‘Can you still call someone ‘just a friend’ after kissing?’ this book asks. Why yes, you can do exactly that – surely they know what friends with benefits are? Or, you can kiss someone and decide ‘yeah, no,’ which was the experience of my first kiss. I was 14 and he was 16 which I remember mattering (oh, he’s a ‘junior and you’re a freshman!’ my friends cooed). He invited me to the movies after class and we went to see the terrible sequel of an already-terrible romcom and then we sat there watching the credits roll kind of waiting in anticipation to see if the other was interested in this mouth touching thing people seemed to like. We were both shy naturally but finally the whole theater was empty so we went for it. I don’t think he knew it was my first kiss and for that I am very grateful. I remember hating it – eww, boy tongue – and watching a guy who worked there sweeping popcorn out of the corner of my eye and I felt weirded out that he was smiling at us and then it occurred to me that maybe I was supposed to close my eyes anyway. Don’t worry, the kissing in here is much hotter than that…
This is a really ubiquitous June title and if you’re new to collecting, and you’ll likely come across it sooner rather than later. This is just as well because it’s a more ideal book for beginners who like BL that is similar to your standard shojo; it may bore more seasoned readers. It has a lot in common with other June releases from around this time – meh art, good story. It only contains one plot too so it takes its time, which I liked. Kazushi and Haru are childhood friends in their last year of college, and Kazushi crushes on Haru and gives him a ‘fake’ kiss to shoo a girl away which prompts Haru to have a crisis of feelings. Kazushi soon says that he was serious about kissing him and confesses, but Haru continues to struggle defining the line between friendship and something more and which one he wants. Although it’s by no means a creative or new yaoi plot in any way shape or form it was still a cute read and the characters are really wholesome.
As the title suggests there is a decent amount of kissing in here as well as some nice relationship and character development. The story is told from Haru’s point of view and although he is naive and a bit of a brat at times he does come around at the end. They have a super sweet friendship and are both likable characters. At one point Kazushi gives Haru a trophy he has engraved with ‘Best Friend of the Year’ which I thought was pretty adorable but maybe would be moreso if they were like 12 and not 22.
It’s rated YA so I was not expecting a sex scene but surprisingly, one popped up! Normally June gave anything from this period an M rating if it had sex, even if you don’t see anything that even needs censoring, which created a lot of M-rated titles in their catolog that are as about as explicit as a book of nursery rhymes. For some reason this one slipped by though – it’s from 2006, so perhaps they were experimenting with relaxing this policy. Likely the reason they were overly cautious with ratings in the first place is that people unfamiliar with yaoi raised a fuss that it existed, so maybe around this point those people found something else to complain about, like Myspace.
Shoko Takaku was a moderately active mangaka in the 2000s who only did yaoi. She has a recognizable style and a few other titles that were licensed by June, most recognizably the 4-volume series Passion. For both that story and this one she worked with a writer although she normally does not, and perhaps because of that her collaborative works are notably less smutty and more wholesome than her solo works such as I’ve Seen It All, a story about a doctor falls in love with a patient because he has nice genitals. She also did stories for both a bukkake and urethral play anthology so she isn’t shy about drawing more intense stuff. Those are separate anthologies just to be clear, unfortunately.
Anyway, Kissing is a nice manga if you like wholesome yaoi. It was a cute read despite how standard the plot is and if you’re just getting started with BL and on plot vs penis scale you’re more on the left, this is a read you might consider if you don’t mind the art style.
TL;DR: Charming, wholesome story that reads like a shojo manga with typical mid-00s yaoi art (ie, serviceable but dated). Worth a read for those who prefer more plot and less penis and aren’t easily bored, since it is quite a standard yaoi story regardless of the fact that it’s cute and well done. It’s a particularly nice story for beginners as it doesn’t really have anything that would offend, unless you count yaoi hands.