shoowop

I enjoy the fluffy more romantic side of BL and think, conceptually, this manga is cute. Has a lot of those butterfly moments, like when Keito takes Aoi by the face and pulls him close to read his lips. But a lot of their problems they run too are such non issues. I know romance writers love utilising lack of or poor communication to be the conflict in their stories (and maybe that should've tempered my expectations), but it feels like Keito and Aoi essentially run into the same core issue over and over again. Realistically could I understand that what they're going through is both of them experiencing sharing their lives with someone they love for the first time? Yes. I am, personally, just a little tired of the problems being so easily fixed because romance characters love to assume on their own. I also think Keito's exciteable nature and earnest love for JSL has made me very endeared to him.

(=・ω・=)








This most recent chapter is perhaps one of the most shallow, borderline ooc feeling, explanations when it comes to Taejoon. Maybe I could see an argument made about how this is him at the very end of his rope in terms of his desparation for Ian, so he's attempting to do loterally everything, throwing whatever he has left at the wall to see what might stick, but that whole use of the bathroom argument, as a story telling device, felt kind of clunky and heavy handed.
It almost felt like an excuse to try and make some artificially heavy scene with the right combination of words, because while they're having this argument, hearts on their sleeves, I couldn't admit I was feeling much of anything for either of them. And I love a long term poisonous relationship that is kept out of being familiar and comfortable, but Taejoon's and Ian's example is just kind of lacklustre.

And maybe there's something lost in translation as there's always some kind of social context missing from translating text across any and all languages, but this seems a bit much.