Tanaka and Nakata's similarities don't stop at their names. Their height, music tastes, and fashion sense all align, not to mention the idiosyncrasies and eccentricities they share. But are they truly as similar as they seem?
This was a good read. The story is well-structured; the chapters follow the cycle of the seasons, coming full circle by the end, with each season’s themes—spring for love, winter for rejection—mirroring the characters' emotional arcs. I appreciate the story's ambivalence. It doesn't force a romance that wouldn't make sense at that point in the narrative. The characters' struggles with understanding love are realistic. Whether they’re genuinely in love, simply enamoured with the idea of puppy love and high school romance, or obsessed with being similar to each other in every way is left unclear. I also like how the girls are fully realised characters with their own interests, aspirations, and insecurities, rather than being the typical school girls in BL whose sole purpose is to validate the protagonists’ appeal or stir up romantic tension (though they do serve the latter role here to some degree). I like how the boys' similarities are more complex and less organic than they first appear, a point reinforced beautifully by the cyclical structure of the story.
Needless to say there's a lot to like about this one, but I'm deducting a star because it didn't quite pull me in emotionally, not as much as it could have: 4.5/5. (2020).
Like Two Peas in a Pod