's one I appreciated. Oftentimes, friendship is more important than romance—especially during such a difficult time in one's life when they're struggling to figure themselves out, and what they really need is a friend who understands them.

It also takes the time to acknowledge the overlap between gay men and transgender women that does and has always existed. The two communities have never been separate and never will be, and a lot of people find themselves identifying with both—similar to lesbians and transgender men. Obviously not everyone will identify with both—there are gay men who are not genderqueer in the slightest and heterosexual transgender women—but there *is* an overlap, and seeing that represented here is really important and special.

Also, fair warning, this manga has a very bittersweet ending, and that may be a controversial decision to some, but I think it's perfect. This manga is grounded and realistic, and it is not afraid to shy away from the painful truths of the queer experience, even if it also shows the happiness that can be found in it. Not every queer person gets a happy ending. Sometimes a queer person finds themself and who they are but they have to resign themself to a life of unhappiness because of outside factors. Many queer people sacrifice their own happiness for the sake of other people, and seeing that in the ending of this manga may be a tough pill to swallow, but it's the perfect conclusion.

There's one main reason I haven't rated this manga higher, however. There's something of a sexual predation problem amongst gay men because, well, gay men are certainly still men, and I could go into detail about socialization and the patriarchy to explain why men tend to commit sex crimes but I am not going to assume you are stupid and need it explained to you. The point is, it happens and it sucks. This manga seems to propose that the reason for the problem has to due with matters of homophobia, and while I am open to that idea, I am a bit soured on it due to how this manga presents it.

Sexual assault is very important to the middle of this manga's story. I respect it for trying to address such a pressing issue in this society, as addressing societal issues seems to be the main goal of this manga, however I don't think it handles it with tact and grace. It's decently graphic, and once it's over the story moves on from it much too quickly in my opinion. It is almost entirely about the assaulter and not the victim, and I think telling stories about assaulters is still important, but the victimhood of the character he assaults is essentially disregarded for the sake of proposing society is the reason he molests young boys. I might have been willing to listen to that last point, but I'm not in the mood to be open to it when presented in a rather tactless way. The mangaka then went on to make a spinoff manga about the attempted rapist, by the way.

All in all though, this is a very poignant, thoughtful read that represents queer issues much better than most BL I've seen, and I would really recommend it.

As someone who also grew up in the countryside of a conservative country, this manga was amazing, a great representation of what growing up somewhere like that when you're any flavor of queer is. It may be triggering for some people though so be warned, this manga portrays severe bullying and an attempted rape (which, unlike many many many other mangas, it portrays it in a realistic and serious way, which I guess only makes it more triggering tbh).

This story doesn't really revolve around romance almost at all, as some others have pointed out on their reviews, but that's what makes this manga ... stand out from the pile of BL out there. I loved the friendships that were built and lost and I love how all of the characters the story focuses on, had major development. This author really knows how to show how nuanced we all are as human beings, no one is perfect, we all struggle with something and sometimes we can be morons one way or the other, but it is on us to grow and change.

Truly an amazing read and the only reason why I don't consider this a masterpiece is because the author made some… choices on how to portrait some characters that was a bit too sympathetic for my liking (and they also gave the worst character a spin-off for some reason and well, I'll just reserve my comments on that one). But the majority of this story was really good, the first chapter almost made me stop reading, the beginning threw me off and the art was also a bit rough in the first half of the story, but the art and story improved tremendously and I couldn't stop reading this! I loved the MC's mom, best bad-ass character, I love her so much.

The ending was pretty good, although quite sad at the same time, but I liked the realism. Not everyone gets a happy ending in real life, so it was a bit refreshing to see it reflected in this story.

Smells Like Green Spirit is an absolute mess of a manga. The plot swings from one thing to another fast enough to give you whiplash. There is a lot of simply absurd stuff that happens, with no real build up except the author deciding that this is what was happening now. The characters' motivations are bizarre and unpredictable. There are some really troubling yaoi/BL tropes that are used as a fall back to create drama, with literally no fall back or substance at all. The whole premise on which the manga opens (a gay kid being bullied) ends up having little to no bearing on ... the characters involved and their course through the story.

Honestly, the series is not great. It's not even good. I didn't give it a rock bottom rating, however, because of the last few chapters. They really confused me because they became, if not good of themselves, then like they had been taken from a better, altogether more grown up series. They didn't fit with the ridiculous tone set by every chapter previously, but they were actually pretty good. They made me feel emotions for the characters, where none of the earlier dramatic hijinks had done.

There are a couple of good side characters, and a few funny bits. There's a lot of abysmal stuff to wade through, but it's a short series. Read it if you fancy something that's not going to demand a lot, but also isn't going to give a lot.