9.2, what?

This series has so many problems, and all of them involve the two protags. Why is this rated so highly? -_- For a better story involving guys in booze-related careers gettin' it on, try "Yoidore Koi o Sezu".

Grandpa and Haruna-the-sister were the best things in this series, and the best scenes in it are when grandpa is playing shogi with Haruna-the-bottom (especially the first time). The series is at its best when it's being a light-hearted comedy, and at its worst when trying to force melodrama between the two protags.

Complaints time!
(spoilers)
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First off, the whole setup is completely predictable. After just the first few pages, with a glimpse of some hot black-haired guy smoking outside the brewery and the mention that Haruna keeps trying and failing to get the master brewer (grandpa) of the brewery to agree to a contract, it was totally obvious that: 1) Haruna and Shuu would see each other and one would internally announce "I'm gay, and he's totally my type!" (it was Haruna), 2) that hot guy smoking outside the brewery would turn out to be the son (actually grandson) of the grumpy owner of the brewery, 3) the master brewer would be irked that the son (grandson) was wasting his life away doing some other unapproved thing (computers) instead of taking over the family business (which was kinda true; there was at least an arc about this), 4) that Haruna would win over grumpy brewer through his pursuit of the hot son (grandson), 5) that grumpy brewer would get injured for a scene or two in order to give Haruna and hot son (grandson) some alone time to build their relationship, and 6) hot son (grandson) would eventually change his career back to whatever brewery-related thing that his dad (grandpa) (actually, it was his sister) wanted. This is all paint-by-numbers BL plot contrivances here, and it didn't start to deviate until well after Haruna-the-sis is introduced and explored some.

The parts that weren't paint-by-numbers were the best parts of the series. Haruna-the-sis is a female character in a BL comic that not only ISN'T a harpy, but is actually a great character all on her own; I could read a whole shoujo comic just about her. Grandpa, after he accepts the contract, becomes a great side character and his obsession with shogi and interactions with Haruna-the-bottom over shogi are great. Haruna-the-bottom and Haruna-the-sis's relationship is just great. The fact that Haruna-the-bottom isn't a useless retard is great; he's a great salesman, he's very socially adroit, he's a good cook, he's great at shogi, and is bilingual. It's sad to say, but it wasn't that common until more recently for ukes to be more than a useless waste of space. All of the plot stuff surrounding the brewery and Haruna-the-bottom's job was interesting and pretty well-written. Haruna-the-bottom actually had a reason and backstory for flying to the US so much... since he was born there. And this was used throughout the story to great effect. The story even did well with Haruna-the-bottom's booze allergy; it was never forgotten, and was used in several important plot developments that weren't even related to the romance story.

Back to complaining.

The whole relationship setup between Shuu and Haruna-the-bottom is awful. Shuusaku tells Haruna-the-bottom repeatedly that he's not interested in him in the slightest, and Haruna-the-bottom forces himself into Shuusaku's life regardless of Shuu's feelings. Shuu is allowed to not want to date you, Haruna. It gets to the level of needing a restraining order, the way Haruna so relentlessly pursues Shuu. Haruna-the-bottom is so inconsiderate of Shuu's personal agency here, it's really freaking irritating.

Also, these two have no chemistry at all because Shuu refuses to meet Haruna-the-bottom halfway in anything at all for two full volumes, and we get no scenes from Shuu's perspective to at least clue us in to any kind of interest on his part. Everything Shuu does for Haruna-the-bottom is grudging on his part at best, like some kind of social obligation. The whole thing just feels creepy, like Shuu is sexing Haruna up just to placate him, to keep him from bothering him endlessly.

If the author was really just wanting Shuu to be extremely reserved and antisocial, the way to make that work is to provide the readers with a scene from Shuu's perspective where he basically ruminates over his interest in Haruna-the-bottom so we don't feel creeped out by Haruna-the-bottom's relentless pursuit of someone who is shown to not like him attttt allllll. But Shuu never once shows an interest in Haruna in the first five or so chapters of volume one. His actions toward Haruna are things he'd do for any random person just to be polite. I have no idea why Shuu ever agreed to bone Haruna-the-bottom, much less how they even ended up in a relationship to begin with. It just felt like it just happened one day, and that was it. Like, what? Why write a story if it isn't going to have a plot that builds on itself at all?

Meanwhile, the way Shuu treats Haruna-the-bottom is not how someone treats a person they like AT ALL. Shuu literally hits Haruna-the-bottom for going to see his friend who he hasn't seen in a year just because the two once dated and Haruna-the-bottom can't read minds. Haruna specifically asked him to come along and if it was ok to meet with his friend/ex beforehand, and he refused and said it was fine to go. Haruna did nothing wrong, and Shuu was completely at fault here. And yeah sure, he admits he f'd up immediately after, and there was some bullshit excuse about Japanese people being reserved, but none of this matters. Is it really more "reserved" to hit him than it is to say you don't want him to go out with his friend? Get real. But this situation is not treated by the comic with the serious gravity deserved of such a dark turn of events. The whole sequence is just sleazy, especially with Haruna just blowing it off immediately afterwards like it's no big deal just because he's sort of a masochist. It IS a big deal. Shuu did it out of petty spite, not kink. This is really bad juju for a relationship. If Shuu's past trauma from that girl who jilted him is so bad that he would do something like this, then this will not be the last time Harnua gets hit in the face for innocently talking to some other guy. But the story just ignores this whole thing after the characters discuss it for like 5 panels, and it's never mentioned again or resolved in any way. What? It did not even need to be there if the author wasn't going to go anywhere with it. JUST LEAVE IT OUT. Shuu can be a gloomy, antisocial loner without having to have had a traumatic breakup that turned him into a psychologically and physically abusive jerkhole.

And this is not even considering the fact that Shuu accuses Haruna at the same time of being "inconsiderate", which is exactly what Shuu has been to Haruna in every. single. scene. leading up to this moment for the entire comic. What a hypocrite. I hate this guy so much.

And just to fully explore this point. Grandpa is shown enacting physical violence on Haruna in the first volume, and Shuu enacts physical violence on Haruna in volume two. Grandpa is being a stubborn old coot and doesn't want to sign a contract with Haruna-the-bottom's company because they're naggy (or whatever), and the tone of these scenes play this physical violence off as comedy. You know, like Wile E Coyote stuff. This is why we all shrug grandpa's violence off while reading it. But then, one might think, "Oh, Shuu learned to be violent towards others who upset you from his grandpa" because I mean it was there, and written into the comic. But when Shuu hits Haruna in volume 2, the tone of the scene is much more grounded and serious and ugly. This is not a comedic scene at all. Because the tone is so different here, you can't really draw a direct correlation between these two things, since grandpa's actions are exaggerated caricatures for the sake of comedy, throwing a crutch at a stranger, while there are many unfortunate cases of jealous lovers acting like Shuu did in real life. I suspect if grandpa knew that Shuu hit Haruna-the-bottom like that, he'd disown the stupid ahole.

Anyway. Volume three tones all this Shuu crap down to focus on career stuff. Shuu is finally allowed to show any emotion at all about Haruna, which should've happened two volumes earlier. I think this is why people remember this series more fondly than it really deserves, since this is the last thing you see of it, and it's not too bad. But I can't forget. This series could have been written with any minor number of things different to improve it greatly. It didn't need to be like this. As it is, this should be rated 8.5 at best, with a lot more complaining in the comments than there seems to be.