This is probably one of the worst-looking BL books I have, the inner cover is literally held together by tape and it has suspicious-looking stains on some of the inner pages that look kind of like cum. I think of it as an added bonus feature to make the stories more realistic 🙃
But really, this was a pretty decent BL with three good stories, so you can always judge a book by its suspicious-looking jizz stains, as the saying goes.
The book is sort of themed around the modeling world. Story #1 is a romance between two young models, Tadashi and Aki. Aki (who is 16-ish) became a model because of his modeling idol, Tadashi, who is three years older than him. But then Aki’s career took off, while Tadashi’s began to flatline, making the latter feel insecure. They accidentally sleep together while drunk one night and then become awkward around each other, and the story is sort of about how they “restart” their relationship from square 1. The story reminded me a lot of Double Cast which had similar characters and dynamic. There was also a decent amount of sex – explicit, no, but erotic, yes. Do you want to see? Of course you do!
Tadashi and Aki were both great characters and it was interesting watching the nature of their relationship change over the course of the story from coworkers to rivals to lovers again and landing on some mix of all three in the middle by the end, especially as Tadashi struggling with feelings of inadequacy. Aki is clearly devoted wholeheartedly to Tadashi though and it’s great watching him be a supportive partner.
That was probably my favorite story in the book, but the other two weren’t bad. The second is a photographer and model pairing, I think someone else from the same agency as the characters in the first story. Shunsuke inspired Nishida to become a photographer, and he tries to talk Shunsuke – who’s modeled since he was a child and is bored with it – out of quitting modeling altogether. There appears to be a bit of an age gap here but Shunsuke ends up being the one to initiate so it didn’t feel predatory. Also, we get a short-haired guy in this story, which is like sort of uncommon in BL.
Oh, and they have sex. Wanna see?!
I didn’t really love either of these characters but for a short story it was fine.
The third story brings some tragedy into the picture. Tatsumi has been despondent after his friend Shinozaki drowned at sea some years ago, when he suddenly sees him on the bus one day – except it’s not Shinozaki, it’s actually his brother Ryo.
Tatsumi starts to hang around Ryo, the sudden last connection he has to his friend, who he didn’t realize he loved until he was already dead and feels deep regret over it. Ryo allows this for some reason and even though he makes it clear he isn’t his brother and has a totally opposite personality. But Tatsumi soon finds himself becoming close to Ryo despite it all.
Oh yeah, and they have sex! Wanna see?! Well, if you’re still reading at this point…
I wished this story was longer and had more time to develop because it still felt like Ryo was just his dead brother’s substitute (even though the story wanted you to think otherwise) because of the short length, and there’s wasn’t enough space to convincingly grow their relationship separate from the elephant in the room. But I guess a short story that leaves you wanting more though is not a bad problem to have.
Overall, it’s a good read, especially for the mid-00s. Checks all three boxes in my book too:
[x] Good story/stories
[x] Decent art
[x] Sex
Really, I’m an easy customer.
This is some of Shouko Hidaka’s early work and if this is her more ‘amateur’ stuff then boy o boy do I have to check out her later stuff. She wasn’t especially prolific but she seems pretty popular and a lot of her stuff is licensed. I think her most well-known title is Blue Morning from SuBLime which is like 8 volumes long or something, but she also has a now-rare series called Does the Flower Blossom also from June and a fairly recent release by Seven Seas called Anti-Romance. Oftentimes a popular later releases will make people buy up a mangaka’s long-out-of-print earlier work like this and drive the price up, but this hasn’t happened with Restart yet so it remains one of those “cheap but actually good” older June releases.
TL;DR: Early work from Shouko Hidaka (who also did suBLime’s Blue Morning). Three stories that mostly revolve around modeling – thought the the main one was great, and the other two were decent. Competent art and erotic sex scenes plus I like her writing – no surprise that she’s still getting licensed in English