I like stories where to people who hate each other get stranded together on an isolated island and fall in love. I know it sounds cliche but I enjoy stories like that...you could hate on me but it can make a passionate story Anyway, I liked this one.

... Last updated on September 29th, 2011, 8:33pm

This was far better than i had expected it to be. I originally wanted to grab this on my kindle, but go figure, amazon are still really slow with producing kindle versions of yaoi novels D: so i ended up downloading it for my comp instead. At first the characters bugged me. On one hand we have Yuichi who is a pretty serious hard working guy, down to earth and self reliant. On the other hand we have Imakura who is the absolute polar oppostive - spoiled, lazy, childish and completely reliant on others. So throwing them together at first simply made me head ache. I seriously was leaning towards thoughts of 'please god just kill Imakura' but as things progressed i quickly changed my stance xD I like how its quite a progressive story, although the 'standed on an island' theme is in heavy use its not over used and so doesen't become boring just for the sake of staying on theme. It moves on and thats where the real fun starts in their relationship I enjoyed it. It had some moments where i was a little uncomfortable, but it was enjoyable and the characters really do grow on you the more you get to know them. I also quite liked the illustrations, and i know some have said we dont see Imakura in his chubby form - i think that was done on purpose to prevent readers from getting too fixed an image in their minds considering how much he changes in such a short time. Once you get an image of a character in your head it can become hard to shake, adding a visual image to that just makes it all the worse - and chubby characters are hard to draw *artists point of view* xD

as the fellow reviewer had said, it has potential.

But if the point were a love story between two unlikeable characters, then the writer had done the job.
That, and the transformation inbetween acts, how Imakura goes through unbearable to meek and submissive, and how Yuichi goes through stoic to...a jerk, is (to me) realistic for their character....yet, very annoying.

There are so few translated yaoi novels that I, for one, am glad they are listed here at mangaupdates.com. Yippee!
The illustrations by Yuki Shimizu are a refreshing break in the novel, if a bit biased. Why are there no illustrations of Imakura when he's heavy? Doesn't Yuichi fall in love with him as he is? That bugged me. One would think it'd bug the author as well. I wonder if that was a publisher demand.
It was a good change of pace to see characters that were so believably unlikeable (people ARE like that) and yet still have someone realize that they are a person with the same wants and needs and feelings beneath all those layers of defenses.
I think the only thing that could improve this story would be a second look at the translating and maybe a proof reader, hummmm?

This was my first of Narise Konohara's novels. It was so strange at the beginning and I thought I could never like Imakura, but later...
It's such a lovely story, and it's different, not stereotyped, the characters have their qualities but also flaws, especially Imakura. And then love comes along... (well...you'll have to read it).
Narise Konohara's writing is great! Although is a novel, I just couldn't let it off my hands. Her style is refreshing, her characters are unique and her storyline is incredible. And of course Yuki Shimizu's drawings
I really recommend it to yaoi lovers.

who's putting all the yaoi novels in here? it's a site for manga, ne?

this is interesting if only because konohara breaks one of the iron taboos of yaoi -- a leading man is fat. she can get away with it because she writes about it; imakura is never actually drawn in all his obese glory. but she doesn't shy away from writing about it at great length, and heck, i applaud her for that.

unfortunately, she has a tendency to make her characters overwhelmingly unlikeable -- with imakura it's not his obesity, but his behaviour; he's mean, cruel, and selfish to the point where, when they're running out of food, he refuses to share his remaining crackers with the other man, even when begged. i don't want him to find happiness because he's such a jerk. and while yuichi is an improvement over imakura, he isn't all that great either. and their love story is .. *urk*. it turned me off, and the phimosis isn't the worst of it. there's actually potential here, yes, but i feel it gets piddled away.

I think the art in Matsugo no Yume was better than this one (even though there were only a few pages of her art in this book). I'll rate it when I finish reading the story.