thebookbin's reviews
503 reviews

 I just finished volumes 1 & 2 of Sasaki & Miyano by Shou Harusana. These are short little mangas about a high school boy who’s obsessed with BL and his growing relationship with an older classmate. The story is playful and fun, but I thought Vol. 1 was a little too disjointed. The series began as a webcomic posted to Twitter, I think, and so the first volume reads as little vignettes but they’re not chronological so it can be a little confusing to try and keep up.

The story is meant to play on some of the BL tropes: the younger and smaller and shyer Miyano thinks he would be a top and his big scary love interest is a total himbo. But for me, it didn’t play on enough of the tropes and ended up just falling into them. It’s also a little weird to read in English where they translated to “top” and “bottom” and those terms are used a lot rather that “seme” and “uke” which are character tropes and don’t really have to do with sexual positions but I guess it’s hard to translate.

Overall, it’s fun and cute and my favorite moments are the ones that are surprising and funny: Miyano gives Sasaki a chocolate for white day and he almost passes out he’s so flustered.
And this line:
“I just really think bottoms are manly!”

One guys girlfriend reads gay monsterfucking and he had an existential crisis because he “couldn’t compete sexually with slime” and it was funny!


Vol. 1: I give 2/5 stars for being too disjointed
Vol 2: 3/5 for some lighthearted BL fun! 

I just finished volume 1 of Cherry Magic at work and it was cute! The story follows a 30 year old office worker who spontaneously develops superpowers because he’s still a virgin at 30 🤣 and he can read people’s minds when they’re in physical contact. He immediately discovers his handsome, popular, successful coworker is madly in love with him, and because Adachi has zero experience romance, he doesn’t know how to handle it.

Overall the story is pretty cute, and there are some pretty hilarious bits but I think I’m looking for more of a story than another collection of vignettes.

Also my store has so many gay mangas but not a lot of lesbian ones and so now I’ve ordered a bunch just to even it out because I want to read some of those too.

Overall the story is funny and cute, and Kurosawa’s thoughts about Adachi are genuinely so sweet and it’s really funny to watch him go from “oh wow he has a freckle behind his ear” to “I want to bite it” in like 2 seconds.

4/5 office romance stars 

I stuck to my guns and just read volume 1 of Doughnuts under a Crescent Moon by Usui Shio and it hit a little too close to home!!!

This is a lesbian manga about a woman who is feeling stuck performing femininity and the pressures from family and society to fall in love as a mid-20s career woman. But she always feels uncomfortable on her dates with men and feels like there’s something wrong with her. She masks often, mirroring what the people around her do. But when she messes up at work, her cool and collected coworker helps her out and they start to get to know each other.

What I really like about this is it’s really not your typical romance manga, they’re very slow moving. By the end of volume 1, I don’t think Hikano even knows she has a crush on Asahi. But she deals with depression and they both decide to clean their rooms which had gotten messy and Hikano has to psych herself up to start to try to cook some of her lunches instead of just going out to lunch every day.

Overall I really like how it’s going even though the next volumes aren’t out yet so I’ll have to wait a while to continue the story. It’s slow moving but it’s really touching on some topics that are pretty deep for a romance manga, and that aren’t often “pretty.”

4/5 oblivious lesbian stars. 

I just finished Cherry Magic vol 2 and it got me. I was saying that I wanted more than vignettes, but Kurosawa’s thoughts are just too cute and too kind. And Adachi is super relatable to me. He has a low opinion of himself, but being able to hear Kurosawa’s thoughts challenges him to try to see himself in a different light.

But there are so many parts that are adorable. Adachi gets sick and Kurosawa comes to check on him. When Kurosawa’s sister suggests he say over to watch over Adachi, Kurosawa literally imagines a whole life for them together, shopping, sleeping, going to work, and for a split second he’s in bliss before he’s brought back to reality berating himself like "omg you’re just potentially staying the night not moving in, calm down." And then he helps Adachi back to bed and when he lays down he looks really cute and Kurosawa is like “oh no he’s so cute what do I do” but then he cuts off his own thoughts by imagining another him slapping himself like SHUT UP HE'S SICK LEAVE HIM ALONE. But Adachi hears him think all this and he’s slowly learning to love himself by Kurosawa’s love for him.

I wish these volumes were longer! Now I’m probably gonna watch the live action because this is just adorable.

5/5 learning to love yourself stars. 

I just read Days of Love at Seagull Villa by Kodoma Naoko and I can’t be more disappointed.

The story claims to be about a city girl who moves to the country to start a new life and falls in love with the woman who runs the villa where she stays. There’s a cute baby involved too. It seemed right up my alley—pastoral and I LOOOVE stories with kids.

But this is exactly what I was afraid of when picking up a lesbian manga. It reads like it’s for men. It’s hypersexualized. The story makes no sense because we have to make room for gratuitous sexy scenes. The main character Mayumi leaves the city because her boyfriend got her best friend pregnant. She shows up to the town and is walking along the sea wall when the Love Interest, Rin arrives. Rin, for some inexplicable reason is convinced Mayumi is going to jump and starts yelling at her and they both end up falling off the wall into the ocean—but it’s not high enough to kill anybody? This entire plot point was so that they could both be wet.

Then, without introducing themselves to each other, Rin brings Mayumi to her house “to take a bath” and claims Mayumi is “taking too long” so she just gets in with her. It’s not the nudity I have a problem with but when Mayumi is like “I told you I wasn’t going to jump, I’m moving into Seagull Villa” Rin is like “well why didn’t you say so.” You’re telling me they saw each other’s tatas before introducing themselves? Then the baby, who is four, apparently has a thing “for big breasts” and tries multiple times to breast feed from Mayumi. Rin gets drunk and makes out with Mayumi who just lets it happen.

And THEN on Mayumi’s first day of school as a teacher she gets embroiled in the middle school drama and finds out the teen who lives with Rin is the illegitimate daughter of an important village person. The guy has a claimed daughter who bullies his illegitimate daughter but then Mayumi catches the abandoned teen making out with her HALF SISTER and that’s where I stopped.

I’m just so disappointed. I feel like this story had a lot of potential. I’m crushed that it was something that seemed so right up my alley turned into an excuse to write very bizarre fetishes.

1/5 fetishistic stars 

I’m at work and you know what that means! I read a manga! Today I read Cherry Magic Vol 3 and it was good! It was much shorter than the other volumes so it felt a bit stilted story-wise. But what’s exciting is that the story did progress, Kurosawa confessed his feelings and Adachi accepted them! I thought this was the last volume but it seems there will be another one and I look forward to seeing them move past the pining phase.

But I thought this volume focused too much on the side character who is their younger peer. Although a really cute part is the kid invites himself on one of their pseudo-dates (before their feelings are out in the open) and they’re grilling takoyaki together. The kid gives Adachi some food and because he’s a foodie he is happy. But he accidentally feels Kurosawa’s thoughts and Kurosawa is like “NOT TODAY, CHILD. THE WAY TO THIS MANS HEART IS THROUGH HIS STOMACH AND IT WILL BE I WHO FEEDS HIM.” Before just. Giving him so much food.

Overall this series is really sweet but kinda slow. But for now it’s definitely one of the better mangas I’ve read.

4/5 budding romance stars 

I just finished Black Water Sister by Zen Cho and it was such a breath of fresh air. It’s a contemporary fantasy about a modern Malaysian woman fresh out of college and trying to find a job. She moves back to Malaysia with her parents and gets haunted by her dead grandmother, prompting a mystery in the spirit world.

This book is Malaysian fantasy brought to an English audience. I’m somewhat familiar with south Asian religion and it was so delightful. I feel like some uncultured English readers may complain about the style: Cho uses a dialect for the speakers which I found authentic and easy to understand but I can see how it might be hard for people unfamiliar. Similar with the titles. I was pretty comfortable with Ah Ma and Ah Ku and knowing which relatives Jess was referring to when speaking. Also I think she transcribed the Hokkien so well. Even though you’re reading it in English it feels like a different language.

The only negative part of the book for me was the graphic sexual assault. The Black Water Sister was a vengeful spirit that ascended to godhood and took her revenge on men she deemed unworthy. In the end I feel like it had the overall powerful story of reclaiming yourself and that anger isn’t always bad but the scene was graphic for me.

4/5 vengeful spirit stars 

Because god herself can’t stop me: I finished a second book today.

Burning Roses by SL Huang was everything I wanted it to be. It’s a blend of West and East and mythology so perfectly interwoven in such a short book.

The story follows two middle-aged women who fight monsters and avoid talking about their feelings: namely the wives they’ve lost. Hou Yi’s story is mysterious (if you know anything about Chinese mythology: YES! That Hou Yi! Except she’s female) Rosa has run so far, she’s run to the other side of the world. As a child she was wronged by the grundwirgen (people that can turn into animals) and made it her life’s mission to hunt them to extinction. Until she fell in love.

This story is told from Rosa’s point of view as a sort of Red Riding Hood figure. The more you know about mythology, the better the story is. When I met the hare I knew exactly what he was in regards to Chang’e and the way Huang weaves in myths from legend. The story follows the women as they face their final battle together: taking down the sun birds that have been terrorizing the land, but they find that Hou Yi’s son is responsible. This leads them to sharing their own tragic stories where they have each been the hero and the villain, and emphasizes the power of love both romantic and paternal.

5/5 moonlit stars 

 I just finished Silver in the Wood by Emily Tesh.

This is a short little book that plays on the English myths of old, Sir Gawain and the Green Giant, Jentil’s giant, and so forth. As a lover of the Olde English tales, I was drawn to this book and it was worth it to read. Tobias Finch, the main character, died 400 years ago, but is tied to the Wood. He maintains it, protects it, keeps the trees safe. When the young folklorist Mr. Silver takes up residence at the nearby Greenhallow Hall, and finds himself fascinated with Tobias, their shy love story begins. But the Lord of Summer rides every solstice and he lives to make Tobias’ life hell, and Henry’s life is in danger. Henry’s mother is my favorite character, she shows up and you think she’s there to berate Tobias or disapprove of Henry and Tobias’ romance but instead she’s this old Monster Hunter lady and she and Tobias get along famously.

What would make this book 5 stars for me, is that if it stays in the current style it’s currently written, it needs to be longer. There’s a lot of “months pass” and character development off-screen. Or, if the story remains the same length, I think adopting language more similar with the language of myths would bring this story over-the-top and make it 5 stars, easy.

Although, I very much enjoyed watching the gentile giant woodcutter be relentlessly flirted with by the young rich twink.

4/5 relentless medieval twink stars 

Today, while I was ignoring a text from my ex-girlfriend I read The Drowned Country by Emily Tesh, which is a sequel to Silver in the Wood. This was an exciting sequel to a book I loved, although I don’t know if it really needed a sequel.

The novel picks up two years after the first one ended, and Tobias and Henry’s relationship is on the rocks. Henry is bound to the Wood after inheriting it’s power and Tobias is traveling with Henry’s mother. The book begins at their reunion, which is somewhat cool compared to the sweetness of their relationship before.

I think my initial critique of the book stands. I think it needs to be longer or written more in the Olde English style to give it an ethereal quality. As it is, I think the biggest miss for me is that through flashbacks we see why Henry and Tobias fell out and that is because Henry lied to Tobias to keep him in Greenhollow, which is essentially what the villain of the last book did. I think that’s crossing a line of consent that needs a huuuuge justification and we just don’t get it.

But we get a new character, Maud, who at first Henry and Tobias come to rescue but she doesn’t need rescuing: she’s an adventurer in her own right. Henry sort of adopts her as his sister and their nerdy little asides are so cute.

All in all I enjoyed this duology, even if I wanted more from it.

3.5/5 drowned kingdom stars