Zihvuda's manga / #Shounen Ai(10)

If I'd read the tags I probably wouldn't have read this story. I don't exactly regret it, but there's a reason for my 3 star rating. I did like it, but there were a bunch of issues that hindered my enjoyment and a bunch of elements that enhanced it. I equally loved and hated the fact this story was a bee's dick away from being yaoi. What a damn shame, cause the build up was hot af. The met-in-childhood romance was pretty good and for once didn't include that "I thought he was a girl!" crap. I'm sad Mc's body's gone cause frankly I prefer him as he was and not as he is reincarnated. There was a bunch of stuff I would have liked expanded and touched upon. Like MC's new parents, who are there at the beginning being all loving and welcoming to a child who's never experienced that in his broken home, and then they never show up again. Mc never tells them when he's spending the night somewhere else (that we see) and they don't react in any way to their amnesiac (completely different person!) son suddenly spending time who knows where and having significant trouble with school work. We can draw our own conclusions of course, through speculation, but we don't get answers. The parents never make a reappearance in the story. Which would have been fine if it was even implied that they were still around. Also mc's really bad in school to the point the teacher decides mr smart student should tutor him rather than calling the rich-ass-parents to get this boy a proper tutor?? Or into some special school/cram school for catching up on shit??? Like mc really wanted to avoid his love interes! He seriously could have easily just just gone, "oh yeah, I'm rich af, fuck this shit, imma get my parents to get me the best tutor money can buy!" There was enough mystery with what happened when they were kids, I really didn't like the plot turn where suddenly a mastermind needed finding that orchestrated Siwon's suicide. Really could have left it at being excessively bullied by ass holes at school, and that would have been enough. Also the fucking communication issues between the main couple was almost rage-quit inducing. Thankfully they weren't enough to get me to rage-quit this manhwa, but yeah. Was also turned off by the translator fawning over ML at the beginning where he was at his most unlikable. The guy has a horrendous personality and letting the plot progress in such a way where we see him beat our MC left a bad taste in my mouth for a good while. Also the "all according to keikaku" thing at a few plot beats towards the end just pissed me off. We see Mc struggle and be emotional and everything, but we barely get anything from the ML and it just takes away from the triumph of them finally getting together. All in all despite all my hang ups I'd recommend this as something to read, mostly due to MC being who he is. A good boy. Pretty much everyone else is trash sadly, which is sad cause none of them really go over to delightfully trash to me, just trash. (ಠ ∩ಠ) At least this story's better than the author's other work Mad Dog! lol

I wasn't really happy with this story. The art is passable but the characters and plot aren't great. I don't hate them, but they aren't very good. It's about a prince trying to ascend the throne by winning against his uncle the regent who'd taken over while he was a child. Politics is thus pretty heavily featured, or at least it should be. But everything is really shallow, and there's no actual intrigue, so the framing for the story and the Prince himself is totally wasted robbing the Prince of what makes him compelling. The "tyrant" is just your average guy who can fight well, but doesn't seem to be used to his loneliness at all, despite him being isolated for, I think, years(?). The ages don't make sense, the characters are supposed to be in high school yet at best they are all in their senior year, which makes no sense if you think about the hurry the prince is in to consolidate power for his ascension. It's weird to think the prince and his attendants waited until the very last months leading up to his coming of age ceremony before finding him a "bride" to target and woo in order to improve his standing, but that's apparently the case. It's badly thought out. If you like this, then more power to you, but I honestly think there's much better out there if you want a story that takes advantage of it's framing and the background of it's characters rather than using them as window dressing.

This is the story of a Prince who is eventually dies due to the game of thrones played within the imperial family. He reincarnates or goes back to the time after he'd just spent his wedding night with his new husband (referred to as wife in the manhwa), who was bestowed to him by the empress (not his mom). The story refers to interesting political schemes, strife and drama within the story, but hyper-focuses on the main couple and their developing relationship to the detriment of the plot. So many interesting conversations and plans and action is all left out for the sake of a lukewarm love affair that has some fluff, but isn't quite portrayed well enough to be worth it. That is to say the art is bad at conveying movement and expression to a certain extent. It's more detailed then some art on here, but it's got some pretty bad weaknesses. For some reason I cannot fathom, the chibis frequently used in this art style feel overly used and I dislike them. The translation is passable, but you can tell as you're reading that certain words are used wrong, and there's enough grammar mistakes. If you're going to have a plot this interesting, it would be nice to actually commit and spend some time on it. You can have both, just make sure to strike a balance and for the love of good things, stop cutting stuff out, it makes me wonder if there's pages missing!

The art is very pretty, but censors kisses in a terribly distracting way. What's the point making this a comic if the art isn't allowed to illustrate? There's better ways then giant ass word balloons obstructing both their heads. Also the story is annoying. I thought we'd get dude who went back in time training to be stronger, making use of acquired knowledge from the future and slowly uncovering mysteries + misunderstandings. Instead Mc's an idiot who makes no use of future knowledge or cultivation techniques or anything. He's s childish and whiny! Basically reverts back to being a child with no self awareness. His abusive master is abusive, and rather then turning away from him much earlier than he did in his previous life mc just tries to "tease" him and is constantly worrying about him, but without resolving any misunderstandings from the past life. Like at least when wei wuxian came back, he knew his shit and didn't act like a fucking teenager even if he was in the body of one. MC here died as the strongest cultivator at least 10 years or more in the future, but the story shows none of that future knowledge or maturity. It's such a shallow story that apparently wants to be kind of light hearted and comedic, but also wanting to be tragic and taken seriously. It fails at both, which makes me not care. I thought mc would do something interesting with his new life, but there's nothing there. Ugh... absolutely hate "the victim falling in love with their abuser" trope, it's shitty and for how longs it's been a staple of bl stories, it's also been done to death. So uninteresting. I haven't read the novel, but this hasn't given me any reason to go try reading that either. Ugh. Hard pass, don't understand why this is popular, or why this cliche of a plot remains so goddamn popular in bl stories. Don't waste your time on this there's better ways to spend your time. Like watching paint dry.

The translation is dog shit. You can barely tell what's going on, and the lovers being intimate is very awkwardly censored. It's like they want to take you out of the story and actively want you to pay attention to the censored bits. It's stupid and I don't get it, there's ways to make censored scenes like this good without making the art so goddamn awkward. The plot could have been really interesting, but it's actually very bland and mostly forgotten in favor of focusing on the main couple's relationship and the weird censored bits. A non human.... app? text box thing? Whatever, a non human thing is made to become a human in order to prevent the main character of a story from basically losing his humanity and becoming a murderer. I guess. The method is to make sure MC's little brother doesn't get accidentally murdered during a kidnapping. The non-human immediately is human, like there is no adaption period, nothing is awkward, he is human and has no problems comprehending and processing emotions and complex human social behavior. He is inexplicably good at fighting and has no fear of any bullies or gangsters. Not that those are threatening in the first place seeing as our mc is just strong. For no reason. I don't think the human he was installed in was all that strong, but apparently??? The art is good, but bad at depicting action, which is probably why we don't get any of those scenes. Everything is very surface level and nothing is very well explored. This had potential, but it's not executed well at all. Don't recommend it, there's far better yaoi AND shounen-ai on this site. Shame about the premise though.

Oh god why?! This is a weird reincarnation and body swap story. MC starts off as the sick young master to a family of influential martial artists, he's crap at martial arts as well as sick, and so the black sheep of the family. Father is an abusive asshole, older brother seems to be a saint despite the fact that he doesn't really do anything to help. At the beginning I thought the person that turns out to be ML was MC's servant. Apparently he was a doctor the entire time. He comes and goes like a servant, and for reasons was there to watch MC spar?? What even is this? We only ever really learn about MC and his personality, we know barely anything about anyone else. It's so hard to be invested in this story, I don't understand why it's rated so highly. The body swap happens with MC beating on future ML till he (MC) passes out and then he wakes up in ML's body and lives a much happier life learning medicine. Somehow, for reasons not established even a little, MC decides he's going to stop living as ML and go back to his own body. So he relives the events of his previous life where he beat on his doctor till he passed out this time with him as the doctor. MC knows this will work. He is certain. I have no earthly idea as to why! But it does! He wakes up back in his body. ML comes back to his body and then is established he's over 200 years old, and having been living in another world the entire time. So if he wasn't around WHO THE FUCK WAS IN MC's BODY WHILE MC WAS IN ML's BODY?!?!?!?! WHO WAS PHONE?? (<- reference to a really old meme. It's for me, not you, don't worry about it.) And while we're at it, ML is fine being back in his old body and still somehow able to use magic despite later telling MC it would be impossible for him to learn, because of being from a different world. I can't even. Everything is poorly established and executed when it comes to this plot. There's no tension and so nothing matters, besides MC's even more failing health! Also don't let the yaoi tag fool you, from what I've seen this is shounen ai at best. Sex probably will happen, but it'll be implied within the confines of the shounen ai tag and not anything like what you'd see normally under the yaoi tag. Also some other comments said something of rivals to lovers being the trope. Pardon?? No?? When? Where? When and where were they ever rivals?? That's not even a little bit how the main couple's dynamic is. ML is taking care of MC's health, and while Mc's unsure of ML, they are never rivals. <_< such lies. The art is very bland and translation is unexpectedly good considering usually martial arts shonen ai stories on this site are translated very badly. I dropped this story, it's not good.

Story of an emperor and a dude working at the royal pharmacy, who one day thanks to a curse switch bodies. The pharmacist is a good person who is absolutely terrified by the new situation and immediately seeks out his actual body and thus the emperor before throwing himself upon his mercy. Political intrigue and danger have them working together for survival. They also happen to fall in love. This was pretty alright. No rape, no questionable rape scenes, no drugging, nothing. It's an actual historical webtoon where the top isn't absolute trash and the bottom isn't an abuse victim who eventually succumbs to Stockholm Syndrome! Yaaaay! The bare minimum has been achieved! The emperor doesn't take advantage of his status, the relationship develops pretty organically I'd say, and we got to know both of the main characters pretty well. I'd say the political aspect kind of dragged for me at times, because I just wanted them to get back to their own bodies again and have some more cute fluffy moments as a couple, but I think that's more down to personal taste rather then anything wrong with the plot's pacing. Uke's a bit indecisive, but it's not repellent. The art is pretty good, and the translation is also good for the most part. Now the side stories chapters are terrible translation wise. The last couple are acceptable, but really the rest are SO bad. >____< It's such a shame, I really wish we'd get better quality translation for those. If the translation had been that bad at any other point in the story, I likely would have dropped the whole thing, it was that bad. Otherwise this is great, would recommend! Also it's complete! I don't know why it's not marked as such, but the story is complete. So enjoy~!

"Believe in the me that believes in you." This story is so fucking cliche. It also has some cute and interesting twists. It can feel extremely vignette like rather then a continuous story sometimes, but the characters and their interactions with one another are interesting enough. The art isn't interested in doing much of anything, just static shots of the guys looking cool or reverting to chibi for comedy. It's not dynamic, and there's very little of interest. Like it's only meant to look nice, but not particularly to illustrate what's going on, like the singing, or the dancing. Or even MC freaking out. It's very limited in face type, so everyone looks like the same person with different hair. ML is supposed to be the cute angel from what I understood, yet his character design screams high minded asshole. At least MC is able to pull off the cold and cool look to match his role in the group, but he breaks character so often I don't know how the fans are even remotely fooled or why the company hasn't already tweaked his image. By contrast ML is such a punk and throws out such delinquent vibes sometimes I have no idea how he's supposed to be the angel of the group. The blond guy of the group feels more like he could pull off the angel type. It feels like the author forgets what image they assigned the main four at the beginning of the story. There's some good elements, like the organic integration of backstory, how the guys do seem to have distinctive personalities, but the art does let it down just a bit on character design and illustrating any sort of action. I doubt we're gonna get any kissing scenes, at least any that aren't awkwardly censored anyway. For some reason this is tagged as yaoi. I'll believe that when I see it. Feels more like it's just censored shounen ai. Might get to spicy shounen ai, but it's never gonna be yaoi, so if it's smut you're looking for, this aint it.

Honestly with a couple more drafts this story could have been really good. It's got everything on the surface level, but it's not got as much depth as I'd like. There's a bunch of things that could use more fleshing out. Like MC's friends, their personalities, watching MC properly deal or rather re-experience his losses one by one, rather then having most of them happen off panel. Having the love interest being all about control and then suddenly realize he's in love when he's been acting all psycho feels like a cop out and fake rather than a dark character actually legitimately falling in love. The plan and ambition was all there, but the execution could have used another couple drafts. I really like what this story could have been, how character driven it was. It's all rather a shame. This seems to be marked as yaoi, but it isn't. There's no smut, and the art is alright for action, but the kisses all felt pretty awkward. Especially when they were supposed to be passionate. The atmosphere was good in some of the more sexy scenes though. Also the way MC suddenly decides he wants to live after all also needed some work. Liked most of the characters, the villains were mostly one dimensional, but they didn't need to be complex when there was plenty of complexity from MC and ML. Would have been nice to know why MC was scouted. I don't find the story managed to adequately establish why or how MC was so indespensible that Mr. psycho had to have him on the team and went so far to recruit him. I also didn't end up understanding the big deal with MC getting recruited. Seemed like a really good deal for MC, so I really don't get why he was so hesitant. Like I can puzzle it out by making assumptions on my own, but it would have been fine to really show us that in story. Also I don't understand why ML was so flirty right from the get go. He's the type to do everything for a specific reason so I initially thought he was actively trying to seduce MC, but I don't think that was it. He didn't seem flirty with anyone else so ??? But yeah, wish is it was better. It's not, but I hope we get more stories like this but better. Either by the same writer improving their craft or by someone else.