Koikawa

A neat little volume 1! The art is very lovely, the story is relatively light (but not always fluffy), and the two protagonists feel like realistic depictions of young men at the end of high school/starting college. The things they do sometimes (particularly Tago) are a bit odd, but kind of make sense in terms of testosterone-heavy and consent-negative societal expectations for boys and young men, and a very ableist society. Unlike a lot of reviewers, I don't see a "twist" after the preview. There's a strong hint at it in the preview, and it's just shown more afterward. This is a story about labels, casual assumptions, understanding that everyone is different and how you respect people anyway because that's a decent thing to do, and some different ways that can appear in life. It handles disability and allyship in very interesting ways, as well.

These two characters are both doing something for reasons they don't quite explain to each other, and it's a story about exploring gender presentation and queer sexualities. Neither character identifies a particular way, sexually, though both of them identify as male. There's a brief bit of biphobia that I don't think is handled well, but it's unfortunately pretty common, and I think Ogi tries to manage it as best he can: basically, it's other people's problem if they can't understand that someone else's identities are not their business. Ogi is exploring who he is as a person, and largely knows who he is and what he wants (unless it comes to wanting to keep friends and what he's willing to do in order to do that). If someone else is insistent that he be either bisexual or gay or -insert whatever- based on their perception of him, that is their problem, not his.

I appreciate the way the story explores how a character doesn't have to fit into a specific box in accordance with societal expectation: Ogi thinks(?) he's bisexual, but leans towards men. Ogi is femme, but not transgender (not that it's bad to be transgender, but he just leans towards femme presentation/crossdressing, while still enjoying masculine presentation at times as well). Tago is into women, but he likes Ogi in a way he doesn't seem to have processed as attraction on some level due to lack of experience. Not because Ogi is in some liminal space as a "woman", but because Tago is only recently trying to do some emotional introspection on himself and what he wants.

It's also good to be aware that while this looks cute, it's not exactly fluffy (at least not all the time). It's a story about boundary pushing, miscommunication, misunderstandings, anxiety, a bit of dishonesty, at best slight discomfort in your body and your life and how people perceive you and what they expect from you, and what you want from them, in that particularly trying time of coming into adulthood/figuring out what you want to do for your life. Characters aren't having intensely deep conversations about it, either, but they do talk about big topics in deep ways. None of the characters in here are perfect, and they often fumble and make mistakes, and it makes them feel more real for it. Whether that's too uncomfortable for the individual reader is up to your own personal preference.

My general opinions on Ogi and Tago (and a little about Tago's brother): I don't personally see what Ogi is doing as insidious or awful. I think he just focused on his physical attraction to Tago and enjoyment of Tago as a person, and that was mixed in with some understandable ignorance and unfamiliarity. Ogi is not visually impaired, and while he seems to be trying to understand and help, he does not fully know what it's like to be visually impaired, and it's one thing to try and be a good ally and another to think of the casual day-to-day aspects of disability, even when you're confronted by them, because our society does not do that at all (and while I respect Ogi's earnestness, I don't see him as the kind of person who would go out of his way to do that, beyond just listening to Tago). That's not to say he's blameless for Tago's ignorance of his appearance, but I wouldn't insist to a blind person that they know how I look all the time. That's also about respecting the disabled person's agency. Tago could have asked, or explained what he expected in their relationship, friendship or otherwise. He seemingly didn't. He is the one who best knows what it's like to live as a visually impaired person, and what he wants in relationships (e.g., when he asks to touch Ogi's nails). While it's clear he's a bit mixed up in the latter, and perhaps there are other reasons he hasn't asked, I appreciate Ogi either intentionally or accidentally respecting his agency. There is a lot of debate in the visually impaired community about what works and what people do or don't want, it's important to remember that it's not one-size-fits all, and people want different things, and have different levels of ability that can affect that, as well as just different personal preferences.

I think the topic of being transgender at the end of the volume is interesting, and matches well with the characters we've seen up until that point. It's important to remember that different countries handle queerness in different ways, and going from certain online circles with specific vocabulary to casual teenagers/early 20-somethings who don't travel in queer circles in different countries is a whole other world. It's uncomfortable. It's also meant to be. I wish these characters were given a better education about queerness and queer people, but in most parts of the world, that's something you just won't get outside of college/university or graduate school, at most. But this also feels real, and I think it's handled well for what it is. It is of course also escapist entertainment, and if it's too real to some folks, I can get how that might be a turn-off.

As for Tago, Tago's actions for reasons I've covered above make sense as a young man raised likely in a heterosexual and patriarchal-centric society. It's not "boys will be boys", but some boys and men get very rough in their play, and I know some of them do grope each other in similar ways to what we've seen, even though they themselves might not identify as anything other than heterosexual. And that's not saying it's fine, because it's not. Tago should have asked for Ogi's consent before showing him pornography and also before touching him. But this reflects how a lot of it is down to our societies not focusing on consent, and not teaching our children to expect their bodily autonomy to be respected, ever, and that for boys in particular, disrespecting the bodily autonomy of others is what you are EXPECTED to do. Perhaps if both of these characters - Tago and Ogi - were better taught how to respect boundaries, this wouldn't happen. Ogi also exercises his own agency in the matter.

Overall, both of these characters are using each other for their own ends. Ogi, because he finds Tago attractive and wants to hang out with him, and Tago, because he's lonely, likes Ogi, and likes that Ogi likes him. In a way they both feel pretty demisexual, and that's pretty cool. They're also not saints, and that's fine. It makes the story more interesting.

There's even a subtle bit about accessibility in pornography. A lot of people de-sex disabled people, and there is far less accessibility there than the little disabled people find in other media, because the expectation is that somehow disabled people have no interest in that stuff, when in fact we do! The inclusion of this, while uncomfortable for some because, well, porn, and Tago isn't respecting Ogi's boundaries, is honestly pretty radical. I imagine another reason is that it casts the disabled character in a negative light, and while I disagree that it entirely does that, I don't think saintifying Tago does anything either. I also don't pity him. I feel bad his society isn't more accessible for him that he relies on others being available to help him access the things they do, and he is denied bodily autonomy and freedom in the same way others have, not because he is visually impaired, but because his society does not support him in the way it does able-bodied persons. I empathize with his struggle, and particularly appreciate how it's framed not just through the typical lens of "feel bad for the disabled person because they are disabled" but "feel bad for the boy who cannot be friends like he wants with his brother because his brother is ableist and so is the society they live in".

As far Kanako, I find her inclusion here kind of sad. I'm pretty sure she'll start to realize what she's doing wrong by disrespecting Ogi's agency, given the tendency of the character trope in boy's love series of the semi-jealous female extra, and how we can kind of see her journey in this volume already, but I'm not sure. What she attempted to do was cruel, and she's disrespected Ogi quite badly, and I hope she apologizes to him in the future.

All in all, it's a good story, a well-drawn one, and draws on a lot of really interesting topics in neat ways. I look forward to volume 2!… (meer)

An interesting follow-up to volume 1! The art is still really cute, and the story feels a little fluffier in a way, but a little darker, too!

The main plot involves Ogi backing off on his femme dressing, because he doesn't want people to think he's dating Tago because he's blind and won't see it. It's quite sad, and plays into broader "passing" problems that queer people go through when trying to juggle personal relationships in largely homophobic and status-quo-pushing societies, having to survive as someone with a potential career, and his own desires, namely, maintaining his relationship with Tago. I do hope he didn't actually throw away all of his make-up, since it brought him such joy to have it.

Tago's insistence on Ogi being happy is sweet, because he cares about Ogi's happiness. He was annoyed with his brother's comments and how they hurt Ogi, and frustrated about how this was demonstrated in Ogi's dishonesty. There's an interesting push-pull and tension in their dynamic, and it's a lot of fun.

The ending is interesting, because it definitely feels like things are going too fast for Ogi, and he's struggling to reel things back in. Part of it is because he genuinely cares for Tago, and mainly doesn't believe Tago will stick around for him, centered on his past trauma with his first crush. It's very sad, and I have to wonder if they'll end up moving apart from each other in volume 3.

It's interesting seeing how Kanako HAS developed, at least a little. I'm glad she was supportive of Ogi, even if she didn't actually apologize to him. Generally, I'm glad the people around Ogi seemed supportive of his chosen appearances, rather than patronizing.

This volume felt a little fast, but that might have been because it's the second one and I just wanted to see what happened. There were also more typos into this volume, and I feel like Tokyopop should have done another edit, because certain panels were difficult to understand.

Overall, though, it's a good follow-up to volume 1. Looking forward to volume 3!… (meer)