Volumes: 1/1 (Complete)
Yaoi
Genre: Romance, Age-Gap Yaoi Romance
Summary: Akira Koji is the manager at Dining Bar Akira, which he started with a friend. One day out of the blue, one of his employees, Torihara Yasuyuki, confesses he has feelings for him. At first he wants to fire him and can’t respond seriously, but as he starts to think about it more, he finds he can’t get Torihara out of his head. Can he manage to get past his own homophobia and give his growing attraction to Torihara a chance?
Includes a side story, Diary of a Manager: introduces the other employees of the Dining Bar Akira and how the rest of them get along.
Also includes: Foggy Scene: A young gay teen in high school who is secretly in love with his straight best friend, tries to distract himself with a fling with the new substitute teacher.
Riverside Moonlight: A 27 year old gay guy who thought he only liked hot guys had a sex dream about his ordinary looking co-worker. He starts trying to figure out if it would work out between them, without saying it.
Review: I set out to review this title thinking it might be of interest to general readers, as a highly rated Yaoi title among dedicated Yaoi readers, but unfortunately I found that wasn’t the case.
The first big issue is the artwork inside. I loved the cover artwork, it’s fantastically detailed, and has a lot of care that was chosen to depict the main two characters, their chef uniforms, and some hints of their personalities. But inside, the artwork is a different story- it’s really quite sketchy, has loose lines and is unfinished looking like an amateur comic (doujinshi). The backgrounds are often empty and surfaces are very lacking in detail. Another big issue that annoyed me was the fact the two main characters look way too similar, except the older guy has some facial hair on his chin and the other guy doesn’t. Which is weird, because the older guy is supposed to be noticeably older but they look the same age. I had a lot of trouble telling them apart.
The major plus that Yaoi fans liked about this title was that the main two characters actually read like more realistically masculine than the whole classic blushing yaoi brides that are so common in the genre. But for better or worse the mangaka decided to go the extra authentic route and make the older man have a lot of internalized homophobia, and says things like “How could I not be disgusted after kissing a guy?” or calling Torihara a gay slur or talking about how a gay relationship has no future.
But the strangest thing that really hit me was how differently the ending reads to Yaoi fans vs. a general western audience. The story ends with Torihara and Akira at a baseball game together with Torihara reflecting that whether their relationship will last or not will depend on how strongly they feel about each other. He ends up reaffirming his love for Akira and earlier before this Akira had said “The truth is foolishly simple, if you like someone then that’s good enough.” By Yaoi standards it’s supposed to be a big scene where you’re supposed to understand he’s gotten over his own homophobia, and their mutual aligned feelings are basically the genre’s equivalent to a flashing Neon sign that says “And They Lived Happily Ever After.” But by western standards, it’s an ambiguous ending, and the western thinking is that even if they are madly in love now, it doesn’t mean they stay together happily forever.
Short Story Mini Reviews: Foggy Scene is a 30-ish page story that reads like it could have been a pilot for a new series. It was promising but ends ambiguously. Riverside Moonlight, though it's some sort of attempt at a comedy, it reads like a very one-sided potential romance and is way too short.
Recommended: TLDR; All in all this Boss and Employee age-gap Yaoi romance title is probably of most interest to Yaoi fans who are already deep into the genre, and not so much for general readers looking for LGBT stories.
LGBT Friendly: 3/10
Age Rating: Older Teen: some non-explicit sex scenes
Other Works from this Mangaka in English (from most to least popular):
- Don't Cry, Girl (Shoujo) (digital only)
- Yes, It's Me (Yaoi) (digital only)
- I Want a Love Story (Yaoi) (digital only)
- Black-Winged Love (Yaoi)
- The Night Beyond the Tricornered Window (Yaoi)
- Mo-some Sting (Yaoi) (digital only)
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