I came across this title fairly recently and remember being surprised when I saw the author – first, I didn’t know Double Penetration Deux Press licensed any of Makoto Tateno’s work, and second, I thought I owned all of her English-licensed BL titles (that even includes Happy Boys) because I love her stuff – while not always draw-droppingly amazing, her work is consistent, and seems to be always to my taste. But somehow this one fell through the cracks on my list – her first BL title too! So of course I was curious how well she spread her wings when jumping from the safe warm nest of shojo into the vast, cloudy expanse of butt sex. And jump she did!
It’s hard to believe Hate to Love You is a debut work – it’s drawn with the confidence of a much more experienced mangaka than she was at the time. The plot is roughly a Romeo and Juliet type story centering around two rival families, the Konoes and Kazukis, whose respective real estate businesses are in a constant state of feuding. The (young, hot, male) heirs to each one were childhood friends and develop a complicated relationship to say the least.
I liked the plot well enough, it was enjoyable and easy to follow and had some interesting dynamics going on. It seemed like further chapters weren’t immediately planned when the first one was written and the story was continued/serialized later (there’s a lot of repeat scenes to catch people up on what’s going on), but it develops pretty organically. It’s also notable for having a female main character, which is pretty rare in BL as we all probably know. Here it’s Akiko, an early love interest and potential business ally who makes things interesting for our two Romeos here. The people in charge of churning the yaoi mill may disagree, but personally I think it’s refreshing to see strong female characters in BL. There is an interesting Afterword in the back in which Tateno reveals she was shocked when the editor told her to make Akiko smaller in one panel because closeups on female characters in yaoi were ‘unnecessary.’ Well I mean, I guess. But that doesn’t mean they don’t have a reason to be there if those characters are part of the story. I mean, jeez, has this editor ever read a Lily Hoshino title? It’s not like readers are going to get jealous or something; they knowingly (assumedly) picked up a yaoi book so they know what happens in the end. But I can’t be the only one who thinks that that means every single character in the entire book has to be a dude. But I’m rambling now so moving on…
Looking at her body of work now, one can tell Tateno liked this kind of story – i.e., business or school rivals falling in love – and she revisited this theme again a few times (Ka Shin Fuu, kinda-sorta Blue Sheep Reverie, Yellow, Steal Moon, and a handful of unlicensed titles she did, one in particular called Romeo x Romeo which looks extremely similar to this one). Indeed, it’s hard to look at this one book objectively without thinking of other works of hers it reminds you of, since she is such a prolific and well-known mangaka from this time. But I do think Hate To Love You can hold it’s own as a solid title, because it’s really well balanced. Actually I think it’s a great beginner story for those new to the genre because it’s got nothing too controversial in it (not including the bonus story, ha), it’s romantic, angsty, and fluffy without being too much of either, and good amount of kissing/sex scenes spread throughout, the latter which are just explicit enough to be pretty tantalizing without being smutty. I don’t actually know if the M rating is wholly warranted – she doesn’t exactly shy away from sex scenes, she is just careful what she shows. Not that you always need to show dick to draw a hot sex scene – I much prefer this way rather than a lackluster, lazily drawn sex scene that simply shows dick just because.
The art style is undeniably hers and easy to identify, and you can easily see the artistic groundwork here for Yellow, Hero Heel, Blue Sheep Reverie, etc. It’s a little stiff and not as polished as some of her later works, but that’s hardly a knock for a debut work, and we of course have the benefit of hindsight now. I think she really hit the ground running for her first go at this genre.
There is a side story in the back called Can’t Call It Love which was an odd choice to follow this main story, much less as her (second?) BL story ever. It’s about a high school boy named Kyoichi who stalks a much older man named Seiji and then they end up together of course, which definitely isn’t creepy at all (ironically I’m watching Durarara right now and in one episode a character named Seiji also gets stalked by an obsessive lover and also ends up with them, oddly enough – though the similarities end there). Some dub-con is involved, which, you know, of course it is. Why not include dub-con when you could include dub-con is a question worth asking. It would have been nice to see this story developed more because based on the ending, things were just starting to get interesting. (Plot twist: Seiji has also secretly been stalking Kyoichi the whole time, but has to be way more secretive about it because he’s technically not allowed within 100 yards of a school and doesn’t want to go back to prison but secretly he does, of course. But wait, this is Yaoi World, where older men raping teenage boys always turns into a love story instead of a court date. I guess you could say we just like happy endings? ;))
Overall, Hate To Love You is a pretty great yaoi debut. You can definitely see the beginnings of the extremely talented yaoi mangaka she would yet become, and stylistically if you love her work this is a joy to read in order to see how it developed. I think I like her later stuff more, but for a debut work she definitely set the bar high for herself and it’s a title I’d certainly recommend, especially for someone just getting into yaoi!
TL;DR: Makoto Tateno hit the ground running in her yaoi debut with a solid, well-balanced yaoi-style Romeo and Juliet tale (or ‘Romeo and Romeo,’ as the back of the book duly notes). Fans of her work will be delighted to see the stirrings of her later and more well-known work, and her confident storytelling and recognizable art style already fully-formed. With a caveat that the bonus story is a little weird, this is an ideal title for new yaoi readers discovering what the genre has to offer as it blends a lot of elements well without anything being too overbearing.