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Feb 22, 2018
I usually only do reviews on my blog now, but I saw this book only had one negative review, and I felt the total opposite so thought I'd balance it out with a positive one! I really loved this manga and thought Nagasaku and Kouzuki were both hot tamales - they were a super fun couple and the story was really cute and funny, I loved their character dynamics and S&M sex play and poor Kouzuki insisting he's a seme. Sure, there was nothing groundbreaking about the characters or the story, but that goes for about 2/3rds of yaoi anyway. There could have been a
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longer/more revealing sex scene(s) for sure, that may be my only gripe, but I always gripe about that in yaoi since I'm a smutmuffin. If you're in the mood for something deviant and lighthearted (probably the most lighthearted S&M story and yaoi couple in recent memory), this is a quick and sexy read that's a lot of fun and has a great ending!
Reviewer’s Rating: 8
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Aug 7, 2017
Oh my God, this book. This freaking book. I never thought a shounen-ai could get my heart pounding like a schoolgirl talking to her crush. Yes a shounen-ai, as in no explicit sex - that's a feat for someone who has spent enough time in the dark corners of the internet to have careful instructions to trusted people to destroy my hard drive upon death. And it takes a special kind of sexless BL story to get a 9 out of me, in fact I think this is the first 9 I have given any BL on here (I don't dare rate anything a perfect
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10, what's the fun in that). I rarely read anything under an M as I found it hard to regress once you get far enough in the sin bin. Then again, there is lots of M-rated BL that simply slaps together a lame and unsatisfying sex scene just to reel in your eyeballs with that "explicit content" box, and they are the worst offenders in my opinion - if a book claims to be rated M, it better damn well better be. With 16+ stories, at least I know what I'm getting (or rather, not getting) - you can't be upset about no sugar in your cornflakes if the box says there isn't any.
Interestingly, the reason I got this book was because it was beautiful, the pages are thick and lush, more so than my other oversized June books. I think my thought process at the bookstore was something like, "hmm, no explicit sex but the pages are super nice." Logic I guess?
I absolutely love Natsume's art. Her boys are not too feminine but not too masculine - cute but athletic teens. They're funny and cheeky (the second story was aptly named), and are full of personality and character - I love the cute sideways smiles she draws. Make no mistake though, this book isn't about stupidly handsome boys with stupid problems (His Arrogance, anyone?), and there are some rather serious emotional undercurrents at play in both stories, which was one reason I became emotionally invested in all four of the main characters in a way I never do with a shounen-ai. I am tempted to google doujinshi of them to see if an artist unraveled the end of that proverbial rope, but I think I'd be disappointed - part of the charm and beauty of this story was what you didn't see, but it was that I was ok with this that surprised me - at least in the first story, Natsume dangles just enough bait to stoke your imagination, and I was delighted by it. In contrast, Our Everlasting tried this for what seemed like the entire book, but the effect was more annoying than anything, because - coincidentally! - see the end of paragraph 1.
Dash is easily my favorite shounen-ai that I have read so far. It was funny, endearing, and fluffy without being cloying. Highly recommended.
Reviewer’s Rating: 9
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Jul 14, 2017
I usually don't read a lot of shouen-ai - somehow I skipped over that stage and went straight to the smut, and find it hard to regress now. 'What, no cupping invisible shafts? How will I get to the end?" The lengths I go to on my quest to read every yaoi manga (Totally realistic goal, right?)
It actually did take me ages to finish this one, it kind of dragged at the beginning but picked up a bit at the end (but I mean at least it DID have an end unlike a certain other Eiki book...*cough art of loving cough*) Really if you were
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to summarize the plot in words, not a whole lot actually happens. The story was easy enough to follow and might best be described as 'angsty fluff,' but I'm not sure how well those elements mixed here. I like angst, but I found it hard to connect with Daigo or feel much for him or the characters' relationship at all actually, and emotionally he was much more a uke...I mean, he is crying in almost every single panel to the point where it lost impact. He was also drawn inconsistently and in some panels looked like a much different character...if the way Eiki drew his portrait in the Afterword was how she drew him in the rest of the story, I think I would have liked the book a lot more as a whole (maybe that wouldn't matter to some people but for me to really get into a shouen-ai either the story has to be amazing or both boys have to look really super hot ...bonus if both are true). But Hirofumi was a cutie for sure though, and surprisingly funny at times. The art was a bit stiff and definitely secondary to her work in the Art of Loving, in which she both draws very cute characters and develops them compellingly to boot (though I'm highly annoyed she never finished that story). For her debut manga though, Dear Myself was not bad at all, she had some interesting ideas and themes going on in here - to me the best scene hands down was the one that involved the psychological conversation between Hirofumi's selves (best I can describe it without spoilers), I wish she has incorporated that concept more.
One reviewer on Amazon (the reviews for this book are completely across the board there by the way), noted that they didn't like the very end that shows the characters three years later, I actually liked this bit (especially how Daigo turns out) and it added a hint of character development which I found a bit lacking from the main story. It would make me interested to read the sequel if it continued along those same lines - I know there is technically a second part but don't know how much of a true sequel it really is.
Overall, this is a title that will yield different opinions from different people - some will like it and some will hate it but I don't think it's exactly polarizing, there are some like me who just don't have strong feelings about it either way and think it's in the middle of the pack somewhere. You'll just have to read it to see where your thoughts fall on the spectrum! :)
Reviewer’s Rating: 6
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Jun 30, 2017
If you love sexy bishies and hot sex scenes and you're willing to trade coherent dialogue and a decent plot for it (I mean, I usually am), this is a good choice. To what extent, you ask? Well I'd say if this story was on A03 it would definitely be tagged with PWP (Porn without Plot). That's not really a knock, by the way. I personally could care less if the plot/dialogue makes sense if you're replacing that page real estate with hot bishie sex scenes, and this book checks that box!
I am only giving this a 6 instead of a 7 by the
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way because the mangaka seriously sets up a good incest scene and then chickens out (filing that one under "things you thought you'd never type"), or it got edited out, but it's not like 801 Media to do such rotten things. Tomo even SAID that was what his plan was, and there is no explanation for why it didn't happen. Why have a character explicitly state they're going to be their brother's "sexual educator" and then go to a hotel room together if that isn't happening? Don't mess with my perverted thoughts! I'm not apologizing for wanting to see that, by the way. If you read my other reviews you know I'm a filthy BL degenerate with zero shame, so whatever. I'm too deep in at this point (zing). Plus, the more manga I read, the more I feel like incest is not as big of at a taboo there as it is here in the West.
Otherwise, the sex is hot in this one. Not notably explicit or anything, just hot, and she can really draw a good uke...Ryou is adorable and the other characters are seriously gorgeous (well they're male models after all). A good dose of fluff too but not overbearing. She should really just ditch an attempt at a story altogether and just draw an art book of straight up sex scenes (or maybe she has, or maybe she draws doujinshi, I actually don't know). You can tell she isn't shy about drawing them like some mangakas. I haven't 'read' the other books that feature these same characters but I'm tempted to do so now. Overall this is a goody!!!
Reviewer’s Rating: 6
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Jun 28, 2017
I never thought I'd say that masturbation scenes in a yaoi book is what would bump up the rating for me, yet here I am.
The Art of Loving "Part 1" (we'll see part two when Satan wears a parka), starts off promising, if you don't mind cliche yaoi school stories (I don't if the bishies are cute, and Yutaka is one chiquita banana - I actually bought this one just because of the cover), and takes an interesting turn once you find out that the hero is actually the villain. But once I started getting to the end and realized that it's going to end
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on a permanent cliffhanger, I quickly got annoyed. It's hard to pick apart the story when you don't get to see the real ending, because it may have explained away some inconsistencies (for example, how did Maki go from being an art student to a successful businessman?), but it's irritating that it didn't have a satisfying, well, *anything* at the end. There was barely anything in the story to warrant an M+ rating which was also disappointing, unless you count masturbation scenes, which oddly I found to be fairly titillating. Or maybe it's just hands covered in semen, I don't know. I need Jesus.
I do like Eiki' art, and she draws cute guys. Yutaka is an interesting and complex character, and the story has a lot of potential if it would ever get finished - but the fact that it is not complete is just really unsatisfying.
Reviewer’s Rating: 6
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Jun 27, 2017
First things first - Izuna can help purify my chi ANY day of the week.
Now that that's out of the way...the story in Sweet Revolution was an odd one
(not to mention the title itself and what it has in any way to do with it, but that's BL for you), it felt like the second part was a completely different story than the first but with the same two main characters...in the middle it very quickly switches from a stereotypical school setting to a mysterious otherworldly realm (if you read/watch a lot of manga/anime, one simply accepts this), and after that leap they do
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not mix again. Still, the pacing was good and the story fun to follow, and it unfolded in a really intriguing way. Let's get to the important part though: Tatsuki is a spicy meatball, but IZUNA - oh baby! WHY NOT MORE IZUNA? For the record I feel like the author shares this sentiment, considering the Afterword is literally just an entire page about the speculation on whether Izuna is the pitcher or the catcher (you never really find out, by the way, to the disappointment of probably every single person who has read this book). The two main characters were interesting enough, Tatsuki was at least more than one-dimensional and got more complex as the story went on, while Ohta was very much a classic uke. The author is really good at building mystery and intrigue about what exactly their dysfunction is in the first part, which made for a real page-turner (also pretty sure the part when Misaki goes up to their apartment made me actually go "whoa" out loud). The mangaka is really good with using shading and subtle visual cues to create atmosphere (for example, the interior of Tatsuki's apartment is always dark or dimly lit by a single light source, which heightens the ambiguity about what freaky shit he is into up there.) The second half of the story was a bit predictable at that point but, you know, Izuna, so whatever. At the end I was satisfied overall with this book and thought it was an interesting, original, well laid out story with nice art and some verrry nice bishies!
Reviewer’s Rating: 7
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Jun 26, 2017
This is a really, really nice collection of BL stories. I'm not always a fan of the 5-stories-in-one thing because you have to learn new sets of characters so quick that often look the same and there is so little room to establish them, but this book was different. Ueda is particularly adept with the sub-stories, even though they were short I felt they all delivered, and the characters were compelling and developed to the point that I wish there was a volume 2. The main story was great, but my favorite two were Direction of a Smile (Sako pulled on my heartstrings!) and Mix
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(particularly strong story elements here). An Afterword at the end hinted that Ueda is a bit shy in drawing sex scenes or having characters talk about sexual things, which would explain why most of the intimate moments focus on the emotions of the characters and their faces rather than their bodies - this made those panels particularly intimate and I think it's easy to feel a strong connection (no pun intended) to the characters' feelings. This was also heightened by her art style, which uses a very thin, delicate line weight throughout. I also liked that the semes/ukes came across as equal partners in the their relationships and did not seem stereotypical. Overall a really strong collection that I will definitely be reading again. Really glad I picked this one up at Bookoff!
Reviewer’s Rating: 8
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Jun 7, 2017
A decent BL manga with some unrealized potential. The story is average (sometimes ridiculous) with kind of an awkward flow, during a couple parts I swore a page was missing because of the suddenness of some key things just happening with little or no explanation. An afterword by the author indicates she wanted the story 'darker,' and also wanted to include more of Keigo's backstory, which would have been interesing - personally I thought further exploring the Hamuro/Emiya relationship was the big missed opportunity, I thought Hamuro was a far more interesting and dimensional character than either of the mains (and for people who've already
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read it - you know *damn well* that kinky mofo was watching on that camera!!). The art was fine in most places but noticeably stiff in others. Still, I have a pretty low threshold of enjoyment when it comes to BL...give me cute bishies twirling the dum-dum and I'm a wholly satisfied customer. Speaking of the sex, it was sprinkled throughout at good intervals, no complaints there, only that they didn't show enough for an R18 because I need Jesus. Anyway, by my aformentioned simple standards, this was a nice, well-paced yaoi manga that that I enjoyed overall and will probably read again! ;)
Reviewer’s Rating: 6
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May 8, 2017
The feeling I had while reading this manga was akin to hopping into a cold shower when you expected a hot one...it just *completely* threw me off guard. Not that I was expecting light cutesy BL fluff- to be honest I had no expectations and didn't even read the summary on the back before starting it - but it sure wasn't this. Deeply psychological, dark, and emotionally heavy, it plucked my brain from my skull and took it for a bit of a bumpy ride sans-seatbelt. If you think a yaoi story can't wrap in almost all the words a very-well-earned M rating can list
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for reasons other than shock value, much less do it well, much less do it *exceptionally* well, let CUT show you the possibilities. As for the yaoi part (let's not forget that part!), the seriousness of the subject matter weighs on the relationships between the characters in a way that really affects the story dynamics, like the sex is hot but not necessarily arousing in the sense that you probably won't be reading with one hand if you catch my drift, because of all the intense psychological baggage that's very much at the forefront - coincidentally this lends a dark symbolism to the seme/uke dynamics as well. Don't let that deter you though - this story is a truly beautiful one and unabashedly unique in the themes it chooses to deal with, and the sensitivity in which it handles them - it can easily bring tears to the eyes. The character development is unmatched as well, especially for the BL genre - speaking of which, it's a shame that a large portion of people who may really enjoy it will be scared away by June's bright pink stripe emblazoned on the front with aformentioned genre label, because it transcends the yaoi genre in the same way that labeling Yuri on Ice purely a sports anime is leaving a heck of a lot out of the picture - except maybe for the total opposite reason. (that comparison may only make sense to me because I'm on my third glass of wine; I'm still not apologizing)
TL;DR: READ IT ALREADY
Reviewer’s Rating: 9
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