This book is a ‘party,’ all right – the kind of house party in college where a bunch of people are invited but only four dudes show up, no one really talks or has much in common, and so all of you awkwardly sit there drinking PBRs and watching a bad movie while swiping on your phones looking for something better to do or an excuse to leave. That’s kind of like this book, except in this book the four of you are gay and two of you are dating and one starts giving the other a hand job but then they get in a fight with each other and one smacks and possibly rapes the other one, and the third and fourth show up, get introduced, make small talk, then fuck on the futon and then everyone leaves. We’ve all been to one of those, right?
So this book has a character chart in the table of contents, which in my experience never bodes well for a short manga. It also sometimes means it is a continuation of a story, so either a sequel or vol 2. Huh? Doesn’t say that anywhere on the book. Plus, surely DMP wouldn’t license a sequel without a prequel or a vol. 2 without a vol 1? They’ve never done that before….right? 🚩
Set in a fine arts college, the story stars art students who’ve started dating, Mamoru and Natsu. The ‘plot’ is kind of slice-of-life snapshots of their relationship with the other characters on the chart kinda woven in.
There’s also a devious female character named Hime (far left in the above photo) who seems to be trying to break up the main couple because she thinks Natsu would be better matched to his childhood friend with an unrequited crush on him, named Kei. Her motivations and what she would gain from this are unclear so all we can really assume is that she is just a bitch I guess? She seems to come around in the end but it’s unclear if she’s really the ‘ally’ or ‘enemy’ in terms of female characters in yaoi.
Overall, it’s a really dull read, and not a lot really happens. The characters are a cookie-cutter yaoi couple, have dumb dialogue, and everything just moves at a snail’s pace. The sex scenes are pretty nonexistent, I think there’s like two or three but they’re very vague (I just read this book 10 mins ago and I can’t even really remember, that was how much of an impact they made).
The most ‘exciting’ thing that happens is that at one point, the main couple have a fight over Kei. You don’t see this fight, but apparently Natsu hits Mamoru and may or may not have raped him (wording is vague but at the very least dubcon was present). This seems really out of character for Natsu but because they simply talk about it after the fact without showing it, the situation is unclear and doesn’t have much weight. Also, ick. Uhh guys, not really healthy behavior here. Although they do patch things up at the end, this coming out of nowhere and being ambiguous makes me unsure if I should really be rooting for the couple or not.
After they kiss and make-up (no makeup sex though sadly) there’s a seemingly random side story at the end with Kei who goes to visit his friend Michiro, a character we see for the first time, and while having small talk they seemingly out of nowhere start fucking. You know, just normal guy stuff!
God, this book is so boring that even my review is boring. The characters are drawn cute I guess, but SO bland and have such dull same-faces that you can barely tell Kei and Mamoru apart and everyone has boring facial expressions. The art school setting seems based on the mangaka’s real life experience so if I can give it one compliment it’s that – as a fellow art student in college once upon a time – that part felt real at least.
There are hints in the afterward that she has done other stories with these same characters, which would at least explain the lack of character development and random ‘episodic’ format of the story. I looked it up and sure enough this book has a freaking prequel – that we don’t have in English, of course. Why would we? That would require good decision-making on DMP’s part which is a lot to ask of a publisher that famously stole a bunch of crowdfunded money from their readers and clearly have a few lights out upstairs, both figuratively and probably literally since they seem to be perpetually limping along financially. In fact, it isn’t the first or even the second time they have licensed books in a series without a part of a story that goes before it. This book though – although decidedly kinda bad – can be read as a standalone and you won’t really feel like you’re missing anything until you get to the end part with Kei and Michiro, who must have some kind of something established in the prequel for it to make sense for them to just start fucking randomly over some small talk.
The prequel is called ‘I Want to Kiss and Hold Hands’ but it is not scanlated anywhere unfortunately. Kaiya doesn’t have much work in general but a chunk of it has been licensed for English release – also from June we have ‘Love Training,’ and ‘Physical Attraction’ (a now-rareish book which I hear good things about), and also Hot Steamy Glasses which I read a while back and totally forgot that she did, but I believe it is on my worst-rated list if that tells you anything. She has some other glasses-related stories, and one or two that were licensed by Renta as well I think. I will read more of her work hoping to find a gem – and save ‘Physical Attraction’ as the last beacon of hope – but so far it’s been two duds.
TL;DR This is a sequel to an earlier work by this author, and though it is readable as a standalone title unlike other random loose-end ‘sequel’ books like this that DMP has licensed, it’s quite a bland and boring read. A lot of stuff is simply talked about without being shown (or shown vaguely), the characters feel wooden and the art is cute but feels lifeless. Not a lot really happens either, and there’s not really even sex to spice it up. Throw in an implied icky noncon situation for good measure and your time is probably better spent elsewhere.