This was one of the first BL titles I ever read, and I remember really liking it. I even replaced my crappy used faded copy that looked like a dog had chewed on the dust cover with a nicer one. However, now that I have hundreds of BL under my belt and I just read another title by this mangaka, I decided to see if it still held up.
Kazumi is the owner of a small graphic design firm and has long crushed on a man in another office building whose window faces his own. One day he runs into him during his lunchbreak, his name is Yajima and turns out he’s been in the same situation – gazing at Kazumi with interest, but never thinking his feelings had a chance. When they both realize they feel the same, they happily begin a relationship.
They meet when they can and get physical, but never go “all the way,” although this isn’t all that clear as the sex scenes are plentiful but a bit ambiguous. Yajima also gets Kazumi some design work for his firm so begins to see him during working hours too, but notices that he’s very popular with women and starts to get self-conscious. Then while working late at Yajima’s office one night, some horny weirdo named Wada-san tries to rape him.
Luckily, Yajima comes to the rescue, they have a minor argument, and almost have really hot pressed-up-against-the-window sex in Yajima’s office. I remembered this scene from the first time I read it, because I thought the idea of this is really hot.
They have a happily ever after though, and some more sexy times. They actually fuck a lot in here which I’m guessing is another reason why I liked it the first time.
There’s also a short side couple, Kazumi’s younger employee Hirumu and one of Yajima’s coworkers, Toshiya. Hiromu is self-conscious because although he’s gay and dated men before he’s never orgasmed during sex.
Toshiya fixes this problem for him though. I really liked this couple, they were super cute and even though they had a shorter story it was still good.
I thought the book was just as good as I remember it was, and decidedly better than the other Kanbe title I read recently (Hot Limit), and that one even had a separate writer. However, the art is either worse than I remember it, or it just didn’t bother me as much because I hadn’t read as much yaoi so didn’t know how good BL art could really be. One frustrating weakness for me was the sexual facial expressions because Kanbe draws a lot of them which is great, but they just aren’t very good. They look copy and pasted from one scene to the other and the uke’s mouth just sort of hangs open awkwardly. Also, Kazumi and Hiromu not only look the exact same, they also both look just like the uke from Hot Limit. Think she has a type?
Overall though, I still think it’s a pretty strong and wholesome salaryman story so I’d still recommend it despite the art. There’s quite a lot of sex too and although it’s not really that explicit, I guess beggars can’t be choosers. I’m not sure what else if anything she had licensed in English, she had a really long career though and a lot of stuff (her first listed work is from 1989 and her latest is from 2021) so I’m sure her more recent stuff is better looking.
TL;DR: Good story about two salarymen who anonymously pine at each other from afar from the windows of their opposite office buildings. They have a really cute and wholesome relationship and a decent amount of hot sex. It’s unfortunately dragged down by Kanbe’s dated and stilted art, which didn’t bother me that much the first time I read it back in the day but it does now.