Mimi

Story 1-2: Fine. I liked how sad it got but found myself thinking that if this were a horror story I'd be hooked. It kinda gave me Girl’s Cocoon chapter 2 “Substitute" vibes and I wanted it to lean into more of the creepy and weird… But that's not what it was about, so…

Story 3: I ended up skimming this mostly because I don't really like Makoto and didn't really care about their drama being told. I didn't like his vibe in the 1st chapter, the way he looked at Rit ( a 17yd most likely). We also don't really know how old Yuu is other than he's not 21 yet. I'm tired.

By this time I thought about dropping it since I knew that chapter 4 is more of the 2nd couple. I cared more about Yoshiya and Mickey but not that much. I'm also not that fond of the writing whether it's the translation or not I just wasn't engaged with it. On the other hand, I literally have 2 chapters left…… so I skipped chapter 4. The little 4.5 extra was bittersweet. Good for them.

I've been taking notes this whole time so I don't have a coherent thought for the last 3 books just yet, but I will say:

I LOVE THEM! I love them. I love this book. I love this series. I love Zeniko. I love them.

I hate Miyoshi. He sucks. I 100% do not want to read Loveless Momentum.

This is on me because I don't read descriptions unless I absolutely have to (I just go by tags) but I wasn't ready to be reading some innuendos and dealing with this certain philia. Still, I'm having fun so far! I don't hate any of the characters yet so that's a plus for me, I'm loving that we actually don't see any sex scenes despite how sexually motivated Shizuki and Yano are, a lot of conversations felt very straightforward and normal for a BL (which I loved). I'm just having a fun little time so far.

The only thing that actually got to me a little was Junko's little bit. They pointed out she's a minor multiple times and I liked that her crush on Yano wasn't entertained, just joked on. But it kinda overstayed its welcome for me. I like her but some of the stuff she said had me going “??? girl you're 16 or 17, calm down". Maybe because I was never liked that as a teen and neither were my friends so I was never exposed to teenagers fawning over an adult the way Junko did. It does seem like this is a volume 1 thing so HOPEFULLY I don't have to worry about this joke later on.

Actually, I know I said Junko's crush bit was the only thing that annoyed me but… the internet slang stuff was killing me. I hate reading modern and internet slang in anything and seeing words like “fap" and “cringe" and “vibe" makes me sleep forever. Vibe is whatever, to be honest, but one of the worst things the internet's done is using the word cringe to mean lame. I swear to God, if I ever read the word “goon" or “gooner" in any of these manga I'm gonna cry. I'm just gonna break down and cry. I don't know if it's the translator or what because one of the other Zeniko books had this problem and I know this is a different translator than the other 3 I've read.

4 books into this Zeniko marathon and I'm realizing something about this author's stories and writing-feel that was very similar feeling to the last author I just read. These stories have been feeling like appetizers you'll order at a sit-down family restaurant and I've been here for that so far. The story and the characters, to me, didn't feel like a whole task and a half to get around to enjoying. It did feel a little bit “in and out" but sometimes I'm not hungry for a full steak, peas, and potatoes meal. Will I be hungry again 3-4 hours later? Yeah. But sometimes I'm just in the mood for 2 orders of garlic bread and I'm chill for now.

So far, this has been fun reading Zeniko's stuff back to back and this series in particular has been funny goofy adorable to me. Volume 2 is something I wish I could put on my shelf, she got me wanting to read the Virgo series just for Virgo herself, and I started to love Saotome and Sasasori by the end of volume 2 that I wish we got more of them together. This was an appetizer that may have me asking for a 3rd order.

But the most important thing in this series… Iijima. I need him. I want him. I want to hug him, he is so huggable. I need a oneshot for him specifically.

Skipped the 2nd story. I don't like harem stories anyway but her being a highschooler didn't sit well for me and then we find out she's 17… Anyway, the main story was cute.

I'm sorry but cool and collected Aimi who has an open relationship policy for dating is the one falling hard for the cute puppy dog guy enough to be exclusive with him??? Eating this. Ate this. Am interested in the chef.

I just read We're On Our Own From Here and I realized how similar in tone and theme these two are. Both of the couples felt very similar to me in slight ways that I didn't mind. I loved and was interested in all 4 of them. There's this important in both stories about communication even when there were times they were hesitant to communicate. I love it when the characters recognize it's time for us to talk and they TALK. They took the time to see eye to eye and didn't string you along for 4 chapters. But also, they were very cut and dry. One and done. In and Out.

I was interested in seeing Aimi loose his shit about his feelings and why Kaede was so chill about everything. It was cute. I could've done without him being jealous when Kaede was talking to his friends, but it wasn't as annoying as it could've been. But other than watching Aimi be stupid, it's a very “appetizer" kind of story but very cute with characters that work to understand each other. I'm interested in more of this storytelling from this author.

3.75

Short, adorable, feel-good story to knock out in one sitting. Watching them grow closer and Ryusuke helpfully easing Haru to be more comfortable with how he felt while not pushing boundaries was really cute. Even him panicking to think of an answer to someone's response and then sticking his neck out for Haru by the end of it was really cute, I loved that.

I appreciate that there wasn't anything stupidly out of pocket or some dumb misunderstanding that would've made me go “well, they're teenagers so it makes sense why they would act this way" as I roll my eyes. But instead, I went “well, they're teenagers so it makes sense why they would act this way" in a very believable way because their actions were pretty grounded in how a young teen would act.

My only disappointment I had was the “you're either gay or you're not" thing. It's something bl manga constantly does that bothers me. Ryusuke could be bi, pan, demi, he could've been questioning but that's never talked about. Haru's just like “you're not gay, you're just dating me bc I was jealous" and Ryusuke didn't really say anything. It's a bl thing that has been making me sigh for years.

… I hate that there isn't a physical English copy of this that I can have on my shelf.

Let me get my biggest gripe out the way, it's the same damn problem I had with Dear Gene- the age gap. I read Dear Gene first and while I knew there was an age gap, I didn't know how big of a gap it was. But I knew it was there. On any site you can read/log this, there is not a god damn thing saying that this is also an age gap (at the time of writing, anyway). That actually pissed me off because I thought Oz would be the same age as Theo but from chapter 1 I was so worried because of how Oz was seeing him. Oz being 27 and Theo being 20 did give me a slight uncomfortable feeling. Not as bad as 19 and 34, but it was there.

That being said… My stomach hurts (positive). Just like with Dear Gene, I can't say if the way Kaya wrote about Amish culture was well researched. I don't know much about their culture but it did feel a little surface level to me and there were things I felt the author let slide for BL manga's sake. I was more here for the characters, their current story, their backgrounds, and knowing more about Danny, which…. Holy. I got.

Honestly, trying to put my thoughts together about why I loved this story and characters is difficult for some reason. I cried in this, the end had a very A Home Far Away feeling to me, I felt for Oz and Theo, I felt for Danny, Chloe, and Gene. There were a lot of emotions going on putting all 3 volumes together that it gave me a small stomachache. And yet, I don't have detailed words for anything that just happened.

Even though I had a better time with this than its sequel and I am absolutely in love with their art style, I don't think I'm going to continue reading Kaya Azuma's books. A lot of the stuff I thought about reading turned out to have dubious consent, incest, age gaps, stepfamily romance, and/or student/teacher romance. I also get the feeling she really likes writing about age gaps. I think I need to stop here.

4.75

I'll come back and gush about this volume at some point. I'm just in love with this series so fucking much.

cw: the f slur is said twice.

This age gap is ruining the story for me.

99.9% of the notes I took are about the age gap and how I felt that Gene didn't need to be 19. As I read on, him being 19 is the point of his background. However, Trevor, on the other hand, could have been 23 at the very most. Still would've given me an ick but not as bad as him being 34. His Lawyer career is likely why he's so much older and it only really mattered twice for his backstory. There are and were layers a lot younger than that, he didn't need to be 34. As if this age gap didn't make me feel any more uncomfortable, bro had to go and compare himself to fucking Gustav von Aschenbach. Who I had to look up and I should be giving this 2 stars for making me do that.

On a lighter note, I did love these characters individually. I wanted to know more about Gene and Trevor separately and their respective families, I wanted to know more about Karen, about Ms. White and her son Ryan, more about the nephew Gene! It wasn't as emotional as I hoped going into this but I really did want to know more.

I've already yelled about thoughts on the age gap so I went into volume 2 just trying to enjoy the story… Honestly, though, I started to not care about Gene and Trevor's story at the beginning. It wasn't really until the moment with Ryan and then everything after that had me so much more invested in everyone. I found myself more interested in the present day. Mostly in nephew Gene. I did like the way chapter 2 ended, though. This and volume one did get laughs out of me, I will say that. I also almost cried seeing present day Gene and Trevor literally repeat their encounter.

I would actually love a spin-off for them. I was so excited to see my baby boy (gn) Gene meet my other baby boy Gene and for them to just talk. And then there's also Jean (Danny's daughter) and I wanted them to meet her too! I want so much for nephew Gene, I'm pretty sure he's my favorite character overall.

I forgot that this was a spin-off from another manga and that Oz is from that spin-off that's NOT an age gap so I'm gonna try reading it. I thought it was a little weird that he got screen time that amounted to nothing in volume 1 and then showed up at the end of volume 2 like I was supposed to know him. Now I know it was just a bone to throw to the people who read that.

3.25

It's been a long while since I've read the first volume but I am so disappointed in this volume. It felt like we didn't move the story along at all, we didn't really see any advancement in Nakamura and Hirose's friendship, it feels like we're going in circles, and Nakamura was a little more boundary-crossing than I was comfortable with.

Speaking of boundaries being crossed that made me really uncomfortable- Otogiri. The student/adult bit in the first volume wasn't funny but it was a small bit that didn't last long (I think. It's been a while) that was blown out of proportion by Nakamura. This time it seems like Syundei doubled down on the bit where Hirose is obviously admiring his teacher more and this teacher giving off groomer vibes worse than before. All this as a joke. Am I supposed to be reading chapter 8 and going "lol Nakamura, don't worry. It's totally not like that lmao" ?????? No??? On top of exchanging numbers with your 16yd student and saying shit like "If you were a girl, what you just did now woulda been super cute"... I'm failing the see the haha in this joke, Syundei.

If there is a volume 3 (which I think there might be seeing how this ended), hopefully that joke is dead and we actually get to see Nakamura and Hirose be friends more. At this point, I don't even care if they don't go out, I just want to see them hang out more.

ugly sobbing x2

2.75

I'll gush about this later. Just know that this manga made me extremely happy.

Story 1: Not as cute as I hoped. Maybe it's because I understand what having a form of generalized anxiety feels like, but I really hated seeing Kajiyama be so impatient with Aizawa. Seeing him go “doesn't he care at all" pissed me off so much because the author didn't even have to show me, I KNOW what overthinking and over-worrying looks like in someone with anxiety. I KNOW that working up the courage to text somebody, let alone while in the middle of a fight, has set him spiraling on his he should approach his text that he shouldn't be apologizing for anyway. So now so much time has passed that he feels you've gotten even angrier at him and he's even more anxious…

The way he yelled and pushed him out of his comfort zone instead of easing Aizawa out of the mascot helmet didn't make me care for them as a couple whenever there were cute moments.

Besides that, it also felt like 3 chapters weren't enough to have this story flow smoothly. Everything that happened at the amusement park felt like things were moving too fast. They didn't even take a moment to talk about what he said when they were alone. From there to the confession, it just felt rushed.

I love and support Aizawa. Kajiyama can eat rocks.

Story 2: Cuter. Pretty simple and I didn't hate either of the characters. I would've liked another chapter of them, honestly. Using the terms depressed and trauma like this was far-reaching.

Story 3: This was kind of ok. I was interested in the “does he actually like me" drama until what I thought would be dubious consent, turned into something too immature for me personally (like, guys… lube. Research, I beg you!). It made it so hard to read. On top of them not properly talking things out, it just kind of went back downhill for me.

It's been a while and I didn't log this one at all in my notes app like I normally do, so I can't really go in-depth on why I'm dropping this like I kind of want to.

All I can remember is that I didn't care about both of our main characters. I also don't like the "I'm rude as fuck to you because I think teasing you is cute" kind of character personality, it made me not want to root for their relationship.

I didn't want to drop nor put this on hold especially since there's another story in here, but this book put me in a reading slump that's starting to piss me off. I don't like Minami, I don't care about the story, don't care about the couple, and really can't stand the art style. All of this doesn't make me want to continue, but I just dropped the manga before last and I don't want to do that again so soon.

The gang stuff is whatever. I didn't care for it but I also didn't really mind it, it wasn't the main part of the book so I can deal. What really made this difficult for me (besides the art) was just Minami himself. He's moving way too fast for Sakurada who's obviously trying to become more comfortable with being with a guy. Hell, in a relationship in general, to be honest. But it doesn't read like Minami's is considering that most of the time. It's kind of annoying and disgusting, really not making me like Minami at all. I also thought that their first conflict was just fucking stupid.

I don't know, even though this is going on hold, I may just end up dropping it. This worries me because I have a couple more manga from this author on my TBR that I'm now not eager to get to.

Update: Realized that I'm never coming back to this.

This is not for me. I'm not sure what made me put this on my TBR but I definitely forgot what the tags were by the time I got around to this.

There are a lot of yearly 2000s/2010s BL bullshit that I don't like. That borderline homophobic and sexist dialogue is very much there that got on my nerves. I'm always very weary when there's crossdressing in BL because it's mostly handled as a joke/misunderstanding. The dialogue surrounding Izumi crossdressing, the “but I'm not a girl" stuff I hate, and Muroto's obvious interest in him either way but hiding that behind the whole crossdressing thing doesn't sit right with me. On the student/teacher topic, that's not the focused relationship, but I honestly thought they were college professors at first and not high school teachers so the whole thing about 19/18 year olders wanting to get with this teacher is uncomfortable for me. Alongside that, one of the people involved in this love triangle is one of the 19/18 year old students...

The last book by this author was a bit of a struggle to get through, too, but I was able to bounce back from that. I don't think I can take any more of this one. I also don't think I'm going to continue reading from Emi Mitsuki so I'm dropping the other 3 manga I had planned from her as well. Knowing how this story's going to be, maybe I'll come back to it if it stays in my head long enough. But, for now, I'm dropping it.

I really wanted to love this, but, honestly, I got bored real quick. I really thought I would knock out both of these 2 volumes before April ended. It's sometimes funny and cute, I don't hate any of the characters, but I feel like I've been glazing over everything, and I don't like doing that.

I'm sad, but also not really. I had a small feeling I wouldn't really enjoy it as much as the other stuff I've been reading. The web comic-like structure of the manga is off to me, even though it's pretty similar to other manga I've liked before. But I also think half of that boredom feeling was because it's a book that talks about food... too soon after I just read Aki and Haru. Another food-centered manga that gave me “food talk fatigue” (lol). This one doesn't beat me over the head with all the recipes and the food isn't the main character this time around, thank God! But maybe I shouldn't've gone into another food manga so soon, even though a part of me feels like I would've still found it boring in some way. I don't know if I want to read volume 2 or not.

3.75

Other than the way situations were situating like the kiss and the part at the club, this was really cute and I had fun with it. I couldn't help but roll my eyes at parts I knew the author wanted me to be kicking my legs because of how fanfiction-y some of those situations were, but I was smiling throughout all of this.

There were times it felt a little bit boring and found myself putting it down for a couple of days, but I think that's because I thought we were going to go on some of these investigations. Instead, it's a very “put these two in situations" type of story and I had to rewire my brain for that.

I liked all of the characters and their family dynamic’s cute. Lisa going “You guys looked like a family” almost made me cry and is the reason I need this physically on my shelf. Jiu and Yano keeping their distance from each other because of their work and not knowing each other's feelings could've been so annoying to read but it wasn't and I appreciate that so much.

Everyone's super cute and I love them.

4.75

I'll come back with a little bit of something to say, but just so you know.......

crying and laughing and screaming and giggling and kicking my feet and crying and crying and crying

Girl help (derogatory): I know what door I choose to open. I've not had the best experience with Nagabe so far and yet I'm here reading his 2nd most “not for me" book I'm aware of...

Girl help (affectionate): *looks at self in the mirror* what do you mean you need eat by nagabe on your shelf right now whadda hell

I'll update this later, but... yeah.

3.5 || full series - 3

But a high 3.5, just not a 3.75 which is funny because on sites where I have to give full stars I'm giving this 4... Will update this with my thoughts later.

3.25

This is just more of volume one with a little bit more 👀🏳️‍🌈? going on so nothing's changed. Anyway, here's my united notes for this volume because it's not worth structuring them out.

Doesn't... doesn't Aki have a job? Didn't he just get promoted?

1. You spelled glompping wrong and that hurts me more for some reason.

2. WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU'RE USING GLOMPPING IN A POST 2018 MANGA?!

WASH DOWN THE BEER! GUYS, YOU HAVE TO WASH DOWN THE BEER! Did you wash down the beer? Have you try washing down the beer, yet?

Yuki & Rikka be like 🤨🏳️‍🌈?