Fudanshi Koukou Seikatsu
The High School Life of a Fudanshi

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The High School Life of a Fudanshi (or FKS) has a charming premise. Typically, the Boys’ Love genre is marketed towards women (fujoshi), though there are a number of men (fudanshi) who enjoy the genre as well. By focusing on a fudanshi, FKS forms a distinct comedic identity, as many works that follow a similar line of comedy focus exclusively on fujoshi. The initial appeal of the manga is this unique premise, but it’s unfortunate that it doesn’t really expand beyond that.

As a four-panel manga, I suppose I shouldn’t have expected the plot or characters to develop very much, but everything does start to feel ... stagnant around half-way through. The art has a kind of crisp look to it, making every panel feel polished and clean. The characters are cute, relatable, and well-designed. These two factors (art/character) are what kept me reading to the end.

With that being said, if clean art and cute characters aren’t enough to keep you hooked, there isn’t much here for you. By the half-way point, all of the punchlines start to feel extremely predictable, and character quirks become very overdone. Furthermore, the humour might not even be to your tastes in the first place; this manga is narrowly aimed at those who enjoy BL, so if you aren’t familiar with the genre or community, a lot of the references will land pretty flat.

I have to give credit to Seven Seas Entertainment for their stellar English translation, though. They do a really fantastic job of localizing the gags, making minor language tweaks to ensure that the jokes land and resonate with a Western audience. It’s probably one of the most well-done localizations of a manga I’ve seen in recent years, and definitely worth trying out just for that.

Overall, though I enjoyed FKS, it stopped surprising me pretty early on, and I feel like a lot of potential was wasted. It works fine as a gag-manga, but never really excels beyond its initial premise. If you don’t care for BL, then there isn’t much here to keep you reading. However, if you’re someone who enjoys BL, I definitely recommend at least trying out the first volume to see if you like it.