Tag: angstfluff

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LOVE SHARE (Aoi Kujyou)

Aoi Kujyou is something of an uncommon anomaly in the yaoi world – a male. You would never know this, as his art style and stories are very much the same as his female counterparts, but it’s interesting when a male artist chooses to make BL for a female audience. I think it’s safe to say his work is a collective ace in the pocket for wooing girls *or* gay guys, so this dude is really straddling the strait here and his friends are probably all jealous at the power he wields. He’s still an active mangaka now and has quite the back catalog too. As far as this early work of his goes though, it was a bit of a dud for me overall due to some missing context and no clear plot development. There’s some prrrrrretty dang hot kissing though. Gay kissing. Shh don’t tell my mom.

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AUTHOR’S PET (Deathco Cotorino)


If there was a such a thing as cheap, no-frills takeout in yaoi form, this would be it. Made from a standard recipe with no surprises, and maybe a little bland at spice level 2-3 , but it meets your expectations and satisfies your appetite. Plus you didn’t have to cook. No leftovers though, they didn’t give you any more sex extra rice than was required 🥡 sad panda…🐼

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JIHAI (Toshimi Nigoshi)

On the off chance that someone out there has not only read this series but is also thinking that this isn’t technically a yaoi or even a shounen-ai, well, you’re right. However, it’s closer to being a shounen-ai than two roaches on a bacon bit, and the proximity about as “ugh!”-inducing – albeit for totally different reasons. But the main reason I’m reviewing it is that it’s a hidden gem of a release that needs more attention, which is my favorite reason to review anything. Are you into shojo sci-fi with BL subtext that’s heavier than metal? Well frens, read on…

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CONSTELLATIONS IN MY PALM (Honami/Sakuragi)

I seem to be on a Honami kick right now. I apparently just happen to be reading the books she drew in an order where I like each successive one more than the last. No doubt this pattern can only last for so long but I was curious to see if I’d find my new favorite book of hers at the end of the trail. It might be too early to say, but this one is going to be hard to top – Constellations in My Palm is not only my favorite book Honami has worked on (the 5th of hers I’ve read), it has one of the most touching, beautiful, and tear-jerking stories of any yaoi I’ve read in a long while. Really, it’s that good.

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LOVE LESSON (Hanae Sakazaki)

So, I don’t mind student-pursuing-teacher storylines, and I don’t mind younger semes with older ukes, but if those two things overlap on some kind of yaoi venn diagram it’s not really my cup of tea. Maybe I just haven’t read one I really liked yet, but I think when it gets down to it – college students are one thing, but when I think about the guys I knew at 16, and then pretend they were gay, the idea that any of them would be able to top someone older and more experienced than them, much less satisfy them, much less seduce them, much less have the confidence to try in the first place, much less put another comma in this sentence, is kind of laughable. Granted, I went to Catholic school, so that probably means diddly squat. Maybe in some public schools out there people were so used to this that when Johnny bent Mr. Smith over in the janitor’s closet after Algebra 2, they didn’t even have to shut the door – and that’s still *if* doing questionable things with the mop handle wasn’t completely off the table. You know those kids that were duller than a tan crayon yet somehow always got good test scores? You gotta wonder…

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HATE TO LOVE YOU (Makoto Tateno)

I came across this title fairly recently and remember being surprised when I saw the author – first, I didn’t know Double Penetration Deux Press licensed any of Makoto Tateno’s work, and second, I thought I owned all of her English-licensed BL titles (that even includes Happy Boys) because I love her stuff – while not always draw-droppingly amazing, her work is consistent, and seems to be always to my taste. But somehow this one fell through the cracks on my list – her first BL title too! So of course I was curious how well she spread her wings when jumping from the safe warm nest of shojo into the vast, cloudy expanse of butt sex. And jump she did!

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OTHELLO (Toui Hasumi)

If I had to guess which yaoi books on my shelf be legitimatly tear-inducing, Othello would probably have been in the bottom half of that list. An R16 that looks kind of like a lame vampire story with that gothic cover font? Nah. Yet, as it turned out, to say Othello was moving, beautiful, and heartbreaking would be an understatement – this book absolutely came out of left field. I guess really I just wasn’t expecting it to be so touching, much less serious.

You’re probably wondering what the hell is so special about your standard oversize mid-2000s R16 June book, of which there are dozens. Trust me, I was surprised too.

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DEAR MYSELF (EikiEiki)

Note: The crying-to-sex ratio is about 20:1 in this book, which I just feel like should be stated upfront.

So, I usually don’t read a lot of shounen-ai – somehow I skipped over that stage and went straight to the smut, and find it hard to regress now. ‘What, no cupping invisible shafts? How will I get to the end?” (No pun intended) The lengths I go to on my quest to read every yaoi manga (Totally realistic goal, right?)

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