Rae D.'s manga / #BBB(65)

Overall, the art is the biggest pitfall of this story. The author knows this and mentioned it in her creator’s note at the end. It’s such a shame because her story writing skills are so so sooooo good and her art isn’t even in the realm of catching up to match it. I am all for giving this author grace though, because this is her debut! More than grace, she deserves huge props because this was super good for a debut and I just KNOW she will come back with more work in the future that is even better because her art will have improved. Over the four years she was working on this story, her art already improved so drastically, so I have faith that she’ll only keep getting better now that it’s done . Worst part of the story was the art, but the best part of the story was the characters. This author killed it with these characters and made it look easy!!! They’re entirely too enjoyable and make you never want the story to end! In particular Jiwon and Dongho are now some of my favorite BL characters of all time! They were both absolutely adorable and dynamic and cheeky and killed in every category!!! Bad bitches the two of them for sure! I don’t have as much love for Jaewhan, but I’d be totally lying if I said he wasn’t well written. Byul is the least well written of the bunch and has the least dimension. But it’s in a way that’s like if you put Byul in a different story he would still be good and well written. It’s just that since the other 3/4 main characters here are exceptionally well done, that Byul who is only averagely well done sticks out as the weakest link. That imbalance is sad and it coupled with the fact that the first couple doesn’t really get enough screen time towards the end made me a bit sad. (Thankfully the second couple had MORE than enough goodness to keep the girls happy!!!!) overall though these four characters were good, and the two couples they made up were great! These couples modeled gorgeous communication skills that every other BL couple should really be taking notes on lol. Such normal happy and healthy love went on in the story it was seriously so good in that sense. Now… sex. The sexual scenes and dialogue and build up themselves were not phenomenal. But the vibe? The essence? The concepts? PHENOMENAL, and shockingly so! The art is subpar and this her first story, but her intentions and vision for these sex scenes and everything surrounding them really truly shine through the cracks in the best of ways!!!!!! I am patiently awaiting the day that she has worked in her craft and gotten her skills strong enough to give me some sex scenes that accurately portray the near-perfection she has in mind for them! Lol, that sounds so extreme, but I mean it! She and I?????? We certainly think alike . The number of times while reading this I stopped and remarked to myself about how much of a “true woman of culture” the author was? The answer is MANY! lol. This manwha was really good and one of my new favs. I wish I could give it higher if a score than I will give it. If this manwha had averagely good decent art, instead of quite poor art, I would have given this a 9.55. If 1) it had good art, 2) was more tight/concise (at least 30 chapters shorter), and 3) Byul had more character development to make him a more interesting and likable character by the end of the story, I would have given this a 9.6. Alas, because of the art and those other two biggest problems, I’ll have to settle on giving this a 9.5 P.S.: this is a story I will 1000000000000% come back and re-read in the future (maybe more than once even!) because of how genuinely good it was and how little of its goodness I was able to capture in the first review alone. I’ll def follow up in my second review with more dissecting of the many moving parts of this piece that awed and inspired me as a reader and a writer myself. P.S.: I barely touched on it in the main review but….. DONGHO IS MY EVERYTHING. He’s the baddest bitch. He’s the cutest baby. He’s the slyest brat. He’s the most assertive lover. And Al of this at his YOUNG AF age?!?!?! I thought this multiple times while reading but, that kid is going to have the entire world eating out of the palm of his hands one day if he continues to get better and better at the exponential rate he is going right now. It’s honestly insane. I was so UTTERLY OBSESSED with him by the story’s end, that it is remarkably hard to believe that I found him a bit annoying when he was first introduced!

Brothers Without a Tomorrow is any role model lol. Do boom, they popped out the gate with another BANGER! Their biggest strength as an author is the DELICIOUS dialogue between the couples. It’s unbearably good. Like, wildly good. Second biggest strength is those sec scenes, whew

This story was broken into three seasons. The first season was the first couple. The second season was the second couple (told during the exact same time period wherein the first couple’s story took place). The third seasons was tying loose ends and creating a perfect happily ever after. I liked this breakdown composition. The second and third seasons were RAGING successes, but the first season was really upsetting to me. The first couple has issues that were not addressed and where we left them off they were still pretty toxic as a couple. The author never felt the need to address them ever again though, lol. It’s as if we stopped their story 3/4 way through it. The first couple’s story never getting finished and us leaving them as toxic as they were, was my only problem in this whole thing. It’s a real fucking shame considering how much I adored the last two thirds of this manwha. A magical cast that consists almost exclusively of queer neurodivergent people! I’ve literally never ever seen that happen in any work of fiction ever, so it was fantastic. We really took the time to explore each of them as individuals and their backgrounds and stories. Something else I’ve never seen done before in this way is the story line of the lesbian with autism. It was truly eye opening for me and expanded my worldview! Many authors would have ended this at the second season, and if this author had done that it would have been an okay ending. But her taking a third season to stitch ever single one of our characters into a gigantic beautiful found family that all takes a vacation together??????? Jesus Christ that was endearing

I liked this so much more than I expected. The worst parts of it was, unfortunately the art and the translation. The best parts were the angst and the angst, lol. I know I can’t actually hold the poor translation I was reading against the story itself because I’m obvi reading illegally. So, as usually, I won’t actually factor it into the score at all. But the art? That’s fair game. The art style was very much giving “an artist who just got done being a beginner”. Like they aren’t a beginner, and you can tell by the amount of “polish”. But they can’t have been a beginner too long ago. What makes me say that? Such extremely noticeable disproportionate anatomy. It’s really actually so sad because the anatomy of the characters is like, this only problem! All of the rest of the art is just fine! And man, I wish I could say you stop noticing it at a certain point or that this is one of those where the artist’s skills grows during the publication of the story to the point where it isn’t a thing by the end, but…. neither of those is true here. *sigh* So yeah, the anatomy issues through me off and never really went away. While they didn’t go away or get less noticeable, I aa a reader began to notice how bad it was as thing went on because of how goooooood the story was getting! The angst was so yummy delicious in this one lol. I mean a really delightful concoction of toxic relationship and personality issues all throughout. Ohh, I was actually so into this. Something that sets this story apart from the majority of BL I read is that not only is the MC a bottom who holds more socio-economic and political power than the top love interest, but he’s also so completely and wholly a bad guy!!!! Like, I really am struggling to think of where else I’ve ever read that dynamic. I loved it. Jaehan was such a horrible person but he was CRAZY endearing so I couldn’t not root for him if I tried. He would keep doing bad things and I’d be like “

I honestly feel blessed to have been able to read this story. Blessed. This was so beautiful. So fun. So great. So hot and steamy. So many twists and turns. Lovely little characters. So many sad moments and happy moments and complex emotions. Such a huge air of maturity surrounding every aspect of the story. It was incredible. The plot was… wild, lol. I can truly say I’ve never read anything like this. Like genuinely unpredictable as fuck. At no real point in time did I know what the next course of action would be for these characters. If you told me on the earlier chapters that we would end up here where we are at the end? I would’ve barely believed it. Chae-ul is one of my all time fav BL MC’s. He was such a lovely little dumpling of a middle aged man. He is such a darling dear with an extremely pleasant demeanor. And yet, he’s also such a freaky guy! Lol. I loved that for him much. And unlike ho wither stories would’ve handled it, it wasn’t like he stopped being lovely when he became freaky and vice versa. You know? It wasn’t like flipping a switch to two separate sides of his personality. He would simultaneously be equal parts lovely sweetheart and mischievous freak-a-leek! I love love love that for him so much. It made him so unique to me, because I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything quite like it in an MC. Chae-heon was such an intensely sexy and respectful lover. He was sexy. He was respectful. He was sexily respectful. He was respectfully sexy. Lol. But for real though, his every single breath was a sexy one. His every single thought concerning Chae-ul was a respectful one. With this much sexy and this much respect, what more could one ask for in a man? Not to mention his two dicks, iridescent snake scales under his skin, billions of dollars saved up in the bank, openness with his affection + emotions, and wonderful resting deadpan facial expression? Girl hell yeah. My goodness, I cannot remember the last time I saw a fictional couple as mature as this one where both parties treated each as tenderly and with as much respect as these two did one another. Their communication skills were phenomenal to the point of seeming other-worldly. I just- everything about the way they interacted made it abundantly clear that they truly CHERISHED one another. Crazy good chemistry between these two men. Talk about a damn otp. The sex scenes were good good good and I will surely be returning to this story many a time to revisit them lol. Like true “woman of culture” quality going on here. Top tier premium shit. It feels like nothing I say in this review can do this work justice tbh, so I’m going to just go ahead and wrap it up now. Let’s see quickly what else might I have missed? Okay mart was great, side characters were great, story structure & writing were great, humor was nice and fitting. I loved this so very much. It was so impressive. I’m giving it a 9.7. P.S.: the title is really you look back on it when you’ve finished reading the story. Like it obviously fits because of the subject matter, but also it’s so funnily unfitting of the wholesome ass vibes.

9.5 for me... -The first couple and second couple should have gotten sepereate BL’s instead of separate seasons in the same Bl (first couple alone would’ve gotten a 9.6 maybe even 9.7 out of me, but because of second couple the whole thing gets a 9.5) -I love hwa gok -Not fond of Lee bin -Even less fond of hwa Lee -Did not like seolhyun at all at first but they made him physically and personality cuter so I warmed up to him and started liking him more than hwa Lee but DEF never as much a hwa gok -I was ROBBED of getting to see hwa gok and his baby while hwa Lee was young

I have complicated feelings about this work. I already know I am going to have to give it a pretty low score that does not reflect how much I actually enjoyed it. And that’s because there are some seriously fucked up things going on that I cannot let slide. However, aside from those very fucked up things, there are also some very very beautiful things going on. Ultimately, I am very upset with the creators of Pearl Boy for ruining the immense potential this story had by adding in those bad things to the pot of good…. So, let’s start with the good. There are three main things: 1. This couple has amazing chemistry. Right from the moment they meet each other, it is palpable the chemistry between them. They also feel very unique from the moment you meet them. Their dynamic feels real and organic, nothing forced or fake about it. As the story progresses they have so so sooooo many more extremely real and organic feeling moments between them that we the audience are privy to. Like, they stopped being images on a page or made up words a long time ago. You see their romance not in a series of grand gestures, but in the mundane. The best example of one such moments is when they are singing songs together while taking a small road trip on a way to pay respect to one of their mother’s grave site on the death anniversary. Obviously they are on their way to do something sad, but the way they bond even in the midst of all the sadness and pain is so endearing. *sigh* it just all felt so palpable and my heart became quite attached to them. 2. Dooshik had crazy appeal as a love interest. At the very start of the story, the art style wasn’t fully developed yet and he wasn’t drawn to be attractive, so I wasn’t really fucking with him like that. But even at that point, despite how annoying he was, it didn’t really take too many chapters for everyone who didn’t like him to start loving them despite themselves. He’s got crazy charism and is too fun of a guy to dislike. Then, when the art style becomes developed and they start drawing him fine?????? Sweet lord baby jesus….. It was crazy. No but like crazy crazy. I already found myself liking him when he wasn’t good looking because of his personality. So then giving him a massive appearance glow up on top of that? It almost wasn’t fair of the author to do, lol. By the time Dooshik’s character has reached his peak form, I cannot lie to you: I was feral. I wanted him BAD bad. Like….. whew I couldn't contain it he was entirely too good. He was that good in a unique way that will make it hard to ever really forget him after reading this. Like he’s for sure earned himself a place in BL love interest hall of fame for me with his performance here, lol 3. Lastly, the ART!!!!!! Bro…. like I said when I was talking about Dooshik, the art did not start off great imo. I remember reading the comments and saw a bunch of people talking about how much they loved the art. And while I thought it was objectively good, I wasn’t feeling the style too much. Especially since Dooshik wasn’t cute to me then. Everything was a bit too crude for me. But then as the story goes on the art gets better and better. Not just Dooshik’s appearance, but everything about the art really. And like, it’s not super uncommon for art to get better of the course of a manwha like this. But what I can say about Pearl Boy is that I have never ever seen art in a manwha already start out good and then get this much better at this much of a steady and consistent incline for the full duration of the story. Like, it was seriously like every time you thought the artist was done leveling up the art, she leveled it up some more! And I do mean it was a steady incline. It was amazing to watch honestly. So many of those frames by the story’s end were kind of stunning. 3.a) this one isn’t a separate entry because it is an extension of the last point about the art. THE SEX SCENES?!?!?!?!?! WOW. wow. Wowwwww. Lol. The better the art got, the better the sex was. The better Dooshik started looking, the hotter the sex was. The more I fell for Dooshik’s personality, the hotter the sex was. And the deeper and deeper the chemistry between the couple got, the hotter the sex was. There are some scenes that honestly and truly changed me as a person lmfao (looking at YOU joint fingering “waltz”!!) Now, there are other good things: some good humorous bits sprinkled throughout, the author’s strength with writing side characters, etc… but those three above are the main ones. Next (unfortunately ) we have to talk about the bad parts of this…. There is one main humongous one, and a like, three others that are still really bad, but just nowhere near as bad as the first: 1. The depraved nature behind the creative team’s plot decisions…. Man, *sigh*. Pearl Boy, a story that really could have been so good ended up becoming just an egregious case of trauma porn. Why? So so so so sooo many instances of very brutally graphic depictions of rape. And I mean it when I say brutal, like this isn’t just any old rape. No, always in a shady wearhous or basement. Always gangster looking men with weapons. Always gangbanging, some compeltely defenseless person raped by at least 3-5 men at once. And the scenes are always long and detailed, and not beneficial for the plot at all. It doesn’t take a very perceptive person to understand why this is happening. It’s just all too obvious that someone in the creative process is very intensely getting off on it. And man, does it feel yucky. Like, any opportunity they got to add in some more unnecessary rape, they took it. And they dwelled on it for chapters at a time man. They drew it to be intentionally tentalizing too, same way they drew the smut in this series. How sick. (And to be clear, I am not mad at the artist for having rape fantasies…. I am mad at them for thinking this space here in this work was the place to do all that when it so obviously was not.) 2. Dooshik’s downfall. Bro……… it was nasty of them to do that to us for real. No but actually, when I read the scene where Dooshik starts acting abusive towards Jooha, my heart sank to the bottom of the sea. It’s honestly such a ridiculously disgusting move by the author. Emotion manipulation of the audience at it’s best. And for what bro? To add more angst? To get a rise out of us? How fucking cheap and gross. Did they try and back track it within the same chapters and make up for it? Yes. Did it work? No, not completely. What’s done was done. Whatever was left of Dooshik’s green flag status at this point was irrevocably destroyed. The readers’ trust in Dooshik was broken the moment he intentionally put his hands on Jooha like that. Full stop. There’s simply not much else that can be said, and I simply cannot describe what a horrible feeling it was to have to witness that so late in the story after I had already given up my heart to this couple and their relationship. And that’s me who binged this whole thing in one night. I cannot imagine what it must have felt like for the girls who had been reading this week to week! I really read that scene and was like “congratulations creators…. you have finally ruined your story. happy now?” 3. The extreme lack of care with the Jooha’s wellbeing and public image. As evidenced by the first two points above, the creators obviously were way too nonchalant and cool with having Jooha suffer, just for the hell of it. But something in particular I hate to see in BL’s is when not only do the creators make the MC suffer, but they do it with no regard for what the actual consequences of that suffering will be on the rest of this character's life. I hate that shit. It always takes me out of the story a bit with how unrealistic it is. Like, truly, if a character suffered horrendously but the creator followed that by making every single consequence of that suffering stick and be shown throughout the rest of the story, I’d be okay with it. I still wouldn’t want to see the character suffer like that for no good reason, but at least I wouldn’t be this peeved. The way the creators of Peal Boy treated Jooha’s character reminds me of the way the MC is treated by the author of one of my most hated BL’s ever” Body Complex (

I liked this a whole lot. It was a cross between BL and cultivation genre. Although, saying it was a cross implies it was something of a perfect mix to me. This was clearly first and foremost a BL that was just set in a cultivation setting and had many cultivation genre aspects all throughout it. I know for some of the girlies in the comments who aren’t into the cultivation genre they were a bit confused about why these elements were added in if they did t really contribute to the story. But for me who eats that cultivation shit up? Yeah I was super into it! It’s not often I see these genres I like cross. It’s like the excitement I feel when I see a BL otome isekai or an otome isekai cultivation manwha. I just love when two great things come together. Anyway, yeah I def loved this. It was simply good. Nothing too complex or complicated. Just a nice little entertaining story. I hope these two babies live happily together forever because they deserve it. It gets a 9.5.