tanenigiri

[tanenigiri]

I'm floored that people are still liking and reblogging the collage of BL and BL-adjacent works that I reviewed two (!!) years ago. I haven't stopped growing my collection of manga, so I figured I'd make a sort-of Part 2 with a collage of some other fluffy slice-of-life BL and BL-adjacent titles I've enjoyed ever since I ended that project.

While I don't have time to give them full-fledged reviews like before, you can find some of my quick thoughts on each of them under the cut. I recommend all of these titles just as much as the 18 I included in the first collage - if you liked any of those, give these 10 stories a try!

Hirano and Kagiura by Shou Harusono - From the creator of Sasaki and Miyano and set in the same universe, this series revolves around one of Miyano's senpais and the roommate that he's been shipping him with since the start. This is every bit as charming and wholesome as Sasaki and Miyano, though I think this is a lot more chaotic considering the more hilarious take on the main pair's dynamic. I did a more comprehensive review of its first volume here if you wanna check it out.

Candy Color Paradox by Isaku Natsume - I'm not usually a big fan of enemies to lovers - the tropes they work with are rarely my cup of tea. This is one of the few stories I've read where that dynamic works really well, though, with these two reporters clashing a lot early on but finding out that they're exactly what the other needs. I wasn't too sold on the first volume but the second one really brought me onboard - I thought they treated the personal conflicts of one of the main characters incredibly well there.

My Brother's Husband by Gengoroh Tagame - More BL-adjacent than BL, this tells the story of a man reconnecting with the husband of his late brother (and no, there isn't any romance involved at all - this is a family-centric story first and foremost). It doesn't focus entirely on dealing with this loss, though - it's also a look into the protagonist's own family dynamics and troubles, with his daughter being a very prominent character here a la Tane in Our Dining Table. One of my favorites of this batch as it has a lot of heart and soul poured into it.

My Love Mix-Up by Watanu Hinekure and Aruko - The most comedic title here, this takes the misunderstanding trope to a really funny direction and builds a really good story out of it. The main couple is very adorable, and their dynamic with the side couple evolves in such a fun way that I ended up seeing this as a story about the four of them that just so happens to have two couples. If you watched the live action, the manga has a slightly different take on the story, and of course it spends more time on certain plot points, but it has the same chaotic and hilarious vibe.

Hyperventilation by Bboungbbangkkyu - I've only read a few Korean BLs, but this one is easily my favorite of the ones I've read so far. This is a lot steamier than most of the titles in this and in the previous collage, but those scenes are surrounded by a heartfelt dynamic between its two leads who are realizing that the connection they shared back in high school was a lot deeper than they thought. If you've watched the animation of this title, the manhwa's pretty much that but in book form, but I did notice some differences in the manhwa that made the story stronger in my opinion.

I'm Kinda Chubby and I'm Your Hero by Nore - I was slightly wary of this title since body image issues are quite difficult to tackle, but it turned out to not really be the focus of the story - one of the protagonists just happens to be chubby, and while there is some discussion on it, this story focuses a lot more on his growth as an actor and his newfound dynamic with the story's other protagonist. It's a really sweet story at its core, and the pun is definitely intended as the other protagonist is a pastry chef lol. (I'm also not sure if I would consider this as BL or BL-adjacent, coz by the second volume (which is the latest one so far) they aren't really together, but you can definitely sense that their dynamic goes beyond friendship.)

That Blue Sky Feeling by Okura and Coma Hashii - Picked this up mainly because the story is by the same person behind I Think Our Son Is Gay, one of my favorites in the original project. This has a slightly similar vibe, where it focuses more on exploring homosexuality and identity instead of romance, and it does so with the same interesting depth that Okura did in the other work. This one definitely has more BL tropes than I Think Our Son Is Gay though, and I'm more inclined to call it BL than BL-adjacent.

I Want to Be a Wall by Honami Shirono - "Marriage of convenience between a gay man and an asexual woman" is such an incredible pitch that I picked this up immediately, and I really enjoyed it for what it is. Said asexual woman is also a fujoshi, and the man that her husband is crushing on (who is straight) is a prominent supporting character, so you can imagine the hilarity that ensues. This isn't a comedy though - it's very much a heartwarming tale about identity and finding joy in a situation that isn't exactly the best.

Delinquent Daddy and Tender Teacher by Tama Mizuki - Already the second title here that has the same two-male-leads-plus-child dynamic as Our Dining Table - do you see the clear bias hahaha. This is quite far from that story and My Brother's Husband though, and I honestly thought that this was going to be trashier than it was because of the title, but I really shouldn't have judged this book by its cover as it's a great story about family and building connections with each other. It ended up being closer to Would You Like To Be a Family? in that regard, but this takes the time to flesh out the relationship between the two protagonists and the child, creating a silly but heartwarming dynamic.

Hello, Green Days by Ayu Sakumoto - Stumbled upon this short story online, and it has stayed with me ever since even if it doesn't have a physical English release (yet?). The dynamic between the protagonists is really sweet, and how it weaves in the plant talk (one of the main characters is a botany major) into the story is very clever. I also did a more comprehensive review of this before, so check it out here if you want.

If you made it this far, thanks for reading! I hope you found more titles to add to your to-read list.

[tanenigiri]

Cherry Magic anime episode 2 timeeee. This covers Chapters 4, 5, and the first half of Chapter 6 in the manga. Thoughts and ramblings below.

While the first episode was almost completely faithful to the manga's first three chapters, there are some small deviations in this one, which I'm all for since it'll be interesting to see different interpretations of the same story. They don't really change anything with the story but I thought it'd be fun to point some of them out here.

On the more minor side, Tsuge and Adachi's conversation here happens in the former's house instead of in a bar, but the conversation is largely the same (and is still pretty ridiculous haha). I really like this conversation and Adachi's monologue right after though since it establishes that, at the end of the day, Adachi is actually incredibly sensitive to Kurosawa's feelings (a fact that manifests even more in the balcony scene later in the episode), and he knows that what's really holding him back from processing his feelings with Kurosawa is himself.

One of the bigger changes that I found really interesting here is the meeting scene. In the manga, once Adachi brings over the cake to the client Kurosawa has a meeting with, it cuts straight to the reaction of Adachi's officemates on how ridiculous the client is. But here, we see Adachi explaining what happened to his officemates (minus the whole mind-reading thing of course) before those reactions. This is pretty minor in the grand scheme of things, but I found this a really interesting decision since this is the first time we see Adachi actively mingling with his officemates - something that happens far, far later in the manga.

On one hand, there is a sense of this being too fast for his character development, as it was only one episode ago where he pretty much spells out to us that he's hopeless when it comes to any form of social interaction (outside of Tsuge). On the other hand, I wanna read this as part of Adachi recognizing that the power he was given isn't a curse, but a tool that'll help them with his hang-ups. If he needs some magical intervention to help him open up to others, then so be it, and this scene proves that it's working.

The balcony conversation was pretty much the same, although I did find it a bit funny that they added the whole dropping the water bottle thing for dramatic flair. I love that shot of their reflections in the water though - probably my favorite shot of the series so far.

I'm kinda curious about what they'll do with the bonus chapters from Volume 1 of the manga. Volume 1 has Chapters 1-5, which all already happen in this first two episodes, and we get the start of Volume 2 at the end of Episode 2 as well. But Volume 1 also has some extra chapters, and while they're mostly just some fun asides, there's one that's almost central to the story that when I first read the manga, one of my qualms was how this chapter was just a bonus. (To those who watched the original TV series, it's the park flashback scene.) I'm guessing they'll bring it in when the narrative steers toward it, but it is a pretty major change to how the story's presented in the manga.

Thanks for reading! I'm pretty sure Episode 3 is gonna cover the company trip that happens in Chapters 7-9, and that's gonna bring in our favorite hexagon as well as one of the most famous scenes of the series. Can't wait!

[tanenigiri]

Cherry Magic has pretty quickly cemented itself in my top 5 among BL series, so when I found out it was getting an anime version I was onboard immediately. I discovered the series through the original TV show and I've been following the manga ever since, so seeing what looks like an animated version of the manga is such a treat.

So in the same vein as what I did with the Our Dining Table adaptation last year, I wanted to put my ramblings about it here, starting with Episode 1.

- The first thing that immediately jumped out to me was how the comedic flair of the original TV series is slightly more downplayed. Sure, the first half of the episode still had those funny beats such as the kabedon and the mole in Adachi's neck, but the second half really doubles down on focusing on Adachi's thoughts and doubts. Even compared to the manga - Episode 1 is a pretty faithful adaptation of the manga's first three chapters, with the phone call with Tsuge also being the last scene of Chapter 3 - I feel like the animated series spends a bit more time with the serious beats and a bit less time with the comedic beats.

- On one hand, I'm slightly worried about how this would dictate the show's tone, since to me, Cherry Magic is a romcom at heart. But on the other hand, what really made me a fan of the series as a whole is Adachi's character development and how his mind-reading is just a catalyst for this development, and if the animated series is gonna make that the focus, I'm 100% all in. This episode already started the discussion on Adachi's troubles not only with socializing, but in making connections with other people in general, so seeing that slowly be withered down by the people around him will be such a treat to watch.

- There's something really sweet about how the very first time we see Adachi smile here is when he talks about the manga that he and Kurosawa both like. It goes back to what I said above about how Adachi finds himself a novice not just in romantic relationships, but in friendships in general, so finding a common thread with someone he sees as perfect is a huge deal for him.

- It's also why that last scene where Adachi runs away at the end hits pretty harshly. He's overwhelmed not only by what Kurosawa's thoughts actually mean, but his perceived inability to deal with them fairly, so he does the only thing he knows how to - avoid it. I think it's a great note to end the episode on since it establishes that the story isn't about them getting together, but about how Adachi is gonna overcome his own hang-ups about himself - getting a boyfriend is just the cherry (hah!) on top.

- I'm really excited on how they're gonna tackle Kurosawa's own inner turmoil here. We get a sneak peek of it here with that scene in his bedroom, and the manga itself does have a few chapters that takes Kurosawa's POV instead of Adachi's, so I'm guessing we will get some scenes from his POV here. There's also something to be said about how Kurosawa's fantasies here are amped up to 11 compared to the original TV show lmao.

Thanks for reading! It was also through going through the tag here that I found out that there's apparently a Thai version also running right now? Cherry Magic fans are eating good huh. As someone who absolutely loved the manga and the original series, should I check it out?

[tanenigiri]

We got a spin-off episode! And "spin-off" is very apt as it's all brand new scenes not found in the manga. As much as I wanted to see the manga's epilogue adapted, the show's had a pretty good track record in terms of adding new scenes and elevating the manga's plot. I'd even say it's one of its greatest strengths, so how does this attempt fare?

Here are some thoughts and ramblings on Our Dining Table's spin-off episode:

I'll start with my favorite part: A new bento box is 500% the best gift Yutaka could've ever thought of to celebrate the anniversary of them meeting up. Sorry to the matching Christmas scarves but this takes the cake. There've been a lot of posts made about how deliberate the choice of items are in this show and I look forward to reading about all of that with this bento box. I also have to mention the utter sweetness of Yutaka wanting to commemorate the date where he first ran into the Ueda brothers - that's definitely the mark of a year of character growth.

Ueda-san continues to be the best dad. Sure, he isn't as prominent here as in the finale, but he continues to read the room so well and know what to do before Yutaka and Minoru even realize it. Love the Minoru teasing at the beginning too - it reminds me of how he was when he was witnessing Minoru's blatant pining. (That tidbit about how Minoru being antsy reminding him of his wife was both really funny and really sweet.)

Glad to know that they've recognized that Tane is the one keeping this whole thing together. (Half-joking but really, how they've made this child not only relevant to the main dynamic but also his very own character is one of my favorite things about this series.)

Ok, I have to be honest: I wasn't feeling the conflict. It's not helped by the fact that the misunderstanding trope is a bit tired for me - one of my favorite things about the manga, actually, was how it generally avoided this and actually made it a point that being open about their issues was a prerequisite to them getting together - but I think my biggest issue with it was how it seemed inconsistent with the characters? Minoru especially, and I haven't been shy with my overall praise for how the show had not only expanded his character but elevated it from the manga because of how well they executed his plot. But him getting jealous over a text he doesn't know the full context of seems a bit much, even if you anchor it to his fear of Yutaka leaving him just like Nao and the rest of his friends did. And even then, that anchor wasn't really brought up, as how he acted over it seemed quite possessive instead of insecure. If anything, the insecurity came from Yutaka, which I do think is consistent with his character, but it's the sentiment I expected from Minoru instead?

I think the closest thing I can compare this to is the bonus Valentine episode of Cherry Magic (spoiler warning if you haven't watched it), where Kurosawa finds a Valentine's gift in Adachi's desk drawer and panics over who could've given it to him. He's seen to be pretty jealous of the mystery admirer and laments over how he's no longer the only one who's noticed Adachi's charm, only to find out that the gift he found was actually Adachi's gift to him. It's a similar misunderstanding situation, but I think what made this one work better for me (aside from how Cherry Magic is a comedy while Our Dining Table's tone is a lot more serious) was how it was very consistent with Kurosawa's character, as he's shown to be quite possessive and easily jealous over Adachi several times throughout the show.

I can't say the same thing for Minoru at all, as while as a boyfriend he definitely has the right to feel jealous over a potential threat to their relationship, this is the same person who, in last week's episode, told Yutaka that if there's anything bothering him, they should talk to each other, especially if it's about their relationship. Why wasn't he following his own advice until the very end of the episode? (The actual answer is to prolong the episode but still.)

I don't know, I feel like they could've executed it a lot better if they wanted to stick with this conflict. The misunderstanding could've come from how they communicated, as I think that would not only be consistent with the takeaway from the previous episode, but it would also be quite realistic as Yutaka has shown to not be the best with words. I'm not saying that how Minoru acted was invalid - he absolutely has the right to feel jealous about a misunderstanding, especially with how rocky his experience with relationships had been - but I think they could've showed this insecurity in a way that didn't make it seem like he was moping over Yutaka having friends who weren't him. (If anything, shouldn't he be happy that Yutaka now has other people he regularly talks to? He was quite literally traumatized from eating with other people.)

(And yes, I absolutely think that if Ohata just showed up and explained everything herself, the episode would've been much better lmao I'm gonna miss her character so much.)

Bit random but the balloons showing "bad day" tripped me up a bit because I was genuinely confused since there's only one 'D' in "Happy Birthday" until I realized that they used the same 'D' balloon for both shots lol.

Sorry if those bullet points were a doozy, and I'd love to hear your thoughts on if you agree or disagree. But like I said in my previous post, I'm glad that the show has things that I don't necessarily think highly of, as a 100% perfect show would be quite boring. I may have some gripes with it, but I still enjoyed the spin-off for what it was - and more Our Dining Table content is always welcome.

And honestly, despite these gripes, I'm still gonna rewatch this show so many times and never get sick of it because I think it's such a fantastic adaptation. They absolutely knocked it out of the park with it and I hope that the team gets their hands on other titles. (I would love a Koimonogatari adaptation but I would very much prefer new chapters instead lol.)

[tanenigiri]

Last one. (Or second to the last? I saw the posts about a "spin-off" episode.) And it ends on a very high note.

Thoughts and ramblings on Our Dining Table's 10th and final episode under the cut.

Okay so I was mentally preparing myself for that scene between Yutaka and Ueda-san because I knew it was coming, and when I first read it in the manga I broke down crying because of how unprepared I was to feel all those emotions when I was already a mess after the backstories and the confessions. And yet, even when I was psyching up about it for this show, I still had to pause and take a minute because it is SUCH a heavy scene that it still gets me. But at the same time, I really can't imagine myself loving this series as much as I do right now if it didn't have this scene, as it makes for such a great "conclusion" to a lot of the series' story arcs. I use conclusion very liberally here as what Ueda-san brings to the table isn't really anything final, but there is absolutely a weight off Yutaka's shoulders after that much-needed conversation.

I've seen a lot of posts about Ueda-san being the best BL dad, and considering that most of the other manga I've read either have absent fathers or ones that reject their sons' identities, I'm very much inclined to agree. This was absolutely his episode and he knocked it out of the park.

Of course, there's that final conversation outside Tane's school, which was a bit of a change from the manga as its equivalent scene took place in the ramen shop Minoru works in. Still, the essence was pretty much the same, and I think the show actually made this scene a lot more powerful because of that bit where Tane calls Yutaka family. Absolutely didn't expect that and I was floored at how this four-year-old (at least in the manga) can make me cry just like that. I think this is just as important for Yutaka as Minoru's confession, and I'm not at all surprised that this eventually leads to Yutaka declaring (and cementing) his own love.

I'm really glad that we got that short scene about Yutaka's officemates noticing his change. This was one of my biggest wishes going into this series and I'm so glad that they brought it up several times. Sure, Ohata says the same thing in the previous episode, but I think it's a lot more telling that people who aren't as close to Yutaka have noticed it too.

Speaking of which, the one complaint I have about this episode is how Ohata didn't get a line lol the queen deserved a scene! But I'm glad that they gave the rest of the co-workers some screen time. (And she already got her spotlight in Episode 9 anyway.)

The establishing scenes at the start were also a bit funny to me as I thought they were, I guess for the lack of a better word, too on the nose? Like okay, we get it, Yutaka's thinking about loss, you don't have to hammer it in.

If it wasn't obvious from how much I've been gushing about it, Our Dining Table is my favorite out of all the manga I've read so far, and I'm so, so happy with how the show turned out. There's a lot of heart put into it, and it not only did the manga's story justice but even elevated it in certain aspects. And while I do have some reservations about certain things that the show did, I'm actually glad those exist, as a "perfect" show would be quite boring to obsess over.

Thanks to everyone who've been reading these ramblings the past few weeks! I'm so glad to find more people who love this series as much as I do. If you haven't read the manga yet, I whole-heartedly recommend it!

[tanenigiri]

*punches through wall* OUR DINING TABLE

(Thoughts and ramblings on episodes 8 and 9 under the cut. Some manga comparisons but I don't think any of them constitute as plot spoilers since there's one episode left, but if you plan on reading the manga and don't want the differences from the show to be spoiled, fair warning.)

The corresponding chapter of Episode 8 in the manga is actually where we find out all about Minoru's backstory. We see a good chunk of it here in the flashback in the cafe, when he and Tane first cross paths with Yutaka. But most of the other things we've seen about Minoru's past up to this point in the show - that scene with Nao where Tane spills a drink on her, that flashback scene with young Tane which looks like it just happened right after their mom's funeral, and the general sense of Minoru bearing the weight of being a second parent to Tane - all of that comes to head in this chapter of the manga. I know I've said it repeatedly over my previous posts, but I really have to say it again because it deserves the praise - Minoru's plot arc was handled so, so well in this show, and I genuinely think all the decisions they made to spread and flesh it out was to its benefit.

There were already a lot of other posts last week that pointed it out but I still wanna highlight it - the silence that pervades this episode was really effective in conveying the conflict Yutaka and Minoru were facing. Giving them all this space to think about it could be dragging for some, but I found it quite necessary for what they were dealing with. This show has always used the quiet moments effectively and I think this episode isn't an exception.

I also wanted to highlight how that whole idea of "things being the same" is important to both Yutaka and Minoru. Before the events of Episode 1, Yutaka was living a very monotonous routine, down to the meals he was feeding himself. And Minoru's life has been nothing but one massive change after the other, so I don't blame him in wanting to find something that he could keep from changing. But, of course, both of them know that what happened between them isn't static, and that the change is something they either have to accept or have to let go of.

Gotta dedicate a bullet point to Ohata, who finally got her one manga-canonical scene in this episode (Hozumi-kun you're so easy to read!), but really her character has quickly become my favorite addition to the series. She's a much-needed confidant for Yutaka in the same way the dad (and his manager at the ramen shop) is for Minoru, and these past two episodes also bring up the fact that she was having relationship troubles with her boyfriend. I guess I can point out how her own issues seemed a little too convenient in terms of giving the right advice to Yutaka to move the plot along, but I honestly don't mind it - partly because I think those conversations also serve to show how far Yutaka's come in terms of breaking out of his shell and partly because I always cheer whenever her character shows up haha. (And can we talk about how she's constantly the best-dressed character of the show? Like I know she doesn't really have much competition but still?? Did you guys see her hair in that last scene???)

Speaking of which, I'm so glad they added that last scene with Yutaka joining his officemates for drinks. This was only mentioned in the manga, but I think this is as big of a deal as the confession in terms of Yutaka's growth. This is the same character who, in Episode 1 (which was only a few months prior to this), was known by the office as someone who would turn down any invite, and the manga even goes further with this in that they wouldn't invite him at all because they know that he would just reject them. Not to mention that the literal first thing we find out about Yutaka is how he doesn't share meals with anyone! Seeing him in the bar with his coworkers is absolutely massive in terms of how much Yutaka has changed, and while Ohata is right in teasing him that it's because of a special someone, I do think it's a testament to how much progress Yutaka has made over the course of the show both because of Minoru and because of his personal growth.

And since I mentioned it, I'm pretty happy with how they translated that playground confession scene into the show. In particular I enjoyed how generally awkward it was because it was very in-character, and I think giving the scene a more laid back vibe instead of a serious one was a really good decision. That whole "you're very important to me" spiel destroyed me though.

It's only recently I realized that the whole "BL male lead running to other BL male lead" is an actual trope that's seen in almost every series and I find that so funny. I've only watched a few before this and they do all have running involved.

Screaming at Mr. Ueda literally dragging his son out of the house and telling him to get it together before the New Year rings in. We don't really get a lot of scenes between the two of them so I'm glad we got this.

Tane-kun takes a bit of a backseat in these two episodes as the plot shifts to Yutaka and Minoru's relationship (the same thing happens in the manga), but the scenes he does get are still really good. In particular I like that once he realizes that Minoru and Yutaka are "fighting," all Tane says is that Minoru should apologize because, for him, Yutaka would always understand and accept their apology.

Ok so I'm of two minds about that scene with Yuuki (Yutaka's adoptive brother), which I was pretty surprised to see as it wasn't in the manga. On one hand, I'm glad that we do get some sort of closure for this, and that at the end of the day, Yutaka does have an adoptive family that cares for him. But on the other hand, I really don't think that the apology was anywhere close to undoing the damage that Yutaka's had to bear all these years? Like, I get that it's a misunderstanding on both ends and that proper communication would've solved it (and this is, in fact, the takeaway Yutaka needed for his confession to Minoru), but I'm not a fan of the implication that just because Yuuki was apparently not that much of a jerk to Yutaka as we thought that he's forgiven for his clearly traumatizing actions? I don't think they're gonna address this further in next week's episode (though I'd love to be wrong), but I dunno - it's not the note I would've liked that plot point to be left on. Sure, put some forgiveness in there, but I guess I wanted either party to acknowledge that while Yutaka could start mending his relationship with his adoptive family, there's still a lot of damage that they need to process? I know that's a pretty big ask for what is essentially a minor plot point, but eh. I'd love to hear your thoughts on it (and on the show in general).

The preview gave me a glimpse of the one other scene in the manga that's in my Top 3 (up there with Yutaka's cartoonified backstory and Minoru taking care of a sick Yutaka) and I am soooo ready to break down because of it. For manga readers who want to know which one: It's the scene without Minoru.

Love this show so much. I don't want it to end and I'm both anticipating and dreading the finale next week.

[tanenigiri]

*punches through wall* OUR DINING TABLE

(Thoughts and ramblings on episodes 8 and 9 under the cut. Some manga comparisons but I don't think any of them constitute as plot spoilers since there's one episode left, but if you plan on reading the manga and don't want the differences from the show to be spoiled, fair warning.)

The corresponding chapter of Episode 8 in the manga is actually where we find out all about Minoru's backstory. We see a good chunk of it here in the flashback in the cafe, when he and Tane first cross paths with Yutaka. But most of the other things we've seen about Minoru's past up to this point in the show - that scene with Nao where Tane spills a drink on her, that flashback scene with young Tane which looks like it just happened right after their mom's funeral, and the general sense of Minoru bearing the weight of being a second parent to Tane - all of that comes to head in this chapter of the manga. I know I've said it repeatedly over my previous posts, but I really have to say it again because it deserves the praise - Minoru's plot arc was handled so, so well in this show, and I genuinely think all the decisions they made to spread and flesh it out was to its benefit.

There were already a lot of other posts last week that pointed it out but I still wanna highlight it - the silence that pervades this episode was really effective in conveying the conflict Yutaka and Minoru were facing. Giving them all this space to think about it could be dragging for some, but I found it quite necessary for what they were dealing with. This show has always used the quiet moments effectively and I think this episode isn't an exception.

I also wanted to highlight how that whole idea of "things being the same" is important to both Yutaka and Minoru. Before the events of Episode 1, Yutaka was living a very monotonous routine, down to the meals he was feeding himself. And Minoru's life has been nothing but one massive change after the other, so I don't blame him in wanting to find something that he could keep from changing. But, of course, both of them know that what happened between them isn't static, and that the change is something they either have to accept or have to let go of.

Gotta dedicate a bullet point to Ohata, who finally got her one manga-canonical scene in this episode (Hozumi-kun you're so easy to read!), but really her character has quickly become my favorite addition to the series. She's a much-needed confidant for Yutaka in the same way the dad (and his manager at the ramen shop) is for Minoru, and these past two episodes also bring up the fact that she was having relationship troubles with her boyfriend. I guess I can point out how her own issues seemed a little too convenient in terms of giving the right advice to Yutaka to move the plot along, but I honestly don't mind it - partly because I think those conversations also serve to show how far Yutaka's come in terms of breaking out of his shell and partly because I always cheer whenever her character shows up haha. (And can we talk about how she's constantly the best-dressed character of the show? Like I know she doesn't really have much competition but still?? Did you guys see her hair in that last scene???)

Speaking of which, I'm so glad they added that last scene with Yutaka joining his officemates for drinks. This was only mentioned in the manga, but I think this is as big of a deal as the confession in terms of Yutaka's growth. This is the same character who, in Episode 1 (which was only a few months prior to this), was known by the office as someone who would turn down any invite, and the manga even goes further with this in that they wouldn't invite him at all because they know that he would just reject them. Not to mention that the literal first thing we find out about Yutaka is how he doesn't share meals with anyone! Seeing him in the bar with his coworkers is absolutely massive in terms of how much Yutaka has changed, and while Ohata is right in teasing him that it's because of a special someone, I do think it's a testament to how much progress Yutaka has made over the course of the show both because of Minoru and because of his personal growth.

And since I mentioned it, I'm pretty happy with how they translated that playground confession scene into the show. In particular I enjoyed how generally awkward it was because it was very in-character, and I think giving the scene a more laid back vibe instead of a serious one was a really good decision. That whole "you're very important to me" spiel destroyed me though.

It's only recently I realized that the whole "BL male lead running to other BL male lead" is an actual trope that's seen in almost every series and I find that so funny. I've only watched a few before this and they do all have running involved.

Screaming at Mr. Ueda literally dragging his son out of the house and telling him to get it together before the New Year rings in. We don't really get a lot of scenes between the two of them so I'm glad we got this.

Tane-kun takes a bit of a backseat in these two episodes as the plot shifts to Yutaka and Minoru's relationship (the same thing happens in the manga), but the scenes he does get are still really good. In particular I like that once he realizes that Minoru and Yutaka are "fighting," all Tane says is that Minoru should apologize because, for him, Yutaka would always understand and accept their apology.

Ok so I'm of two minds about that scene with Yuuki (Yutaka's adoptive brother), which I was pretty surprised to see as it wasn't in the manga. On one hand, I'm glad that we do get some sort of closure for this, and that at the end of the day, Yutaka does have an adoptive family that cares for him. But on the other hand, I really don't think that the apology was anywhere close to undoing the damage that Yutaka's had to bear all these years? Like, I get that it's a misunderstanding on both ends and that proper communication would've solved it (and this is, in fact, the takeaway Yutaka needed for his confession to Minoru), but I'm not a fan of the implication that just because Yuuki was apparently not that much of a jerk to Yutaka as we thought that he's forgiven for his clearly traumatizing actions? I don't think they're gonna address this further in next week's episode (though I'd love to be wrong), but I dunno - it's not the note I would've liked that plot point to be left on. Sure, put some forgiveness in there, but I guess I wanted either party to acknowledge that while Yutaka could start mending his relationship with his adoptive family, there's still a lot of damage that they need to process? I know that's a pretty big ask for what is essentially a minor plot point, but eh. I'd love to hear your thoughts on it (and on the show in general).

The preview gave me a glimpse of the one other scene in the manga that's in my Top 3 (up there with Yutaka's cartoonified backstory and Minoru taking care of a sick Yutaka) and I am soooo ready to break down because of it. For manga readers who want to know which one: It's the scene without Minoru.

Love this show so much. I don't want it to end and I'm both anticipating and dreading the finale next week.

[tanenigiri]

Episodes 6 and 7 of Our Dining Table have my favorite ever scenes in the manga (and that's not even considering that scene) so my opinion of the whole show was pretty much contingent on these two episodes.

And they knocked them out of the park.

(Stray thoughts and ramblings on Our Dining Table eps 6 and 7. Some light manga spoilers but nothing too revealing.)

Our Dining Table was one of the first manga I read, and by then I was very new to the concept of Christmas in Japan being a primarily romantic thing. So that whole scene about Minoru struggling to ask Yutaka about his Christmas plans flew over my head during my initial reading, but after re-reading it it made a lot more sense why Minoru was so on edge about it. I thought the show did this really well, and that added scene with Minoru and his manager in the ramen shop was a great way to contextualize it too.

We only see her for a single scene so let me just say: Ohata you will always be famous. (And her outfit looked so good??? We should've had a scene where Yutaka asked her for advice on which scarf to get.)

The whole "taking care of your sick loved one" trope is 50/50 for me as those scenes seem to be quite predictable, but I really like how Our Dining Table uses it as a catalyst for both Yutaka and Minoru to start truly opening up to each other. Sure, they've gotten very close over the past few months and I think both of them recognize by this point that their "friendship" is something special, but I found it very interesting that it's only by this scene - both in the manga and in the show - where they start digging deep into their issues and expressing why that friendship means a lot to them.

I've already said it in my previous two posts but it bears repeating: how they're handling Minoru's past in the show is such a step up from how it was in the manga. Minoru deciding to open up first so that Yutaka can be comfortable sharing his own past is so in-character and honestly makes that Christmas scene even more of a gut-punch than it already is.

And THEN we get that absolutely devastating scene with Tane and his dad, with the latter worrying about Yutaka dying. I feel like this scene was given a lot more weight in the show - mainly because I felt it gave the scene the space and time to play out - and I am still recovering from it. Very much a top 3 scene of the series for me.

(Also, shout out to the dad for getting the memo not once, but twice and letting Minoru get his much-deserved alone time with Yutaka. I'm sure he's making up for interrupting them in Episode 5.)

Cannot stress enough how fantastic the show's little plot additions have been, and the matching scarves as gifts is probably at the top of my list. I could go on and on about how it represents warmth and comfort and all that, but really I'm already screaming at the fact that they had the same idea on what to give each other.

I also want to point out how much I love that the very first shot of Episode 7 (after the opening credits) is Yutaka's dish rack with the washed bowl and utensils as it takes the viewer a second to realize that this was Minoru's doing. It's up there with the shoes in Episode 2 for me.

While I fell in love with the manga by like the first chapter, I think what cemented its grip on me was how they decided to gives us Yutaka's backstory in the style of Tane's drawings. That was definitely the scene I was most looking forward to in this entire series, and when I saw the Episode 7 preview at the end of Episode 6 with Yutaka just tearfully recounting his story to Minoru, I was worried that they were gonna do away with it. So you can imagine my reaction to not only seeing that Tane's drawings were kept, but that they also decided to animate a significant part of that backstory with the drawings. (All I'm gonna say is that I had to pause the video to calm down.)

Tane clinging to Yutaka like a koala was the best shot of the episode. It was a nice break from all the heavy emotions. And then Tane said sike and gave us that head patting scene and he really got us while our guard was down huh.

I really have nothing to say about the kiss as I'm not really a fan of dwelling on these kinds of scenes, but I will say that how understated it was fit with the tone of the show. If anything my only complaint was how I felt that scene was a bit dark (as in it lacked lighting haha not that it was grim).

Next episode is gonna be a rough and frustrating one I'm pretty sure, but I am curious on where they're gonna end it. There's one more scene I'm really looking forward to seeing but I think that's gonna come at like the finale.

I love this series so much. It's nothing flashy or groundbreaking but it takes pride in its simplicity and makes the most out of it. And I'm so glad more people are discovering it thanks to this show.

[tanenigiri]

I wanted to make another post last week, but when I saw the preview for Episode 5, I figured that I should talk about Episodes 4 and 5 together since it looked like they were gonna be parallels (and I was right!). So continuing from my post about Episodes 1 and 2, here are my stray thoughts and ramblings about Our Dining Table's third, fourth, and fifth episodes.

(Once again, this has some spoilers for people who haven't read the manga, so proceed with caution.)

As much as I want to endlessly gush about Yutaka and Minoru and their 11/10 dynamic, my first bullet point goes to gushing about a fantastic new addition to the series who's (technically) show-exclusive: Ohata, one of Yutaka's co-workers. I said in my previous post that I was looking forward to seeing how they expound on Yutaka's work life with the show, and Episodes 3 and 5 were pretty much everything I could've asked for in that regard. As early as the first episode, we see Ohata as the one who makes the effort to include Yutaka in the conversation, even if he's closed himself off from the rest of his officemates. So it's nice to see that she's the one who first witnesses the changes in Yutaka's demeanor, and it's great to see how genuinely happy Ohata is to see her officemate break out of his shell.

I also want to emphasize that Yutaka's dynamic with Ohata was only made possible by his dynamic with the Ueda family. The show presents this pretty directly - Yutaka asking for help from Ohata was because he wanted to impress Tane and Minoru with his nonexistent bento-making skills, after all - but Ohata herself brings up that not only is this the first time Yutaka's asked anyone in the office for help, but also how Yutaka really cares about the person he's making this bento for.

That last part becomes especially more poignant once we get to Episode 4 and it's revealed just how scarring Yutaka's childhood was, especially when it came to sharing meals. No wonder he volunteers to make a bento for Tane even if he didn't know how to make one - Yutaka's now in a position to make sure that this child he cares about gets to experience meals in the best way possible. In other words, he wants to make sure that Tane never experiences what he did in his childhood, and if that means pain-stakingly perfecting how to turn sausages into octopi over the course of several weeks, then so be it.

I'll reserve my comments for how messed up Yutaka's adoptive family is in a later episode, as I'm pretty sure that there'll be a scene that goes even deeper into this (assuming they follow the manga), but let me just say: Wow what a horrible family. I don't blame Yutaka for closing himself up to the world at all, and it makes his breakthroughs with the Uedas all the more impressive.

Yutaka isn't the only one experiencing these breakthroughs - we see in Episode 5 that Minoru is also healing from his past thanks to his meals with Yutaka. That scene with his old college classmate was repurposed from how it was presented in the manga - it was part of a flashback in a much later chapter in the manga but was brought forward here - but it makes a lot of sense to do so as, like I said in my previous post, they're bringing Minoru's conflict to the spotlight a lot earlier, and I think that's a very good decision for the narrative. He is clearly still dealing with a lot of baggage from losing his mom and having to take on the mantle of being a second parent to Tane, and I'm sure how that old college classmate reacted to Tane's antics was par for the course for him. So to see Yutaka not only take these antics in stride, but also prioritize Tane's well-being over his own feelings about the situation - I'm sure Minoru feels overwhelmed.

And that's not even taking into account Minoru's attraction to Yutaka - which, yes, it is a major factor, and the actor is doing a fantastic job in conveying this pining. But, really, with how Yutaka already treats Tane like his own little brother, how could Minoru not fall in love with him?

That shot in Episode 2 with the shoes is still my favorite (it's become a wallpaper lol), but that sequence in Episode 5 with Minoru making ramen fried rice and being paralleled with a memory with his mom is definitely up there. What an absolutely heartbreaking sequence.

I get how frustrating it seems that Minoru and Yutaka don't seem to be getting the opportunity to talk about the latter's encounter with his brother, but if they're doing what I think they're doing, I really think the build-up to this conversation is worth it. The manga had a similar build-up to this reveal (though it was slightly shorter) so I'm hoping it pays off in a future episode.

We were robbed of Minoru saying that Yutaka's brother was a looker but wasn't his type. Absolutely my biggest complaint about the show so far as that line is Top 3 for the manga. (I have a tiny sliver of hope that it'll come up in a later episode in a different context but I might as well say this now lol.)

(Okay but my actual biggest complaint about the show so far is how there's a pretty heavy use of flashbacks to previous scenes already seen in the show. I'm told that this is actually normal for dramas, but still, there are so many interesting extra scenes they could use to fill the space instead. Give me more of the Minoru-and-his-boss-in-the-ramen-shop dynamic or the Yutaka-and-his-officemates dynamic instead please and thank you)

To those who have read the manga: On a scale of 1 to Minoru at the park in Episode 4, how excited are you for next week's Christmas episode? That is by far my favorite chapter of the manga and I am so, so looking forward to seeing how they tackle it here.

I admit that I was initially worried about the adaptation as I love the manga so much so I had sky-high expectations, but it is such a delight to watch every time. Everything they've added to the story so far makes a lot of sense and only elevates the narrative. And since we're getting into the meat of the story, I can only see it getting better from here.

[tanenigiri]

My favorite manga got a drama adaptation and I don't know where else to freak out about it. So as a departure from the manga reviews I've been posting for this blog, here are some ramblings about Our Dining Table's first two episodes:

(There are some vague spoilers here about what might happen after these episodes based on the manga, so if you haven't read the source material, fair warning.)

Just need to get this out of the way first: they mADE AN OUR DINING TABLE DRAMA DSOIFHAWPOIHFAOIEH i'm glad we can have nice things

Probably my biggest praise for the show so far is how it's put Minoru's conflict front-and-center much earlier than in the manga. A significant amount of the manga's first half is focused on Yutaka's issues, with only a few scenes talking about what's going on in Minoru's end (the head patting scene mostly, and then some subtle assumptions about the fact that there's an absent mother). Episode 2 already sets up Minoru's conflict quite well with the additional scenes that weren't in the manga, and I think that's a fantastic decision in making the story explore its two leads more equally.

The shot of the four pairs of shoes at the entrance of the Ueda home in Episode 2 is by far my favorite shot of the show (at least so far). I don't know why footwear got me emotional but there you go.

Really appreciate the drawn out sequences of Yutaka cooking. We know that he's a great cook, but it's nice to actually see it.

Also really appreciate how it looks like we'll see more of Yutaka's work life. The final scene of Episode 1 was a slight deviation from what happens in the manga - no one sees Yutaka talk to Tane in the manga - so having the officemates be there tells me they're setting up something about Yutaka's work dynamic, which I am all for as I would love to see how his officemates gradually notice the change in Yutaka's behavior.

Hilariously, it's only while watching the drama where I find out that Yutaka works as an architect? I knew it had something to do with art because of a future scene but I didn't realize he was an architect.

I see those subtle indications of Minoru slowly (or maybe not-so-slowly) falling for Yutaka. Those lingering glances, the body language when it's just the two of them, the way he talks about Yutaka to his dad - it's a great call for his character!

There are so many references to future events where I've gone, "Oh when I see this it's gonna make me cry" that it feels like I'm gonna be in tears for 80% of the rest of the show.

Also want to point out that the Episode 3 preview seems like it's gonna deviate a bit from what happens in the manga next? Episodes 1 and 2 were pretty faithful to the first two chapters (with some scenes omitted that I feel like they're saving for future episodes) but I don't recognize the scenes at the preview at all (save for the very last one - I think I have an idea of what Yutaka wants to talk about but I'm not sure). Definitely understandable since this has 10 episodes, and I'm excited to see where else it'll take their dynamic.

TL;DR: The manga is my favorite for so many reasons and this show is only adding to those reasons. Really excited to see the rest of the episodes.

[tanenigiri]

Review #32: Hello, Green Days

Japanese title: ハロー、グリーンデイズ (Hello, Green Days)

Story and art: Ayu Sakumoto

Number of volumes: 1 in Japanese (complete)

A blossoming romance between two opposites.

(This review contains story spoilers.)

One trope that I’ve gradually realized that I’m a sucker for is the main couple comforting each other. In hindsight, it should’ve been obvious with Our Dining Table being my favorite manga so far and Koimonogatari being one of the titles right behind it, but I find something really powerful in how two characters can find solace in each other. It definitely makes their eventual relationship more solid for me as they’ve established this emotional trust.

It takes a while for Hello, Green Days to get to that point, and I admittedly initially thought that the one-sidedness of the comforting for a bulk of the story was to its detriment, but the story really proved me wrong by the end. In its defense, though, Mikage really deserves that comforting after everything he’s been through. The very first thing we find out about Mikage - aside from his age and the fact that he’s a botany major - is that he was ridiculed back in junior high school for confessing to another guy. The trauma from this incident was enough for Mikage to give up on romance altogether, pushing himself to seclusion for the eight years that followed.

Of course, that’s upended by the other lead character of the series - Nanahoshi, a younger student who participates in the seminar held by the professor Mikage is assisting. I sort-of bent the truth in the previous paragraph, as the actual first thing we find out about Mikage is how Nanahoshi likes him - the very first page of the manga features a glimpse into the confession. It’s an interesting choice to start the story with this scene with a promise of coming back to it later, as even if you already expect the two leads to get together, it recontextualizes the subsequent events and revelations as building up to this confession rather than establishing the relationship.

Turns out, we don’t have to wait that long, as the confession happens at the end of the first chapter. But that doesn’t mean that the events leading up to it were rushed - as a matter of fact, quite a lot happens in the first chapter before this confession. One of the main things is how Mikage notices that Nanahoshi is struggling to make ends meet, so he offers Nanahoshi to move into his dorm so that they can split the rent and reduce costs. We find out that part of Mikage’s seclusion led him to decide to live alone, so this offer is as much of a huge deal for him as it is to Nanahoshi.

We also get the first instance of one of my favorite things about this manga - Mikage’s plant talk. When we first get a glimpse of Mikage’s room, we find it surrounded with plants, and while that’s partly because of him being a botany student, we also get a sense that this is part of Mikage’s ways to deal with his solitude - Nanahoshi even brings up later on how Mikage is fond of talking to his plants. In any case, since Nanahoshi is helping out Mikage in taking care of the plants, the latter takes it as an opportunity to educate Nanahoshi about them and how to properly care for them. And, expectedly, the manga uses these monologues as parallels to what’s going on in the main story.

My favorite instance of this is in the second chapter, where Nanahoshi asks Mikage about the shameplant - the one that closes its leaves whenever you touch them. Mikage explains that one of the leading theories as to why this happens is because the plant wants to protect itself from being eaten by animals, and the chapter uses this as a parallel to how uncomfortable Mikage is about his newfound relationship with Nanahoshi. Just like the shameplant, Mikage seems to retreat to his shell when Nanahoshi makes any advances to him, but he recognizes that he needs to break out of that shell if he wants the relationship to work out.

This naturally leads to a plot point about intimacy, and when Nanahoshi is shown to want to take things further, Mikage says he isn’t ready. While this expectedly causes Nanahoshi to take a step back and be more careful around Mikage - much to the latter’s dismay - what I didn’t expect was how this would be the catalyst to Nanahoshi’s backstory.

An unfortunate incident in high school involving him using his martial arts skills in the wrong place and time comes crashing down on him, and he’s seen to be left aimless and directionless until he happened to go on a university visit for his prospects. We find out that it’s here where he actually meets Mikage for the first time, though not to the botany student’s knowledge - Nanahoshi just so happens to see him in a greenhouse talking to plants and being in his element. He gets his drive back from this one-way interaction alone, studying hard to get accepted in that university even without the guarantee that he’ll be able to meet Mikage. While at my first read I thought this was a bit shallow and too convenient, I did realize afterwards that someone at rock bottom like Nanahoshi at that point can get motivation in the most unexpected places, and if that just so happens to be from someone talking to plants, then I’m glad he was able to find it.

It’s also by this point that we get to see just how Mikage’s able to “comfort” Nanahoshi even without the former even knowing it. Not only did Mikage pull Nanahoshi out of his funk, but he had also given him something new to work toward, and Nanahoshi credits all of his progress to Mikage’s kindness and passion. This understandably makes Mikage flustered - we even see a small sequence of him as a young boy already being interested in plants, and we get the sense that this is Mikage realizing that his "weird obsession" since he was a kid was all worth it.

There’s one other plot point I really want to talk about here - Mikage running into one of his former bullies. The story’s final chapter sees Mikage attending an academic conference with his professor, and one of the people running the registration booth just so happens to be one of his former classmates who ridiculed Mikage for confessing to another guy. While they start with exchanging pleasantries, Mikage is expectedly uncomfortable with the whole situation, and he’s saved from having to deal with the bully bringing back those memories by his professor calling him over.

I was a bit wary with what they were going to do with this plot point when it was teased at the end of the penultimate chapter. On one hand, I’m not a fan of the whole “forgiving bullies” trope as it’s often done very lazily. But on the other hand, I wasn’t expecting the story to come back to the very first scene like this - those kinds of tragic backstories usually just serve as characterization fuel rather than plot fuel - so I was interested in how the story was going to handle this.

Thankfully, the story does avoid any of the common pitfalls of dealing with bully characters. Not only is the forgiveness quite bumpy - while we do get that the bully is genuinely sorry for hurting Mikage’s feelings, he still has his own biases about homosexuality in general - but the resolution we get isn’t that Mikage is now on good terms with the bully. Rather, we see Mikage taking a very important step toward moving on from that incident and accepting it for what it is, and that’s a billion times better than whatever other resolution involving the bully we can possibly get.

And, of course, Mikage credits that to Nanahoshi’s presence in his life - he even outright says that it’s because of Nanahoshi that he’s able to save himself from dwelling on his conversation with his bully too much and letting it weigh him down. I’m not surprised that it’s this instance that breaks the intimacy barrier for Mikage, and while it does take a few more months for Nanahoshi to break his own barrier, it does show that they’ll be alright, despite all the baggage that they’re lugging behind them.

I didn’t expect to say this much for a story as short as Hello, Green Days - it’s only five chapters long + a bonus chapter of what happens next - but I’m amazed at how it’s able to pull all of this off despite its length. There are definitely plot points that I think could’ve benefited from this story being longer - Nanahoshi’s relationship with his family is the biggest one for me - but for what it is, it’s an incredibly sweet and comforting read.

Random thoughts that I couldn’t fit elsewhere:

One of my favorite scenes here is when Mikage talks to his professor about how he can be jealous of plants, specifically in how they don’t seem to need to worry about anything. It comes as no surprise that the professor counters this quite methodically, saying that plants don’t “worry” because they don’t have the same type of brain as humans do, but if they did, they would constantly be worried about the environment around them. It might not be as uplifting as normal relationship advice, but it does steer Mikage in the right direction in terms of handling his worries about his relationship - and it’s yet another reason why the whole plant theme running through the manga is such a good way of giving the plot a unique flavor.

This is one of a handful of titles I’ve covered for this project where the story doesn’t really give that much space to characters outside of the two leads - the professor and the former bully are really the only other ones with prominent lines, and even they don’t get that much. While I would’ve liked to see more dynamics outside of the main relationship, I do understand this decision, seeing as the story is told from Mikage’s point of view - who had already decided to seclude himself from the rest of the world by the start of the first chapter.

One thing I didn’t expect is for the last bit of plot we see in the story - at least, the last scene of the bonus chapter - to be about Nanahoshi’s relationship with his family. I mentioned above that this was one plot point I thought could’ve been expanded on if this story was longer, but what we did get here is a fantastic way to wrap it up. After eating corn that Nanahoshi grew for breakfast, Mikage suggests sending some of the corn back to Nanahoshi’s family so that they could see that he’s doing well. Nanahoshi’s taken aback by the suggestion, but before Mikage could worry about how forward he was being, Nanahoshi assures him that it’s a good idea and even thanks him for his concern. It’s these kinds of moments that really make me come back to this manga, as they’re so simple but carry so much weight.

Thanks for reading! I think Hello, Green Days is one of the titles that I keep rereading the most, and while part of that is because of its short length, I also like how comforting it feels. I really hope it gets an official English physical release soon so that more people find out about it - it’s such a good read!

I’ll post my next review in around a week. I hope you look forward to it!

[tanenigiri]

Review #31: Hirano and Kagiura (Volume 1)

Japanese title: 平野と鍵浦 (Hirano to Kagiura)

Story and art: Shou Harusono

English publisher: Yen Press

Number of volumes: 1 in English, 3 in Japanese (ongoing)

Miyano knew what he was talking about.

(This review contains story spoilers.)

One fairly common trope among the manga I’ve read so far - and in romance works in general - is the side couple. These two characters’ dynamic is usually teased with winks and nudges in the background of the main story before blossoming into something more. Sometimes they just remain in the background with their futures open for the readers to fill, like Umino and Takenaka by the end of Dekoboko Bittersweet Days. Other times they get a whole arc dedicated to them where their dynamic is treated as the main couple - think Haruki and Akihiko in the later volumes of Given.

And then other times, and what is possibly the best outcome of them all, they get their own series.

One of the earliest gags we see in Sasaki and Miyano is how Miyano keeps on insisting that one of his senpais, Hirano, shares a much deeper connection with his dorm roommate than what he’s letting on. This is initially played as an extension of Miyano’s fudanshi tendencies, and Hirano is visibly annoyed whenever his kouhai brings this up. We then find out from the extra chapters in later volumes that Miyano was right on the money - except Hirano himself hasn’t realized it yet.

That’s the dynamic that Hirano and Kagiura explores, and right off the bat I’m amazed at both the similarities and contrasts these two couples have. There’s, of course, the senpai-kouhai relationship that’s evolving into something more, but the younger of the two being the one pursuing the elder in this series makes the dynamic quite different. While I don’t think one is better than the other, it makes for a great parallel to see how Sasaki’s advances differ from Kagiura’s pining - and how Miyano’s confusion differs from Hirano’s cluelessness.

But “cluelessness” is a bit too harsh in describing Hirano’s predicament, in my opinion. We get a pretty clear sense that Hirano hasn’t had any prior romantic experience, and I'd like to think he doesn't he have any idea what to think of romance at all, and this is something even Miyano didn’t have to deal with. Not only has he been overly exposed to romance thanks to his manga, but he also had a prior crush in Makimura that also showed him its pitfalls.

We don’t get where Kagiura stands in the prior romance department yet this early on, but what we do get is how he compares his relationship with Hirano with that of his parents. That’s the first time I came across that comparison among the manga I’ve read - which is both surprising and not that surprising, considering that most of these stories have distant parents as a plot device - and I think that’s also why I was taken aback that Kagiura’s first instinct in processing his feelings toward Hirano is that he wants to marry him. Without even touching on the fact that Japan isn’t as open to same-sex marriages as other countries, there’s a certain eagerness in Kagiura that makes you want to root for him but, at the same time, also makes you worry for him.

And that’s where Kagiura’s best friend and the first new character that this side-series introduces - Niibashi - stands as well in the middle of this first volume. Kagiura’s dynamic with Niibashi is initially introduced as quite comedic - Niibashi has to contend with Kagiura’s endless pining for his roommate, and he is not that enthusiastic about how a majority of all of their conversations revolve around Hirano.

But in the third chapter, which sees Kagiura missing Hirano while the latter is on a school trip, we see Niibashi also taking the role of an advice-giver. We know from previous chapters that Niibashi’s been privy to pretty much everything that’s happened between Hirano and Kagiura - though, of course, everything he’s been told has been with Kagiura’s twist - but even then, Niibashi rightfully surmises that Kagiura’s thoughts about how his relationship with Hirano should progress is quite hasty, and he takes it upon himself to steer Kagiura toward a more realistic direction in dealing with his feelings.

Unfortunately, we also see from this exchange that Niibashi can be quite blunt with his advice, as he tells Kagiura that he might have become too overly reliant on his roommate. This makes Kagiura worry, and Niibashi does recognize afterward that he might’ve been too hard on his best friend, but a timely call from Hirano puts the basketball player at ease. This even leads Kagiura to admit that while he does rely on his roommate more than usual, he doesn’t necessarily see it as a bad thing.

And who could blame Kagiura, really, especially with how much Hirano dotes on him. The very next chapter sees Hirano wanting to make sure Kagiura gets a good gift for his birthday - which just so happens to fall on Christmas day - and not only does Hirano give him a basketball-themed alarm clock as a “fake” present (and we know how meaningful this is to both of them, considering a lot of their dynamic was built on Hirano waking Kagiura up in the mornings), he even gets him tickets to see a basketball game.

Now, there’s something to be said about how Hirano doesn’t realize that what he’s doing is above and beyond what friends - let alone roommates - would do for each other, and how he’s unintentionally leading Kagiura on. But at the same time, you can’t really take that against him as, once again, Hirano has no prior experience with this kind of relationship. He’s going into this whole situation with his roommate completely clueless with what to do, and while he’s hitting the right marks, he may be hitting them way too well.

And that’s where this volume ends: Kagiura is overwhelmed by just how much affection he’s feeling for Hirano that he ends up voicing it out, but it - of course - goes over Hirano’s head. It gives Kagiura the resolve to voice his intentions out much clearer next time - which could only mean fun times ahead.

Random thoughts that I couldn’t fit elsewhere:

Absolutely love how this series integrates both Sasaki and MIyano in the background. I don’t think I mentioned it above, but this volume takes place very early on in their story - there’s a timeline in the back of the manga that helpfully tells us that this entire volume happens just right after the school incident where Miyano first met Sasaki. So to see how they act individually is a treat - it’s nice to know that Miyano’s suspicions about Hirano’s roommate has been consistent from the start haha.

One other character that gets a slightly different role here is Hanzawa, who is also staying in the same dorms as Hirano and Kagiura. True to his character in the other series, he is quite observant with the relationships of the people around him, and as early as his very first appearance, he already sees something brewing between the titular characters. This leads to a really funny dynamic between him and Hirano as he plays an even bigger role as a matchmaker here, considering that he’s also the resident advisor of their dorm.

I’ve already read many of the other future chapters at this point (up to the 18th as of the time of writing), and all they’ve done is reinforce how interesting, funny, and frustrating Hirano and Kagiura’s dynamic is. I think the only descriptor that does it justice is “chaotic” at this point. As much as I wanted to get into it in my review above, I think I’ll save my thoughts on those for another review.

Thanks for reading! You can read my reviews of Sasaki and Miyano here. When I decided that I want to write more reviews, I knew that this was gonna be the first one I wanted to get out. Not only are Hirano and Kagiura two incredibly interesting characters, but it was easy to get back into the groove with them.

I’ll post my next review covering another title in about a week, so I hope you look forward to it!

[tanenigiri]

*dusts off cobwebs* Hey everyone.

Managed to add a few more titles to my "I want to word vomit about how good this is" list, so I figured I'd extend this project with a few more reviews. It's not gonna be as frequent as what I did in the original project - 30 reviews in 30 days - and I think I'm gonna aim for a once-a-week schedule to better pace myself with the write-ups.

It'll largely be the same scope as what I've already covered, only this time I've extended it even more. It's not just gonna be limited to the physical copies I own anymore as there are quite a few not-yet-officially-translated works I really want to talk about, and I also want to write about some non-Japanese BL titles I've enjoyed.

Other than those, it'll still be the same deal. Right now I have about 7 or 8 titles I want to write reviews for, but let's see if I stick with that list, extend it, or shorten it. I'll make a post down the line when I'm finished with these extra reviews. If there's any particular work you'd recommend, let me know too!

One more thing: I'm very grateful to all of you who've read my reviews even weeks after I finished the original project! I hope you've discovered some new favorites or found a different perspective to a title you've already read.

I'll be posting the first new review tomorrow to ring in the new year. Thanks for reading!

[tanenigiri]

Here's a collage of the 18 BL and BL-adjacent manga I reviewed for this small project! If you've read one of them or are at least familiar with them, I wholeheartedly recommend the other series - all of these tell very interesting stories, and they all feature such great characters in their own ways.

If you wanna read my reviews, here's an index featuring all 30 of them.

Wanna find similar titles? I made a Part 2 collage here!

I had a lot of fun writing them, and I feel like I haven't written that much in a month for a long time. It felt nice to finally let all my feelings out about these stories, and I'm honored that some of those reviews got some likes and even replies!

There were a bunch of titles I wanted to include, as well as later volumes of some of the series here, but in the end I went with the current roster as they were the ones I had the most to say about. Maybe down the line I'll revisit this project and add more entries, but for now, I do want to get through my current backlog - I've been busy rereading for this project that there are some titles that I haven't touched yet!

Once again, thank you very much for reading!

[tanenigiri]

Index

Here's a list of all of the reviews I posted for this project. I arranged them according to posting date as well as according to title.

By order of posting:

Our Dining Table by Mita Ori

Given (Volumes 1, 2, and 3) by Natsuki Kizu

My Summer of You (Volume 1: The Summer of You) by Nagisa Furuya

Our Dreams at Dusk: Shimanami Tasogare (Volumes 1 and 2) by Yuhki Kamatani

I Hear the Sunspot (Volume 1) by Yuki Fumino

Dekoboko Sugar Days by Atsuko Yusen

Restart After Coming Back Home by Cocomi

Sasaki and Miyano (Volumes 1, 2, and 3) by Shou Harusono

There Are Things I Can't Tell You by Edako Mofumofu

My Summer of You (Volume 2: The Summer with You) by Nagisa Furuya

Seaside Stranger (Volume 1: Umibe no Etranger) by Kii Kanna

Our Dreams at Dusk: Shimanami Tasogare (Volume 3) by Yuhki Kamatani

Koimonogatari: Love Stories (Volume 1) by Tohru Tagura

I Hear the Sunspot: Theory of Happiness by Yuki Fumino

Cherry Magic (Volumes 1, 2, and 3) by Yuu Toyota

Sasaki and Miyano (Volumes 4 and 5) by Shou Harusono

I Think Our Son Is Gay (Volumes 1 and 2) by Okura

Restart After Growing Hungry by Cocomi

I Cannot Reach You (Volumes 1 and 2) by Mika

Dekoboko Bittersweet Days by Atsuko Yusen

Koimonogatari: Love Stories (Volume 2) by Tohru Tagura

Until I Meet My Husband by Ryousuke Nanasaki and Yoshi Tsukizuki

I Think Our Son Is Gay (Volume 3) by Okura

Cherry Magic (Volumes 4 and 5) by Yuu Toyota

Would You Like to Be a Family? by Koyama

I Cannot Reach You (Volumes 3 and 4) by Mika

Sasaki and Miyano (Volume 6) by Shou Harusono

Anti-Romance (Volume 1) by Shoko Hidaka

Our Dreams at Dusk: Shimanami Tasogare (Volume 4) by Yuhki Kamatani

Seven Days by Venio Tachibana and Rihito Takarai

By title:

(If a series has multiple reviews, I'll be putting links to each of them in parentheses, and the title will link to the tag instead)

Anti-Romance by Shoko Hidaka

Cherry Magic by Yuu Toyota (Vols. 1-3, Vols. 4-5)

Dekoboko Sugar Days by Atsuko Yusen (Vol. 1, Vol. 2)

Given by Natsuki Kizu

I Cannot Reach You by Mika (Vols. 1-2, Vols. 3-4)

I Hear the Sunspot by Yuki Fumino (Vol. 1, Vol. 2)

I Think Our Son Is Gay by Okura (Vols. 1-2, Vol. 3)

Koimonogatari: Love Stories by Tohru Tagura (Vol. 1, Vol. 2)

My Summer of You by Nagisa Furuya (Vol. 1, Vol. 2)

Our Dining Table by Mita Ori

Our Dreams at Dusk: Shimanami Tasogare by Yuhki Kamatani (Vols. 1-2, Vol. 3, Vol. 4)

Restart After Coming Back Home by Cocomi (Vol. 1, Vol. 2)

Sasaki and Miyano by Shou Harusono (Vols. 1-3, Vols. 4-5, Vol. 6)

Seaside Stranger by Kii Kanna

Seven Days by Venio Tachibana and Rihito Takarai

There Are Things I Can't Tell You by Edako Mofumofu

Until I Meet My Husband by Ryousuke Nanasaki and Yoshi Tsukizuki

Would You Like to Be a Family? by Koyama

[tanenigiri]

Review #30: Seven Days

Japanese title: セブンデイズ (Sebun Deizu)

Story: Venio Tachibana

Art: Rihito Takarai

English publisher: SuBLime

Number of volumes: 2 (complete)

Ending this 30-day project with a story that talks about seven of them.

(This review contains story spoilers.)

Like I mentioned in my intro of this project, I was only introduced to BL manga earlier this year when I chanced upon the Given anime. This did mean that almost all of my exposure to BL so far has been very recent works, with a majority of the projects I’ve covered for this project being published or updated within the last few years. I’m a bit nervous to start delving into older works since I hear a lot of them have themes that I’m not really comfortable reading about, but I do want to find the ones that have the same vibe as the series I’m covering for this project. (That said, if you have any older titles that fit in with the series I’ve reviewed, I’m open to recommendations!)

One of the ones that I did find - and that I very much wanted to include this project - is Seven Days, which was published over a decade ago. When I read up on its premise - freshman student Seryo says yes to the first person who asks him out on a date on Monday morning then breaks up with them once the week ends, and this week’s person happens to be third-year student Shino - it was the same feeling I got when I read the premises of I Hear the Sunspot and Our Dining Table. It almost felt like it was mocking me with how interesting it was, and coupled with the praise I’ve seen for the story online, I decided to go ahead and get myself a copy. (The copy I got combined both volumes into one book.)

While Seryo is seen by the school as this player who treats his weekly habit as a game, the story surprisingly goes in the direction that this is all very serious to him. Seryo truly wants to find love, and for him, spending seven days with a person is already more than enough for him to decide. I thought this was gonna go the way of Seryo not taking it seriously and slowly realizing that he actually is falling in love, but I think the way the story handled it is much more interesting as it makes Seryo a lot more sympathetic from the start.

And true enough, Seryo already begins to realize that he’s falling for Shino halfway through the week, and I believe this revelation is where Volume 1 ends. But of course, Seryo is only half of the equation, as it turns out that Shino is the one who’s taking this seven-day date less seriously among the two. Since he already has a less-than-stellar idea of what Seryo’s about - both from his friend Koike, who was one of Seryo’s past seven-day dates, and from the fact that they’re both in the school’s archery club and Seryo rarely attends it - Shino initially thinks of this whole seven-day date as a joke that both of them are just taking a bit too far.

Very gradually, though, Shino’s view of this date shifts from being a joke he finds funny to one that he finds frustrating, as he doesn’t know how seriously he should take Seryo considering the circumstances. He asks Seryo about his previous seven-day dates several times, and each time Shino’s reminded of how he’ll just be one of them by the end of the week. While Seryo brings up that this isn’t necessarily just his decision - Shino has to say yes as much as Seryo does - the unique circumstances make it hard for Shino to actually take that leap and process these feelings the way he normally would.

(It's also worth noting that Shino is also coming into this seven-day date fresh from his own breakup, and a conversation in the first chapter makes it seem like it was because of Shino's personality. So Shino's view of love is also quite jaded by his past experiences, though not to the same extent as Seryo.)

It becomes even more complicated with the presence of one of Seryo’s ex-girlfriends, who also happens to be named Shino - which is why Seryo calls Shino by his first name, Yuzuru. Shino-the-ex seems to have been going out with Seryo’s brother, Natsuki, but she was fooling around with Seryo on the side. But Seryo distinctly describes this ex as “a woman [he] once cared about,” and I’m pretty sure that their past relationship has something to do with why Seryo’s acting quite desperately in order to find true love. This isn’t really explored that much, and I would’ve liked it if it were, but as it is I do think it’s an interesting conflict to add to Seryo’s character.

In any case, Shino finds himself feeling quite jealous of his namesake, as he quickly catches on that Seryo still has lingering feelings for her. It’s something that Seryo initially denied, but in later instances where this happens, you do get the sense that Seryo has truly gotten over his ex thanks to her namesake. But it’s these jealous moments that do make Shino realize that he might be taking this “game” a bit too seriously himself, and after some key conversations with Seryo - most notably the one where Seryo recognizes Shino’s flaws but says he likes him for it - he does realize what’s actually going on.

(I also wanted to note here that the story also features Shino slowly realizing that all of his initial impressions of Seryo were wrong. We get quite a lot of internal monologues from Shino where he highlights Seryo’s positive qualities.)

Looming over both of their minds, though, is the very real possibility that the other is only waiting for the seventh day to come and go. While this was initially Shino’s worry, the story does a good job in showing that Seryo begins to share this very same sentiment later on in the week, as he is the one that seems to be certain about his feelings between the two of them. But since Shino keeps bringing up both Seryo’s ex and the fact that their whole relationship so far has been based on a seven-day game, it keeps Seryo on edge, even if by this point Shino doesn’t want those seven days to end at all. It plays into that all-too-familiar but always welcome trope of unrequited love that’s actually requited, and it’s of course exacerbated by the strange situation that led to their meeting.

They finally get all of the clarity they need on Sunday, which of course features the confession. I initially didn’t think much of this scene - I thought it was cute but just moved on, like most of the other confession and response scenes across the series I’ve reviewed - but when I reread it, I appreciated it a lot more. Early on in the story, Shino finds out that Seryo seems to have a spiel already memorized for when he breaks up with the “girl of the week,” and he seems to have been dreading to be on the receiving end of that spiel for pretty much the entire week - or at least from the point when he realizes that he’s fallen for Seryo.

But instead of that spiel, what Shino does get from Seryo is how he wants to hang out with him more, even if it was just occasionally walking home together. Since Seryo himself is going into this conversation expecting rejection, he says this with the idea - or rather the hope - that they could at least stay friends. This is meant to be a stark contrast to how Shino has treated all of the previous “players” of this seven-day game so far, as he makes the effort to avoid them and even delete their contact information. Shino seems to realize immediately what’s going on, and after rejecting Seryo’s offer, he takes the opportunity to be the one to properly confess and ask Seryo out on a proper date. I really like how this scene built itself up, as you get the impression that both of them are thinking a mile a minute. But when they finally get that sense of clarity, you can see how overwhelmed they both are, especially Seryo.

A lot of the talk I’ve seen about Seven Days online recommends it as an entrypoint to BL, and I can definitely see why. It has a lot of the (healthier) tropes and presents them very earnestly, and it’s a pretty simple story that makes it easy for a reader to fall in love with its characters. And, of course, it has a killer premise that’s executed very well - I don’t think any of the other couples I’ve covered for this project have had a more interesting seven days than these two.

Random thoughts that I couldn’t fit elsewhere:

There was this whole plot arc about two tickets to a movie screening that was happening the following Sunday, which of course made both Shino and Seryo confused - did they both want this to continue past the seventh day? I wanted to talk about it above, but I’m still admittedly at a loss with how this plot arc ends - during a confrontation on Saturday, Shino asks for the ticket and tears it up, saying that he’s “made up his mind.” This leads the reader to believe that he wants all of this to end by the following day, but of course the next chapter sees the exact opposite happening. So by the end, I’m left wondering why Shino tore up those tickets? Is it because it came into their lives in the context of their “game” of a relationship? Is it because he wanted to buy those tickets so that they treated it as an actual date? Is it because he didn’t want it looming over his mind while he was thinking if he should pursue the relationship? I’m honestly not sure, and I’m definitely missing something here.

Two other minor characters introduced in the story are Koike and Utsumi, both of whom are Shino’s friends. Like I mentioned briefly above, Koike was one of the women that went on a seven-day date with Seryo, so quite a lot of Shino’s initial impressions of the freshman came from her. She also calls Shino out on how he acts, saying that he would never find his true love because of it - which is why when Seryo points out those same things as something he likes, Shino is taken aback. Utsumi doesn’t get nearly as much to do as Koike does, but the movie screening ticket I mentioned above came from him. What both of them do that made me laugh, though, was how they both individually catch on that Shino has fallen for someone, and Koike even entertains the idea of that someone being Seryo. By the epilogue though, it doesn’t really say if they know about Shino and Seryo - I’m leaning toward no.

I haven’t mentioned anything about the archery scenes yet, and that’s mainly because I don’t really know anything about archery so I couldn’t fully appreciate them. I did want to note that in quite a number of instances, Seryo notes how “beautiful” Shino looks while he’s holding a bow, and the story gives the impression that he’s had this thought way before the events of this story. That said, everyone in the archery club seems to share this opinion, but I can’t help but wonder if Seryo already felt attracted to Shino before their seven-day date, even if it was just superficial.

Thanks for reading! I always knew from when I started this project that I was gonna end it with Seven Days, as even if it’s the oldest of the manga I’ve covered, it has a certain charm to it that’s hard to find elsewhere.

[tanenigiri]

Review #29: Our Dreams at Dusk: Shimanami Tasogare (Volume 4)

Japanese title: しまなみ誰そ彼 (Shimanami Tasogare)

Story and art: Yuhki Kamatani

English publisher: Seven Seas Entertainment

Number of volumes: 4 (complete)

A glimpse of several futures.

[CW: Mentions of homophobia]

(This review contains story spoilers.)

When I got my physical copies of Our Dreams at Dusk, one of the first things I noticed was how much thicker Volume 4 was compared to all the others. As I began reading the series though, I realized that this last volume was much longer because it had the very lofty task of wrapping up quite a number of plotlines brought up in the first three volumes. And when I realized that this volume was introducing new plot arcs on top of that, I almost wondered why it wasn’t even thicker than it already was.

That said, this does mean that there’s a lot I want to talk about in this volume, but since I don’t want this review to be too lengthy, I figured I’d just focus on the three couples that get the spotlight here. With two of them already in the front cover and the third in the back, I figured it’d feel right to give them the focus, as most of the smaller plot arcs revolve around one of them anyway.

And of course, I should start with the women of the hour - Daichi and Saki, who go through quite a lot before their wedding at Triangle House. With the volume starting out by reminding us that Saki has yet to come out to her parents, you can already sense that the story is building up to that moment. Saki’s been in the background for the past two volumes, so we don’t really get the sense that she’s more willing to face the situation now than she was in the first volume, but with a wedding on the horizon, she definitely finds it more urgent than ever before.

Unfortunately, the way Saki’s parents find out is less than ideal - someone outs her to them. While it’s definitely realistic, I can’t help but feel incredibly sorry for her, as she already had a lot of hesitation about coming out to her parents, so someone else ripping off that bandage from her must’ve stung a lot. Daichi is also at a loss with what to do, as we found out back in Volume 1 that when she came out to her own parents, it was less than ideal.

Thankfully, the couple’s confrontation with Saki’s parents turn out to go quite well. We get a really great speech from Saki’s father here, where he admits that he was very much against the idea when he first heard it. But immediately after, he said that he hated himself for even thinking that when his priority should be his daughter’s happiness. We get a funny interjection from Saki’s mother here, saying that she would’ve been furious with her husband if he didn’t take it the right way. She seems to have already made her peace with her daughter’s sexuality quite some time ago, as she said that she “had a feeling about it.” It might not be the sheer open-mindedness of Tomoko, but it’s pretty much the best possible outcome Saki could’ve gotten.

This ended up a lot more optimistic than I thought it was going to go, but both Daichi and Saki deserve it. Their wedding happens with both of their parents attending, and they finally get to be their true selves in front of their families. It’s the most definitively happy ending out of all the characters in this series, and while I wish we got a bit more build-up for it - especially from Saki’s perspective - I do think it’s a great note to end their plotline on.

Moving back a bit, the person who ends up outing Saki to her parents is Tsubaki’s father, who we know from previous volumes has a pretty warped view of the LGBT community as a whole. So when he visits the drop-in center to apologize to Saki (though he doesn’t find her there as this happens around the same time as Saki’s conversation with her parents), Tsubaki is understandably mad at his father’s insensitivity. The dad is taken aback by his son’s attitude, but he then connects the dots and asks Tsubaki who “dragged him into homosexuality.” We know from the previous volume that Tsubaki is still confused about his identity, so he understandably becomes very defensive at his dad’s assumptions.

Who ends up saving the day, though, is Tasuku, who not only makes the bold decision of coming out to Tsubaki’s father, but also tells him why such an action is important for any LGBT individual. It’s a really great scene for Tasuku, as not only does it show how much he’s learned about the LGBT community across the past volumes, but it also shows how much more comfortable he is about his sexuality. He’s spent the past volumes learning from everyone in the drop-in center while also dealing with his own issues, so to see Tasuku be a lot more confident in this volume is really nice.

This more confident Tasuku isn’t lost on Tsubaki either, who’s own feelings about his sexuality were already in a flux and were only made worse after that exchange with his father. It leads to this great scene between them where Tsubaki acknowledges Tasuku’s feelings for him but admits that he isn’t ready to face them just yet. This is probably my favorite ending out of all the characters in this series, as instead of treating Tsubaki’s uncertainty about his sexuality as an issue that needs to be solved, the story simply acknowledges it as something he’s continuously working on. I praised Utsumi’s character in Volume 3 for having a different approach to his sexuality, and I can say the same for Tsubaki here - even if we can make all the assumptions we can about it (especially after the epilogue), the fact that the story leaves Tsubaki’s identity open-ended is a great way to show that he himself isn’t ready to put a label on it just yet.

Admirably, Tasuku isn’t heartbroken about this admission, and he even reassures Tsubaki that being confused about his feelings is fine and that he should take all the time he needs to sort them out. Not only is Tasuku using his personal experiences here, but he’s also putting what he learned from Misora and Utsumi in the previous volumes to good use. It only adds to his character development I mentioned earlier, as the Tasuku from three volumes ago wouldn’t have had the same reaction as the Tasuku here. He seems to be heading toward his own happy ending, though, as the epilogue shows Tsubaki telling Tasuku that he can call him by his first name.

(I also have to briefly mention that Tsubaki gets quite touchy with Tasuku throughout this volume, and I find it hilarious that Tasuku’s reaction to these gestures is very mixed. He calls Tsubaki out on it in the epilogue but they don’t really address it, and I think Tsubaki knows that Tasuku likes it anyway.)

Shifting the good mood a bit is Tchaiko, who I don’t think I’ve mentioned in my previous reviews but has been one of the constant presences in the drop-in center since Volume 1. He’s the eldest among the regulars in the center, but we don’t really get much from him in the first three volumes apart from his love of classical music. He gets a full on arc here, though, when we find out that he’s been in a 30-year relationship with his partner, Seichiro, and Tchaiko constantly visits him in the hospital as Seichiro is dealing with a grave illness.

I already had a bad feeling about where this was going from the start, but the conflict of this plot arc doesn’t actually come from Seichiro’s numbered days - it actually sounds like they’ve both quietly accepted it and are only waiting for the inevitable. Instead, it revolves around how Tchaiko hasn’t come clean about his relationship with Seichiro’s son, Akira, and we find out that Tchaiko times his hospital visits so that he’s there when Akira isn’t watching over his father. I was pleasantly surprised that the story went this route, and it even makes for a nice parallel with the two other main conflicts I talked about above - what with all three of them dealing with family complications.

These two largely stay in the background for the middle part of the volume, but on the day of Daichi and Saki’s wedding, Tchaiko gets a text from Akira saying that Seichiro is in a critical condition. This definitely catches Tchaiko off-guard, as not only does he have to deal with the imminent death of the love of his life, but he also has to contend with the fact that Seichiro had apparently told Akira about him. He then has a great scene with Someone-San, who we find out earlier in the volume have been friends for quite some time even before the drop-in center existed. Tchaiko relays all of his worries and indecision to Someone-San, but all she does in the face of those doubts is to push Tchaiko and tell him to go. True enough, when he gets to the hospital, Akira only smiles in acknowledgment and gives Tchaiko the opportunity to say goodbye to Seichiro.

Even if I initially found it odd that the story would introduce a brand new plotline when it still had to wrap up quite a number of them, I really appreciated its inclusion in the end, as it has a really unique vibe when compared to all the other plot arcs of the series. I’m not sure if it’s because this deals with a more seasoned couple, but the sense of satisfaction I got from seeing this plotline resolved is a lot different from the other two I talked about above.

And, really, that’s what makes Our Dreams at Dusk such a standout title for me - how it’s able to handle all of these stories and give them the depth they deserve. I was a bit worried that this volume was biting off more than it could chew, but in the end I found myself liking where all of the characters ended up. Sure, I may have wanted more out of some characters, but that’s really just another way of saying that I didn’t want this series to end at all.

Random thoughts that I couldn’t fit elsewhere:

Apart from Tchaiko, the other Cat Clutter member that finally gets the spotlight in this volume is Someone-San, who has really only spent the last three volumes being this mysterious presence that’s both critical to the plot and in the background. We find out here that she considers herself aromantic and asexual, but she doesn’t like putting a label on herself at all, with the name “Someone-San” even being given to her by Tchaiko and Seichiro. We also get a really great line from her about how her asexuality isn’t what defines her, and how it’s only one part of her entire identity. As much as I want to talk about her monologue about who she is, I honestly haven’t wrapped my head around it all that well and I feel like I’m still missing certain pieces about that chapter. I will say that it was a great set of panels though.

One of the other plotlines that gets wrapped up in this volume is Misora's, as Tasuku wants to invite him to Daichi and Saki’s wedding. It goes a lot better than I expected, as Tasuku simply goes through all of the things that he did wrong and asks for Misora’s forgiveness, which he gives almost nonchalantly, but you can tell that he appreciates the gesture. (Also his look in the wedding is his best one in the series.)

I’m kinda surprised that we didn’t get more from Tasuku and Tsubaki’s school life here, as I would’ve expected more people to point out the changed dynamic between the two of them considering that Tsubaki’s fairly popular and Tasuku isn’t. The only one who does point it out is Tachibana, Tasuku’s closest friend in school and teammate in the table tennis club, and all he really says is how he wants to join in on the fun too. I wonder if he’ll notice that there’s more going on between them?

Thanks for reading! You can read my review of the first two volumes here, and my review of the third volume here. Our Dreams at Dusk has really gone up my personal rankings the more I reread it, as there’s really nothing quite like it among the manga I’ve read so far. It’s a really emotional and fulfilling series, and I highly recommend it.