Tag: fluff

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NOODLE SHOP AFFAIR (CJ Michalski)

Well, there’s no sex, but there’s…ramen. And yakuza. rakuza? yamen?

Kakeru is the son of a local ramen shop owner, who is forced to take over the restaurant after the Osakaki yakuza took both his parents from him. Ukyo, the heir to the Tatsumori yakuza family, falls in love with Kakeru at first sight and desperately wants to make him his. Only one problem – Kakeru hates yakuza for ruining his family. Ukyo then decides to go undercover and help Kakeru with the restaurant to try to steal his heart and show him that not all yakuza are bad guys.

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A PLACE IN THE SUN (Lala Takemiya)

The most interesting thing about this manga is that one character’s love interest is a garbage man and you learn interesting tidbits about how dangerous of a job it is. I’m not sure what that says about the actual romances that that’s what I found most interesting, but hey, always wrap chopsticks in paper when you throw them away or else they could break and turn into little mini daggers and kill someone.

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HONEY DARLING (Norikazu Akira)

I literally reviewed about 20 old forgotten June titles in a row in the past couple months, so it’s time to read some other imprints for a change (June just happens to have the largest back catalog of yaoi published in English by miles, which is why I always seem to be reading their stuff). Let’s pick one from the vault of the current top dog in BL publishing – SuBLime!

Shockingly, this is the very first SuBLime title I’ve talked about on this blog, (mainly because I usually talk about older or sucky titles and they have neither), so I thought I should start with one of their first ones, Honey Darling from 2012. This is a fan favorite with enduring popularity, in fact just yesterday I let a fujo I was selling some stuff to online pick a free BL from my box of 20 or so doubles and she immediately and enthusiastically chose Honey Darling (over much newer titles like Twilight out of Focus and even Dick Fight Island, mind you).

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PARADISE ON THE HILL (Momoko Tenzen)

Did you wake up this morning craving a bad shounen-ai to read? No? Hmm, I can’t be the only one that wants to read bad BL from the 00s. There must be others out there somewhere, right? ….Right?

Well, if nothing else, if you’ve ever seen the BL parody anime Gakuen Handsome and were confused about the triangle chin jokes, this manga is a textbook example of the infamous Dorito chin in old BL they were making fun of. Now, serious question, do you prefer the red bag or the blue bag when it comes to Doritos? I will judge you on your answer….

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BEYOND MY TOUCH (Tomo Maeda)


I have a tag on this blog for books that are “good for beginners,” and this is one of those that’s ideal for the innocent BL virgins among us looking to dip their toes into the genre. Although it’s an older title, the stories are cute and the art doesn’t feel too dated; I think even a Catholic priest would have a hard time being offended by a shounen-ai this wholesome. They may even ask to borrow it and leave it around for the altar boys to find…you know, to get a second opinion.

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WORDS OF DEVOTION (Keiko Konno)


After reading ‘Star’ by Kanno and generally enjoying the story (we’ll talk about the art later), I decided to dip into the other licensed title we have from this mangaka. Starring two high school friends who become something more, the two-part ‘Words of Devotion’ starts out a bit slow and feels more formulaic than ‘Star,’ but she manages to make the characters feel like real people despite it being a standard school romance at heart, and had many scenarios I find hot in yaoi.

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DUETTO (Aoi Kujyou)

Sometimes reading these random older yaoi titles feels like a whats-behind-the-door game in terms of what you may get. Sometime you get eyeball licking. Sometimes Osama bin Laden appears. Sometimes a guy’s asshole gets used as a flowerpot. And let’s definitely not forget that sometimes you get a story where a guy pleasures himself with a corncob and suddenly it turns into a man that he has a magic orgy with in the clouds along with a goat boy who sticks a harp up his ass, followed by tentacle monster kemonomimi rape.

I guess every now and then you get like, a normal school romance or something. Or, if you’re reading Duetto, you get…biological son x father noncon. Yup. I mentioned all that other stuff to soften the blow.

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STOP BULLYING ME! (Natsuho Shino)

Is shounen-ai for kids a thing? If so, this might qualify. It’s so basic, so superficial, and so unoffensive, I feel like it’s almost a coloring book. It’s barely even a 16+ rating and might even be as fluffy as Almost Crying which is saying something. The dialogue is just so dumb and the two stories featured here are just so silly, you could probably read it while drunk and high and still understand it perfectly. Possibly better. It also occurred to me that reading it backwards might improve on the story because the confession inexplicably happens in chapter 1 with no lead-up and then nothing really develops after that, so if you read it the other way it’s almost like you get more plot development! #badyaoihacks

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