This was an early title in my collection and I remembered it was one of the first BLs I thought was good. My copy looks like shit however and I wanted to re-read it now as an more wizened and cynical fujoshi to see if it’s as good as I remembered it was, so that I can replace it with one without a yellow cover that doesn’t look like a raccoon chewed on it.
Happily on the second re-read, I did still think it was good. It’s a nice collection of BL stories, and it does a mostly decent job of establishing and developing characters for being a one-shot compilation. It’s easy to read and enjoy and definitely a good title for anyone easing into the world of fantasy gay Japanese comics for women and isn’t sure how far they want to go yet. Maybe just the tip and you’ll see how it feels?
There’s five or six short mostly school or college stories in here and although I thought all were good I’ll just highlight my three favorites.
“The Ideal Love”: Maki and Sasaki had some kind of sexual situationship back in college, and now they’re working adults who haven’t seen each other in years…until Sasaki shows up on Maki’s doorstep one day, needing a place to stay. He’s always crushed on Maki and has chased him for years, but was always turned down. Maki had a boyfriend for a little while who dumped him, and he can’t seem to truly get over him – but finds he enjoys living with Sasaki, who takes on the housekeeper role until he finds a job. when Maki’s ex-bf comes back in the picture begging for him back, he has to decide if it’s his ex or Sasaki he wants to give his heart to. It’s a little ambitious for such a short story, with a lot of background info being told in flashbacks, but I liked the characters and their slow burn and emotional romance.
“Direction of a Smile”: This one was my favorite I think. Kashiwagi is openly gay and works at a hotel, where he crushes on his boss Sako, despite the latter being homophobic. After a night of drinking though, Kashiwagi walks Sako home and his boss comes onto him and they have sex. In the morning though Sako freaks out and refuses to talk to Kashiwagi, which makes work awkward. Eventually Kashiwagi confronts Sako and it turns out he put on a homophobic front to hide the fact that he always thought he was gay – however he was raped by a man in college which traumatized him and made him uncomfortable with his sexuality.
Story-wise the “accidentally sleep with my boss while drunk” trope is pretty common, but this story adds a layer of emotional trauma to it which makes you feel for Sako – and he and Kashiwagi are a great couple that is easy to love.
“Mix”: Yamazaki and Yoshino are college friends, but that changes when Yamazaki confesses to Yoshino one day and gives him an ultimatum – date me, or we can’t be friends anymore. This might seem a bit callous but it’s nice that Yamazaki had the maturity to realize that resuming a normal friendship with someone you love who turned you down probably wouldn’t be possible. Yoshino says yes out a desire not to lose his friend more than anything, but isn’t really sure about the relationship. He takes his glasses of when he has sex with Yamazaki, which makes Yoshino see him blurry, and through this a division develops between “Yamazaki his friend” and “Yamazaki his boyfriend.” This was a pretty good short story and I felt for the conflict of both characters.
An afterword at the end hinted that Ueda is a bit shy in drawing sex scenes or having characters talk about sexual things, which would explain why most of the intimate moments focus on the emotions of the characters and their faces rather than their bodies – this made those panels particularly intimate and I think it’s easy to feel a strong connection to the characters’ feelings. This was also heightened by her art style, which uses a very thin, delicate line weight throughout. I also liked that the semes/ukes came across as equal partners in the their relationships and did not seem stereotypical. Worth picking up for readers who like fluffy romance and slice of life, especially since it’s still easy to find for relatively cheap.
TL;DR: One of the first BLs I read back in the day that I remembered liking, wanted to re-read it again to see if it held up – and it does! It’s a cute fluffy slice of life compliation with mostly college-aged characters; the art is charming and Ueda is pretty good with short stories. It’s rated M but it feels more like a shounen-ai because the intimate scenes aren’t too revealing – definitely leans into the romantic and emotional aspects of the relationships over the physical, and I also liked that she mostly avoided stereotypical seme & uke cliches. Sweet, relaxing, wholesome relationships that’s easy to enjoy.