I dont understand why this has such amazing reviews. Its not realistic people. Spoilers throughout. Cheating doesnt make everything realistic. A GAY guy have sex with a LESBIAN bc they spent ONE night together and got pregnant. While a STRAIGHT guy got seduced by a woman when he was DRUNK, nothing happens. This is such exaggeration that far from reality. There are way too many things that make me want to drop the manga but I finished it just for the heck of the review.

1) The shoutacon rape was portrayed in a funny way that borderlines to ridiculous. Rape should never be taken lightly as this.

2) So Jun fought to hard to protest the slut's virginity just for him to give it away in high school? Just because u dont have the one u love, u have sex with random people, even though u still have a long way ahead of u? And he picked the worst guy to have sex with. Dumb and slutty. I laughed when he explains why hes still a virgin "It wasnt sex" Then what is. I bet prostitutes sleep around and tell people they're virgins since it wasnt sex. Spare me from nonsense.

3) The cheating incident is annoying but expected from the slut. Whats unrealistic is he leaving his so-called the-love-of-his-life so easily. I mean this guy still sticks to him after the wife died and he pushed him away like nothing? He even goes as far as saying "Ur a bother" Excuse me, ur the one who should be on ur knees to get him back to help u and the result of ur adultery. But no he is the one that begs for it. Lame and unfair.

4) And of course, pregnancy from one time, and instead of providing money, he gets married. Anyone will be happy about this? I bet not. But he is too dumb for this anyways.

5) And the author ran out of idea to solve it in a realistic way so she killed off her character. I mean if she didnt die or if Jun didnt disappear then what? Cheating? LOL
I read better story where a guy chose a woman instead of his male lover, for example Kyuuso wa Cheese no Yume o Miru and its sequels. If ur into guys with kids, a ONESHOT from Kiss Blue is more touching and believable than this.

6) Does he really love Jun? I doubt it, he chose the woman twice, not once. When he left him at the hotel, there is a high possibility that he will never meet Jun again but he ran to his wife anyways. The 5 year reunion, reunion after the wife's death and even moving in were anticlimactic, or more like, where is the love? But he didnt really love his wife, he has no problem sleeping with a dude before their wedding day. I got me wonder did he really love him or just his teenage phase? Coz obviously, Jun is more into him than he was into Jun in the later half of the story. He contacted Jun bc his wife told him and he lived him him also bc the wife told him. Does this guy have any backbone?

7) Tatsuya tried so hard and was happy for them to be in a relationship, then he wished to ended (he told his wife so) but have no intention of quitting his sexual relationship with Jun. Huh? The mangaka tried so hard to reason his actions but gives us something illogical instead.

8) Why do we have story about a son that I couldnt care less? I dont care if hes gay or not. I mean he is a insensitive, immature, two-timing and selfish douchebag just like his dad. Genetics I guess, like father, like son. Or is it from the mom? Couldnt tell since they're both jerks.

9) The so-called amazing end is very typical. It happened for every couple like one dies, imagining the other one gets him. Just not every manga does this. New York New York and A Night of a Thousand Dreams also have this but in a more touching way.

10) The art is bland bad and the narration is just so...poorly done that I almost fell asleep coz the feeling didnt sink in at all with all the ridiculous plot.

I guess people will like it if they're into characters growing up together. Im a big fan too but not this one, the characters, despite all the length that we have to go through, just plain flat. They didnt change or mature throughout the story unlike any other long manga.

... Last updated on May 26th, 2013, 5:31am

While the mangaka says the main theme here is 'eternal love', I would also say it is love that's borne of friendship. What's the line between romantic love and friendship, really? How can anyone make that distinction when the feelings are so similar?As she notes at the end of the last volume, Tatsuya and Junichi's relationship progressed to rule out the possibility of friendship whilst Gakkun and Kenta choose to rule out the possibility of love. I can see why some commentators are upset Gakkun and Kenta did not end up together, but I don't think it's fair to oversimplify things and say it's because 'it's forced if everyone turned out gay'.

Here feelings are the most important, as it is possible for people (and the characters) to fall in love regardless of their orientation. Junichi claims at the beginning he isn't gay because he loves/wants only Tatsuya. Tatsuya and Yumi find their own love and happiness as friends, and then as a family. Family and love relationships don't come in as cookie-cutter designations. In this Complex excels at showing us that a love story doesn't have to be what is expected by society.

... Last updated on October 15th, 2009, 5:17pm

This series actually deserves a 100. It is breathtakingly beautiful. I can only read this story once. It had such a profound effect on me I don't know when I will be able to read it again. It is such a beautiful and touching story. My mere words cannot even do it justice. IT IS A STORY THAT MUST BE EXPERIENCED. MANDA-Sensei had to have been recognized for this series. Sensei did a wonderful job on this piece. She truly showed LOVE and HUMAN-ness; the good, the bad and the ugly. The art may be an initial deterent, but will become negligible as one continues to read. It was so beautiful, it was amazing.

I just can't decide whether I like this or not. Though parts of it were good, there were just too many problems.

First off, the shotacon, which usually is consentual in yaoi-land, is here definitely non-consentual. This would be fine except that it's drawn in a way that is supposed to be uh...funny? Child abuse should never be made light of, it's not a joke! But it is true that only two chapters of the series has shota in it so you might still enjoy the rest...

I kept reading and was rather enjoying it, though the time skips bothered me a bit. I was like, wait what happened next? But it had already skipped a few years ahead.

I didn't have a problem with the cheating. People make mistakes and this was somehow understandable to me. I found it really emotional and sad but in a good way. What did have me baffled though was how Tatsuya didn't seem to feel all that guilty about it and how it appeared relatively easy for him to part with Junichi. WTH!? And how could Junichi be the one pursuing that SOB after what he'd done? And he'd easily managed to forget the supposed love of his life too and live a nice family life with his wife and kid. I didn't like this that much after all that it just made me mad...

The bit about the kid and his relationship with his friend I did like. It wasn't as cliché as I'd thought. The ending was good too, simple but really touching. All in all, it was worth a read but I won't be reading it again. The art wasn't good, mediocre at best... The story had both it's good and weak points. I might recommend this to people looking for more realistic yaoi.

This is one series that shouldn't be missed. I really put off reading this coz the art seems old initially and I didn't really fancy shotacon. But I finally got myself to read it and i was pleasantly surprised that it's really good! Finished all the scanlations from v1 c1 till v4 c2 in a single sitting.. it's THAT good... the story's touching, poignant, and it talks about hurt, pain, sorrow, healing, love and joy... so much... it's a must read... don't be put off by the initial poor art.. it really gets better...

I almost stopped reading it because the first chapter made me more than a little uncomfortable. The art wasn't exactly to my taste at first either but I so glad that I stuck with it. What a really beautiful love story I would have missed out on if I let that scare me away. By the end I was smiling through my tears much like I did when I watched the Notebook on a high estrogen level day.

This is really not like any other BL series I have ever read. The characters are realistic. There was no guys that looked like flat chested, short haired girls that turned every man around them a little gay. There was no over the top drama. I felt like I could actually run into Tatsuya and Junichi sipping lattes at Starbucks and bragging about their grandchildren. About Kenta and Gakkun, I thought their relationship was sweet as it was. It annoys me when I read stories about families where every male member is gay. The mangaka managed to avoid a lot of common childhood friend BL cliches. She made a very sweet, very believable story and I loved it.

You kind of see a lot of the forced elements in the manga which ruined it a bit. A lot of cliché plot devices such as was used, and a little unrealistically, too. It doesn't jell with the story, like it was there because it has to happen so that the story will go on to the direction the mangaka wanted and not because it was an unfortunate situation.

But whatever, the mangaka more than made up for it in why this is called a "slice-of-life". Read it with no expectations and you'll have a blast.

The artwork is not consistent. If you put all their faces on a line from their young age to their old age you wouldn't know how to connect each one.

Just awful. If you're searching for a typical clichéd and melodramatic BL without half a regard for realism look no further. Some series are so bad they're good. This one is so bad it's awful. My only conclusion from seeing all the positive reviews is that some people have really low standards.

This is an amazing (yaoi) story about the entire life (almost) of 2 guys. From when they are in 5th grade till one of them is 83 years old.
The art isn't that good at the beginning but it gets better.
I really liked the story because it shows many troubles and happy times you can have in life so it's not exaggerated, but realistic. The story was sweet, sad and funny. You could really imagine other people in some of the situations that are presented in this manga.
This story helped me realize that life goes by fast, so you need to cherish the good moments and live life to its fullest, with no regrets; not the way I'm living mine.
So if you want to read a manga with a great life lesson, this would be the one. I can tell because it really got to me.