Mimi's manga / #actually cried(16)

… Bruh. I’m so happy about this getting a physical release really soon because this just became one of my favorite manga. I’m gonna start with the only problem I had about this story and that’s the amount of affection Yutaka had towards Tane. You can kind of understand why Yutaka was at peace around Tane because of his backstory but the author didn’t give Tane much of a similar connection to kid!Yutaka to justify why he’s happy to see Tane happy and it comes off as a little creepy. I know the author wasn’t trying to write him that way, but without Yutaka talking about how he wished he was as happy as Tane as a kid and/or showing that Yutaka is really good with kids in general to make a good father figure is a missed opportunity to me. Yutaka’s childhood was a lot for him, so much that even eating in front of people was uncomfortable. But after meeting Tane and Minoru and having that “found family” moment was he really able to be happy and feel like he was part of a family. In that sense, I can also see why he cared for Tane like a son/little brother. It just wasn’t written well enough to 100% convey that affection. Other than that, I loved this story. I love the characters and how it focused on their development. I also love Tane’s crush on Yutaka as it’s very clear from the start to see it and made me laugh. The time skip was very adorable and I thank them for writing that bit in.

I honestly really enjoyed this. I thought some of the translation was weird but the overall story was nice. It focused more on one's past and characters' development rather than something like sex and I welcome that in BL manga.

I need to read more BL like this. I love how adorable and likable the characters are and the story focused more on the characters being in school and friends instead of trying to push things along and try to get to anything about sex. I've seen too many school au's where the people are a good 16-18 and there's sex involved. I get it that people do end up doing it around those ages but being in my 20's I don't really want to read that and it almost seems like that's all there is. Having just a pure love story of this dorky high school kid having a crush on his friend and the story grows around them being friends is refreshing and makes me cry. Thank God for this and thank God it got officially licensed because I was about to buy it in Japanese... I think I'll still buy it in Japanese, to be honest. I'm very excited for Motto Ganbare! Nakamura-kun!!, I read the first chapter and it seems it's being slowly released through a magazine and I'm not sure how far they are over there... So just waiting on that is keeping me really hyped.

This story really minds me of Kowagaranai de, Soba ni Ite in the way the couple in this story had to deal with keeping their love alive after a tragedy that centers around one of the characters. It's a very bittersweet story that made me cry more than once just like Kowagaranai de, Soba ni Ite. My only problem is that it had the chance to be even sadder with some and it kind of missed the ball on that. I wanted that "really sad" ending and those "I gotta sit my book down for a fucking moment because, fuck dude..." that I did not get. There are a couple of moments where you feel they either tried or just didn't want to push that far into anything too traumatic so they end up picking the least emotional outcome that felt flat to me. The build-ups are amazingly emotional while the outcomes are fanfic-y at best. But that doesn't change my mind on how much I love this manga. It's a great hurt/comfort book.

Update 2: I read this before chapter 5 and the extra was added, but I don't think I'm going to update this again after this. Felt 50/50 about this book, but I kept thinking about two of the chapters way too much that I had to own it. I thought that this manga was mainly centered around fetishes but it seems like only ch.1 & the extra is about asphyxiation. The rest of the chapters I would consider extreme but not fetish-y. Personally feel that each story here would've been better as its own thing because it feels like Hidesato wanted to write more. I think ch. 3 and 5 (from what I've skimmed through the raws) don't have enough to be whole books so they fit fine here. However, chapter 1 can stand on its own. Chapters 2 and 4 NEED their own books. In fact, I don't think 2 and 4 belong here at all. They don't fit this book to me. My thoughts on each chapter: Ch.1 - Could've been a more interesting story. The asphyxiation thing isn't my thing so it was... interesting to read, but it being a short story wasn't a good move. Ch.2 - I talk about this further down in my 1st update. Ch.3 - Didn't really have a story and was kind of weird. This one negatively felt messy and all over the place. Ch.4 - Was not prepared to read that and it's never going to lead my mind. Update 1: Looking back on it, I honestly feel that chapter 2 might not need to change anything other than its homophobic dialogue since it doesn't add to the story. It just points out how horrible of a person the main character's girlfriend is... and that's it. I love studying psychology and mental disorders are a HUGE interest of mine and why I was drawn to chapters 2 and 4 the most. When I used to be in group therapy back in my teens I met someone with MPD/DID and their stories on living together in one body gave me a lot of context into what some people go through with MPD. While not the exact same experience as it was written in this story, it was very interesting to hear. Chapter 2 embodies a lot of similar feelings and experiences that they told me as well as another book I love called Many Minds One Brain by Christopher Badger where his experience was pretty close to what I just read in this manga. Whether or not the author meant for chapter 2 to read so disjointed that the reader is just as confused as someone with this disorder may be, I'm not sure. But seeing how well done and traumatic chapter 4 was written... I think so. I honestly want to see chapters 2 and 4 get full stories. Mainly chapter 4 where it takes place either during their high school or adult years and it's about the friend who you see in the story helping the mc deal with and heal from what happened and his Maladaptive Daydreaming. Even if it's just helping by being there and comforting him. You guys, I think about this chapter and its continuation potential way too much.

Lord, I need to find more B/GL like this. The way it's written you can tell that they focused on character building first rather than sex and the characters themselves are very enjoyable to read. That beginning where I literally had about 2 heart attacks I was in for a ride. This story is all about one person trying to get the other to fall back in love with him after an accident that left him with a moderate case of amnesia and it's both one of the cutest and saddest manga I've read. I cried a couple of times towards and at the end because of how bittersweet this story was. I'm also just a sucker for any B/GL story where they have a child, a pet, and/or get married. That 100% fucks me up. I need this to officially be licensed so bad.

…. Listen… Overall, Kaji and Yura are my favorite couple over Maki and Hagiwara mainly because I think Maki is an asshole. I understand that he super loves his son and Hagiwara but his over-possessiveness and the way that he treated Yura and Kana pissed me off. I like how Kaji and Yura were written a lot more and it seems like the author does too seeing how much care they gave these characters. There were bits and pieces that I thought were dumb. Stuff like Kaji putting up that “I’m not interested in men” wall, and not speaking up every time Yura cuts him off. That’s also a bs move on Yura for jumping the gun too quickly… But it’s also understandable why he does this. I just wish that was something they worked on in the 2 books rather than letting him keep doing that. But fuck all that because the only thing that REALLY matters is Kana and Ritsu! AGAIN! They are the power couple, the fucking MVP out of all 3 of these mangas, and deserves a super cute, completely fluff one-shot manga about them trying to be together in high school and everyone else just fucking accepting it! No sex, just a super cute teen romance is all I need. Update 5/26: Just found out there's a vol 3..

Now that I read this prologue, I definitely recommend reading the first book first even though this comes before it in the story. Having read the first book put in so much context that having all that backstory and foreshadowing made me feel even more for everything that happened in this backstory. ... You ever just want to scream because you feel so emotionally attached to some fucking fictional characters? A part of me feels like I should have read this first before getting into Itou-san because it would have made it easier to read through kid!Itou and kid!Kyosuke's abuse. BUT the 1st book feels like an easier read compared to this that I think reading this in order of release gets you more invested in these characters. Like, by now, I found myself really emotional about the both of them... I wanted to die. What got me the most was reading through Kyosuke as a baby-baby, 5 YEARS OLD, having to go through what happened. It really reminded me of chapter 4 of Ore, Higaisha and, um... Yeah. I really just want to scream right now. Sorry, this one was a lot shorter than my feelings on the 1st book. Everything I felt there I still felt here.

If I could scream to convey how much I loved this "main" story, I fucking would... But I don't think that would get my point across very well in text. Firstly, I love the main story. I cared a lot about both Itou and Kyousuke to the point where I could feel myself almost about to cry at some points. I have yet to read the prologue story (as of writing this) but, from what I read from one comment, both Itou and Kyousuke had hellish upbringings that (at least for Kyousuke) made me really want to see them be together. I was also ready to drop this title because I thought the problems I have with most bl manga were gonna be in this, but they wrote Ito to love Kyousuke so GOD DAMN MUCH and it made me really love him as a character. It made me love their relationship and how they showed that they needed each other. I was afraid that the rape and murder would be glorified like 90% of this landscape, but it is shown in a horrible light, being a story about how two people are trying to get out of these situations together. Fucking thank you! I also want to talk about the last 2 chapters a little. I think they were very important to the main story and I did actually cry during both of them with how they both completed and complimented the story to show you how they were living during them being "on the run" and after all the bullshit was over. God bless. Personally, I did not like the parallel story chapter. It is the reason I put pedophilia-ish as a tag. I am not here for older people "waiting" on an underage person to be of age because it means that they have feelings for this child even though they know they shouldn't. I don't care if you're 13 or 19, you are still a child until 20. And even then it doesn't really feel like you hit "adult" until 25+, but at least you're not a fucking teen. After falling in love with these characters, showing that Ito had feelings for the underage teenager but waiting until he was 18 is still really disgusting to me. There was even a comment he made about Kyousuke in freshman year that just fucked me up in the most disgusting of ways. Even though he waited till the bare minimum it still didn't feel ok to me and it was horrible no matter how sweet Ito was. Still horrible. Chap 7's review in 5 seconds or less: What the fuck? No.

... I almost did it. I almost made it to the end without crying. Short, sweet, to the point, and really fucking hurt. I didn't really think I would care this much until the road trip happened. I knew how this was gonna go, but the set up to the end was really solid as soon as I noticed the alight sad feeling I got. But what fucking did it, what fucking drew one single tear, was the post-festival ending.... Fuck you, you didn't have to do that to me. I'm in pain.