I’m going to do some last minute reviews of books I’ve read in the last week before the end of the year, which has mainly been comics. I have been reading a bunch of nonfiction and other genres but I didn’t bring those home for Christmas to review them so we’ll go with what we have to wrap up this year of reviews.
My Dearest Patrolman (Volumes 1 & 2) is a sweet BL series that follows Shin, a policeman who has been pining for 10 years over Seiji. When they met, Shin was a teenager who was having trouble at home and spent his time hanging out in the local park and getting in fights with other teenagers who would attack him because of how tall and intimidating he is. Seiji was a policeman at that point and provided a sense of stability and support. Shin is actually a real sweetheart and Seiji’s influence gets him to start taking his life seriously. 10 years later, Seiji has retired from being a policeman and runs a convenience store, while Shin is a patrolman in the area and has been secretly nursing his crush this whole time. Circumstances intervene and Shin is able to tell Seiji he loves him. The series details their relationship as they work through their insecurities (Shin is worried Seiji doesn’t actually like men, Seiji is worried he is too old and out of shape) and fall in love with each other. The tempo and emotions portrayed feel realistic and the stakes also feel like they make sense for the real world. I enjoy the art here and am excited for volume 3, although each of these works as a standalone volume. I appreciate it when an author does not create artificial tension or random events to extend a narrative and I think Niyama does a great job of having the narrative feel organic and earned. There is a lot of explicit sex here, recommended for more mature people.
Boys Gilding the Lily Shall Die!? is a title that still doesn’t make sense to me after reading this, but I liked it enough that I’ll be buying future volumes. This a high school GL story about two trumpet players and how music and the pursuit of it are impacting them differently. Katagiri is ultra serious and loves music, while Aikawa is more light hearted and spontaneous. Aikawa is secretly dealing with the pressure of her whole family being musicians and her desire to potentially not go to a music college. The art here is really nice and has a lot of style and emotion that I like. This manga has a sense of humor, as well as plenty of serious moments. My only issue is that I think this romance is going to drag on a bit and I am concerned about how satisfying I’m going to find it. They’re currently completely oblivious to their feelings for each other and I suspect it will take a while for them to figure it out. However, the plot is interesting and the discussions of music are moving, so I think I will buy future volumes of this for now.
For an omega verse BL, this one was pretty decent. I’ve been disappointed by the art and stories of most of this specific subgenre that’s been translated over here recently, but the art here was way better than the other ones I’ve seen. Makoto is an omega but is hiding it because he feels like he needs to to do his talent management job, and he thinks that he’s not an attractive person. He gets assigned to be the manager of Rio, a model and an alpha who falls in love with him at first sight and slowly wins him over. I liked that Rio seemed like an intense or scary character and then turned out to be really sweet and protective, as well as the fact that he had never dated anyone before. It’s all pretty cliche but it’s a cliche that works for me, and again the art is strong and emotive. I also think that the title is funny! The workplace sexual harassment issues aside, this was a fun little romp and I appreciate a one volume book that wraps everything up neatly. By the end there was definitely a bunch of spicy romance, so this is also for mature readers.