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Description
1) Love & Trap After being bullied at elementary school, Mochida 'Maki' Masaki learns to use his own body to enchant and trap the most powerful person at school to protect him from potential bullies. However, a chance train encounter sparks a complicated friendship with notorious classmate, Aihara Ryuuji, which soon changes Maki's life and ultimately his view of love.
2) Love & Honey Maki begins to question the point of his relationship with Aihara.
3) Love & Whip Maki discovers that Aihara's cousin, Aihara Kaede, has a thing for Aihara and a bit of contempt for Maki.
4) Love Blood Sawaguchi Mirai takes a train to the countryside to get away from his own life, and unexpectedly finds love.
5) Us, Blooming Now working at a flower shop, Murakami Takashi is very set on winning the heart of Sakurai Ryui, the beautiful object of his secret and burning love, but his pervy manager, Fujimori Haruhiko, keeps getting in his way.
Extra) Let's Visit the Aihara House! A short, comedic tale of Maki's reluctant visit to Aihara's home.
The main couple from chapters 1-3 were fairly shallow and the whole romance was rushed, with a typical love-rival being thrown in during the 3rd chapter to stir things up. All very cliche -- which isn't always a bad thing, there is a lot of good BL that uses the same old plots, but to be honest this just fell flat. Yamamoto-sensei usually delivers such unique and wonderful stories that I was just left feeling disappointed by the end of these 3 chapters. Chapter 4 was fairly nice, although Chapter 5 is definitely the highlight of this collection. "Us, Blooming" is a prime example of why I usually love Yamamoto-sensei's work; it's entertaining and light-hearted, and left me wanting more. Thankfully there is a sequel ^__^ So my rating of 8/10 is for chapter 5 only.
I loved all of the works by Yamamoto Kotetsuko so far, they're beautifully drawn, they have the right amount of romance, drama, ect; I really get to love the characters each time and the stories just make me feel good. In this manga, I liked the main story a lot and the couple was just so sweet together! I was also excited to read the prequel to Mankai Darling, which I've read before this, and it was nice to see what happened to the characters right before Mankai Darling started off,
Spoiler (mouse over to view)
even though it seemed a bit rushed that Takashi was in love with Ryou before and then switched to the manager within like a day.
STILL, the manga is great! In the end, all my expectations on Yamamoto Kotetsuko's work have been fulfilled by this manga.
The stories weren’t anything special, but they were simple and sweet. The characters could have been developed a little better, too. A few more chapters dedicated to the main couple would’ve been nice. Their ‘relationship’ happened way too quickly, in my opinion. Then again, I’m easily pleased when it comes to yaoi. If I like the art, then i’ll read it, regardless of if it may have a horrific plot :3
I started to like Yamamoto Kotetsuko's works after finished reading Brothers and this one is just sweet and easy to understand. It's not confusing. I like all the stories and I thought 1 volume isn't enough but, overall it's still ok i guess. Well, i don't really mind with cliche plot and the art is fine too. Maybe, i'm just typical
What can I say, if the arts weren't so gorgeous, I wouldn't have given it a six out of ten. Love & Trap, the story about the relationship between Masaki and Aihara is not exactly enjoyable. Their relationship develops from perfect strangers into lovers too quickly and without any real depth. After meeting Aihara a few times, Masaki develops feelings for him without much of other interactions. The relationship seems unreal and shallow. Don't get me wrong, other yaois have the same problem in development of relationship, but Kotetsuko didn't seem to put much into it compared to other works I've read. What irks me even more was the jealous cousin in Love & Whip. He was the typical third wheel that yaoi artists plunge into between lovers just so the lovers can have hot, steamy make-up sex later. Kaede is annoying and really unnecessary in the story. In the end, there isn't really a resolve for the relationship between Kaede and Aihara. Us, Blooming was a little more enjoyable. Still, I question why the manager makes his move on the new worker so fast, although they have not had any real interaction before. Personally, I liked Us, Blooming than the story of the main couple, which was rather cliche and boring.
Well, this is the first manga I read from Yamamoto sensei.. I felt a bit weird, confuse, and.. disappointed, nothing sure about Maki & Aihara's relationship, only lust and body attract toward each other? I wonder how long they'll last...
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