If there was a such a thing as cheap, no-frills takeout in yaoi form, this would be it. Made from a standard recipe with no surprises, and maybe a little bland at spice level 2-3 , but it meets your expectations and satisfies your appetite. Plus you didn’t have to cook. No leftovers though, they didn’t give you any more sex extra rice than was required 🥡 sad panda…🐼
I’m not even sure how many stories are in here – like 6 or 7? The plots and characters kind of all ran together, and as a whole they were fairly forgettable but there are a couple bright spots. The title story was definitely the highlight: late for school one morning, high schooler Yuuta collides with the older handsome Tsubaki, landing the latter in the hospital for two months with both of his arms and both of his legs broken (it doesn’t say or show exactly what he did to cause that, but I guess we can safely assume he pushed him in front of a train). Tsubaki is a writer and can’t type with his bandaged hands, so he coerces Yuuta into becoming his ‘assistant’ and dictates his stories for him to type. The premise was sweet and I particularly liked the novel-esque ‘descriptions’ that Tsubaki gives in the third person.
They did have a somewhat icky scene though where Yuuta tries to get away from Tsubaki after he’s finished his “servitude” by getting a new job but Tsubaki basically kidnaps him from his workplace, takes him to his house, handcuffs him, and then I think you can guess what happens next. Ugh…was this really necessary? Yaoi Press reviews have already thoroughly worn the non-con tag this month, you couldn’t wait until I washed all the stains out?
The other highlight was the second story, about a vet tech who likes cats more than people and an injured – boy prostitute? – he takes in. At first it seemed too much like the same ‘kind’ of story as the first with the whole injured person thing, but it developed past that a bit and was cute so if nothing else it had length on its side (girth a bit lacking though).
There was also like…a motorcycle mechanic and his boss pairing, and convenience store employee and his older customer pairing, and a boys college dorm pairing. I’m probably forgetting one or two, none were as memorable as the first two stories. All of them were pretty light on the sex though plus all the dicks are literally invisi-boners so no reason to get excited about the M-rating – although I think we’ve all learned by now that M-ratings on June oversize titles are mostly huge, filthy, hot, hard, juicy lies.
Deathco Cotorino – real name Desuko Kotorino (but Deathco already conveniently doubles as a name for her future metal band should she ever start one) – has a stylistic light touch that is very wispy and vague at times, but the characters are cute in that old-school yaoi sort of way – even if they all look pretty much the same, and correct anatomy is optional. Probably too much the same: at least twice I started one of the stories thinking it was a continuation of a previous one or was a spinoff with the same pairing because I mean – would you guess these were not the same people?
The whole thing is pretty unpolished overall but I’m taking into account that it was some of her earliest if not her very first original works, and for a debut it’s not terrible. Judging from the notes after a few stories it seems like her editor was really on her back (she made her redo every single page in one of them, ouch) and pushing her really hard to do her best so this probably helped. She’s not been especially prolific over the years, but had a new book out in 2020 and is active online. Not sure if she still draws yaoi, she seems to do more comedy and slice of life now; her latest work is some pretty cute colored 4komas about meeting her husband. It seems she loved drawing 4komas even back then as there is one after each chapter story, and all of them made me smile.
Speaking of her editor – so there’s a super short 5-page story in the middle that’s pretty forgettable, but when I read it I noticed this panel. The scenario is that the uke’s school uniform is disheveled and the seme is helping him “correct” it so I thought he was teasing him while adjusting his shirt or something.
But then a few panels later it referred to them having been intimate, so I went back and was like, ‘wait, I think he’s getting a hand job here?’ The uke looks so nonplussed it was hard to tell, maybe it was just a really boring hand job? Anyway, at the very end of the book the mangaka’s notes mention this:
..and I was like, omg I’m not crazy! Even the editor thought so! I’m surprised she didn’t make her correct it because, I mean, no one likes ambiguous hand jobs. If CNN did a poll, you’d have to find some dudes who are really into edging to get any ‘yes’ responses. The rest of us like our hand jobs firm, rhythmic, and squelchy …you know, Shake Weight style.
TL;DR Standard cheap yaoi takeout order, but at least you know what to expect and it satisfies your appetite – don’t expect leftovers though. A series of one-shots with the title story being the main highlight, it doesn’t really stick out from any of June’s other releases from this time, but it’s cute nonetheless. The art is unpolished and the characters are hard to distinguish across stories, but it’s also some of the mangaka’s earliest original work and is decent for a beginner and for early 00s BL, although there’s hints her editor really pushed and directed her a lot.