This story stars a 25-year old former boxer named Sohei who was originally inspired to become one after he read Ashita no Joe as a teenager. As far as boxing manga goes I haven’t read Joe (which recently got licensed in English) but I am currently reading Hajime no Ippo which is I am enjoying, although I don’t really know anything about boxing despite this. This manga was so boring it made me want to read that instead though…or anything else…insurance paperwork or algebra would have been more entertaining.
There’s two other characters besides Sohei, writer Chika and designer Naoki, who work at a start-up design firm together. The central romantic conflict is between Sohei and Chika who have been friends but nothing more for 10 years, while Naoki is the token mischievous gay character who is mainly there to cause drama. Chika gets mad at Sohei at one point and tells Sohei that “I never thought of you as a friend” and pretty much the entire story is Sohei feeling bad about this and wondering what he actually meant. To the reader it’s obvious he meant “more than a friend” but I guess not to Sohei.
The second conflict is about Sohei picking up boxing again after a long absence, and how he struggles to keep up with the competition. There isn’t that much actual boxing in the manga but I guess we’re mainly here for the BL so whatever. I did like those parts though because there was actually something happening.
There’s a couple sex scenes in it at least, which I guess counts for something. There is one early non-con bit played for comedy but the rest of the sex is…wholesome, I guess. You don’t see any dick or asshole but at least they didn’t stiff us (!) on the M rating.
The story itself isn’t really that bad, it’s certainly predictable but that’s pretty standard when it comes to yaoi. My main issue was with Yamada’s art, which I disliked even more than usual. Literally a third of the manga feels like totally white empty space, and the characters aren’t really that attractive. This was one of her earliest works, done in 1999, so understandably she was still developing her style but it makes for a pretty boring manga. Back then there also wasn’t as much yaoi to compare it to so maybe it didn’t matter so much then, but it definitely has not aged well with the veritable buffet of well-drawn BL we have access to now. If Yugi Yamada’s art and stories don’t bother you, you could easily enjoy this one, but I just found it snoozy overall.
TL;DR A sort of slice-of-life drama about a boxer that is fairly boring thanks to Yamada’s static, unrefined art that hasn’t aged super well….even the sex scenes are kinda boring. It was one of her earliest works and it feels like she drew the bare minimum, and there’s a noticeable amount of background-less empty space. The story technically isn’t bad and the characters are ok, but her art style does not make them look very attractive.