If my high school archery club had as much sexual tension between gorgeous boys as this one does, I think I most definitely would be able to get a bullseye on a moving bullet by now.
As I started to read this manga, I started to get a feeling of déjà vu. I swore that the same uke was in another story. It bothered me until I looked it up, and it turns out the story I was thinking of was Sweet Revolution, which I saw Honami also drew, so I guess it made sense. But it goes beyond stylistic differences in my opinion…it’s like Ohta walked out of that story and into this one, dyed his hair dark, and changed his name to Katsura. He has the same face that looks like he had his nose and chin bones sanded down, same haircut, same body, same cloying personality, same pitiful helplessness. Ohta was my least favorite part of Sweet Revolution and I found him a flat and annoying character, so having the rest of a three-volume story ahead of me starting his dark-haired twin who is assumedly better at archery but otherwise absolutely identical was a less than welcome prospect. I have other books Honami drew that I haven’t read yet, but I have a sneaking suspicion that the ukes in those stories look almost identical as well. Here’s all three side-by-side, I’ll let you be the judge:
However, I think going into a manga with low expectations is generally a good thing, because as long as it’s not like an animation flip book of beaver sex, then it’s going to be better than I expected (I guess that applies to anything in life, really). I had double-low expectations in this case because it was a 16+ title, so I already know there isn’t going to be any sugar in these cornflakes, as I like to say. And thus, Rin! did pleasantly surprise me. The 3-volume series was a slow burn, the story was well done and well-paced and I found myself getting excited to the build up of ‘omg they’re definitely going to kiss soon!’ in Vol. 1, rather than be totally annoyed by it (which goes something like, ‘will you guys fucking kiss already, it’s 3am and I want to bookmark somewhere where I’m going to remember what just happened.’) The characters are easy to tell apart and multi-dimensional with different personalities, and the story easy to follow. Unlike Ohta from SW, I felt Katsura developed as a character (I mean, if he hadn’t by the end of three volumes, I’d be like wtf). However, he wasn’t my favorite by far – that title belongs to love rival Kouichi, who pretty much made me weak at the knees.
There was a second sort of love rival named Akira who was also a nice surprise, I wish the story wasn’t so Katsura-centric…I mean, this whole freaking archery club is about as straight as a bent arrow (zing), surely there is enough man candy to go around that they don’t have to all fight over The Noseless One. Kouichi seems like he’d be equally adaptable as a seme/uke depending on who he’s with (or even, like, bisexual), and I don’t think any fujoshi in their right mind would complain about seeing him get multiple arrows shot straight into his bullseye courtesy of Akira. It’s the volume 4 we need, but not the one we deserve.
Oh also, there’s a ‘bonus story’ at the end of Vol. 1 that actually made me laugh out loud, because there’s like 100+ pages of story that *end* where they could barely kiss they were so nervous (not to mention there is pretty much no funny business at all in volume 2), then suddenly there’s like this 5-page story at the end where basically seme Sou nonchalantly reaches over and is like, ‘here, have a handjob.’ And it doesn’t even explicitly say that time has passed between the last thing that happened, in which they were slowly and nervously sticking a toe on first base like it was a sulfur bath, then suddenly they’re pretty casually gunning for third. I’m guessing the bonus story wasn’t in the serialization, it was just a teaser for the second volume, but it was just like, ‘whoa, ok, barely two panels have passed between their second barely-kiss and now they’re breaking out the post-handjob clean-up tissues, are my pages stuck together?’ There is actually a tasteful sex scene at the end of the story, but it’s nothing to get excited about – it’s just not one of those kinds of stories that you read with one hand if you catch my drift, but there is enough sexual tension here to form a thin sheet of ice over Hawaii.
Overall this is a really, really good shounen-ai manga that flows nicely. The pacing gets a little slower around Vol. 2 and it feels like there is filler in place, but things quickly start to happen again (I can’t dock them for this because this was never intended to be a 3-volume story in the first place). The art is great and the archery panels are particularly beautiful; you’ll probably want to pick up a bow and arrow after reading it. You’ll also probably get attached to Kouichi, he’s very hard not to love. Would highly recommend this one, despite its length it’s a fast and enjoyable read!
TL;DR: Couldn’t get more fluff here if you shaved a polar bear. Very cute story and great characters; the archery panels are the highlights and you’ll probably want to shoot some arrows after reading this…fantasy Legolas crossover initiated. This is an all-around fantastic shounen-ai that I can easily recommend.