Reincarnated into Demon King Evelogia's World
After getting shot and killed in a fight over some shady business, Gozu finds himself isekai-ed into his favourite videogame. In addition to that, he is soon introduced to his favourite character from that said game: Evelogia, the Demon King himself. --- An interesting story so far. Like the mismatched roles of Gozu and Eve, and Gozu is just an entertaining character all around. Eve's attachment to him is also kinda cute. There is the question of just how old Eve actually is, but lEt'S NoT ThiNk aBoUt thAT.
Aggressive Sex with an Angelic Smile
Needing money to repair his ship, Tatsumi takes on a well paying job. Thing is, this job has minimal details... Before he can figure out what's happening, he is pushed down by a beautiful young man. --- It wasn't too bad. Had it's issues, but was ok overall. Beginning was trash. Rape/VERY dubious consent. Only skimmed a fair amount of pages, not a fan of the whole recorded by other people thing, y'know? The plot got me suprisingly invested, was looking forward to seeing what would happen in the next chapter. Would have liked if there was a side story/spinoff about the director and Mizuki(Yuki's dad), those two have a lot of shit to work out and resolve. Tatsumi is bae. He kinda dumb, but also really sweet. Ended up quite liking Yuki too, though it was a pretty rough ride. PS: Tatsumi's friends are the best.
Yondaime Ooyamato Tatsuyuki
Heartbroken after not getting to be with Minori-sensei (a massage therapist who seduced him), the fourth head of the yakuza, Tatsuyuki, drinks his feelings away. After passing out on a park bench, he is carried away by a stranger; a stranger who seems to know exactly who he is... —- A close to 5 star story for me; only thing that breaks it is the dubious consent after Nozomi carries Tatsuyuki home with him in chapter 1. It’s not cool to sleep with people who are completely wasted, when you are sober, Nozomi-sensei. Other then that, I very much enjoyed this manga. Story is interesting, art is beautiful, and I cared about that characters. Tatsuyuki is a good example of an unconventional “yaoi bottom”, and I like that he feels like a strong character, without being cartoonishly intimidating. His design is also just soooo fucking beautiful. Nozomi was not too bad either, though his initial methods of getting closer to Tatsuyuki were... questionable. Stalking is not cool. I found the pages featuring Nozomi’s backstory highly disturbing, so I skip those. But in regards to his backstory, I really liked that after learning about it, Tatsuyuki was very careful about not triggering Nozomi when they slept together. It was very cute, and showed that the author took the care to not gloss over the abuse, like is unfortunately the case in many other smutty manga. Side characters were fun as well, Reika was my favourite. It’s nice to see positive depictions of female characters in BL. I still feels it’s a shame that I won’t be giving it 5 stars; it was sooo close ;W;
Elektel Delusion
Shunpei and Fumihiro are childhood best friends and neighbours. After Fumi comes out to Shunpei, the latter finds himself suddenly being much more conscious of their relationship. During a jealous/protective fit, Shunpei ends up offering himself to be Fumi’s lover. Things look perfect, as Fumi confesses his feelings for Shunpei, but things get complicated when he states that he refuses to be the bottom. Shunpei doesn’t want to either, so what now? —- I find myself coming back to this one decently often, and it’s decent over all. Still has problems though... The biggest one is Fumihiro’s insecurity in their relationship, with him becoming irrational and aggressive when it’s really not necessary(Like when he explodes at Mayu, Shunpei’s ex, when she hasn’t done anything wrong). It also kind of feels like Shunpei is the one who always has to apologise and fix things, when Fumi isn’t always innocent in their dumb fights. I get that he is insecure because his feelings have been unrequited for so long, but come onnnn(Shunpei literally trained himself to bottom for you). He has moments of being cute and loving(like when he made breakfast and then went to wake up Shunpei), and you do feel for him and his frustrations of having to live with his secret feelings for so long. So not the best, but forgivable IMO. Shunpei is a decent character too, but I also find myself frustrated at him and his moments of hypocris(becoming jealous when learning that Fumi watches porn, when Shunpei watches it too, like bruh), and he can be painfully dumb sometimes. But he doesn’t seem like a bad dude either, and much like Fumi, mostly just seems to be an immature high schooler. I hated everything that had to do with Hagami. Fucker refused to back off when he was told no. And I don’t understand why Fumi didn’t just turn him down completely, and ran off with him after causing a mess that Shunpei then had to fix. Communication people, communication. Aki was awful too. Creepy, fetishist fujoshi trash. Like, who gets mad about not being able to fantazise about their gay neighbour, because his partner is your brother and he doesn’t have the “role” that you think he should have?? And also refuses to let them be intimate with each other for the same reason?? Leave them ALONE, this isn’t about youuu. I get not wanting people to screw while you’re still in the house, but she literally stops them when they try to go to Fumi’s home instead???? This is a great example of why the word “fujoshi” has such terrible connotations. Something I liked about it was that they didn’t dive into anal immediately, and actually showed the long and difficult process of getting Shunpei’s body ready. This is pretty much the only example I’ve seen of this, with only one other example coming to mind(Neko x Neko), so the realism is appreciated. The childhood friends aspect also appealed to one of my favourite tropes, so that’s a huge plus lol.
My Hopeless Dreamer